Montanita

I could not have picked a better place to end my trip. By a happy coincidence, I happened to meet many friends I had made in my travels on the beaches of this tiny little fishing village on the coast of Ecuador. For several days I partied hard durring the night, and recovered durring the day by lying down on the beach and taking in the sun. Frankly, it was rather uneventful, but more fun than I could have hoped for. It was nice seeing all these people again, and gave me a perfect opportunity to say goodbye to them all.

I have now returned to rainy old Britain, where I was treated to a downpour almost instantly after crossing the boarder into Wales (relyable Wales, you always know what weather you will get there...). Next step in the plan: get a job, earn some more money, and get right back out there to see the world. Watch this space.

Galapagos Islands

This was definately the highlight of my trip. What a fantastic experience. Everything was total luxury, the boat was nicer than just about any other hostel I have stayed at, the food was wonderful, and most of all the animals were fascinating, and not in any way afraid of humans.

Regretably, words can not do justice to the experience, so I shall upload some images soon, which I hope will be able to help people understand how amazing the whole thing was. I have taken so many pictures, however, that I will have to wait until I get home to upload them. That will be in a couple of weeks, so not that long to wait...

I am in Guyaquil right now, Equador's biggest city, and frankly, I do not particularly like it. It is just another concrete jungle, and so far it seems to be more expensive than Puerto Ayora in the Galapagos. I will be making my way to Montañita soon where I will be resting on the beach until my return to Europe.

Quito

I arrived in Quito from Bogota by taking a plane to Pasto and then taking a bus to the boarder. What I had not realised was that the bus left me just at the boarder and had me cross it on foot. Oh dear...

It should not normally be a problem, but I arrived at the boarder at night, and everything always seems slightly more dodgey when the sun has gone down. Especially when you have all of your belongings on your back. There was no problem getting my passport stamped on the Colombian side (they were probably glad to get another gringo out of the country), but then there was about 100 metres of no man's land to have to cross with people trying to sell things, and they were the ones that scared me. I really could not imagine what I could have done if I had gotten mugged in no man's land, and someone stole my passport. How do you explain this to the immigration?

Thankfully none of this happened, and I eventually made it safely to the hostel in Quito that I had been recommended by several people. The reason it is so popular? They have free rum and coke nights on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. How could I miss out on such a fabulous offer? I am only human, after all. I arrived on a Monday night, just in time to take advantage of the rum, and started the downward spiral that would end up in what I thought was a terrible, unfixable mistake.

On tuesday, I went out and booked my flight for the Galapagos, which has been a dream since the beginning of the trip, so I was rather pleased with myself, but kept going and organised some Spanish lessons for 1 pound 50 and hour, and thought that if I kept doing things, there would be nothing else left to do for the rest of my time in Quito.

Skip to Thursday (morning after rum and coke), and a group of us decided to go to the basilica because it is possible to abseil down. For some reason it seemed like a great idea, and I went along with them despite my fear of heights and the fact that I have never abseiled in my life. The "guide" was not all that helpful either. I was looking for some last minute advice as he was telling me to climb over the edge, and all he could tell me was "hold on to the rope". Since there is nothing else to hold on to, I thought that it was pretty obvious and resented him for it, but once I got going, I realised that there really was not much else to tell me. It is a pretty simple process.

The mitad del mundo (centre of the world) is a museum just outside of the city where you basically just go and see the equator. At first it looks like nothing more than just a red line randomly painted on the ground, but there are a few experiments that they do to prove to you that you are actually at latitude 0.

Firstly, they show water draining, which was my favorite, because the water just goes straight down, rather than in a spiral. I had never seen such a thing. They them moved the same kitchen sink about a metre to the south side, and the water spun anti-clockwise. When they moved it a metre to the north side, the water drained clockwise. Fabulous.

The second experiment was to have us put our arms up and have the tour guide try and lower them. Being a woman of rather small stature, she failed rather dismally, but when we moved to the line, she managed to do it no problems with one had. Take that Damien's ego!

The final experiment consisted of trying to balance an egg on a nail head. This one sounded completely impossible to me, but when I saw the guide do it, it seriously brought my hopes up. It only took me a couple goes to get it, and frankly I could not believe it. They gave me a certificate, which looked really tacky, saying that I had in-fact balanced an egg on a nail head. No surprise that it was lost within hours of reception.

The rest of my time in Quito was just spent killing time between Spanish lessons before my flight on Tuesday morning. Tuesday morning... What a silly mistake I made when booking for that date. The rum and coke started flowing on Monday night, and I had to join in the festivities. The plan was to stay up all night, and catch my flight in the morning, but what happened was that when I got to the airport, I was really tired. How did that happen? Basically, I waited around, and by the time I stood up, someone told me the gate had already closed, and I could not get on the flight. This was one hell of a scary moment, because I thought that it was $400 out the window, but luckily flights to the Galapagos are very flexible, so I just changed it to the next available flight.

I have finally made it to the dream islands, and I will start a boat tour on Sunday. I can not wait.

Taganga

From San Gil, there were five of us taking a bus to get to Santa Marta. Only 16 hours, and a night bus, which means most of it would be spent sleeping. Perfect.

We wake up in the morning on a stationary bus in the middle of nowhere. No one seems to know how long we have been still, or for what reason. This nice little country road had a multiple car pile-up - not surprising considering how people drive here - and the police had just stopped all traffic from coming through.

This gave us a 5 hour delay, and to save time, the bus steward had the brilliant idea of skipping over the stop in the city of Santa Marta, making everyone who was going there get off. We were litterally in the middle of a desert, and no one in the group really understood what was going on, or how we were expected to get to our destination, but we followed the man anyway. He hailed over a colectivo (public bus), and paid for our fare into town. What we had not realised was that this bus did not go to Santa Marta.

On the colectivo, there was a nice man selling something, but it was difficult to understand exactly what it was. He was talking for a while, though, and I paid little to no attention to him, as per usual with these people. It seems like I was the only one, though, because he made a killing selling what seemed to be nail files. I could not even begin to estimate how many he sold, but some people were buying two. The things you see in South America...

The bus once again stops, and the man asks for people going to Santa Marta to get off and take a taxi. This was confusing us even further, but we were off the bus, and it had driven away before we had a chance to realise what was going on. The nailfile salesman had also gotten off, and realised that we had been done over completely by the Colombian bus system, and kindly took it upon himself to help out a bunch of dazed and confused tourists. He started talking to all the taxis and negotiated a good price for us to go not to Santa Marta, like the bus was supposed to, but Taganga, where we wanted to go in the first place.

Taganga is a beautiful little village in the outskirts of Santa Marta where absolutely nothing ever happens. Exactly how a village on the Caribbean coast should be. Palm trees, fishing boats, and people serving fresh fruit juices on the beach. What more could anyone want?

I spent several days there doing nothing durring the day, and partying hard durring the night. The Caribbean is not famous for its rum for nothing, I can tell you that. Some of the best rum I have ever tasted costing us next to nothing.

After many nights on the trot like this, my friend and I woke up at about 1pm, and went in search of the taxi rank. We needed to get into Santa Marta to get to the nearest cash machine (what is it with towns in South America not having cash machines). On to get a taxi, we must have looked pretty lost, because a police man walks up to us and starts talking to us. Normally, with the questions he was asking, we would have been able to understand him no problem, but our brains were feeling rather fragile, so we had to get him to repeat everything several times.

Neither one of us really knew what was going on. Having a cop come up to you normally means that there is a problem, so when he pronounced the word "vamos" (let's go), we really started to worry. What have we done? What does he think we've done? Are we getting arrested?

He takes us to the police station where he talks to his boss for a bit, and then he takes us to the taxi rank where he and his other two policeman friends get into a taxi with us. So at this point, we had told them that we were going to Santa Marta to take money out, and the only sensible reason we could think of why they would be with us was that they wanted some kind of bribe for whatever reason they could come up with.

We were slowly waking up, and the more we talked to them, the more it seemed like they just wanted to take us into town so that we would not get mugged after taking money from the ATM. Suddenly the situation became amusing. We now have a police escort to the bank. This will be my first, and probably my last time.

Once we successfully took money out, they followed us into the restaurant we went to, and sat down in the chair next to us. Apparently, they were joining us for lunch, also. They were acting all chummy, and talked to us about music, and sports, and whatever else young men talk about, only they were dressed in full police uniform, and were carrying guns. One of them actually put his gun on the table before sitting down. Seemed kind of dangerous, but whatever.

Then came the time to pay for the bill, and - surprise, surprise - we were expected to pay for their lunch. This is when it became apparent why they had followed us in the first place. Difficult to say no to a Colombian policeman with a gun, though. That's probably why neither one of us tried.

The whole day was spent with them following us to the beach, and constantly asking us if we wanted a beer or something to drink, knowing full well that if we got one for ourselves, they would be able to get one on us. We kept using the excuse that we had had enough the night before, and that we did not want to drink again today, but they kept persisting, which became really annoying after a while, and that is when we decided to leave.

I am now back in Bogota, where I am making a quick stop before heading off to Equador. Colombia was nice, but everywhere I went was just more of the same. I am ready to see something new. Bring on the Galapagos!

San Gil

San Gil is a pretty little town who's main attraction is adventure sports. We stayed at a cool hostel run by and Australian backpacker. He was a nice guy, and told us about the town and he also seemed to know just about everything about Colombia. I learned quite a bit when I was there. He told us where the best places to eat were, as well as organising our hydrospeed and caving adventures.

Every day we would go to the market and take advantage of the fact that Colombia is the country with the biggest selection of fruit grown withing its boarder. At the markets you can go to have fresh fruit salads and some fresh fruit smoothies made right in front of you all for about 75p. A wonderful way to start any day if you ask me.

Hydrospeed

Hydrospeed - a small polyurethane floatation board, designed for descending rapids. The user rides the hydrospeed in a prone, semi-swimming position. The upper body rests on the board and the legs hang free in the water.

Going head first into some rapids. What a terrifying concept, and yet something that sounds like a lot of fun. The safety equipment consists of little more than a helmet and a life vest. Not much, but enough, I suppose. The crash course was short, but informative. It was more or less just to tell us how to hold on to the borad and to never let go of it. Pretty straighforward stuff.

Five minutes later and we were thrown into the river. To our advantage the weather was beautiful and the temperature quite high, so jumping into col water was somewhat refreshing.

We got to the first rapid almost immediately. It was exhilerating getting sucked down into the water and having my head poking through long enough to gasp for air before getting sucked right back down. Much like the swirlies often talked about in American movies and TV shows. For those not aware, a swirly is the act of repeatedly shoving someones head in a toilet while deploying the flush.

For maybe ten minutes the rapids kept on coming and there was very little time to breath between each submersion. There came a point when my hydrospeed and I were fully submerged for a while; shortly followed by a feeling that I might have to let go of the board, or I might die. That feeling went away rather quickly when I finally came up for air and saw that that was the last rapid for a long time. The river was as calm as a swimming pool after that until the end of the experience.

We arrived on shore in the city park which consists of a forest full of trees which looked like something found in Peter Jackson's Middle Earth. A magical setting.

Caving

Our final day in San Gil was spent wandering around in complete darkness with flash lights straped to our helmets. It was difficult at first to navigate my way around, as I was reduced to complete tunnel vision, but I was surprised at how quickly I became used to it.

There are several different sections to the cave. The first one was called the Cathedral. Simply an large opening after having to get on our knees due to a small tunnel leading to it. In there we saw some bats, and then turned our lights off and sat in the dark in complete silence. I don't think I have ever had all my senses completely shut off like that before. As we were sitting there, a bat flew right past my ear. The guide told us not to move because their radar system allows them to know where you are, but they get it wrong if you move.

The next section, the mud, was by far the most amusing. The whole point of this was get dirty. Frankly, I thought this would be the worst part of the whole thing, but I loved every second of it. I took my shoes off for this, and I am rather glad I did. We crawled for a couple of metres completely flat on the ground, and then ended up in a puddle of mud that went all the way up my knee. I do not know who started it, but we ended up having a mud fight. It went everywhere and would take days to wash off completely.

At this point, the guide was having so much fun that he suggested taking us to a part of the cave not usually seen by tourists. It would involve a difficult climb, but we all wanted to stay in there as long as we could.

We walked through the third section, which was supposed to be a river followed by a waterfall, but the river was almost completely dry. This is normally the place where people wash off all the mud, but we were not so lucky. Nevermind.

The climb was very difficult, it involved sending the tallest in the group up first by giving him some footholds with our hands. Once he was up, he would hoist everyone else up. Not exactly safety first, I would have rather had a rope or something, but no one got hurt and that is the main thing.

Villa de Leyva

We met a Colombian school teacher in our hostel who was writing a book on the Muisca civilization, the natives of Colombia before the European invasion. He told us that there is a site just outside of town where the Muiscas had planted some rocks in the ground (something in the same vein as stone henge) that would line up perfectly with the sunrise durring the equinox. As luck would have it the equinox was the very next day, so plans were made to wake up at 4:30 the next day to go to this site and witness this extra-ordinary bianual event.

I always hate having to get up before the sun rise, and this time was no different. We had left the hostel by 5, and we walked for about one hour to the site. When we arrived, the place was closed, and did not open until 9 o'clock. Entirely unacceptable! How could they commit such a crime to close this site at the one time when that makes it special? We were having none of it, and so went searching for a place to climb over the barb wire fence.

Once all nine of us had climbed over, we finally got a good look at the set up of the stones. The sun had not come out yet, but it seemed like full day light. Comparing it to stone henge would be rather unfair to the British monument, because, quite frankly, this was unimpressive. It was litterally just a bunch of rocks in the ground, but we sat and waited for the sun to rise. When it finally did is when the rock formations transformed as they were perfectly in line with the sun. What an exquisite sight it was.

The rest of the day was spent sitting around the town square sipping fresh fruit juices. Colombia is apparently the country with the biggest selection of fruit grown within the country, so they are all extremely tastey. On top of that, Villa de Leyva was considerably warmer than Bogota, which means we were all in shorts again. Hooray!

The town was being used for the filming of a TV mini-series based on the story of Zorro, so they had repainted part of the town square to make it look older. They had also set up a fake market as a set for one of the scenes. It was fun to watch everyone in period costume walking around town. Frankly, I could have spent days just sitting in the square drinking juice and watching things happen. The atmosphere was very enjoyable.

Despite that, the next day we went out on a hike to see some waterfalls where we got caught in the rain without raincoats. The weather was so beautiful when we left that no one even thought it could ever rain. So we all ended up getting really wet, but it was still pretty hot, so it just ended up being rather fun.

In the afternoon, we caught a bus over to San Gil where we would experience some adventure sports.

Catedral de Sal

Eight of us set out from the Platypus hostel armed with clever instructions on how to get to the salt cathedral neatly printed on a nice little slip of paper provided to us by the hostel. Very clear and consice directions indicating that two buses need to be taken in order to get to the town of Zapaquiri.

It just so happens that the bus stop next to the hostel was closed on this particular day, so we were facing an extra 11 block walk to the next one. How fun. It must however be stated that this was the only problem encountered on the way there thanks to the clever instructions on how to get to the salt cathedral neatly printed on a nice little slip of paper provided to us by the hostel.

Entrance is half price on Wednesdays, and being the good back-packers we are, we just can not say no to such an excellent bargain such as this one. We managed to save oyurselves a whole pound fifty! Something I would not even have batted an eye-lid over back home, but it makes a huge difference here.

The tour of the salt mine was in English, but frankly there is not much to be saif about a salt mine, so had the tour been in any other language I would not have missed much.

We walked through the tunnels for about 5 minutes before finally getting to the cathedral. Along the way were some statues representing the stages of the cross. All of this was neatly lit using fluorenscent lighting, but I could not figure out how they have done it becuase there were no cables anywhere. How does an electrician hide his work in a salt mine? Surely not plaster. Maybe that would have been a good question for the guide...

Despite this cool lighting - or maybe because of it - I was unable to take any pictures. Everything came out completely black. I suppose this is what I have to expect from the cheapest camera available at ASDA. This was the straw that broke the camel's back. I have put up with this pathetic excuse of a camera for long enough, and decided that I needed a new one. That crap cost me pictures of a beautiful sight.

The cathedral itself was very impressive. One of the biggest rooms I have even been in. It definately made me feel very insignificant stepping in such an enormous space. The first thing that came to mins was how excellent a cenue it would make. The acoustics were unbelievable, and I am sure it would have been possible to fit thousands of people. Everyone agreed.

The journey back to the hostel was far less simple than the one to the cathedral. The clever instructions on how to get to the salt cathedral neatly printed on a nice little slip of paper provided to us by the hostel forgot to tell us how to get back. It should not have been very difficult. Just take the same buses in the opposite direction. The only problem is that the bus lines going in the opposite direction are given completely different numbers and none of the bus drivers could agree on which bus we needed to take. We eventually just jumped on one even though the driver assured us that it would not take us to the right place. Good thing we paid no attention to him because we ended up exactly where we wanted.

Bogotà

2640 Metres above sea-level.

... and that is why, despite being right next to the equator, it is rather chilly here. I must say, I was rather quick to adopt the shorts and sandals, but they shall now remain a distant memory for there are very few warm places I plan on going to. The winter clothes have come out from the dark depths of my bag (where I had hoped they would stay a bit longer) to keep me from being cold up here in the mountains for the next few months.

Mind you, my threshold for cold is probably not what it used to be. It seems to have evolved over the last months, which is why I feel I must clarify when I say "cold". Durring the day, we can expect temperatures reaching up to 20 degrees, and down to maybe about 10 at night. Hardly a freezing Brittish winter,but I really got used to 35 degrees with humidity. Nonetheless, I have not let the brisk temperatures keep me from exploring this beautiful city.

I have been staying in a hostel that I have been told is in one of the safest places in the country, which is nice to know, but I am still not going to take and chances. The hostel is a building marked with nothing more than a painting of a duck-billed platypus next to the door. I think this was done initially so people would not know it was a hostel - an extra security measure, which is always welcom - but it now seems that all of Bogotà knows of it.

The "cold" is also high-lighted by the missing window panes. This can make for some pretty chilly nights, followed by mornings with cold showers. The hostel boasts hot water, but I have yet to witness it. One of the employees told us there was a trick to getting hot water from a tap with only one working knob, so we asked him to show us how.

On the way to the nearest bathroom, he was modestly telling us that Bogota had one of the best irrigation systems in the world, no less. Still, I was ready to listen to any old non-sense provided he could show me how to have a hot shower.

He got the water flowing by turning the knob very slowly. His hand went under the current to test the tempurature. The contact with the flow brought a smile to his face, and he informs us that the water is now hot. The trick was simply to turn the knob slowly.

The news pleased me greatly nd made me want to dest it for myself. I was distraught when the ice streaming from the shower burned my fingers, but he seemed so pleased with himself for having been able to provide "hot" water that I could not bring myself to tell him that I might die from hypothermia if I were to stand under there.

Apparently this is something I will have to get used to, especially if I make it to Bolivia. Hot water is rarely available, even in the higher altitudes due to the crippling poverty of the country. Not exactly a pleasant prospect, but I am sure I will get used to it.


When walking around the city, the first thing I noticed was a beautiful building on top of a mountain peak over-looking the city with a cable-car leading up to it. This church of Monerate is visible from almost everywhere in the city, and would serve as my North Star whenever I got lost, because it was even illuminated at night. Obviously, I had to go visit it, and did so on my first day in the city.

Once at the top, there is a view of the city, which is frankly not very nice. I was shocked to see that the city is rather ugly from above, when it is so beautiful in the streets. The view is much nicer on the other side of the mountain of a forest in a valley. The church itself is very beautiful, and I got there just when they started having a mass. I find these deadly boring when I can understand what they are saying, so I did not stay very long to witness this.

There are also many museums in the Bogotà. I have visited a few, ranging from really nice, to so boring that I left before seeing most of it. The gold museum, which I was told was "un-missable", was definately missable. I stayed there no more than five mintues, before leaving (thank god it was free). The police museum (which also sounded like it should have been a total flop) turned out to be one of the best experiences I have had in Bogotà.

I showed up to the museum, and door-man asked me where I was from, if I speak Spanish, how I had heard of the museum, etc. I explained to him that I had heard very good things about the museum, and he asked me to sit down, while he went to fetch me an English speaking guide. The guide was a 19 year old currently serving his military service. It was really interesting talking to him about Colombia while we walked around the museum. I am glad I am not Colombian, though, becuase he is now having a "restful" time as they work him 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. Normally, he works 15-17 hours per day.

At the end of the tour, he took me to see his major, who is the officer with the most years of service in all of Colombia. Apparently the major had requested to talk to me, which I made me feel somewhat nervous, but he was so friendly that I quickly felt at ease. He told me how he loved to meet people from foreign countries, especially the French, seeing as it was a Frenchman who was responsable for setting up the police in Colombia. When he was done complimenting me for being French, he gave me a chocolate, and sent me on my way with an enormous smile. I love this country.