22 de Junio - Salento, Zona Cafetera, Colombia
Salento is a small, sleepy town nestled in the foothills of the Andes mountains in the coffee growing region of Colombia. This town gives you the feeling of being in the heartland of Colombia (Juan Valdez land)...it is absolutely picturesque and quaint. There are vaqueros (cowboys) dressed in ponchos and donning straw hats, horses gallop through the streets, and the locals are warm and friendly. Here you find all the charms of a farming village where everyone knows their neighbors. Anytime someone enters a restaurant, bar or public bus, they greet everyone in the place with a warm ¨Buenas¨ short for Buenas Dias and all the ladies call eachother ¨Mami¨ short for Mamita. The streets are lined with colorful buildings and in the center of town there is a plaza surrounded by outdoor eateries and a big white church with a towering steeple and clock tower. The town is alive with the bustle of Colombian tourists on the weekends. Traditional Colombian folk music floating out through the windows and doors of dimly lit bars provides the soundtrack for the activity at night.
To get a better view of the town and surrounding mountains, we walked up the hill to a mirador where we could see the green mountains on the opposite side of Cocora Valley. The rolling hills are covered with green grass for grazing, and everything is so lush that it appears to be covered in felt from this distance. At the top of this hill there is a playground for kids, and people gather here in the evenings to watch the sunset as they sit around in a circle and chat. We sat on swings overlooking the expanse of hills that turn into mountains whose tops are eternally covered in clouds. The mountains look dreamlike, as if someone had taken a sheet of emerald green velvet and pushed the ends toward the center bunching the fabric together, creating soft folds and creases in the otherwise smooth and soft material. Under the light of the setting sun, the green hills glimmered with golden highlights and purple shadows. In the trees below there were exotic birds flying from branch to branch and singing. As we sat on the swings and tried to memorize these incredible images (we knew that no photos would do this justice), we noticed a soldier dressed in camouflage out of the corner of our eye. He was approaching from a bush covered trail nearby. He was carrying a gun and didn´t look like other Colombian police officers that we had seen in bigger cities. For a moment our hearts stopped as we wondered if these men dressed in camo toting heavy artillery might be guerillas. We hushed our voices and decided to pretend we were from Canada if asked. Two soldiers passed in front of us and we quietly observed that none of the Colombians in the park were panicking in their presence. In fact, one of the soldiers was leaning down to pet a woman´s puppy and other soldiers were having pleasant exchanges with locals on the hill. So, when another group of soldiers passed in front of us, we mustered up the courage to greet them and ask if we could take a photo of them. Up close they looked like kids and they seemed friendly. They happily agreed to pose for a picture and asked where we were from. We gave eachother knowing looks and told the truth and they didn´t even turn their guns on us. One of the soldiers said, ¨Bring back Clinton!¨ With that they went off to patrol the mountains outside of Salento. Apparently Clinton has a fan club here in Colombia, as we noticed that he was just in Bogota a few days ago for a speaking engagement. It was good to see pictures of him on TV walking down the streets of Bogota freely. When Bush came a few years ago, he brought 15,000 troops and the people of Cartagena were not allowed in the streets during his brief stay. After our interaction with the soldiers we sat in our swings basking in the glow of that exchange and wondered again how Colombia got such a horrible reputation, because as we are discovering first hand, even the men who should be threatening have gone out of their way to be nice.
In Salento we stayed at a place called Posada del Cafe, which is the most charming little inn in town. Our hosts were Señora Maria Elena, her lady-in-waiting Alba Maria, and a yellow lab named Addie. We were their only guests, so we got special treatment. When we arrived, the Señora sat us down, brought us glasses of mora (blackberry) juice, and helped us plan our days in Salento. She lived in Virginia for a few years, so she speaks great English. The inn is built around a garden where flowers, strawberries, blackberries, herbs and lulo trees abound. Lulo is a fruit that looks like a kiwi, but the juice tastes like apple cider. Every afternoon our señora brought us a cup of tinto (coffee) to drink while we relaxed on the veranda with Addie and watched the most colorful birds come to feed on the fruit that Maria Elena left out for them. The decor and construction of the inn is that of a U-shaped ranch house with open-air verandas, wooden floors, and brightly painted accents (turqoise and yellow). Our room had double doors with windows in each door that opened up to the street outside where we would occasionally hear the clip clop of horses trotting by.
On our first night in Salento, Maria Elena recommended a restaurant for dinner, so we walked there and were immediately in awe of its location on the hilltop overlooking the valley. We ate trucha (trout) prepared Salento style, baked whole and served in a bubbing hot skillet with cream sauce, mushrooms, and shrimp accompanied with patacones (a fried plantain cracker). The ambience of this place was so romantic and we were the only customers, so we had this beautiful dining room all to ourselves. We were intently looking out the window at the valley below as it began to grow dark outside and Billy spotted fireflies (luciernagas) flashing and glowing in the shadows of the trees in the distance. Jen had never seen fireflies before and they impressed her with their random twinkling green lights. They looked like flying embers shooting from the center of a hot fire or shooting stars in the night sky. We walked back to our hostel by the light of the moon and felt the travel gods smiling upon us. It was a very special day in the heart of Colombian Zona Cafetera.
The next day we hiked to Acaime Reserve in Cocora Valley. There were enough trails to spend two days exploring, but we didn´t have time to see everything. We started our day at 7am with an hour long willy (jeep) ride into the valley, which dropped us off at the trailhead. The highlight of the hikes in Acaime is a waterfall called Estrella de Agua, but we settled on hiking to a closer mirador and from there we could see the waterfall in the nearby mountains. The trail started in the valley, which is home to hundreds of tall wax palm trees (Colombia´s national tree) and later the trail ascended into cloud forest, where it was misty and constantly rained lightly. The trail was muddy and the air was damp and cool...perfect conditions for hiking. The path followed the rushing Quindio River most of the way. We stopped at the ranger station and talked with a couple that lives in the reserve about politics, coca growing, the increase of extranjeros (foreign travelers) in recent years, the decrease of problems that the country was plagued with 3 years ago. We drank agua de panela (hot water, raw sugar and lime) and watched hummingbirds come by the dozen to feed on sugar water that had been left out in bowls and feeders for them. We were given a tour of the accomodations offered to students of flora and fauna and travelers. Had we known better, we would´ve stayed in Acaime for one night and hiked around for two days in order to see more. We finished our hike at around 2pm and had lunch at a small restaurant near the trailhead.
The next jeep wasn´t scheduled to depart for Salento for another 2 hours, so we decided to walk back to town instead of waiting for a ride. We got halfway to Salento in an hour, and just before the road began an uphill climb, we were offered a ride in the back of a truck by some friendly cowboys. It was a bumpy ride, but we were so happy to get back to town that much quicker. As we bounced around in the back of the truck, we watched the green hills pass by and enjoyed the company of those cowboys.
The following day we went to the Mariposaria (butterfly preserve and botanical gardens) in Kalarca. It was amazing to see so many different kinds of butterflies in various shapes and sizes fluttering around a beautiful enclosed botanical garden. This botanical garden was inside of a greenhouse that was shaped like a butterfly. The surrounding grounds were impressive as well. There was a building devoted to insects, with ant farms, bee hives and a large collection of dried insects on display. We skipped the tour because we wanted to avoid the crowd and go at our own pace, but we befriended a security guard (Christian) who took us on our own private tour of the butterfly exhibit. He showed us how to get a butterfly to land on our finger by dipping our fingers in juice from oranges that are left out as food for them. We got an upclose look at these mythical creatures as they sat on our fingers and used their tickling tongues to lap up the juice.
Afterwards we went to lunch in downtown Armenia, where two boys were performing for the customers in a traditional Colombian restaurant. We invited them to sit with us and they eagerly played the only American song they knew (Nothing Else Matters by Metallica). We asked if they were vaqueros because they were dressed in cowboy hats and ponchos, and Camilo and Leandro proudly replied that they were ¨campocheenos¨. The guitar player (Camilo) was such a charmer, the right personality for show business. He wanted us to guess his age as Leandro flashed 13 fingers behind his friend´s back. He was so surprised when we guessed correctly, his eyes were as wide as saucers. Both boys were extremely talented musicians. They sang traditional Colombian songs, one of which was very sad. The lyrics were about war, people dying, and violence in the pueblo. They sang with sweet voices, and we were not the least bit embarrassed when we alone clapped enthusiastically for them as if we were proud parents.
Back at our hostel, we spent a lot of time talking with Maria Elena about Colombia. She told us that she remembers her father talking about the leftist organizations and their ideas when she was a child. Fifty years ago they may have had more honorable political intentions, but today the guerilla organizations (FARC and ELN) have been reduced to living in the mountains in hiding, terrorizing citizens with random kidnappings, and forcing farmers to give them money in order to finance their operations. It seems very counterintuitive that a leftist organization steals from and victimizes the poorest of Colombia´s people like the farmers. We wondered how the current situation has become so bleak.
Colombia has been a country in turmoil since its inception (post independence from Spain). There has always been conflict between centralizing pro-clerical Conservatives and federalizing anti-clerical Liberals. Civil wars including The War of the Thousand Days in 1899 when 100,000 people were killed have been the norm. La Violencia was another civil war from 1948-1957 during which time 300,000 people were killed. This war was followed by 16 years of peace when both parties declared a truce, supported the same candidate, and evenly divided all political offices between them. During the 1980s the conservative president offered amnesty to the guerilla movements, but only FARC upheld the agreement and in the next election when the Liberal party took the majority, right-wing groups revolted and killed over 1,000 party members and assassinated two presidential candidates. In the 1990s under Liberal goverments there was the capture or surrender of most of the leading Cali drug lords, but the US decertified Colombia from its list of countries making progress against drugs trafficking, so without US aid for the establishment of alternative crops many communities had no means of support. In the late 1990s the US withdrew decertification restrictions and in 1998 the president (Pastrana) negotiated with FARC and conceded a demilitarized zone in Caqueta. ELN then demanded similar treatment and stepped up its campaign. Pastrana devised Plan Colombia to combat the drugs trade and the US gave $1.6 billion for the cause, which bought military and anti-narcotics equipment and funded crop substitution. Spraying coca crops has not been effective, as it has given rise to the production of opium poppies instead. Both left-wing guerillas and right-wing paramilitaries are involved in the drugs trade. Paramilitary groups like AUC are waging their own war against FARC and ELN. The current president in 2002 (Alvaro Uribe Velez) ruled with anti-guerilla policies and introduced new anti-terrorism laws, but violence continued through 2004. In April 2004 AUC agreed to disarm and restrict itself to a small area of the Cordoba province. Colombians seem to have a positive attitude about the current president. The number of kidnappings has dropped significantly in the past year, and tourism is on the rise.
With a history of turmoil and violence by insurgents the people seem to live in a constant state of fear despite the evidence that it is becoming safer here. Maria Elena told us the Colombians are la gente sana, and when we looked up the word sana, we found that it means recovering. She says that she hopes future generations will live in peace. She tells us that Salento is completely safe and that nothing ever happens in her sleepy town, but she lowers her voice to a whisper when she talks about FARC. She tells us that they are on the run in the mountains miles away from Salento, but then she puts her index finger beneath her eye to show us that they are always watching.
We now understand why Colombians are so religious, because for generations they have lived in fear this way. They haven´t been able to turn to their government or to the police for protection, so their options are either to join forces with a paramilitary group to fight against the guerillas or to pray to God for their safety.
20 de Junio - Armenia, La Zona Cafetera, Colombia
We arrived by bus from Medellin, jumped in a taxi, and headed to a Finca (coffee farm) in the heart of Colombia´s coffee growing region. Over the past 10 years coffee prices have gone down a lot with the introduction of cheaper coffee beans from Africa and Brazil, so La Zona Cafetera in Colombia has had to make the necessary adjustments. What was once all coffee ranches is now a patchwork of coffee, banana, bamboo, and green grazing pastures for cows and sheep. Fincas are the ranch houses that sit on the agricultural properties, and now many welcome tourists. Over the years since coffee has gone down in price, tourism has flourished in the area to supplant what has been lost in coffee related revenues. Therefore, most of these Fincas have swimming pools, restaurants, and all the amenities of upscale hotels. We made our base La Finca Bonito Alto, about 5 miles from the nearest town of Montenegro.
Most of the tourists in La Zona Cafetera are Colombians from Bogota, Medellin and Cali trying to escape city life by heading to the rural part of the country. It is very family oriented, and most people drive or rent cars to get around if they fly there. The area is not really well set up for people like us who do not have cars. We figured this out our first night after we watched a spectacular sunset over the banana and coffee fields in our backyard. We decided to head out to find a restaurant and walked along the road in the direction of the nearest town. Everything is well spread out, so we walked for about an hour to get there, half the time in the dark. The task was a little more than we signed up for, but we decided that walking was better than flagging down a car. However, once we got there we had a very nice meal in a local restaurant. The owner gave us free dessert and coffee, would not accept any payment, and then found us a taxi to get us home.
The main attraction in the area is El Parque del Cafe, which is part museums about the coffee industry, part National Park, part coffee growing zone, and part amusement park. Again we headed off on foot to the Park, not far from our Finca. We kept noticing jeeps driving by with 12-15 people on them. They are the local form of transportation, and called "Willys" by the locals. Each one has three people up front, 6 in back, 3 on the roof, and 4 people standing on the rear bumper holding on. Everybody has a Willy in this area, they are definitely as important to the people here as a Ford or Chevy pickup is to those who live South of the Mason Dixon line back home. As we continued along the road past many coffee, banana and bamboo Fincas, a guy stopped and let us jump in the back of his Willy and he took us to the Coffee Park, again he would not accept any money, he just smiled and drove off.
The Coffee Park is a perfect place for a family vacation. It has all you need to keep a family happy. Lots of good walking around beautiful bamboo forests, expansive coffee fields, roller coasters, and a small town built in traditional stylings with restaurants and a guy dressed as Juan Valdez standing with three mules carrying coffee bags and posing for photos. The most interesting part were the museums. They have all the great coffee plantation owners of the past pictured on the walls in the museum, and it was funny how they all looked exactly like Juan Valdez. Each one wore the same style ranch hat, a lightweight poncho, and had a small mustache. The icon Juan Valdez is truly the exact replica of everyone that built the coffee industry here years ago.
As the day progressed we got sick of the tourists and amusement rides, so we went to look at the coffee plantations. Coffee is a beautiful plant. A mature plant stands at about 8 feet tall, with dark green leaves that are very shiny and reflective, and covered with beans, red ones are ripe, green are not yet. We were able to walk through the rows, pick beans, and get to understand the growing, harvesting, and roasting methods. We had one guide explain to us different roasting methods, and after her explanation she asked where we were from. When we told her the States she said, "Thank you for being the greatest consumers of coffee in the world." Colombian coffee is the most premium in the world, and Colombians are proud of this fact. It is very uncouth to drink coffee here with milk. The coffee is so smooth, silky and mild that it is always taken black and sometimes sweetened with sugar. It is insulting to put milk in it, milk is for Brazilian coffee, as the locals will point out.
That night we did not want to go on another long walk down the dark street for dinner, so we asked the owners of the Finca what we could do. They went ahead and ordered food for us, went to pick it up in their Willy, and drove it back for us to eat there by the pool. For dessert they harvested some mandarin oranges from their trees (the best we have ever had) and gave them to us. This is another place where we felt so incredibly safe, but noticed that the Finca employed a guard to walk the grounds at night with a slung shotgun. In Colombia it is easy to feel secure, but there are always reminders of days past when you see the armed guards that are everpresent. We couldn´t help but compare this area to wine country back home. It is rural and beautiful, with a slow pace of life, but also well developed for tourism.
14 de Junio - Medellin, Colombia
We flew into Medellin from Cartagena as we have been told that it is not a good idea to take night bus rides in Colombia. We arrived as the sun was setting, and saw all the mountains that surround the city light up as the sun dove deeper into the Andes. Our first impression of Medellin as we took a cab into the city was how modern it is. It is unlike any other city we have seen so far in South America, very modern and quite large, it has almost 2 million residents. The airport is about 30 minutes away from the city, and the last 15 minutes of the ride are spent going down a pretty steep hill that drops you right into the center of the city. The city is a bit like San Francisco with all the hills, but has much nicer weather.
We arrived the night before our 1 year anniversary, so we decided to stay in a nice hotel. On the plane we found a coupon for a weekend special at the Dann Carlton in the El Poblado section of Medellin, and decided to take it with us to the hotel to see if it would work. It was the first time we have stayed in a really nice place for 6 months, and it was quite a treat. We felt a little out of place when we cruised into the hotel lobby of this fancy place, but we quickly became accustomed to the good life. The room was huge with a bath tub, mini bar, huge TV with cable, room service, and plenty of space, all things that we never get in hostals. The hotel also had a pool, sauna, hot tub and gym, which we took full advantage of the whole time we were there. We felt so spoiled at the fancy hotel that we did not leave the grounds for both days we were there. They had to practically drag us out when it was time to check out and move down town into a hostal. We did get to rub elbows with the wealthy Colombians, and noticed two things. One, plastic surgery is quite common, and two, older men dating much younger women is also quite common. We observed a lot sitting around the pool for two days.
Our little piece of heaven ended abruptly as we got in the cab to go to a hostal we had chosen, and the cab driver couldn´t find it, so he just let us off downtown in the middle of a rainstorm. We were soaked walking around downtown Medellin with our backpacks, and once we found the hostal we were looking for, it was fully booked so we had to keep going. In typical Colombian fashion, a guy came right up to us and asked in English if we were lost. We told him we thought we knew where we were going, showed him our destination in the book, and he laughed and then he pointed us in the opposite direction and told us how to get there. He even offered to show us the way if we wanted. One thing that is impossible to escape in Colombia, the people are incredibly friendly and helpful, and always look out for tourists. We eventually found a nice hostal and were able to dry off and get some food before it got too late.
The next day we took the metro (Medellin has a very modern metro system) a few stops down the line to a couple of museums and the botanical gardens. The Medellin Botanical Gardens could use a little help, it was just a park with an old bog in the middle with garbage floating in it. The entrance to the park was half off if we were students, and we have often tried to claim student status to get discounts, but it has never worked. At the Botanical Gardens here, the guy basically told us that we were students without us even bringing it up, and gladly let us in for half price with a little wink. However, even half price was too much for the shoddy gardens.
The next day we went to all the different art museums and public parks where sculpture is displayed. A very famous artist named Botero is from Medellin, and the entire city is like a shrine to his work. There are huge bronze sculptures of his all over town in public places. One of the most interesting is in San Antonio Plaza, where he erected a huge piece called "Bird of Peace." It was partially blown up in 1995 by a bomb during the heart of the cartel wars in Medellin and Cali. 15 people died in the explosion, mostly children. He then donated another piece, that is exactly the same, to sit directly next to the broken and shattered remnants of his original piece in the park. He wanted everyone to see what the violence of the drug wars really looked like. It is a sad reminder. We also went to the museum of Antioquia (the name of Medellin´s province), where they have dedicated an entire floor to Botero. In a lot of his work you see traces of the violent history of Medellin. One piece is the called "The Death of Pablo Escobar," the now deceased head of the Medellin Cartel, and depicts him being ravaged by bullets. Although Botero is certainly the most important son of Medellin, Pablo Escobar continues to be the most well-known. So much so that in Cartagena we were shown what they now call Pablito Island, which is one of the places Escobar had a house in the ´90s during his reign.
In the evenings we walk around the streets and take in the sights, and eat at one of the many outdoor cafe´s that line the streets on the second floor of buildings. Our favorite past time is to watch the public city buses go by. They are amazingly painted, all different colors in racing stripe patterns, with huge dual chrome exhaust pipes in back, three or four different colored spoilers on the top, and either flashing police lights or neon lights flashing all over the bus. They are hilarious. Each bus looks like a roving party, and some of them have salsa or rumba blaring out of the windows. Our guess is that the drivers take a lot of pride in their buses, and trick them out to their own styles.
Medellin is really a very livable place, and nothing like what we though it would be. It has almost perfect weather year round, and the peole are great hosts. It is also where most of the textiles in Colombia are made, so tomorrow we are going shopping for cheap clothes as well as chocolates and coffee, two of Colombia´s best exports.
10 de Junio - Santa Marta & Tayrona National Park
We heard about Santa Marta through a fellow traveler, and since we were not in a hurry to leave the Caribbean part of Colombia, we decided to add the small town of Santa Marta to our itinerary. The beaches in Santa Marta were not all that picturesque, but the town (1/3 the population of Cartagena) was a nice change of pace from Cartagena. Santa Marta has a natural bay, which makes it an ideal shipping port. We spent one day exploring the town and beaches nearby and the next day we went to Tayrona National Park.
To avoid an organized tour of Tayrona National Park, we took a local bus to a collectivo (sort of like a carpool), then hiked to the coast through the park. The hike was stunning. We were shaded by the canopy of the dense jungle as we walked along a muddy path, sometimes crossing streams, listening to the cicadas, birds and rustling of the trees. It was hot and humid and we were dripping with sweat, but we had our eyes on the prize, which was the reward of a dip into the ocean at our final destination. There were hundreds of butterflies fluttering around us so quickly that it was difficult to examine their incredible shapes and colors. Some were white with black tips on their wings, some were black and orange striped, some were brown and had wings shaped like a horn. The leaves from the towering trees fell off their branches and floated down through the sweet, heavy air to land gently like butterflies descending. After hiking for an hour, we reached the ocean and we were happy to jump in and cool off. The first beach we arrived at was called Arrecifes and it was practically deserted. Looking inland from the shore yielded an amazing view of this white sand beach with crystal blue water against a backdrop of jungle covered mountains looming above. Here the Sierra Nevada mountain range rises 18,000 feet above the coastline, and during the cooler parts of the year, the mountaintops are covered with snow. The mountains jutting out from the beaches make for a dramatic juxtaposition of nature at her best.
There was a strong current at Arrecifes, so we walked 15 minutes down the beach to a place called La Piscina, which couldn´t have been more like a swimming pool unless the water was chlorinated. It was absolute paradise. There were only a few other people at this beach, so we practically had it to ourselves. It was tranquil and tucked away, like a well kept secret. The waves were kept out of the calm pool by reef that nearly enclosed the small bay, which formed a perfectly circular protected area where we swam and floated on our backs in the warm, turqoise oasis of ocean. We drank water from a coconut and basked in the sun of the beach made of course sand. Before we hiked back, we returned to Arrecifes and played in the waves like children. The sand there was as fine as flour and was the color of salt and pepper. On our hike back we spotted a medium size, furry animal in the brush that we hoped was a capybara (a semi-aquatic rodent of South America that weighs about a hundred pounds and is about 2 feet tall at the shoulder). It ran away quickly, so we didn´t get a good look at it. We were hoping to see monkeys or snakes too, but instead we saw a bunch of kids at a summer camp retreat playing a game in which they ran around in a circle holding hands and singing LA CUCARACHA.
On our last night in Santa Marta, we watched the sunset over the bay. The sun dunked down into the horizon with hundreds of changing colors in the sky as tropical storm clouds moved in and lightning bolts illuminated the ocean below. We sat at the water´s edge drinking tinto and admiring the view.
7 de Junio - Cartagena Parte 2
Before we arrived in Colombia, we did our research to make sure that it was a safe place to travel. We talked to other travelers we met in South America who had been to Colombia, we read the warnings posted on State Department web sites, we scanned recent news stories. We got very conflicted information from all of these sources. Most travelers told us that it was safe as long as you avoid travel by bus at night and stay out of the rural areas controlled by paramilitary groups. State Department web sites for the US, Austrailia, Canada, and England advised against travel in Colombia. We read warnings about kidnappings, reports of the use of an odorless, colorless drug that is put in food or drink to knock victims out and take advantage of them, we heard about express kidnappings in which the victim is taken to the ATM and forced to withdraw cash and hand it over. These are things that would scare even the most daring traveler away. After all the bad news we heard about Colombia, we half expected to be greeted by guerillas the moment we stepped off the airplane, to read about kidnappings in the newspaper everyday, to be poisoned, or at the very least to feel terrified for our safety the entire time we were in the country.
Perhaps we have been extremely lucky so far, or things are more stable now than they have been in the recent past. The current unrest in Bolivia proves that timing is everything when traveling in South America. Our timing in Bolivia couldn´t have been better. When we traveled there a couple of months ago, there were no signs of roadblocks, protests, or chaos. The current protests in La Paz would have prevented us from seeing much of Bolivia if it was on our itinerary now. We see that the fragile balance of social stability in South American countries can be easily and quickly upset. Toca madera (knock on wood), but so far we have not seen anything that has made us feel threatened in Colombia in any way. We are being extremely careful and following the advice we get from locals, but we can´t help but wonder why this amazing country has such a bad reputation now that we have seen it for ourselves. There is a real paranoia about Colombia that we think might be based on disinformation. When GW Bush was here in November last year to meet their president, he brought 15,000 armed police and military officers with him for protection. Cartageneros were not able to leave their homes or park their cars on the street. Everyone we talk to here says that the best thing that we can do for Colombia is to go home and spread the word about how much we enjoy our experiences and that it is safe to travel here.
In one week we witnessed only 3 small episodes of social disruption. A fight broke out on the beach in Boca Grande one afternoon and a crowd gathered around, but quickly dispersed. It was over as quickly as it started. Another day when we were walking around the center of the old city we saw a small boy throwing beer bottles at a security guard outside of a storefront and in the presence of a dozen street vendors. We watched as the kid broke bottles on the sidewalk and then held them out and threatened to throw them at the vendors and the security officer. A few minutes later, the boy dropped the bottles and ran away with his bare feet and the problem was solved. There was a commotion outside on the street one day when we were eating lunch at a restaurant in the center, but that died down and we never heard any more about it. For such a friendly and laid back culture, we do notice strife, desperation, and volatility beneath the serene surface. We never saw outbursts of violence like this in any other place (except for a fight over a traffic incident in Trujillo, Peru), but even so, we feel very safe here. The only time we have felt afraid was during a cab ride. The Colombians are crazy behind the wheel and from what we can tell, traffic violations go unchecked here. The authorities probably have other things to worry about.
We have found Colombians to be friendlier than people we have met anywhere else. We heard that they are protective of foreigners, and this may be why we have been greeted with open arms, but we sometimes can´t believe how generous and caring complete strangers have been. On the street we are often approached by Colombianos asking if we need help ("Are you lost?") or wanting to know where we are from ("¿De donde son ustedes?"). That last question is funny because they never guess that we are American, but we obviously stick out like sore thumbs here and are easily recognized as foreigners. Most of the time they guess that we are from England, France, Germany...anywhere but the good ole EEUU. The first time you frequent a restaurant, bar or store you are welcomed in and given special treatment, the second time they shake your hand and treat you like an old friend, on the third visit they introduce you to their family. Maybe they invite you to move in with them on the fourth visit, but we haven´t been anywhere four times yet, so we aren´t sure about that yet.
Needless to say, we were pleasantly surprised by our first encounter with Colombia in Cartagena. The street that our hotel was located on was colorful and lively, and probably not the kind of environment we would ever find ourselves in if we were stateside (if such a barrio exists in the States). It is interesting how when traveling you lose inhibitions or prejudices about places and people, because if you have never been to a place before and you have no prior references, you approach people and situations with a clean slate and an open heart. The neighborhood that we called home in Cartagena for a week was located in the historic zone of the city inside the 400 year old wall that once protected Cartagena from being sacked by pirates. No matter the time of day or night, when we walked down our street, we were sure to be greeted by our neighbors. There were people hanging out on the corners drinking, socializing, and escaping the heat. Old men sat around a circle and playfully argued at the top of their lungs while wildly gesticulating. Entire families set up chairs outside their homes on the pavement so that they could watch the activity on the street...it was like a block party, complete with music. Inside homes the music was turned up so that it could be heard outside. Each frontyard was transformed into a discotec. As you walk down the narrow calles and take in all the sights, sounds and scents from each house, your senses are busy and content. When we first arrived in Colombia, we were nervous about all the warnings we had been given and we experienced culture shock from the sudden introduction to Caribbean South America. The Caribbean influence is so different from the Andean culture of most of the rest of South America. There is a completely different energy here. However, after our first night there, we were comfortable and looked forward to the walk down our street to feel the heartbeat of life in Cartagena.
Cartagena is visually beautiful. Downtown in the historic district the buildings are painted in bright colors that are peeling and chipping to reveal muli-colored layers beneath. A beautiful black woman who set up her fruit stand in the shade of a doorway flashes her wide, bashful smile inviting you to buy fruit sliced in halves to show off their colors and sweet aroma. The huge, ornate doorknockers in shapes of pirates, mermaids, and other fanciful creatures invite you to enter people´s homes through giant wooden gateways that resemble ancient sea-faring vessels. Houses have wooden verandas with flowers and vines flowing down from them and there are shady open-air patios tucked away in the center of homes. When we arrived at the airport, the first thing that we noticed was a woman dressed in all brown with chocolate color skin, who was balancing a bowl of candied coconut treats on her head.
It´s so hot that you feel like you could melt, and it doesn´t even cool down at midnight, but every lunch comes with a hot soup and Cartageneros drink hot cups of tinto (coffee served in a dixie cup) all day. The food and drink is excellent in Colombia. Our favorite thing on the menu is coconut rice. Limes here are nothing like limes at home. Here they are sweet and fragrant like a flower. Limonada is made with limes, sugar and ice all blended together until frothy and it is sweet and refreshing. Aguila is the name of the local beer and there is nothing better than a cold beer in this heat. We have developed stomachs of steel, we can eat anything now and we don´t get sick. We have eaten everything from the street vendor´s carts including sausage, grilled corn-on-the-cob, meat shishkabobs, shrimp cocktail, arepas with cheese (arepas are a fried maize cake). In the Andes we ate mostly rice and potatoes, but here in the Caribbean the staples are rice and beans and the food and drink have a tropical flair.
There are some major differences between life here and life at home. The best of these differences is check-out time. Check-out time in Colombian hotels and hostels is at 3pm, which is great for people like us who aren´t usually in a rush. Another interesting difference we have seen is that mineral water doesn´t come in bottles, it comes in plastic bags, which makes drinking water a different animal. Religion is a major part of daily life for some here. On a plane ride as we were taking off, we looked over at the girl sitting across the aisle from us and she was doing the sign of the cross...father, son, holy spirit. At the airport phone kiosk, the woman working there had to finish counting her rosary beads before she could answer our question. Anytime someone asks Billy´s age and we tell them that he is 33 the reply is always the same, "Oh, that was the age of Jesus!" The payphones are so expensive here that everyone uses cell phones, and if they don´t own a cell phone, they pay to use someone else´s phone. There are people on the street who charge to use their cell phone for making calls with. Everyone stands outside their shops and says "A la orden" as people pass, which means something like "At your service" or "Can I help you?"
So far we are absolutely thrilled with our travels in Colombia, and we´re happy that we didn´t let Colombia´s bad reputation stand in the way of a good experience here.
6 de Junio - Cartagena, Colombia
We flew from Quito through Bogota to Cartagena. We heard that crossing the border over land to Colombia can be a bit dicey, so we decided to take a flight to Colombia instead. Cartagena is on the Caribbean, and therefore is quite hot, but the city is an incredible mixture of Latin and Caribbean cultures. We took a taxi from the airport to our guest house in the Getsemani part of Cartagena. When we arrived we felt like we were in a totally different world. The culture, sounds, and sights are much different than what we had become accustomed to seeing in the Andean regions of South America. We were a little nervous about being in Colombia since we have heard so much negative news about the country, so when we wanted to go get dinner our first night the owner of our guest house sent his daughter to walk us to the restaurant to ease our nerves. As we walked through the narrow streets, there were people sitting outside of their doorsteps, each with different sounds of salsa, cumbia, and different caribbean beats blasting out of the houses. People were dancing, drinking, socializing, cooling off, and playing soccer or baseball in the streets. It felt like a giant party. We both felt that it looked exactly like the pictures we have seen of Cuba. There was a group of 5 old men sitting on chairs on the side of the street drinking and arguing about God knows what with their hands flying all over the place and their voices raised. Every once in a while they would all start laughing and sit back down before another argument would start up. It was a great scene to watch.
We spent some time walking around the main square, where a troop of local Caribbean dancers no more than 16 years old perform different dances every night. They move thier bodies so quickly and with amazing precision, we were mesmerized by their performances. The girls wear white dresses, and the boys wear yellow shirts and blue pants, that look like pirate gear. The streets are filled with horse drawn carriages, and people walking around the city looking for restaurants and bars and salsa clubs. We ate at a very nice place right on San Pedro de Claver Plaza, and then explored a bit before we got in a taxi to go home. We were exhausted from travel and from generally being so nervous about going to Colombia, but realized that Cartagena is a safe city designed for nightlife.
The next day we went out to explore the city by foot. The city is just absolutely spectacular. It is surrounded by a huge wall that was used to keep the pirates out and erected in the late 1680s, complete with the old canons still intact surrounding the city. The city is full of colonial style houses and buildings, but they all are painted very bright, tropical colors, so it makes the place look almost like a hollywood set, too good to be true. We wandered all throughout the city, avoiding the many street vendors who won`t let you pass if you show any interest in any of their products, but also meeting people and having some great conversations. The most common hustle is to try and get you to buy emeralds. Something like 75% of the emeralds in the world are from Colombia, and they try to sell them to you all over the street. We met one guy who was trying to get us to go into a store for emeralds, but instead he just came with us as we ate breakfast, and talked with us until we were done then he went back to work. The people here are all very friendly, more so than any other place we have been. Later in the day we were invited to a friend of a friend´s house for Colombian coffee (Tinto) and an orientation to Cartagena. We talked about politics and all kinds of things, and agreed that because Colombia has such a bad name, people don`t come to visit as much as they should.
The next day we went down to the beach to a part of town called Bocagrande. The water is incredibly warm, but since a river lets out right next to the city, the water is not crystal clear. The beach, like the town, is filled with vendors selling crabs, oysters, massages, hats, t-shirts, and just about everything else a tourist would want. It is a little too aggressive though, as once you sit down you have at least five people trying to massage you, fit you for a t-shirt, put sun glasses on you, and shove crab meat in your mouth (which is supposed to be dangerous to eat because it is out in the sun all day). Our relaxing day at the beach was not relaxing at all, and we decided that there must be a better way to beat the heat.
The next day was Billy`s birthday, so we decided to splurge a little bit. We went to the fanciest hotel in town and sat around their pool during the day. We pretended we didn`t know any Spanish when they asked us our room number, and were never bothered again. We had a mojito in their sleek bar and watched the Colombia versus Peru soccer game with a bunch of crazy Colombian fans, then moved on to Cafe del Mar for sunset. Cafe del Mar is set outside on the Western wall of the city. They play perfect sunset music and the weather is perfect as the sun goes down and so does the heat. We were joined by Stewart, and Australian guy we met in Ecuador, and a couple we had met on the beach from San Diego the day before. We all had a few drinks, then went to dinner at a fancy restaurant in the old town. After that, we went to watch salsa dancing in the square where the place was totally alive with people and music, and we took in the sights until we walked home at about 2:00am.
The next evening we were invited to go salsa dancing by the daughter of the owner of our hostal, Daniella, who is 17. Her Dad was going to come with, but could not, so it ended up just being Jen, Billy, Daniella and her boyfriend David. Her poor Dad looked so concerned letting his only daughter out to go dancing, as we think he was only doing it as a favor to us. We had a lot of fun dancing, even though we have a long way to go before we can call ourselves proficient salsa dancers. We had a curfew imposed by Daniella`s Dad, so we escorted the youngsters home by midnight. It was a bit sad for Billy, who realized that he is now twice as old as them, but we were both able to keep up with them pretty well. Daniella`s Dad was very happy to have his daughter home in one piece, and has since taken on the role of social chair for us. Every day he has a different plan of what we can do, and where we should eat. They really look after us, as does everyone in this city. When we were at the beach we went to a pharmacy to get a bottle of water, and the guy that worked there very timidly asked Billy, "Excuse me sir, but do you have any suntan lotion on?" Seeing Billy´s light skin made him truly concerned about us spending time in the sun.
We have also tried to take the ferry to the islands off the coast where there are beautiful white sand beaches and blue waters, but it has rained heavily the last two days. We walked to the port to get on the boat in a tropical downpour, and in the biggest surprise of the trip, they let us change our tickets for the next day with no charge. Something like that happening in South America is quite rare, and we could hardly believe it. When we asked the lady at the counter to change our tickets, she called her mother who also works there, introduced us to her, and they made the change right there, no hay problema. Again, it just feels like everyone is looking out for us here.
After a few nights of going out we are tired and need a night off, so we will see if we can avoid the nice people at the guest house who have offered again to show us around town and take us to another salsa club. If the weather is good we are going to head to the Islas Del Rosario tomorrow.
Fin de Mayo - Quito, Ecuador
We were in Quito for a few days on our way to Colombia. We spent time walking around the old city, cathedrals, and colonial plazas. On Sundays the old city shuts down the streets to traffic, so we wandered around and took in the sights. Our Sunday routine has become similar to the routine of the locals. We have a set lunch at a local restaurant that is crowded with churchgoers and their families dressed in their Sunday best. This particular Sunday, we had a moment of reckoning, as we looked around the restaurant and had a sudden realization that we were in Ecuador and our environment should be foreign to us, but it is becoming completely normal. Every once in awhile we are overcome with the realization that we are not home, and this was one of those times.
Quito is a strange city. It´s divided into new and old, and the new section of town is where most of the gringos stay and hang out. There is one street in new town that completely caters to gringos, where you can find restaurants that serve food from anywhere in the world, upscale bars, and all types of services for the gringo population and visitors. Here you are guaranteed to run into people that you have met traveling in other places in South America. The way this street is constructed and the way that it seems a bit out of place makes it feel like a fantasy land. There is a dark side to Quito. We were told by everyone not to walk outside after dark, so we were very careful to take cabs at night or we planned to cook dinners at our hostel to avoid going out at night.
We stayed in between new and old town in a family-run hostel. The family had three children who were similar to us in age. Every morning we woke up and had breakfast with the family and they made us feel right at home. It seems the farther north we travel, the nicer people become. On our last morning there, we discovered that the man of the house is a well-known author. The sweet old man who had scrambled eggs for us every morning is a scholar. Guillermo Navarro Jiménez has written 15 books about politics and economics, including El Plan Colombia, which we will try to find in English when we return to the States. All of his most recent books are about the US and imperialism in Latin America. It was great talking to him and we were shocked to learn that he really is a famous author.
We went to a good museum in Quito, which hosted a huge exhibit about Pre-Colombian Ecuador. It was interesting to see how the Ecuadorians painted the rise of the Inca Empire compared to how the Peruvians talked about the same period of time in history. Ecuador was home to many indigenous groups that were conquered and whose culture was destroyed by the Incas, so they celebrate the cultures of their indigenous people more than the rule of the Incas. The Peruvians seem to idealize the Incan Empire, and it is telling to learn that not all South American countries view this in the same way.
We had a bit of time to kill in Quito while we waited for our flight to Cartagena, so we decided to go to a movie. We saw Star Wars one night and ate at Burger King...we had a very American evening. We were also craving another flavor from home...sushi. So, we had sushi in Quito, which we haven´t eaten since we were in Buenos Aires. We celebrated our last night in Quito with a great sushi dinner. It was wonderful. Another indulgence that we take forgranted in the Bay Area.
We found an English bookstore in Quito. This is the only English bookstore we have encountered in 5 months of travel in South America. We bought a Spanish to English dictionary, because we have exhausted the use of our phrasebook and we thought we might need to expand our vocab in order to talk ourselves out of trouble in Colombia. The bookstore was owned by an American expat who was a very interesting character. He named his bookstore Confederate books and his logo was the Confederate flag.
