As promised, this is what I have been up to in Colombia for the past two weeks:
I arrived into Bogota on the 27th of October and had a great (Halloween) weekend there with a plethora of different parties and all. I met an American guy called Tom and and an Italian girl called Mara in the hostel there who felt like doing a little trip so on the Monday after the hectic weekend we set sail for San Augustin in the South of Colombia. (Pic of Tom & Mara here).
They say about Colombia that it filters out all the shit travellers, i.e. those that want their travelling experience to be as close to their home life as possible and aren't really out for adventure or difference (i.e. "Ohmygod, why do the Peruvians not have air conditioning on their buses, that is like sooooo annoying, and what really pisses me off about Bolivia is that you can't get good felafel's there" etc. etc. blah, blah, blah). I'm sure you've noticed that yours truly is a great traveller which is why I am here in Colombia (I got through the "slick" filter.... obviously).
No but the thing is, that this country is perfectly developed, it has an infrastructure which is one of the best down here in South America, the roads are great, the buses are great, the standard of living is high... yet, nobody comes here because of the "war" (more on that in a later post). This lack of "gringos" lends a novelty factor to those of us that are here and the locals view us with an open, friendly, curious attitude. In the two weeks I have been here I have had more interaction with the Colombians than in the same amount of time in any other country so far. So far, I perceive the Colombians to be the friendliest people I have met so far.
San Augustin - Nature, Shrooms and near-death Rafting
This is a small town in the southern Sierra. It was a great intro into the Colombian countryside. I have problems describing this countryside without referring to the standard cliches "lush" and "green", although it should be noted that they are very applicable.
Try to imagine the rolling hills of the lower Alps (think Edelweiss The Sound of Music), covered in an unbelievable variety of rich green tropical growth speckled with a kaleidoscope of other deep colours. Throw in the occasional canyon complete with rushing river and you've more or less got an idea of what this place looks like. (you can also click here for a sample).
So when we got to San Augustin we stayed in a great little hostel (we had the place to ourselves - a frequent facet of travelling in Colombia). But with the people that worked there, there was a sense of a little community... one of the guys was studying hallucinogenic plants and the other was testing them for him... 'nough said! We spent our days wandering around in nature and seeing the millenia-old unexplained stone carvings that put this place on the map. Evenings were spent inside playing cards or chatting about the meaning of life. (More pics of San Augustin here).
We decided also that we would take the opportunity of the aforementioned rivers and their awesome canyons to engage in a little rafting (classes 3 to 4.5 for those of you in the know) and this was to prove one of the highlights of my trip. After a brief course in Rafting 101 the three of us set off with three guides, six paddles and a raft. Well all I can say is Holy Jayzus.... Rafting rocks! We were all having a fucking ball, the river was high and the rapids really lived up to their name. All was good until we hit the quickest rapid (somewhere between class 4.5 and 5) and just at the start of it, the raft went over into a ditch and up the other side at a near vertical angle. Yours truly went headfirst into the water (I actually thought that the whole raft had capsized but it was only me that went in).
It was a real shock to the system and I went into the water without a chance to grab a lung full of air. I fell straight into the wake of a huge rock. It had water cascading down either side which created a kind of twilight zone of still water in the middle but with an incredibly strong downward pull. I was kept stationary in this wake for about five to ten seconds, but I was under the water swimming up towards the surface but not progressing an inch. The surface of the water was about a foot away from me and I could see the sky and the rock clearly but no matter how I persisted I could not reach the surface. I thought it was the end... I really thought that that's how it would finish for me... I could see the headlines "Irish guy drowns in rafting in Colombia"... I could see my parents coming down here to repatriate mortal remains and I felt bad cos I promised my mum that I wouldn't die here.
Luckily enough, I eventually remembered my rafting lesson and remembered that Armando (the head honcho) had told us that if we fall in, then swimming makes no difference, we were just to cross our arms over our chests and let the water take us trying to keep our feet first so that we protect ourselves against the rocks. I felt that another second or two would conquer my consciousness so I folded my arms and against all my instincts stopped trying to reach the surface. Before I knew it, the current swept me out of the wake and I was bopping at the surface gasping for air... I was still in rapids but at least I was above the surface. I kept my feet in front of me and had to push off a couple of rocks with them, always trying to stay out of the wake on the other side for fear of a repeat experience. Finally, the river calmed and I was thrown a rope and pulled aboard the raft in absolute gasping disbelief at my survival.
That was the closest I have ever been to the end... I was sure that this was the final curtain and was thinking about family and friends and how unfair it was that I should have to die so young. I spent the rest of the day walking around in a state of disbelief and awe at being alive. Pics of rafting are here)
Salento - Coffee, Aguardiente & Salsa
You must remember that this is the rainy season in Colombia so every late afternoon/early evening the sky's open and it buckets down for a couple of hours thoroughly watering the countryside. However the mornings are beautiful and the late evenings and nights are usually dry as well (except for the ground after the downpour).
After our rafting experience we took an overnighter to Salento, a small town in the Zona Cafetera (coffee region) about 12 hours north of San Augustin. Here the countryside was similar to San Augustin's but with slightly higher mountains (not so hilly, more grassland and a piss-pot full of coffee farms (Finca's)).
Our days here were spent seeing coffee farms and the giant wax palms that the region is famous for. But the highpoint of Salento was the nightlife. As I previously mentioned, I was lucky enough to be here for a fiesta gastronomica, a fiesta-fueled long weekend. Tom and Mara came out with me on their last night before going back to Bogota and the locals broke us in to their salsa dancing and aguardiente, the local spirit here - sugar cane with Anis... an all-too-drinkable melange.
On the next (Saturday) night I lost all my gringo friends by 3am and spent the rest of the night (and following day) cruising around town with a group of Colombians looking for aguardiente (which we managed to find in vast quantities despite the fact that none of us had any money). When the farmer boys had to go to work, they brought me up to try my hand at milking cows and then we sped around the fields on motorbikes and mopeds for a bit.
I woke up Sunday night at about 8pm in some dudes apartment not knowing where I was or what the hell had happened. When I got back to the hostel, they had all thought that I had been abducted or something. What a great night! Click here for pics of Salento.
So after that super-dooper weekend in small town Colombia, I made my way to Medellin, the second biggest city of Colombia, where I have been chilling out since then.
I'm being a bad tourist in Medellin, I haven't seen anything of any touristy value here and I am going tonite... but I don't care... cities are cities... I went out on Wednesday night and ended up in some Karaoke bar where myself and an Aussie dude broke the chain of Spanish songs with a drunken rendition of YMCA, that got the locals a-boogyin' despite our slurred speech. (YMCA was one of the only English songs that they had on option - before anyone says anything else! You people are so predictable...)
Anyway, tonite I'm off to Cartagena, an apparently beautiful old colonial town and guess where it is in Colombia... I'll give you hint, its at a certain coast... no, not the Irish sea....... not the pacific either, no the Atlantic isn't it... No mis amigos, tomorrow at long last, I will reach the Caribbean, the promised land and the stuff of my Patagonian and Andean dreams.
I will arrive in Cartagena tomorrow for another fiesta-style long weekend and will then make my way along the northern Colombian (ahem Caribbean) coast towards Venezuela and my final destination of Caracas from where its "Home James and don't stop the horses".
I may never update again because I have a sneaky suspicion that the lure of the beach will overcome the glow of the screen for the next month. However, I will try.
Signing off for your man in Colombia, this is el Conoro... hasta la proxima!
Hostels I stayed in:
Bogota: Platypus Hostel - fantastic hostel for meeting people, owner German is the most helpful, nicest person in history, nicely placed in La Candelaria
San Augustin: La Casa de Francois - great community feeling to this hostel, a little bit outside town with great nature and great views... the guys there are really helpful with everything
Salento: The Plantation House - nice, comfortable place... good for meeting people but consider staying in non-Gringo hostel in this town.
Medellin: The Black Sheep - new Gringo Hostel in town, in a nice area (although slightly residential), good for meeting people, but lots of tellys so not quite as social as others...
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