Continuing along the carribean coast we landed in Santa Marta, a popular vacation spot for locals, but for reasons I don't understand. The main beach is also a shipping port with Panamax ships cruising in all the time, and the waterfront, while pleasant at times, can quickly turn into a boxing arena as locals scrap over women, drugs, or chicle. After a few days there we realized that neighboring Taganga is a
much more pleasant place to stay, and we checked into the Oso Perezoso, a laid back hotel with rooftop hammocks and excellent fruit crepe breakfasts. Our main goal in this part of the coast was to go to Tayrona National Park to camp and play in the waves, so after a couple nights in Taganga we hopped on the bus, then another bus, then hitchhiked, and then began the hike into the park. The hike in goes through some nice dense jungle and we spotted a sloth hanging out along the way. We quickly became friends with the couple we had hitchhiked with and it was nice to meet some Colombians that weren't pushing hot dogs on us or trying to exchange our money. Arriving at the beach we found that we had to pay $15 a night to camp, even though we had brought out own tent, and the only restaurant around charged $9 for a simple meal. Luckily we had prepared for the high food prices, and my bag was stuffed with food, including an entire roast chicken, the smell of which peaked my appetite to the point of insanity along the hike. We spent two nights at the park, playing in the waves, building sand castle crabs, and even getting tan in unlikely spots on the nude beach.
While Tayrona had some very beautiful aspects, we left the coast feeling a bit discouraged. The prices were high, the people were generally rude, haggling was required everywhere, and the beaches were even a little below our jaded standards (Viviana just coming from Puerto Rico, and me just coming from San Blas). We had begun to get a little nervous that Colombia would not live up to the rave reviews we had been hearing for years.
Fortunately the interior of the country gave us a completely different experience. Our first stop was the mountain town of San Gil, a center of outdoor adventure for tourists, and a beautiful small town filled with friendly locals. From there we spent a day exploring the smaller picturesque towns of Barichara and Guane, full of colonial buildings with whitewashed adobe architecture. The next day we did a 60 meter repel down the bottom third of a 180 meter waterfall. We were thoroughly enjoying the town, but decided to leave to pursue our dream of backpacking in El Cocuy National Park, a reserve full of snowcapped peaks, lagoons and rivers, all located well off the tourist track. We left our unnecessary equipment at the hostel in San Gil and headed out by bus along the crazy winding roads along the Chicamocha gorge. After 4 hours of the twisting roads we both felt sick and decided to recover at a hotel in Tunja before finishing the last 10 hour leg to the park. Unfortunately, when we awoke and went to buy tickets we were informed that a landslide had closed the road, and were left with no option but to return to San Gil along the gut wrenching road.
After recovering our equipment, a third trip back down the same road brought us into Bogota. Remembering the squalor and insecurity of the Central American capitals I had visited, my expectations for Bogota were pretty low. We checked into our hostal and set out to see the city. I soon realized that Bogota is full of culture, activity, and nightlife. We visited a number of museums the first day, including the Museo del Oro (gold museum), Museo de la Policia (police museum with Pablo Escobars jacket and blood stain), and the Botero Museum (popular Colombian artist who drew pictures of
fat little cartoon people). Most of them had free entrance as well, which appealed to my penny-pinching side. At night we prowled the streets of the La Candelaria district, chatting with locals, drinking Aguila beer, and taking in the aroma of the ganja plant that seems to fill the streets all over Colombia. The next day we hopped a bus over to the salt cathedral, a gigantic church built into an active salt mine. The cathedral has 14 small chambers with the stations of the cross, as well as 2 much larger chambers for masses and events, and occupies an area of 8000 sq meters (~72000 sq ft.) all located 200 meters (~1800 ft) underground (it could be argued that the church brings you closer to the scorching inferno than the pearly gates). The crosses, statues, pilars, and nearly everything in the cathedral is carved out of the salt stone itself, making for an unusual ambience. The last day in Bogota we took part in the cyclovia, a public event held every Sunday where they close down the main thoroughfares in the city to car traffic and open it up to bikes, skateboards, rollerblades, and pedestrians. We rented some bikes and cruised down the busy streets, buying up fresh mango, shishkabobs, and other street food along the way. The closed down streets are lined with activities as well, such as public aerobics classes, concerts, and markets. We made our way to the giant Simon Bolivar park and then back to the hotel, for a total of about 120 blocks. The next day we said our farewells to the city and grabbed the overnight bus to Medellin to meet up with some friends.
In Tucson both Viviana and I had an unusual number of Colombian friends, and almost all of the ones that have returned home now live in Medellin. We spent the last week staying at our friend Jorge's house, exploring the city by day and crawling the streets for rumba by night. Medellin is full of metrocables, ski-lift like public
transportation that takes you up the steep hills of the valleys, and e took one of these up to the giant parque Arvi. Our next couple days were spent checking out the downtown area, including museums and city parks (such as the Parque de Los Pies Descalzos, where everyone has to go around barefoot). At night we went saw live salsa music in the club and live jazz in the street. We went to the zona rosa and tasted the citys huge array of fruit infused rum and exotic mojitos. On the weekend we cruised the windy, landslide prone roads up to some small pueblos in the mountains and swam in rivers, marvelled at the colorfully painted balconies, and listened to charming tales of horrifying machete assaults that the local children told us. An unfortunate pothole on the way back sent the car battery up into the hood, short circuiting the alarm and causing a minor 1 and a half hour delay while we solved the issue, as well as some minor ear damage from the endless siren. Despite the horror stories, it was very interesting to me that out of all the major cities I've visited so far, I felt safer walking the streets at night in Medellin than anywhere else. While poverty is still rampant in Colombia, it has made some amazing developments recently and in my experience looks to be a lot further along than almost any country I visited in Central America (with the possible exception of Costa Rica).
After bidding farewell to our gracious host we hopped onto another bus for the twisting road to Salento, a small mountain town in the 'Zona Cafetera' (coffee zone). From here we plan to get back to nature with some hiking, fishing, and hopefully horseback riding. Then its off to Ecuador for mountains and volunteer work.
