Nicaragua

18 May 2010

After finally recovering from the hell that was Volcan Baru in Panama, I got myself on a bus up to San Jose in Costa Rica where I stayed in the weirdest hostel ever (it was close to the bus terminal). I'd been told that Costa Rica was expensive and full of American tourists and businesses so I figured I'd give the country a miss, just taking the time to step out and indulge at one of the American fast food restaurants!! So the next morning I got the 730am bus out of there up to Nicaragua. Another splendiferous bus ride with a breakdown lasting a mere 1 1/2 hours and resulting in the aircon being shut off for the rest of the journey (actually a blessing as you normally have to dress warmer on a bus than if you were staying at Fountainhall Road in winter).

Some kindly Americans lent me their Lonely Planet whilst we were waiting for the border formalities to be concluded so I was able to figure out how to get to Granada that night rather than suffer the hell of going to Managua which apparently isn't in the top 10 capital cities in the world. I met a Czech girl, Katka, when I got off the bus and we shared a taxi up to Granada together and then she took me out to meet some of her couchsurfing friends in the evening which was really nice.

Granada is a really beautiful town with lots of colonial buildings set around a central square with quite a smart cathedral. Around the town there are plenty of churches that could be described as being in a state of faded splendour, plus a large convent (with really cool indigenous rock statues of men with monkeys and alligators on their heads) and a massive old market. It's really, really hot though and oppresively humid so really hard to sleep at night and even harder to bother to do anything during the day (not that I really need an excuse!). And it rains. A lot.

On one of the days I was doing nothing I found myself at the bar in the hostel drinking a few of the Margaritas which were conveniently on 2 for 1. I was just talking to Katka when this crusty old Guatemalan guy, who lives at the hostel making jewellery, showed up. We asked him nicely a couple of times to go away (and I mean nicely - we weren't rude or loud and noone else noticed so it wasn't embarrassing for him). He took this badly and punched me in the face! An English guy noticed something going on and turned around and thought something had happened to Katka as she looked so shocked! He didn't really hit me that hard and I only ended up with a slight graze to my chin, so all ok!

I didn't manage to move out of the hostel in the morning as I was a little hungover from the additional Margaritas imbibed due to shock, but I moved the following day only to bump into the kindly book-lending Americans I met at the border.

And on to the next weird experience of my time in Granada: The kindly Americans (Jordan & Drew), plus their Geordie friend (Vikki) and I were just hanging out at the hostel drinking a few beers when we were approached by this nutter of a Texan called Russell (think cowboy boots, wifebeater, massive texan belt buckle, mirrored sunglasses over a black eye). We got into various discussions with Russell including gun control (or lack thereof) and other sensitive topics and then took ourselves off for food, only for Russell to turn up at the restaurant telling us how he'd amusingly hired some street kids to follow us and they'd misunderstood and were all poised to beat us up until he managed to stop them at the last minute! After Russell smoking weed at the table and a local man appearing in the girls' bathroom when I went for a pee we retired to our hostel which has the advantage of a locked gate!

The next day a whole bunch of us (not Russell!) took a boat down to the island of Ometepe. The island comprises two massive volcanoes, one of which is still active, rising out of Lake Nicaragua. The island is really beautiful (as seems to generally be the case everywhere so far in Nicaragua) and the people so, so friendly. We stayed at a great hostel run by a great guy Mario and his family (including son Achilles - great name!).

We managed to haul ourselves out of bed late one morning and take the bus up the road to a place called Ojo de Agua which was a freshwater swimming hole (on an island in a freshwater lake!) which was really really lovely. The water was cool but not cold and completely clear and we had a lovely time just being stupid, learning how to make ashtrays out of drinks cans and taking pics with my underwater camera (see kodakgallery/facebook).

The buses on the island are great - they're either beat up large minibuses or beat up american school buses. And the roads are unpaved. So there's no snoozing off on the journeys!

And then someone (not me!) had the bright idea to climb the active Volcan Concepcion so off we trotted at 7am one morning in crazy heat and at quite a pace. It was very much a long walk up a steep hill and so I quit after a while. I like to think it's because of my bad knee and the knowledge that I was slowing anyone down, but it's more probably because I'm lazy and unfit!

The others didn't make it to the top in the end as there was too much sulphur blowing down the volcano in their faces, so I felt better about my afternoon in a hammock whilst they were all sweating their guts out!

We kind of tried to leave the hostel in order to go to another place on the island, but Mario invited us to his wife's birthday party which coincided with national Ladies' Day so how could we refuse?! It was a really great party with loads of food and rum and all the ladies going slightly mental on the dancing front! Jordan and Drew were particularly popular with the crowd of girls!

Finally we moved out of the town and went round to the other side of the island to a hostel with a beach where we spent a relaxing couple of days. Defying the threat of bullsharks in the lake Vikki swam out to a smaller island whilst the rest of us loitered in the jacuzzi-hot shallows. Some other Americans turned up one day and set up a slackline which all the local kids took to like pros.

We spent our final night on the island in a town called Matagalpa where we caught some locals spying into our rooms from the street which was unnerving.

Back in Granada the boys made us spend the next couple of evenings watching sporting fixtures in bars. And me and Vikki spent the days shopping at the second hand stores for clothes and at the Laguna de Apoyo which is a vast crater lake in the jungle and another stunning place to spend some time (see pics).

And then it was time for the boys to head up to the big city to pick up their friend who was flying in, and for me and Vikki to get the bus down to Costa Rica so I could visit the Ranch that she and the guys had been living on for the last few months (they talked about the place endlessly so I thought I'd better go see for myself.)

Panama

3 May 2010

So I got a little bored of the buses and decided to move a little more quickly, so shelled out (paid 4 times - damned internet!) for a flight up to Panama City from Quito in Ecuador.

Panama City was really hot and humid, but also really quite beautiful. The old section of the city is called Casco Viejo and is full of run down colonial mansions, the presidential palace and my hostel. There are also the ruins of the original city, Panama Viejo which was sacked by a Welsh pirate, Henry Morgan, and the new, modern bit of the city with skyscrapers all lit up at night.

In keeping with my degree subject, and because I know Grandad wouldn't be able to bear the disappointment if I didn't go, I headed out to the Miraflores Locks on the Panama Canal.

Everyone except Grandad should skip to the next paragraph at this point..... I stayed to watch a massive boat being raised up 12m or so from the Pacific to the Miraflores Lake, watched a presentation on the canal, then visited the museum, only to round off the excitement watching some boats being lowered from the lake to the pacific!!

I met an Aussie girl who had met up with some English friends in the hostel, so I went off with them on a very cold overnight bus to Bocas del Toro, an island group on the caribbean side of Panama at the west end of the country. We rented a house that was built out over the caribbean, but the toilet flushed straight into the water so we didn't do any swimming from our deck! The next few days were much like Montanita, with lots of hanging out, indulging in the fact we had a TV, eating and drinking far too much. The bars were either built out over the water or were a water taxi ride away. Most had "swimming pools" which were where they'd built out some decking over the water. Evenings always ended with everyone stripping off and jumping into the sea which was a little bit mental!

I tired of the heat, humidity, and drinking after a few days so I got the bus up into the mountains to a lovely town called Boquete which is just really chilled out with good food, no nightlife, a really nice climate and stunning scenery. I took some more spanish classes, then the evil pair that are Kirsty and Pat from London talked me into hiking Volcan Baru, the highest point in Panama.

The views to both the Pacific and Caribbean oceans are only clear at dawn so you either hike up during the day and camp or you hike up at night to arrive at dawn. We chose the latter and started hiking at 1130pm with headtorches. It was a relentless uphill 13.5km with at least a gain in altitute of 1,000m to reach the summit of 3,475m at dawn. We could see to both the caribbean and pacific oceans so it was pretty amazing. It took us another 5 hours to hike back down in daylight, and it made me so glad we hiked up at night as there's no way I would have forced myself to climb the damn thing had I seen the incline! I think I'm on course to lose a toenail after all that fun!

A few days of recovery and I bussed through Costa Rica up to Granada in Nicaragua......

Last bit of Ecuador

18 April 2010

The lovely Paul from Texas, and I, headed off to the bus terminal to get the bus up to the beach town of Montanita. We checked into our hostel (with Shelley from Canada we'd met on the bus) and went out for a wee stroll only to bump into Sarah and Megan almost immediately. The following 5 days consisted of eating, drinking far too much and hanging out at the beach under the shade of umbrellas as it was so hot. But I did start to pick up a bit of a tan which was a bonus.

The town consisted of a few roads of restaurants and bars alongside the lovely pacific beach. They had dug up the road to lay a new one, and it was raining a lot, so most mornings were spent negotiating massive muddy puddles which meant we were pretty much filthy the whole time!

The town wasn't nearly as debauched as people make it out to be, but it's certainly fun! Best drinks were Passion Locos made by a lovely man called Pedro in Cocktail Alley. Ingredients are Pisco, Vodka, Rum, Passionfruit and Sugar. And I wondered why I woke up with blank spots in my memory!!

I headed back to Guayaquil and to the mall to pick up my repaired camera, but they'd lost it so they gave me a new one which was nice! Back to the bus terminal and got the bus up to Cuenca for a couple of nights and then on to Banos when La Casa Verde (the best hostel in the world!) was open for business again.

Spent about a week at La Casa Verde recovering from Galapagos and Montanita and generally getting organised. Highlights included backing up all my photos and posting them home, getting laundry done and eating cheese-based food at the Swiss place in town!

And so on to central america....

GALAPAGOS!!

9th April 2010

And so began the Galapagos wallet robbing exercise, as at Guayaquil airport we had to pay for a $10 tourist card only for us to pay a further $100 tourist tax upon arrival at Baltra airport in the Galapagos. I must have spent about $2,000 in the 7 days I was there!

I was picked up at Baltra, along with 3 other, by my guide Pablo and we were bussed to the jetty and taken out to our boat for the next 4 nights, Galaven II, operated by GAP adventures (everyone else on board had booked through GAP). Luckily I was one of only 8 passengers on board the boat that would take 16 and I had the biggest cabin all to myself. Despite booking Tourist Superior class this was properly luxury with ensuite bathrooms with hot water, toilets that operated on a conventional flushing system (not one of these horrible pump ones) etc. G'dad could take some tips on comfortable boat living....

We went straight off for a snorkelling tour at North Seymour island, one of the small islands around Santa Cruz. The water was a pretty comfortable temperature which was a real luxury. The coral in the Galapagos isn't all that exciting, but there are some cool fish and stuff to keep you occupied. And on top of that you've got the really cool stuff - on this snorkel we were joined by sea lions swimming around us which was really scary at first but also really amazing. They're just like labradors - will swim right up to your face and then head off and play with something and then come back to say hi again.

From there we went for a walk on North Seymour Island which is the one famous for the frigate birds (see pics of birds with bright red bubbles on their chests). It was amazing to get so close to the animals, although this did mean about half of us got shat on!! We also saw the Blue Footed Boobies and their daft waddles and whistling, Galapagos Iguanas, little lava lizards and sea lions everywhere!

Our afternoon entertainment consisted of the crew on the boat dangling tuna heads in the water so we were quickly joined by 3 rather large (2m or so) Galapagos Sharks circling the boat and being persuaded to jump out of the water.

Day two started off with a wee trip out to Rabida Island which was hilly and scrubby and had lots of the "Mickey Mouse" cactus trees so named for the discs that look like Mickey Mouse ears. The beach was red sand and there was a wee salt water lagoon. We saw lots of hermit crabs (and unsuccessfully tried to race them), a Galapagos Hawk, a Galapagos Flycatcher (which I think is the best photo I took) and lots of the little Lava Lizards (which were everywhere) again.

We went snorkelling from the beach with sea lions swimming all around us again (so cool) and saw the usual fish etc but also a ray flying by in the water and a large shark which swam past a couple of times.

After lunch of rice and beans followed by candied figs with cheese (the food was usually MUCH better than this!) we went off for another snorkel - this time at Puerto Egas on San Salvador island. Saw the usual plus a turtle!!! and a tiger eel which is kind of like a moray eel but much smaller and less creepy! From there we walked over some volcanic rocks to see just hundreds of marine iguanas sunning themselves on the rocks. These iguanas have slightly different heads from the land ones, are black and eat seaweed so are in the sea a lot. There were so many of them, and they were so well camoflauged against the rocks that a few of us almost stood on some of them! There were some cool rock arches and some fur seals sunning themselves.

In the evening we sat up on the sun loungers on the top deck and watched the sun go down and the stars come out which was really nice.

The next day we were on the move again pretty early to get to Sombrero Chino, a tiny little island with a perfect cone shaped volcano sloping down to the sea, covered in scrubby plants but not much else. On the island we saw tons and tons of the bright orange crabs, another Galapagos Hawk, a Lava Heron, Oystercatchers and Wandering Tattlers and the ubiquitous Iguanas and Sea Lions. The white sand beaches are apparently nothing to do with erosion, but are the result of fish eating coral to get at the algae within, and pooing out white sand!! There were also lots of lava tubes on the island, some of which had collapsed. They are rock tunnels which are formed when the top surface of flowing lava solidifies, keeping the inner lava liquid which then flows out. When they get smashed you can see inside them, and apparently Galapagos penguins like to live in the ones that open into the sea. We were also given a bit of an explanation of the geology of the islands which is pretty cool. Although the islands are up to 6m years old (the youngest being <1m),>

The next stop was at Bartolome Island which is home to the famous (I'd never heard of it!) Pinnacle Rock. The island is a moonscape of lava and volcanic sand and spatter cones and is pretty cool, but wildlife is very much limited to about 5 individual cacti and some lava lizards! And it was bloody hot! But the view from the top of the hill (walking up boardwalks rather than sand thankfully) was pretty impressive - see photos! Snorkelling off this island as cool with loads of puffer fish, chocolate chip starfish, sea cucumbers/sea slugs, but also a shark kicking back on the bottom, some underwater lava tubes, and some penguins swimming alongside us again.

In the morning we arrived at South Plazas island, a teeny one off the east coast of Santa Cruz. It was by far the prettiest so far with lots of greenery and the strange cactus trees everywhere. There were sea lions all over the jetty and you had to negotiate them to get up onto the island. There was a really cute little bird called a Yellow Warbler on the jetty too and I got some great photos, except my lens had condensation on it as it had just come out of my air-conditioned cabin. So not so great photos! We walked round on white rocks (black volcanic rocks with large amounts of calcium rich dried sea lion poo polished into them) round to the other side of the island where we saw tons of Swallow Tailed Gulls, Shearwaters, Nazca Boobies and Tropic Birds which was pretty cool.

After an unventful cruise during which I searched for mantas flying out of the water (there were none!) we arrived at Santa Fe island where we moored in a submerged crater and went snorkelling where we saw the most amazing thing. We ended up snorkelling above and in a massive school of fish that were probably only about 10-15 cms long, but what was really cool is that there were some large Galapagos sharks there too, also swimming in and amongst the fish which was really cool to see.

Having only seen one turtle at this point I was completely thrilled when, motoring to the shore for a walk, we saw about 5 turtles in the water and surfacing for breathing, plus a really big Galapagos shark which was hanging about in water so shallow that it's fins were out of the water in a scary jaws-style! When we finally landed on the shore there were yet more sea lions, Galapagos Doves, Mockingbirds and some Santa Fe Iguanas which are a separate subspecies (though I couldn't see any difference!)

That night we were dropped ashore at Puerto Ayora, the main town on Santa Cruz and, gringos that we are, went out drinking! But we'd booked our dinghy back to the boat for the (for us) late hour of 930 so it wasn't too debauched!

In the morning we were off the boat by 7am and off to the Charles Darwin centre which I imagined to be an informative kind of place, but was just a tortoise breeding centre and sanctuary. We saw lots of the baby tortoises, the arse end of Lonesome George (he wasn't up for having his picture taken!) and a group of massive males that were clearly lonely for female company.

Then I had 3 days of diving with a company called Scuba Iguana who were the most expensive (at $160 a day) on the island, but also seemed the most professional with the best reviews. They were super organised. We were driven off to the other side of the island in trucks and hung around whilst the staff loaded the massive and well equipped speed boat. And for the diving all we had to do was haul on our (7mm - excessive!) wetsuits and they did everything else including putting our fins on and strapping us into our bcds. Easy peasy!! The only really challenging part of the exercise was wearing 12kg of weight (due to thick wetsuits and salty water). I should have been wearing more, but couldn't face trying to hand a belt that heavy up to the boat at the end! Strangely I was hardly using any air on the dives. Most people were coming up with about 300psi in their tanks and I ranged from 1,000-1,500psi surfacing, even after I'd had additional time underwater - v weird.

Over the 6 dives we went to Cousins Rocks, Bartolome, North Seymour (2 dives), Beagle Rocks and Daphne minor. And we saw all sorts of cool things including Pacific Seahorses, Stonefish that exactly matched the coral, schools of eagle rays including some massive ones, loads of turtles, a chinese lobster (which looks like an alien!), stingrays, loads of black tipped and white tipped reef sharks and galapagos sharks, sea lions, some weird garden eel things that looked like weeds growing out of the sand and of course, tons of fish, starfish, urchins, morays etc. Highlights were the seahorses, a cave full of 8 white tip reef sharks which swam to within 1 foot of our faces (v cool!) and 2 HAMMERHEADS!!

Arriving back in Guayaquil the next day, I met two lovely Sydney girls called Sarah and Megan and we went to the football! It was a match between Barcelona (the most popular team in Ecuador) and Cuenca and it was completely nuts. We bought ourselves some yellow Barcelona football shirts in a futile attempt to blend in (no chance esp with Megan's blonde hair) and dutifully queued past the mayhem and huge police horses to get into the stadium. The stadium was probably 99% Barcelona fans with only about 40 Cuenca fans (the poor souls). The Barcelona fans were nuts with fireworks going off, loads of drumming, chanting, banners etc. I've no idea what the score was as we arrived late, left early and there was no scoreboard, but whilst we were there Barcelona scored 2 goals to Cuenca's 1 (I think!).

And from there on to the beach at Montanita......

Ecuador - Cuenca and Guayaquil

27th March 2010

After an 8 hour bus ride I turned up in Cuenca in the evening and went to El Cafecito, a great little hostel/restaurant/bar, as recommended by the lovely Susie. Met tons of nice new people and we all went out to an amazing resturant that cooked up fantastic hot plates of meat (I had pasta!) with hundreds of side dishes which was pretty cool.

The following day was Palm Sunday so I met up with Rob (who I'd met in Cuenca) and Abi and Hannah again for a wee stroll around town to see all the festivities (which mainly comprised the churches being packed out of the doors and lots of people walking around with foliage). Had a nice wee stroll round the outside of the museum (it was closed) and back along a really pretty river running through town and followed it up with the usual evening entertainment of eating and drinking.

The next day Rob and I went for brekkie and then got the bus 2 1/2 hours back towards Banos to go to some pretty amazing Canari/Inca ruins called Ingapirca. Not quite the scale of Machu Picchu or anything, but a pretty big site all the same and really interesting - it's a fusion of local Canari moon worship and Inca sun worship, all laid out in the shape of a jaguar. The countryside in the mountains is really beautiful - really green and lush with lots of farmland and picturesque mountain landscapes.

I pretty much just hung out with my new friends for the rest of the week, visiting the viewpoint, going to the museum (cool shrunken heads!), eating a lot, fighting about the use of the term "America/American" to mean the US rather than the continent etc. Also managed to be the victim of an attempted mugging, in broad daylight, along with my friend Kathleen. Four guys approached us and tried to grab my bag from my shoulder, but I shouted, screamed, held on etc and they gave up and walked off. Noone nearby (there was a car full of locals and a family standing nearby) came to our aid. Kind of threw me off my stride for a few days but I didn't lose anything and wasn't injured so it wasn't that bad. There were a few other people at our hostel who were also the victim of attempted muggings, but in each case the muggers got nothing so they should probably look for a new line of work....

I didn't manage to formulate a plan to leave before the Easter festivities, and travel would have been a bit troublesome whilst it was going on, so I stayed for Easter. Learnt lots of specifics such as time of death etc from locals which was kind of interesting, and saw a big parade going by, complete with floats depicting the series of events (not quite sure why Jesus was chained to a chicken in one of them!) and everyone in mourning as they walked by. Was kind of interesting. On Good Friday the hostel was serving special soup with 12 kinds of beans and jesus represented by 1/4 of a boiled egg. My religious knowledge increases in leaps and bounds......

Us foreigners, having no access to Cadbury's on such a high holiday, settled for hot chocolate with a dash of rum, and huge slabs of chocolate cake on Easter Sunday.

After Easter Kathleen (my attempted mugging buddy) and I headed off on a bus, through the really beautiful Cajas national park, on roads that were being freshly concreted (and therefore one way with tons of delays) down the hills and onto the flat, hot, humid plains towards the coast and the big city of Guayaquil. Kathleen went off couch surfing and I got a completely mental taxi driver (muttering under his breath that I couldn't speak Spanish when all I didn't understand was ONE VERB in the entire conversation we had about the weather, where I was going, where I was from etc!) off to a hostel.

The next day started off oppressively hot and humid and sweaty, but my new friend Mike and I braved the local bus to get into town and go to a little city park which had the added bonus of massive iguanas running free and a lake full of turtles and then off to the Malecon which is a boardwalk alongside a massive brown, slow moving river. We had heard tales of Guayaquil being massively renovated and a shiny example of modern city living and suchlike, but in reality it was just a bit dull, with a strip mall and food stalls serving friend food. Would not like to have seen the place before it was spruced up! There was a good culture and contemporary arts museum at one end though which had lots of interesting stuff and was airconditioned. We ended the day, together with an American called Paul, at one of the seafood stands near the hostel, bashing open crabs with a mallet and sucking out all the flesh. I only ended up with minor injuries so judged the experience a success!

And then to the fun stuff: I decided, a little bit on a whim, and probably having a lot to do with the fact that my hostel was also a travel agency, to go to the Galapagos. In one day I managed to sort out my boat trip and accompanying flights, leaving the next day (no reason to hang around in Guayaquil), acquire all the cash to pay for it and get to the mall to buy an underwater camera.

Ecuador - Quito and Banos

17th March 2010

After the slightly strange border crossing into Ecuador, we all (Abi, Hannah, Tristan and I) piled onto a super cheap ($4 for 5 hours) bus ride down to Quito. Checked in at the Blue House Hostel in the New Town (aka Gringolandia) area of Quito. It happened to be St Paddy's day so out we went. Firstly for Vietnamese food from a wee Irish owned place called Uncle Ho's (their logo is similar to the 1 love NY logo - use your imagination!) and then, after a wee detour to the hospital for Tristan to get a rabies shot after being bitten by a dog, off to Finn McCool's pub for a couple of shandy's. Good night had by all!

The girls and I went out for a wee wander the next day in weather that alternated between scorchio and tropical downpours. We managed to walk around much of the Old Town without actually going inside or seeing very much! Didn't manage to make it into the governer's palace, into any churches (they wanted money!) or up any of the numerous viewing places!

The girls headed off into the jungle and I faffed around for a bit before taking the bus down to a fantastic town called Banos (there's a squiggle thing over the n so it sounds like Banyos). I was only there for a day before Susie who I'd met in Cartagena was in touch to say she was also there. It was great to have someone to pal about with. She introduced me to the BEST HOSTEL IN THE WORLD aka La Casa Verde which was a little way out of town, but soooo worth it. It's run by a great Aus/NZ couple and it's a really beautiful place with gorgeous bathrooms (these things matter) and homemade soda bread plus other goodies for breakfast.

Susie and I went white water rafting which was great, but a little scary. We started the day with tequila in fresh sugar can juice then got on the water. The guide flipped the boat on purpose and surfacing under an upturned boat can be a little scary. The second time was worse as it was unplanned and we were still going down white water! The water was really a really pleasant temperature and the scenery was stunning. We saw even more of the scenery when they took us on a four hour truck ride (we were in the back!) through the jungle on the way back, just to drop some people off.

Susie and I also managed to get to the thermal baths where the options of pools were either scalding, even hotter, or bloody freezing. We just about managed to get into the scalding one for a wee while. I also met up with Abi and Hannah again (I met them in Salento and travelled to Quito with them) and the evil madams that they are, forced me to climb a gazillion steps up a mountain (at altitude) for some pretty views of the town. Sadly the local volcano was shrouded in cloud so I didn't get to see it.

The other v exciting thing that happened in Banos was that we were just quietly eating tea one night in a restaurant and the floor shook for a couple of seconds. I thought it must be the volcano coughing or something, but the US Geological Survey says it was a 4.9 earthquake just 30kms or so from Banos. V exciting!!

The food in Banos was excellent (as was the drink!). There was a great swiss place where we got fondue (you don't know how exciting it is to get real cheese!), a little french place (cheese too!) and a local hippy place with great chocolate milkshakes. The best though, was this mad Danish woman who had a little cafe serving great sandwiches. But she was hilarious - she refused to serve one woman a cup of tea as she was "too busy" at the time, even though I was the only customer there, she wouldn't let you eat in peace, but regaled you with stories of shopping trips in the states, and she got really upset if she deemed that you hadn't ordered enough of her (rather expensive!) food. Great fun and great food though - I went there four times!

And onwards to Cuenca....

Colombia - Medellin and South

17 February 2010

Wow, haven't updated in a really long time. Sorry!

I ended up staying in Medellin for over two weeks! It's a really huge city and known for it's "eternal spring" climate. Don't be fooled into thinking this is like April in Scotland though! It's hot during the day, cooler in the evening, and rains (heavily) most days for about an hour or so. I took Spanish classes almost every day in Medellin with a really sweet Colombian girl called Yadi who's based at a Kiwi owned hostel called Black Sheep. I was staying in Casa Kiwi which is owned by an American and frequented by a lot of bikers, but not your garden variety bikers, the ones that think a good holiday is riding from Alaska to Punta Arenas.

The hostel is in the El Poblado area of the city which is the posh bit. Lots of nice restaurants and bars and the like (including some rather fab pastry shops!). I was pretty well behaved in Medellin though as I had class every day.

I said hello again to my new Aussie chums, Lee and Tanya in Medellin, only to say goodbye a couple of days later. And I met really sweet girls from Devon who I may meet up with again in central america at some point soon.

Other than spanish classes I really didn't get up to much in Medellin. Mick's friend Ricardo met with me a couple of times and bought me lunch, gave me a tour of the Botanics and pointed me in the direction of the acquarium. There's a great metro system in Medellin which includes a couple of sections of cable cars which is pretty cool just for sightseeing. And there is a plaza where there are quite a lot of Botero sculptures. So, all in all, a nice place to hang out, but not a whole lot to see!

I realised at some point that I was nearing the end of my visa for Colombia (60 days!) and either had to make a move for the border or pay to extend my visa. So I decided to head off south towards Ecuador. I was heading for a wee town in coffee country called Salento which seemed to involve taking a bus to a place called Armenia and changing. Only instead of going to Armenia I was chucked off the bus at the side of a motorway at about 530pm (sunset is at 6pm!) and told to wait for another bus. I stood by myself in the middle of nowhere as the sun rapidly went down for an anxious 20 mins before my bus came!

In Salento I stayed at a place called Plantation House run by an old, slightly mad, British guy and his Colombian wife. Met tons of people and went horseriding, on a coffee tour, on a long walk up a steep hill, and ate a lot of rainbow trout. Was a good few days! Really beautiful countryside - wax palms, mountains and coffee plantations.

I met three other souls who needed to cross the border too, an Aussie called Tristan and two lovely girls from London called Abi and Hannah. We got up at stupid o'clock and got a bus to Cali, and changed to a minibus for Popayan. It's a lovely little colonial place. Stayed in a hostel run by lovely Scots (!) and had a nice wander around all the churches and a wee feed.

Off again early in the morning for another major bus ride to Ipiales on the Colombian side of the border with Ecuador. Arrived there after dark so went off for a pizza and an early sleep. It's a bit of a strange little town and the weather was bad so didn't mind not seeing too much of the place!

In the morning we went to Las Lajas, an amazing church built out over a ravine because someone saw the virgin's face in the rock (or summat similar!). See my pics (on fb or kodakgallery) to truly understand the place!

Our taxi driver to the border got a little over enthusiastic and drove us over the bridge into Ecuador so we had to walk back to Colombia in the rain to wait for an hour for our exit stamps. Oddly there was no physical check at the border.

And that concludes my first visit to Colombia! (Second and third visits this year are already planned.)

I'll try to be a little less tardy with my Ecuador posts.