from Wed 21 Feb 2007
After a long 13 hour bus ride to Cartagena we arrive around 9pm, and taxi thru to the closest cheap (ie rough) part of town to the centre. The people are the first thig we notice. Its like being in Africa. Or Jamacia at least, loads of very dark skin. We have been looking forward to the Carribean for a long time so this is very encouraging.
A few drinks in the Havana Bar close to our chosen budget hotel are well deserved. The old boy who gyrates periodicaly to the load Cuban rythems is quite a sight too.
Next day we arise to some lovely heat. At last!! Our plan is to cruise for a couple of days then start the organisation drama of moving over to Panama, by sail boat or plane.We dont want a repeat of Medellin where we spent ages faffing about with such practicalities.
But in a lucky move wealmost stumble on to the local yatch club within 10 mins of leaving the house. And sure enough there is a sign for crew wanted. 5 mins later we find the captain and his wife, Brian and Jamie of ¨Cats Paws¨. They have been living out of boats for over 26 years (cool) and are quick to admit they dont normaly take passengers, unlike others who regularly make the crossing for financial gain (normaly smuggling drugs underneath the backpackers on board).
They seem cool, and their 40 ft boat is very nice indeed. THey are looking for 3 or 4 to pay the trip (which they are doing anyway..) and charge the standard $250US, expecting to take 5 or 6 days. As it happens our third crew member also shows up in the form of Welshman Mark. And just like that, its all on. We agree to meet tomorrow to buy provisions and set off on Monday. We are stoked that the organisation was so easy, and hope that dynamics between us all go well...
The next three days we cruise around Cartagena, enjoying the sun and beautiful architecture. Just like the guide books say, its like a time warp back to the 1600´s with all the Spanish building still very well intact.
A bit of beach time is had, over on the rich end of town. It feels like Surfers Paradise, with loads of high rise apartment blocks and hotels, all looking very new and polished.
The touristy nature of the centre or old town takes a bit of getting used to. We havent seen this type of thing since Cusco in Peru. Loads of touts hassling us, and restaurants that charge the bloody earth. We decide to sit in the main tourist restaurant square and treat ourselves to a couple of overpriced drinks to ge the ambience. One corona cost 6,000p... to put it in perspective a set menu lunch will cost around 4,000p ..and thats two courses and a drink...
We talk quite a bit about how we perceive our Co captains to behave with guests for the first time, and eventualy decide just to hope for the best.
Central America here we come!!
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Medellin.. funny times in the big city
18 Feb 2007
After a long and boring bus ride to get to Medellin we are frustrated straight away with an idiot taxi driver who doesnt know his way, and drives around in circles. Luckily things get better, though there are a few highs and lows over the next couple of days.
Our hostel of choice for a change si a real hostel, instead of the usual dodgy local hotel. We decide to go for this beacuase it is called the Black Sheep, has the exact same logo as the 2 hostels of the same name in NZ, and is run by a kiwi. I assume it will be somebody from Queenstown, possibly the previous owner of the Black Sheep hostel there who sold a couple of years ago.
But wouldnt you know it, Kelvin the owner just liked the name Black Sheep, did an internet seacrh and stole their logo! Classic! He jokes that if they want to sue him they´d better be patient!
His story is quite interesteing to us, who are still keeping an eye out for a new home in paradise (wherever that might be).. He was travelling thru, walked past an open home ona saturday morning and just like that was in business. Admittedly the house couldnt be much more suited to becoming a hostel. Its perfect.. big, loads of rooms and bathrooms etc. Admittedly it is not the cleanest place we have stayed. A few more little touches would make it so much better...
Medellin itself has around 2 million people. We are staying in quite obviously the wealty part of town. The streets are wide with trees planted, the houses are huge, and it is very clean.
Catching the flash metro train later in the day we realise that the same ticket can take us up into the hills, on the newly installed gondola. Its quite cool using a skifield gondola for public transport, and certainly cheaper than all the tourist orientated gondolas seen around the world. Once we ascend steeply we start to realise why it is not billed as a tourist attraction in its own right.
We are lookiing down on South Central L.A, or some other rough arsed latino area as fabled by Hollywood. It seems so out of character to be in a brand new gondola looking down on it all. At the top we realise that most travellers just stay in and head back down to afluency. But we want to get to where we think we will get a better vantage point over the center.
As we walk around the steep hillside we get a lot of strange looks from the locals. Many are quite aggressive. For literally the first time in over five months I feel slightly at risk, as we are sized up by a large group of loitering 20 something blokes. There are loads of people, mostly teeneagers just loitering, looking like they are waiting for an excuse to start a fight. It is a far far cry from the other side of town where we are living.
Nothing untoward happens to us, and I spend a lot of time later considering why I felt a bit edgy. Without a doubt we have walked thru poorer neighbourhoods in parts of Bolivia and Peru. But there the locals looked at us wearily, not aggresssively. They were considerably smaller than me, and i just couldnt be threated by their traditional costume. I cant help but wonder if my concern today was thru that Holywood familiarity of the faces and costume we saw, and the association of violence that such movies portray. Hmmm...
Back in town we visit the local museum to see more Botero fat people art. Out fron there are fatty bronze statues everywhere. they obviously love him here! We eventualy have to leave the museum in a hurry after get caught taking a photo of an incredible painting that looks exactly like a photograph. The security girl gets really upset and storms off to ¨tell the curator¨ .... doh!
But too much of our time in Medellin is spent trying to organise our onwards travel from Colombia up to Central America. The guide book has set us up with the idea of visiting San Andreas Island, then moving on to Central from there. We spend ages on the net and visiting travel agents. It appears that flying on to Central is no longer the best option, cos West Carribean Airlines shut recently... after crashing 2 of their planes and killling everybody. But the option of a cheap package holiday starts sounding appealing. One of the bonuses is that we can fly from Medellin to the island, then return to Cartagena, avoiding a 13 hour bus ride between the two. The package holidays include everything including unlimited alcahol and cigarrettes. We dont smoke, and are drinking little these days, but its amusing all the same.
In the end it all falls thru at hte final hour. The agent has us booked for the next morning, and we return to the hostel to collect travellers cheques to pay. We have to rush cos the agency is about to close. In a fluster we enter, only to find the dozy cow hadnt properly booked us, and the next departure is in 4 days..... too late for us.
The next day we do the 13 hour bus ride. The scenery is beautiful.. very like NZ rural, but it is long and boring. And we cant help butthink ¨shouldnt we be on a beach sipping (free) cocktails right now...¨
After a long and boring bus ride to get to Medellin we are frustrated straight away with an idiot taxi driver who doesnt know his way, and drives around in circles. Luckily things get better, though there are a few highs and lows over the next couple of days.
Our hostel of choice for a change si a real hostel, instead of the usual dodgy local hotel. We decide to go for this beacuase it is called the Black Sheep, has the exact same logo as the 2 hostels of the same name in NZ, and is run by a kiwi. I assume it will be somebody from Queenstown, possibly the previous owner of the Black Sheep hostel there who sold a couple of years ago.
But wouldnt you know it, Kelvin the owner just liked the name Black Sheep, did an internet seacrh and stole their logo! Classic! He jokes that if they want to sue him they´d better be patient!
His story is quite interesteing to us, who are still keeping an eye out for a new home in paradise (wherever that might be).. He was travelling thru, walked past an open home ona saturday morning and just like that was in business. Admittedly the house couldnt be much more suited to becoming a hostel. Its perfect.. big, loads of rooms and bathrooms etc. Admittedly it is not the cleanest place we have stayed. A few more little touches would make it so much better...
Medellin itself has around 2 million people. We are staying in quite obviously the wealty part of town. The streets are wide with trees planted, the houses are huge, and it is very clean.
Catching the flash metro train later in the day we realise that the same ticket can take us up into the hills, on the newly installed gondola. Its quite cool using a skifield gondola for public transport, and certainly cheaper than all the tourist orientated gondolas seen around the world. Once we ascend steeply we start to realise why it is not billed as a tourist attraction in its own right.
We are lookiing down on South Central L.A, or some other rough arsed latino area as fabled by Hollywood. It seems so out of character to be in a brand new gondola looking down on it all. At the top we realise that most travellers just stay in and head back down to afluency. But we want to get to where we think we will get a better vantage point over the center.
As we walk around the steep hillside we get a lot of strange looks from the locals. Many are quite aggressive. For literally the first time in over five months I feel slightly at risk, as we are sized up by a large group of loitering 20 something blokes. There are loads of people, mostly teeneagers just loitering, looking like they are waiting for an excuse to start a fight. It is a far far cry from the other side of town where we are living.
Nothing untoward happens to us, and I spend a lot of time later considering why I felt a bit edgy. Without a doubt we have walked thru poorer neighbourhoods in parts of Bolivia and Peru. But there the locals looked at us wearily, not aggresssively. They were considerably smaller than me, and i just couldnt be threated by their traditional costume. I cant help but wonder if my concern today was thru that Holywood familiarity of the faces and costume we saw, and the association of violence that such movies portray. Hmmm...
Back in town we visit the local museum to see more Botero fat people art. Out fron there are fatty bronze statues everywhere. they obviously love him here! We eventualy have to leave the museum in a hurry after get caught taking a photo of an incredible painting that looks exactly like a photograph. The security girl gets really upset and storms off to ¨tell the curator¨ .... doh!
But too much of our time in Medellin is spent trying to organise our onwards travel from Colombia up to Central America. The guide book has set us up with the idea of visiting San Andreas Island, then moving on to Central from there. We spend ages on the net and visiting travel agents. It appears that flying on to Central is no longer the best option, cos West Carribean Airlines shut recently... after crashing 2 of their planes and killling everybody. But the option of a cheap package holiday starts sounding appealing. One of the bonuses is that we can fly from Medellin to the island, then return to Cartagena, avoiding a 13 hour bus ride between the two. The package holidays include everything including unlimited alcahol and cigarrettes. We dont smoke, and are drinking little these days, but its amusing all the same.
In the end it all falls thru at hte final hour. The agent has us booked for the next morning, and we return to the hostel to collect travellers cheques to pay. We have to rush cos the agency is about to close. In a fluster we enter, only to find the dozy cow hadnt properly booked us, and the next departure is in 4 days..... too late for us.
The next day we do the 13 hour bus ride. The scenery is beautiful.. very like NZ rural, but it is long and boring. And we cant help butthink ¨shouldnt we be on a beach sipping (free) cocktails right now...¨
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Solento, cold and like NZ.. lovely
15 Feb 2007
I wrote a huge blog yesterday about our trip up to chilly solento. Then the computer crashed, AND I LOST IT ALL. NOT STOKED, CANT BE ARSED REWITING IT NOW, SO ONTO NEXT ONE ...
I wrote a huge blog yesterday about our trip up to chilly solento. Then the computer crashed, AND I LOST IT ALL. NOT STOKED, CANT BE ARSED REWITING IT NOW, SO ONTO NEXT ONE ...
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Big Bogota, cruising...
Bogota turns out to be a city with massive contrasts. Rich and poor in particular, though these elemnts of socioty are quite physicaly separated for a change. The North is loaded. Seriously. We go out on a thursday night for dinner up there and feel shabby to the point of embarressment. Everybody is cruising in suits and it looks like the moddle of flasher end London.
The South is so poor we dont have any reason to go there, and La Candalaria, the center is busy and full on.
The first 8 days we spend in Carlos and Angelas flat. Its a pretty sizeable spot, and comes complete with two power book mac computers, high speed internet, cable TV, drum kit and guitars in music room, and six cats. Having said all that, it somehow feels like an arty student flat.
Notthat we complain (apart form the cats which are constantly under our feet)... its free!! And the location is right between the center and the North, so depending if we turn left or right we end up in very opposing spots.
We visit the salt cathedral 50km to the North one days, and its pretty impressive. Theres a massive rock salt mine dug horizontaly into the hill, and a clever architect has used the enterance to do the 15 stations etc.
We spent ages in Bogota.. i will continue this later...
The South is so poor we dont have any reason to go there, and La Candalaria, the center is busy and full on.
The first 8 days we spend in Carlos and Angelas flat. Its a pretty sizeable spot, and comes complete with two power book mac computers, high speed internet, cable TV, drum kit and guitars in music room, and six cats. Having said all that, it somehow feels like an arty student flat.
Notthat we complain (apart form the cats which are constantly under our feet)... its free!! And the location is right between the center and the North, so depending if we turn left or right we end up in very opposing spots.
We visit the salt cathedral 50km to the North one days, and its pretty impressive. Theres a massive rock salt mine dug horizontaly into the hill, and a clever architect has used the enterance to do the 15 stations etc.
We spent ages in Bogota.. i will continue this later...
Monday, February 05, 2007
Tehredentro, underground toombs, and great people
The drive from San Augustine takes most of the day and several connections. Again, we see first hand that transport is not cheap in this country. After two share taxis over the hills we get to the big smoke. Then straight into an old bus with only 3 others on it.
Those Mexican saddles yesterday must have transferred weight into funny places, cos both of our backs are stff and painful. We bump along the shitty road, but really enjoy the view. We travel alongside a river in a deep valley. Its green and grassy, just like NZ. A half hour stop is made in a small town at a dead end in the hills. Its market day so the small square is quite busy. A crazy man with the meanest hunch back Ive ever seen runs around drunk checking our tyres and so on. Everybody ignores him. Another soon to be passengers stands out too. Hes the first really tall person Ive seen in SA, and has the meanest curly mullet ever. Billy ray Cyrus would be envious...
From here we back track a bit, then climb higher. Finaly we get dropped at the road side, 2km from the start of our destination town, which is also a dead end road.
The American boys gave us some names, so we check into their reccommended basic hotel run by a lovely couple who look like they are approaching 90. The town (or this section of it, as it turns out) is all of 100m long, with maybe 8 buildings. We eat some dinner and say hi to Fabian, the midget guide who came reccommended.
The next day we have barely got out of bed when Fabien finds us in the hostel and asks if we would like to join three others on a day tour. We´d kind of decided against a guide put hes quite pushy....
It turns out to be a very good decision.
We are with three othere, a Colombian couple our age, and a Swiss dude. The day starts with a pretty serious climb straight up a huge hill. Now when I say Frabien is a midget, thats quite literal.- Hes a dwarf, or small person, as i believe the new PC term is. Now I´m not overly fit at this moment, but when Fabien starts at a cracking pace, I am bloody determined not to be outpaced by a f%$king dwarf! The two of us surge ahead of the others, but its only me whos sweating profusely..
Later in the day I learn that he thought it was me egging him on by chasing his heels. Angela and Carlos from Bogota reckon we look like the fellowship of the ring with a hobbit leading us..
The tombs themselves are pretty interesting. they are all the same basic design, with a spiral staircase heading down to enter, and a circular cavern where they put the urns of ashes. They were another culture that mysteriously dissappeared in the 9th century, and again most of the ideas about the toombs are just theories. But its a great day out.
In the eve we eat dinner at Fabiens small cafe, and wouldnt you know it, his wife is a midget too! We have some good laughs, cos they are lovely people. When his wife puts her foot alongside mine, its halerious. Further experiments show the length of my hand is almost twice that of her foot!
In a remarkable show of generosity, Carlos and Angela decide to donate us the use of their flat in Bogota until they return in a week. We are stunned by this trust and generosity.
Between the four Col-o-mbians we have met today, -we are now understanding why so many travellers rave about how the poeple here are so lovely.
Those Mexican saddles yesterday must have transferred weight into funny places, cos both of our backs are stff and painful. We bump along the shitty road, but really enjoy the view. We travel alongside a river in a deep valley. Its green and grassy, just like NZ. A half hour stop is made in a small town at a dead end in the hills. Its market day so the small square is quite busy. A crazy man with the meanest hunch back Ive ever seen runs around drunk checking our tyres and so on. Everybody ignores him. Another soon to be passengers stands out too. Hes the first really tall person Ive seen in SA, and has the meanest curly mullet ever. Billy ray Cyrus would be envious...
From here we back track a bit, then climb higher. Finaly we get dropped at the road side, 2km from the start of our destination town, which is also a dead end road.
The American boys gave us some names, so we check into their reccommended basic hotel run by a lovely couple who look like they are approaching 90. The town (or this section of it, as it turns out) is all of 100m long, with maybe 8 buildings. We eat some dinner and say hi to Fabian, the midget guide who came reccommended.
The next day we have barely got out of bed when Fabien finds us in the hostel and asks if we would like to join three others on a day tour. We´d kind of decided against a guide put hes quite pushy....
It turns out to be a very good decision.
We are with three othere, a Colombian couple our age, and a Swiss dude. The day starts with a pretty serious climb straight up a huge hill. Now when I say Frabien is a midget, thats quite literal.- Hes a dwarf, or small person, as i believe the new PC term is. Now I´m not overly fit at this moment, but when Fabien starts at a cracking pace, I am bloody determined not to be outpaced by a f%$king dwarf! The two of us surge ahead of the others, but its only me whos sweating profusely..
Later in the day I learn that he thought it was me egging him on by chasing his heels. Angela and Carlos from Bogota reckon we look like the fellowship of the ring with a hobbit leading us..
The tombs themselves are pretty interesting. they are all the same basic design, with a spiral staircase heading down to enter, and a circular cavern where they put the urns of ashes. They were another culture that mysteriously dissappeared in the 9th century, and again most of the ideas about the toombs are just theories. But its a great day out.
In the eve we eat dinner at Fabiens small cafe, and wouldnt you know it, his wife is a midget too! We have some good laughs, cos they are lovely people. When his wife puts her foot alongside mine, its halerious. Further experiments show the length of my hand is almost twice that of her foot!
In a remarkable show of generosity, Carlos and Angela decide to donate us the use of their flat in Bogota until they return in a week. We are stunned by this trust and generosity.
Between the four Col-o-mbians we have met today, -we are now understanding why so many travellers rave about how the poeple here are so lovely.
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