Recap of Colombia:
Time in country: 33 days
Money spent: $1400 USD each (excludes flight)
Currency: Colombian Pesos (COP)
Conversion Rate: approximately 1770 COP to 1 USD
Food:
A typical local lunch consists of a soup, plate with rice, beans, salad, plantane, and choice of chicken/pork/beef, and juice.
Arepa con Queso which was a corn and potato type snack cooked over a grill or on a griddle with cheese inside. Our favorite arepa was one that had butter and honey on top!
Also from street side grills were meat sticks, corn, and sausages.
Tons of fruit sold from street vendors and in stores, and all had the option of making a Jugo which is basically a fruit smoothie either in water or milk.
Places Visited (in order): Cartagena, Taganga, Tayarona, Palomino, Santa Marta, San Gil, Bogota, Salento, Santa Rosa de Cabal, Medellin, Popayan, Ipiales.
Random Thoughts:
Coastal cities of Cartagena and Santa Marta were very humid, hot, and muggy; it reminded us of Houston in the summer, but we had no a/c to relieve us. In other parts, weather was nice.
There were lots and lots of dogs in the streets of Colombia.
Safety was never a real concern, but we did use all precautions necessary in Bogota.
The people of Colombia were VERY nice, friendly, and helpful.
As of today (Aug. 13), all of the Texas high schools have officially started their football practices so I wanted to switch gears for a moment and add a different category to our blog: Football.
In particular, as the season progresses I will try to send out game day posts regarding the school I left, Abilene High, to come traveling. For now, I wish the Warbird staff and players the best as they start out the season. Looking forward to the first order of business come August 31 against Hebron.
Of course, for the folks back home, I will also be keeping up with Brazoswood as always.
Matt didn't really enjoy the night bus ride to Popayan. It started out with ear problems as the bus descended and his ears had to equalize to the pressure. Then bad stomach cramps every 5 to 10 minutes, capped off with motion sickness. Kristin's bus ride wasn´t bad ;).
Once settled in, we ventured to the top of a hill to overlook the city. The rest of the day we walked around town and rested from travelling through the night.
The next day we went on a downhill mountain biking adventure. The driver dropped us off at the "hot springs", but they actually weren't very hot, nor did it feel like a fresh spring. The "hot springs" were a bit of a dissapointment.
Regardless, we spent a little time there and then headed down the hill with two other English couples. The ride was about 30km through some of Popayan's beautiful mountains. We were told the ride was mostly downhill; however, we discovered there was quite a bit more uphill than anticipated. It was still good fun and a good workout.
We stayed at Park Life Hostal on the suggestion of a friend who had recently passed through. It was an old colonial home converted into a hostel directly next to the main church in the town sqaure. The owners were very nice, welcoming, and informative. We had our own room for $10 each.
The next day started early since we had about a 14 hour adventure to get us across the border and into Ecuador. Before we left the Colombia border we stopped in the town Ipiales, based on recommendations from other travelers, to see a church. We didn't expect much, but to our surprise the church was set in the mountains and was spectacular.
After our first night settling in, we went on the Pablo Escobar tour. Short description: a van picked us up, drove us around the city, showed us one of Pablo's many houses (see picture below- yes, this was a house for just his family), his grave, etc. and informed us of how life once was in Colombia during the drug wars. Pablo Escobar happens to be the face of what many know about the drug traffic scene of the 80's and into the 90's in Colombia; however, he is just the most famous face. There are many more who stayed behind the curtains and also had a big hand with the drug trade.
That evening we went to the Santa Fe mall with Aaron and Tracie (met in Salento) to see the Batman movie. Yes, we love our movies! This mall was amazing!! It was only 2 years old and was huge. The roof could be opened and closed, just like the roof at Reliant Stadium in Houston. We had a pretty good food court dinner, then ended with some cinnamon rolls or greatness known as Cinnabon (Matt's favorite part of Medellin). Of course we got the 2 large drinks with 1 large popcorn combo for the 4 of us (along with empty cups to share the popcorn- a Heider tradition).
The next day, we took it easy and then headed out with our favorite Aussies on the Metro (public transit rail) to the cable cars that take you to the top of Medellin and offer great views of the city. The cable car ride was insightful to a whole different, poorer, part of Medellin in the mountains that we wouldn't have seen otherwise.
On our way back, guess what we were all hungry for again? Cinnabon! Thus, we went back to the mall and indulged again. Even the Aussies agreed upon the greatness of Cinnabon :-).
The next day we took it easy until evening when we went out with some people from the hostel, including Oliver and Linda (friends we met in earlier cities) to go out to a Colombian salsa concert for the Flower Festival. The Flower Festival took place in Medellin from August 3- 10 and is a pretty big deal in Colombia. Parades, concerts, flower exhibits, parties, etc. The outdoor concert we went to was quite the experience. To say we were fish out of water would be an understatement. Nonetheless, we both enjoyed the people watching available at the concert.
Our next day we took a bus out to Guatape. Matt was so excited that we took a bus to basically climb a big rock in the sky to see a big lake (sarcasm). We climbed over 700 stairs to the top of the rock to be able to see a 360 degree view of the lakes all around us. Kristin thought it was quite beautiful!
Our last morning we finally went to the Flower Exhibit at the Botanical Garden because we actually wanted to see some flowers during the festival!
Once back at the hostel, we convinced Oliver he needed to know what Cinnabon was all about. Thus, we went to our favorite place for the third time! Delish. We headed to the bus terminal later that night.
While in Medellin, we had great accommodations at the Black Sheep hostel. Due to the festival and demand, prices for our four bed dorm were actually around $14 a night. Still, a great place to stay.
Well, this may be the shortest post given there wasn't much to Santa Rosa. We mainly stopped here after Salento to break up the bus trip to Medellin and check out the termales (hot springs).
We made it into town much quicker than expected, so we quickly realized that we could do everything the town had to offer in one day and move on the next. The highlights of the town were the hot springs which were a short bus ride away, and the chorizos (sausages) from street vendors. The hot springs had four of five concrete pools with hot, 120 degrees, water and a very pretty waterfall.
We didn't take pics of the hostel, but it was a nice place and close to the town square. We stayed at Coffee Town hostel for $9 a night.
We have previously mentioned that certain places of Colombia are amazing, grand, and wonderful; we'll go ahead and add Salento, a lovely town in the coffee region, to the list. We arrived in the evening so we didn't think it was super impressive; however, we woke up in the morning and the love started to grow. Our hostel was on top of a hill about 2 km from the little town. The views and atmosphere were top notch!!
Our first day we walked to an organic coffee farm, Finca Don Elias. It was pretty neat to see how coffee goes from a young tree to the cup. Everything was in Spanish, but that's ok, Matt explained it all to Kristin. However, the farmer would talk for 5 minutes, but Matt translated everything in 20 seconds, so perhaps we didn't get EVERYTHING, but here is what we learned about coffee.
A coffee tree starts to produce beans at around 2 years old. Each tree has a life span up to 10 years to produce quality beans. When the beans are ripe, they turn yellow or red depending on the type of tree.
Amongst all the coffee trees, there were also banana, plantain, avacado, and sugar cane trees because the fruit trees provide the proper shade necessary for organically grown coffee. Other mass produced coffee which uses chemicals does not require such shade. A few more fun facts, a "cluster" of bananas grows from baby plant to fully mature in one year and each tree only produce one "cluster" of bananas per year. Pineapples also grow from infant to fully mature in one year, but only produce one pineapple per plant.
Back to the coffee, once the beans are picked they are put through a machine that removes the outer layer, and then put in a make shift green house type structure which allows them to dry for about 3 to 4 weeks. Once dry, they need to be toasted.
For the organic farm we were on this meant filling up a pot and putting it over the fire for an hour while constantly stirring. Once the beans are toasted they can be ground and are ready for a fresh cup of coffee by adding hot water.
Neither of us drink a lot of coffee, but we both enjoyed this fresh coffee.
The next day we hiked Valle de Cocora which was about a four hour hike up to the top of a mountain and back. The valley is part of the Los Nevados National Natural Park and is the principal location of the national tree and symbol of Colombia, the Quindio wax palm.
Once we arrived to the top of the mountain, there was a break in the tree line and we were able to see magnificent views.
After a lot of hiking and walking we decided we needed a rest day. It was nice to sit around the hostel all day while it rained outside. And our last day was more or less relaxing, but not quite a rest. We walked up a road that lead out of town and up a hill. It provided great views of the town, and we could even see where our hostel sat on the opposite facing hill outside of town.
Our beloved hostel, La Serrana, was previously a really large ranch house with lots of space was a mere $11 a night. It came with a hot breakfast and on week nights provided a gourmet-esque meal for about $7 a night. We really enjoyed this hostel and the environment.
An update! I am still a little hesitant to post this based on karma and/or jinxing things, but I still want all the concerned to know.
Remember on July 8th when the lady at Spirit airlines made us buy tickets out of Colombia before we could check-in? It turns out that fiasco was because Spirit would have been liable to fly us home in case customs didn't let us through (just an fyi). Well, I never found my online reservation using the code she gave me. Thus, I called (via Skype) my credit card company to inform them that I cannot view/manage my reservation online and wanted to do away with the reservation and start over.
I was originally calling just to see what could be done, if anything. As it turned out, they disputed the charge and returned the amount back to my card. The unnecessary flight was for July 30th, and since that date has passed I am hoping all is well with the card and it won't show back up.
Moving forward, a good friend of mine actually informed me that we could have refused to pay for the return ticket and instead offered to sign an agreement stating we would pay for any flight necessary out of the country and not hold the airline responsible. Very important as we continue our travels.
