Getting to Ecuador

The four of us got a bus to Cali, where we met more friends from Salento. Charlotte made spicy fried rice for dinner and we had an early night, playing a few games of trumps.

The finished dinner even got some meat.

Rachel and Charlotte cooking food.

 We woke early Friday and headed off to a big shopping centre in search of a new phone for Victoria and a backpack for Charlotte. We headed out Friday night, but not before a group of about 10 of us went out to a shawarma restaurant, where me and Tao shared a huge meat platter meant for four people. Still no kebab tho :(.  The Saturday was fairly chilled, watched the rugby had a few beers and lay by the pool, before attempting a walk to a Christ statue high up in the mountains, we failed rushed back to the hostel and our big group got a bus to Ipiales.

Not the statue we were searching for.

 Over 12 hours later we arrived in Ipiales and got a taxi to see the church in the gorge Las Lajas Cathedral . The group split, with the four of us staying in Ipiales for lunch and the rest heading for Quito. We decided we were going to stay somewhere between Ipiales and Quito for one night and found a family run B&B that was pretty rural so was going to be difficult to get to. After lunch we got another taxi to the border, stamped out of Colombia and headed for Ecuador customs. Unfortunately, the officer that had served Charlotte and Victoria had just started his shift and forgot to change the date on his stamp so the girls were stamped as having left the 17th and not the 18th like Rachel and I.  After some great Spanglish from me explaining how we were all together and the girls hadn't mysteriously disappeared for a day, we were left into Ecuador. A 3$ taxi to the bus station, an argument with some local bus guys over trying to overcharge us, we were on our way towards Tonibamba. Some more Spanglish and I'd arranged for us to be dropped off close to Tonibamba.  Three hours later and several 'are we nearly theres' later we were signalled to get off the bus. It had just started lashing and we'd been dropped off at the side of the motor way, nowhere near anything, more Spanglish lessons needed! After amount 10 minutes a taxi finally picked us up and took us to Loma Wasi for 8$. Let's see what Ecuadors got. 

A tractor blocking the road in Tonibamba.

A cow blocking the road in Tonibamba.

Salento

We got the 10 am bus for 40,000, it wasn't direct, so we had to switch buses in Armenia. The bus was lovely, wifi & fully reclining seats.

It took us the whole day to get to Salento tho. Once there we attempted to beat the sunset to our hostel, La Seranna, we came second and finished the walk in the dark. We checked in and were the last two to sign up for dinner. Lovely homemade Mexican food. Then we had a beer and roasted marshmallows on a big bonfire. Up early on the Tuesday for our free breakfast, paid 4,000 extra for some bacon. Walked back into the village to get a jeep to the start of the Corcora valley jungle trek. It's funny how a country can continue to surprise you with its lack of rules and public safety, 11 of us piled into a jeep, with three of us standing on the back holding on. The ride lasted 25 minutes.

The trek was beautiful but very long and pretty steep in places. We crossed over and back the valley on suspension bridges. Hiked out of the valley, to the top of the mountain, there were palm trees everywhere. It was a pretty overcast day, so we didn't get the best view of the surrounding mountains but the fog was very cool and made for some great photos.

We jeeped it back to the village and bought mince and what not to make spaghetti Bol. I cooked for four of us, myself Vick, and two American guys we'd hiked with, Matt and Stephen. We played cards till 10.30, I thought everyone how to play trumps. We would have played all night but we were sent to bed. I attempted to watch Narcos, the 50 minute episode took 90 to watch. On Wednesday we had a pretty decent group going and decided to head out to a coffee farm for a tour. We got to pick our own coffee beans and see how they are harvested and roasted before being ground into coffee powder.  We then got to taste the coffee, which was very nice. It's drank straight with no milk or sugar. On the jeep back to the village myself and Charlotte decided it'd be cooler if we climbed onto the roof of the moving jeep and sat in the roof rack.

 We got back to the village and the jays were playing so we went into a local pool bar and watched the game there. At 5.30 the police showed up and searched everybody in the bar except for us, the gringos. A full list of everybody present was made and everyone's ID's were checked. Still have no idea what this was all about, we were just completely ignored. Charlotte and Rachel from Blackpool made a lovely vegetarian curry, that was really spicy, but I managed to eat it. Just to ensure we got enough out of the day we headed back down to the village in yet another jeep to play some Tejo, a Colombian sport involving alcohol and making things blow up with gun powder and metal stones. Thursday, our last day in Salento, no where near ready to leave, we headed out to go horse riding, we'd booked for 9 people but the guys only showed up with 5 horses. 10 minutes later a guy comes trotting up the road with more horses in a line just following him up the road. No helmets, and minimum instruction, feeling bad for the people in the group that had never been on a horse before we headed off for the waterfall. As there were no rules we raced for positions behind the instructor leading the way, I tried out side saddling and even went backwards for a bit. The waterfall was absolutely freezing but I'd taken my togs with me so I hoped in for a quick swim.

It began to lash rain just as we got back to the village so we headed to Brunch to get lunch and say some goodbyes. We now had a group of four and headed for Cali. Myself, Vick, Rachel and Charlotte.

Medellìn

We arrived in Medellìn at 6.30, jumped on a bus then grabbed a taxi to our hostel the black sheep, arriving just before 8. Had a beer with Steve. Alex had a friend he'd met in Bogotà so we met up with him for a few drinks and some pizza. Got up early Tuesday and headed up the road for breakfast, I had poached eggs with hollandaise sauce and a bowl of fruit, it was delicious. We'd only booked the black sheep for one night, but managed to get a second night. We still had to find somewhere to stay Wednesday and Thursday night. We booked the purple monkey and headed off up the mountain on the cable cars, at the very top was a national park, which had awesome forests, so we walked a trail.

 On our way back down we stopped in Santa Domingo a poor town up in the mountains to watch the sunset and Alex wanted to check out the library. The library was shut for the next year tho. While we wandered around we saw a hairdressers so decided to get a quick haircut for less than €2. While Alex was getting his haircut the electricity went, it was already dark and the razor was a chord one. I ended up holding a torch of Alex's head while the lady finished the haircut, thankfully the power came back before she was finished so his hair turned out grand. The power stayed on for my haircut.

      

Wednesday we got up and decided we'd buy food and make our own breakfast and lunch, we ended up just eating a load of bacon. At 2 we headed off on the walking tour of Medellìn, it was amazing. Our guide was fantastic, he told some great stories and brought us to parts of town that gringos are usually warned against. There was a big pub crawl organised for Wednesday night so we headed out for that. Purple monkey was full for the Thursday night so we were on the hunt for a third hostel. Vick was bedless too, so she joined the hunt. Eventually after walking for  ages we found bambu hostel. Watched the start of the irish game before heading out for lunch and the Colombian Peru football match. We stopped at a bar for a mojito while we decided what we'd get for lunch. The bar started to fill up with Colombians in their yellow jerseys so we decided to stay put. Alex and Vick went off in search of food, tbf they did well coming back with dominos, although their topping choice was very strange, bacon, tomatoes, corn and onion. Just before the game stated the irish result came in, and obviously I was cheering, people around me joined in a bit too it was very funny. Colombia won the game 2-0 and we were invited out to another bar with our new Colombian friends to celebrate the victory. We ended up having a great night out.

The original plan was to leave for Salento Friday, I'd accommodation booked. But I hadn't got to do the Pablo Escobar tour or see the big rock. I was about to have my first regret of the trip. The Escobar tour was the main reason I'd come to Medellìn, but the tours on Thursday had been booked out, and we'd had such a good day Thursday with the game. Anyway I bailed on Salento and rebooked for Monday. Alex was leaving Friday at 2, so we had a quick wander round the city to try find him some clothes. Alex is 6ft 7'' so finding anything that would fit him was near impossible. We managed to get a pair of jeans and a Colombian Jersey. And Alex headed for Quito. We wandered around the centre a bit more soaking in the attention of being gringos! People have come up asking for pictures and just looking for a high five. For dinner we headed to a rib restaurant that had been recommended to me by the owner of the black sheep! The restaurant is only open Thursday till Saturday from 6-11.  They only serve ribs, you can chose between two sizes, we went for the smaller size and were stuffed. The ribs were unreal!

 We had an early night as we had to get up at 7 the next morning to go to Guatpè. It took us 3 hours to get to Guatpè, and we headed straight out to one of Pablo Escobar's houses by boat. We got a full tour of the grounds which were amazing, Pablo imported trees from all over the world and had them planted around the grounds. It's believed he only visited this house 4 times even tho it took 6 years to build. After the tour it was down to business, paintballing war. On the way into Guatpè I didn't think much of the rock, 'it's a big rock and it's not very pretty' but once you get up close and see the stairs up you start to be more open minded and by the time you're at the top (740 steps) you love it. 360 degree views of the man made lake and mountains. The views were truly spectacular. We got to see the start of the sunset and some thunder and lightningbefore heading back down. Got a lovely churo and headed back to Medellìn, we would have stayed a night but everywhere was booked out as it was the bank holiday weekend and we didn't realise. But it was also the bank holiday weekend in Medellìn too, so we  got a bottle of rum and watched a rock band play in one of the town squares. I got up early Sunday and took control of the TV to ensure the Ireland game was not missed! After the game we headed for a late breakfast, and there it was a kebab shop my dreams had been answered. Ordered myself a doner kebab and sat down a couple of irish guys walked past me and cheered for the green jersey and invited me out for the session. The kebab wasn't doner meat it was a mix of chicken and something else the actual kebab was a burger bun, it was gutting, but I guess it was true if you wanted a good kebab you had to go to Europe. Sunday was also Canadian thanksgiving so we made a chicken dinner with mashed potatoes and salad, drank a couple of bottles of red wine and headed out for more bank holiday fun. Struggled to get up at 7 this  morning to get on the bus to Salento. Plan is to stay for 3 nights and head to Cali Thursday, but we all know nothing yet has gone to plan.

We played a couple of games and had great fun shooting each other, to protect the drug money. After the tour we headed to the rock.

                                              Probably the coolest house in the world.

                                             Still water in the swimming pool, we didn't swim tho.

                                            Garages for all his cars.

Cartagena

Got up at 10 Friday morning and FaceTimed home. Mom told me I could stay in South America longer if I wanted to, if I'd more traveling to do it'd be ok if I missed Christmas. About 12 I jumped on a bus which took me straight to the bus station, handy, but my bag also counted as a passenger apparently so I paid 1400 for me and 1400 for my bag, gotta love Colombia! At the bus station no one spoke any English so again my limited Spanish was tested, I booked myself onto the 2 o clock bus. The bus was stopping in Barenquilla before going to Catagena, total journey was gonna be 4 hours. In typical Colombian fashion the bus was 6 and a half hours long and then a taxi ride that lasted the bones of an hour as the driver had no idea where he was going. Checked into El Viajero no problems and headed out to find somewhere to eat. Found a lovely pizza restaurant but it was a bit pricey 38,000 for a medium pizza - ah it must be huge. It wasn't but it was lovely. Just after I ordered a guy Alex who I'd briefly met in Taganga walked in, so he sat with me and we decided we'd both head to Medellin Monday, and do the mud volcano together. Got back to the Hostel around 10 and it was pretty quiet so decided I'd go to bed and watch something on Netflix. Got up at 9 for my free breakfast on Saturday and headed out for a walk around Cartagena with Alex, we walked along the walls and around some cool squares. Went to a really nice restaurant 'La Bistro' for lunch, where we got fish soup and then a huge fish for main, it was great. Got back to the hostel just in time to watch Australia break the English hearts, quite enjoyable really. We decided we were gonna go to café del mar to watch the sunset, as always on route we stopped off in a bar that claimed to make the best mojitos in town, would have been rude not to. We got to the café and got great seats by the wall, with gorgeous views of the city and sea.

Obviously we'd met people in the mojito bar and promised we'd join them for another drink. They had come down from America just for the weekend, Thursday till Monday morning where they were headed straight back to work. Saturday night was decent, barely slept and was up at 8.30 to go do the mud volcano. We were on a bus for an hour to get to the volcano. Changed into our togs climbed up a couple of steps and got into the volcano, got about a 5 minute massage and then just chilled in the mud for about 45 minutes. To wash off you walked 40 metres to a lagoon where local woman are waiting to wash you, they weren't shy sticking there fingers in my ears and ripping my togs off. Of course nothing is free, and once we'd showered everybody was over looking for money. After we were taken to a nice beach, where we got lunch and then just hung out on the beach for 2 hours. Absolutely craving a kebab, myself, Alex and Denise headed out to find a good old doner. The one place we'd found online was shut down, plan B! Street food, Alex had heard about some guys that apparently make huge burgers for 6000, a lot cheaper than the pizza. The burgers were unreal, we stood there for 10 minutes watching these guys make plates of food and burgers, like 10/15 at a time,they'd serve them up and then go onto the next set.   

We headed to the walls with a couple of beers, just sitting there quietly minding our own business and the police rocked up. They searched us, but not Denise and then headed off. About an hour later, just walking home we were stopped again, this time one officer took a bit of a disliking to me. He searched through my wallet for a good 5 minutes, sniffing it, checking every pocket, had me take the money out, pretty much turned it inside out, finally satisfied we were allowed to go home. Got up this morning Monday, checked out of Hostel, grabbed another burger for lunch from a restaurant tho 3 times the price of last nights burger. Headed to the castle then. Some great views from the top of the castle and some real cool tunnels inside. Jumped into a taxi and headed to the airport. Next stop Medellin where hopefully I'll get my kebab. 

Minca

Why would you want to go to Minca? 'Everybody's told me its amazing' no it just rains there, stay and do more diving. I decided I'd take a break from scuba diving and visit Minca, a small town up in the Sierra Nevada mountains. When I get back from Minca I'll do my advanced and maybe even divemaster. Anyway I left for Minca early Tuesday, I got the local bus into Santa Marta and thought I knew where to find the 'buses' to Minca. I didn't and it seemed everyone I asked was sending me a different way, eventually after about 40 minutes of walking around in the scorching heat I found the corner where you actually get cars to drive you up to Minca. It's basically a shared taxi between four people with everyone paying 7,000 pesos. As we were heading up the mountain, the famous rain hit, quite nice actually something different. There was a little girl on the back of a bike with her mom, so just as it started raining the driver offered to bring her up, her mom was delighted but she was devastated being in a car full of strangers. She came around and didn't stop telling us stories and commenting on the bump band slides along the way, obviously I understood very little of what she said so I just smiled. The road to Minca was a mud track so the rain made everything worse, we did eventually get to Minca as the rain seemed to be stopping. So I wasted no time and jumped on a mototaxi to Casa Elemento. 15,000 pesos,  45 minutes, 3 slides and countless near misses I got there safe. But I was after missing lunch, so I had a beer, a brownie and cookies and held out for dinner. I spent the afternoon chilling in the giant hammock talking to everyone else.

Dinner was lovely, again it was a choice of meat or veg, I had the chicken curry with homemade nan bread. All of the food, was either grown in the hostel garden or locally sourced. There was an option to stay and volunteer, where you would work in the bar, kitchen, reception and help with expanding the hostel by making new paths or jungle adventure trails. I was very tempted to stay and do this for a few weeks. After dinner it was back to the hammock for a few more beers and I started chatting to a very hungover Aussie, Stephen who hadn't enjoyed the trip up as much as I had. I was in bed for 11 (first time this trip- I think) had a great night sleep in another top bunk. After the 'Rambo'  breakfast myself and Stephen headed for jungle town, to the bigger hammock. Whilst chilling in the hammock we decided we'd get ourselves packed lunches and head out on a trek around Minca, see some waterfalls and coffee plantations. We hiked 45 minutes up to Los Pinos, and saw a sign for a coffee shop on a coffee plantation.  Stephen spoke Spanish so we headed in, we walked past one house and down a lovely flowery path to this house. Two guys on their lunch break looked a bit surprised to see us, but we thought nothing of it. Steve asked for two coffees, I don't really drink coffee but this stuff was amazing no milk just a bit of sugar. We were given a flask of coffee to top our cups up too. While we were there the rain kicked off, it was another torrential downpour. We stayed dry and drank 4 cups of coffee while playing dominoes and chatting to the guy about his coffee and land. Eventually the rain stopped, so we decided it'd be a good idea to continue our hike. Steve asked for the bill, the man was confused and said there wasn't one this was just his house. Oops, we gave him some money and thanked him. He suggested we went a different route, so following his advice we headed towards Campano, we were meant to pass a nice waterfall but we never found it. We got to Campano to find a shop a few houses and two pool tables, so we had a game. There was a solider, who spoke some English in the pool room. We got chatting to him and he thought us how to play Colombian pool.

 From there we were headed to Pacca Tucan brewery. When we got to the road into the brewery a lady who'd just finished work told us, she worked at the brewery and it was closed since 4, it was 5.30 so we'd missed it by a long way. This lady told us Pozo Azul was only 20 mins down the road and it was really beautiful, we'd planned to go here anyway, but were worried it'd be dark by the time we got there, 'no it doesn't get dark till 7' she said. The 20 minute walk was actually an hour and it was pretty much dark when we got to the entrance, a shop owner told us it was 15 mins to walk in but we wouldn't see much as it was dark. We decided we'd run in and try get the last bit, after 15 minutes of running we still weren't there, we walked another 10 mins and finally got there. It was pretty dark but we could still see and it didn't seem that great. I'll have to google pics to see if we did miss out. From Pozo Azul we walked another half hour to a restaurant we'd both heard had amazing meat. The meat was slow cooked on a bbq and smelt amazing, it was a bit tough but I liked it. From the restaurant we had to walk 20 more minutes to Minca centre and pay 25,000 pesos each to get up as it was 'more dangerous'  reluctantly we agreed. The drive up was intense, more slipping and sliding, harsh breaking, skidding and felines tone running. It took just over an hour and was a great adrenaline rush. We were back at the Hostel just before 9 and we walked in and around 10k. A few beers, some card games and I was in bed for 2.30. Safe to say I had a great sleep. We didn't want to leave but the hostel was fully booked so we had to go. It was such a nice, peaceful hostel with lots to do. Even the toilet had an amazing view. We decided we'd get a 4x4 back as it would take us the whole way to Santa Marta. On the way down we were delayed for about an hour due to a truck getting stuck and blocking the road both sides. It took a big digger to come and drag it out. I've decided not to do my divemaster, as I want to travel more and see more of South America, if I've money and time at the end I'll do it. Cartagena tomorrow (Friday) then onto Medellin where I'll see Steve again.