Underwater Messing

It was Cartagena, an old colonial city 12 hours north of Medellin, that ended up being my next destination.  Cartagena is situated smack bang on the Caribbean Coast.  Finally I had made it!  And it was bloody hot!  So off came the shirt, out came the thongs and maybe just a couple of beers to cool down.  I tell you, it was hot!  Everyone was lucky I wasn´t strutting my stuff in my underwear!

Despite the heat, Cartagena was an amazing place.  The buildings of the old city were nicely terraced. Flowers hung from each, complemented by the many different colours and architectural facades.  It was truly beautiful.

 Cartagena Streets

Cartagena colonial square

Just chilling out on the city walls

Hunting around for things to do, I stumbled across the possibility of a boat ride over to Panama via a group of Islands by the name of the San Blas Islands.  All reports are that they are the absolute definition of the Caribbean.  How could I pass up the opportunity to island hop for 5 days on a sail boat if this was the case!  Though the trip is a little expensive, I made the decision to do it as a little gift to myself for my 30^th birthday which is coming around.  But prior to embarking on this adventure, I had a few other things to do beforehand.  One of these things was to visit the local mud volcano!

The mud volcano was a 30m high mound that was filled with pure, silky soft mud.  Together a large group of us made the excursion and indulged in some massages coupled with a few mudslinging capers.  The locals were a little less than impressed to say the least.  But we were having a ball!  The best part of the whole experience I would have to say was how you would float ontop of the mud.  With just the slightest push you could be manoeuvred around the place like a plane in a hanger.

Soon my sights moved on from Cartagena and on to the little dive town of Taganga.  Arriving in town, I had a one track mind, scuba diving.  Looking around at what was on offer, I took the opportunity to negotiate a cheap price to complete my advanced scuba certification.  The best bit of the deal was that I would begin immediately the next day.  Saweet!

Yay, sunsets

The first day was pretty uneventful actually.  I met my instructor, a local by the name of Dessie and we just dove.  The clarity and diversity of what I saw was pretty ordinary compared to what I was used to.  It was actually the second day though where things picked up.  After pressing for an underwater camera, they gave me one and I was off photographing everything!  I love underwater photography as it gives me the opportunity to explore and share with others what you find. 

Damsell fish

Snake eel cruising on by

Little sneeky eel

Big bitey eel.  This guy got a little angry at the attention I was giving him, so he tried to go me.

Cleaner shrimp

 Dissobedient sea horse.  Just take a proper photo!

Lovely seascape.

Having a bit of air to spare, Dessie and I took to lying on the sandy bottom at 20m having a bubble ring blowing contest.  He won......but he has had practice!

Winning bubble

My final day was pretty good as well.  I scored a free dive which was sweet.  On the boat this day was 3 new Open Water scuba students.  As a part of their assessment, each had to swim 200m in open water to prove their abilities.  We were all seriously worried for this one Irish girl who we thought was going to really drown.  Scuba is another thing Irish people shouldn´t be allowed to do......  She made it though, barely. 

After my first dive we had a 1.5hour interval as we waited for the three others to complete their assessment.  On the beach, both Dessie and I looked at each other and said “kip?”.  It was a consensus.  So with a rock acting like a pillow each, we pushed up to the shady part of the foreshore and slept snoring with our mouths open.  Awesome!  My Caribbean dream was actually happening.  

The next day I took the opportunity to make a trip to Tyrona National Park with an American Girl, Toni, I had been on and off travelling with all the way from Medellin.  Tyrona was a bunch of secluded beaches nestled amongst the rainforest to the west of Taganga.  What a mission it was to get there too!  Three busses, a two hour trek through the jungle, few!  But when we were there.....

Accommodation was via hammocks which surprisingly worked out well for a guy of my height.  The area was beautiful, but after a spot of exploring, rock climbing, swimming and lizard fishing we realised we had pretty much done everything we wanted to in only two days.  So back to Taganga it was.  On our return trek Toni picked up a lizard that I had been messing with and it jumped on her dashing into her backpack.  We still haven´t found it!  And we are now back in Taganga!

It is now two more days and I will be 30.  I don´t really understand if there are implications to that but eh, so what.  I think i am going to get a big cake and eat it until I am comatose.  Awesome!

  

Medelling Medellin

Well it only took us 26.5 hours to get to Medellin Columbia from Ecuador but according to all reports it was going to be worth it.  The trip itself ended up being quite interesting.  Collectively between both Sam and I we have done a lot of bus trips, but never quite like this one.  During our drive in, we saw four accidents.  The most memorable was a lady being skittled by a car from behind while on her scooter waiting at a roundabout. Immediately we came to realise, Columbians are really bad drivers, and we needed to really watch ourselves.

Soon enough we were checking into a really cool hostel by the name of Casa Kiwi.  There was nothing Kiwi about it other than it´s big barbeque and an awesome deck.  This place was rammed with gringos from all walks of life and proved an awesome place to meet people and swap information.  It wasn´t long before we were having a few beers and finding ourselves on the end of another big night.  What a big night too!  We ended up at this bar called Mangos where they had a valet midget, dancing girls with a few plastic bolt on enhancements and some wild memorabilia.  I do remember the night ending (at 4 am) with a break dancing midget and a topless guy spraying the crowd with toilet paper using a hand held leaf blower....   Sweet as.

The next morning started pretty slowly.  It was only in the afternoon that we managed to string together enough motivation to gather up a large group and trek on off to a local soccer match.  Happily, this experience was not as intense as the match I went to in Lima.  Though there was a fair few riot police, everyone was well behaved and the scene was quite controlled.  One hilarious observation we immediately made about the general population of Medellin was that they LOVE the mullet!  Apparently it is a new fashion for the city and there are some absolute crackers getting around!  Bogan Australia would be more than proud.  There are even bouffant fringed mullets mixed in.  Wicked!

 

Mullet!

Another observation is that the people here really get interested in gringos! As I found out, they especially take interest when you are tall and they have a TV camera.....  During the half time interval we had so many women taking group photos with us it almost became a chore.  But they are sooooo nice and enthusiastic you can´t help but go along.

Riot Police

Needing a little more physical activity in our lives, the next day Sam and I went to the local water park with two of the girls from our dorm.  Like little children, we lost our stuff at the 10 something slides on offer!  And being the idiots we are, we basically did everything you weren´t meant to in our pursuit of the ultimate slide experience.  We were running and diving down slides, doing tandem runs, fighting each other on the way down etc.  It was awesome!  By the end of the day we were battered, very bruised and highly content with ourselves.  We had squeezed every ounce of fun we possibly could out of the place. 

Leaving the water park we returned to hostel.  The two girls we were travelling with, like other girls I had met, had been telling us how they get harassed pretty badly by the local blokes here in South America.  Up until that day I had never seen any sign of this because it usually doesn´t happen when a girl is with a bloke.  But holey crap, travelling with two blonde European chicks really changed that little rule of thumb.  I seriously could not believe how many blokes were boarder line sleazing onto these girls at every exchange!  What an eye opener!  Glad I´m a guy, all I have to deal with is a few intense stares from random women and the odd kiddie that looks at you like your a zoo animal.

Back in the hostel, the days banter continued as both Sam and I presented our larrikin best.  It wasn´t long before our pranks and banter had us a reputation as the two Aussie guys doing it better than the rest.

The next day, we pulled together a crew of people and headed off for a trip on the local cable car network.  Packing a six pack of beers each and an AFL footy our day was set to rock.  Unfortunately, this quickly turned around when we found out the cable car network was closed for general maintenance.  Rrrrrr!  Well, we still had a footy and beers, so we needed a place that would allow us to kick a ball.  It wasn´t long before we spotted a soccer stadium that fit the bill and after getting in good with the venue administrator (Walter) we were booting a ball and putting on a show for a heap of locals who were loving it. At one stage I actually had a girl jog past me and very nonchalantly announce her name to be Claudia before suggestively jogging on.  Hilarious!

After about an hour of goofing around, we stopped to rest in the shade of one of the stands.  A group of about 10 young girls came on over to us promptly and started trying to make friends.  Little did we know, these girls were in drug rehab and each had a pretty ordinary story behind them.  Most were from broken homes and most had been stuck on some pretty heavy drugs. It is unfortunate but drugs are very abundant here in Columbia.  In total we spent over 2 hours with these and other girls who would just pop on by.  During this time we trading little trinkets and listening to their stories which touched us all.  Trying to leave, we couldn´t make any move without soooo many people coming up to us and wishing us well.  What an unexpected day!

 Us after playing footy.  Walter the administrator is in green

Even the big bad guard dog loved us.  What a softie!

Backing up one awesome day with another, we got together another crew and headed for the science museum.  It was one of those interactive kinds where you get to do your own experiments etc.  Making science fun!    

The parana tank in the aquarium part of the science museum

This fish would follow you around and stare blankly into your soul.

Group photo.

The next day had to be more laid back.  Luckily we had two friends show up that day and this was the speed they were chasing as well.  To celebrate their arrival the four of us took to the big barbeque on the deck with a ridiculous amount of thick cut tenderloin steaks, sausages and pork rashers.  It was a monster barbie afternoon and the addition of beer made it the envy of the rest of the hotel.  Ever been in a meat coma?

Meat head on the barbie

Boys n FOOD!

But for all the fun (and you only get the abbreviated version my dear readers), the decision was made to leave the next day.  We are now in Guatape, just two hours outside of Medellin.  There is a massive fresh water dam here that provides fishing, kayaking and other outdoor activities.  Everything two Aussie guys need.  I have to talk about the bus ride here though.  I know I keep on about the busses here, but they are so out there.  On our ride up, we had one guy selling jewellery and a few others selling the usual amounts of food.  The jewellery guy began by running a trivia gig and giving out freebies for the correct answers.  Everyone was loving the hell out of it.  He cleaned up!  The next guy was a potato chip salesman and after doing a rip roaring trade he jumped off the bus running while it was doing 30km/h!  And we know it was 30km/h because all the busses here have digital speedos so that the passengers know how fast they are going.

    

Baños to Columbia, The Drug Route

Well the adventure side of our travels in Ecuador began with a mountain biking trip around the local waterfalls.  Many days of rain had them at full glory.  The highlight of the trip was our trekking behind a massive waterfall and our scoring of a ride home in a locals utility.  The whole trip had me feeling like I was back in Cairns moutain biking again. 

The A team

Samuel and the crew at the largest waterfall. 

 View from behind the waterfall.  The power was amazing!

A waterfall double-up

Two Aussie blokes ignoring better advice to get to the otherside of a waterfall

 Otherside celebrations

 Ute ride home

Seeking a bit more adventure the next day, we teed up a half day of white water rafting.  It didn´t turn out to be the extreme adventure we had hoped, so we made our own fun wrestling each other in the boat.  We might have also paddled the boat into the more dangerous areas of the river against our guides express wishes…..  This is what you get with a boat full of Aussie lads.  A little later in the day we talked to our guide about doing a more extreme rafting adventure, but he advised against it cause that week alone it had claimed two lives.  It was back in the bag with that idea!

For the later half of the day six of us hired a jeep and drove up to a local tree house look out.  From the tree house you had amazing views of Baños´s active volcano which Smart traveller had been advising us to keep as far away as possible from.  Apparently is is going to blow or something….  Not on my watch.

The tree house

For our third day Sam and I woke up and looked at the one mountain near town we hadn´t climbed.  “It was your turn now buddy”.  Gathering up two others we set out in some rainy weather to hit the top of this mountain.  Midway along our trek we stumbled across a rasberry patch (you could have said it was a farm) and proceeded with an impromptue gourging.  Mmmm!  Karma came around though because soon enough we found our path blocked with a friggin massive bullock which we had to negotiate.  Not to mention being chased down the mountain by a few crazy dogs. 

Our final day commenced with yet an other shot gun decision to leave.  After a quick feed at the ol greasy chicken stand (the local market place) we bought our tickets and our plans were in motion.  Having a little time on our hands until the bus left, Sam decided to get a cut throught shave.  The lady perfroming the job was very particular about her work and after 25 minutes (!!!) she was happy that the job was complete.  Basically throwing the necessary amount of money at her we dashed out the door only to perform a flying leap to make our bus.  And hence we fulfilled Sams boyhood dream of jumping onto a moving bus.  Box checked.
After a five our bus ride to Quito we settled in a cheap and nasty hostel.  Obviously the hostel was recommended in the lonely planet.  I HATE that book!  Quito seemed pretty cool, it had cheap beers and food although it did take a little chasing.  It was also a fair bit of fun……Sam locked me out of our room leading me to break in (knock the door down).  Dodgeying up a half baked solution we proped up the door and lef Quito for Medellin Columbia.

Crusing around Quitos northern bus station, we met up with a friendly Columbian couple.  The girl spoke excellent English and was a big help to us.  Good ol Sam was a little smitten with her and had to be led around by his tonge haha! 

It was five hours to the boarder on the bus which was a bit of a driving carnival.  There were people/vendors and so forth jumping on and off everywhere creating a fair bit of confusion.  The food they were dealing was excellent though, especially when you are starving! Aside from the fun of the chaos, there was one point where the conductor was hurriedly yelling at us because he thought one of the guys who had just jumped off the bus had stolen one of our bags.  Pretty awesome.   
  
Luckily we crossed the border without incident.  We try to keep away from the drugs police though following our incident at the Peru/Ecuador boarder. 

On the other side of the boarder, we haggled a taxi driver for a lift to the Columbian border town of Ipiales.  To pay him we had to change our American dollars over to Columbian Pesos.  The guy doing the changing tried a sneaky short change which we quickly were on to.  I love this place, they are so rediculously blatant and when they get caught out they simply smile and admit to playing the Gringo game. 

It was a 19 hour bus ride direct to Medallin from the border.  Along the way we watched a few good movies on the laptop and giggled ourselves stupid (to the delight of the rest of the bus). Near the end of the trip, we exchanged details with the Columbian couple who offered any help they could “bar money”.  Bugger! 

I am now writing this blog on the bus just before we hop off.  I am contemplating my life as our bus driver tries to kill us all and Sam is being hit on by a 50 year old Columbian lady.  Haha!  The ladies like the ol Sammy J.  Seriously though, what is the ettiquite in a country like Columbia for knocking your bus driver the cuss out!

Parting Peru

Well following my time in Lima, I decided to take the chance to board an 18 hour overnight bus to Mancora, a little surfing town, in the north of Peru.  Very surprisingly, 18 hours in a bus here is way more pleasant than the same period of time in a plane or Australian bus.  Here you get bells and whistles you thought never possible.  You have seats that are as large as lounge chairs.  Each seat reclines to a ridiculously flat angle and the leg room provided is equivalent to another seat space!  To top it off, you get a host/hostess, meals and even a game of bingo.  Neat!

What can I say about the town of Mancora?  It is a nice little surfing town that has been totally over run by Gringos (tourists).  The locals seem absolutely bemused at what is happening there and it seems all too chaotic for me. 

For accommodation, I ended up staying at a hostel called Loki.  This hostel was more like a resort.  There was a centrally located pool, an outdoor bar, pool table, volley ball court, palm trees etc.  You get the picture.  It also has a reputation as a party hostel and that it definitely was!  One thing I really came to love about the place though was the amount of Aussies I met here.  There were dozens!  It is nice to be around your own kind once in a while.  Lads that is.

 A Mancora sun set

I met some interesting guys during my seven day stay at Loki.  It was during this time I made plans to travel with a group of 7 others north to Ecuador and possibly Columbia.  There were two guys from Sydney, two from Perth, one from Hobart, one from Brazil and another from Israel.  The guy from Israel was called Dor and he is a bit of a weapon.  He serves in the Israeli Special Forces as a killing machine (put simply).  Example: one night his lady friend got her wallet robbed by some bouncers at a local club and when the bouncers were confronted they took offence to being caught out.  Well Dor was put in the sticky situation where he had to straighten a few things out.  And that he did!  He was a little one man army. 

Anyways, I digress.  Together all eight of us travelled to Montañita in Ecuador.  A very interesting bus ride indeed.  We crossed the border at 3am in the morning and it was here where Bill one of the Perth boys was brought aside for a “random” drug search.  Digging through his possessions one of the officers pulled out a piece of paper and proclaimed “you have cocaine in your bag!”.  Bill looked at him and said “no I don´t” (because he didn´t) but the guy said “yes, yes you do, I have found some”.  Knowing the situation was a set up, Bill hit the officer up for how much this was going to cost him.  $50 later and all was ok with the world and we passed through the border on to Ecuador.  The lesson learnt here wasalways carry a little money for bribes!

Montañita ended up being a surfing town much like Mancora.  Over the party scene, both Sam (the Aussie from Hobart) and I got up one morning quickly packed our bags and bought the next bus ticket out of town for Guayaquil.  This was the best thing we could have done as I don´t think we are the party travellers the other are.  We are more interested in the travel experience. 

Guayaquil served as a quick one night stop over on our master route to Baños in the north.  What a dodgy town!  Walking around there we were constantly on edge due to the uneasy general vibe we perceived from the place.  The next morning we were all too happy to buy our onward tickets to Baños.  Having now arrived in Baños, the place seems awesome.  It is up in the mountains at the base of a very impressive active volcano.  It is dirt cheap and the list of activities we are finding here is more than impressive.   This might just prove to be a nice little resting point in Ecuador prior to Sam and I making our way north to Columbia.       

The main cathedral in Baños

Sam and another backpacker, Kelly, recieving master tutelage off me regarding how to take a night photo...

Moving On - Peru

After an unfortunate set of circumstances in Bolivia, I have been faced with the decision of "do I keep travelling on my own around the world adventure?" or "do I go home and get going with starting my life from scratch....again?".  Well, thanks to a number of people and their encouragement I have been convinced to just see how things go in the short term and where it is I end up with my travels.  Good guidance!

Not waisting too much time, I left La Paz and an invite from two similar solo travellers to stick around and have an awesome time with them.  I really needed the fresh start approach and this wasn´t in La Paz, it was in Arequipa, Peru.  Immediately at the bus station things picked up.  I ran into a nice couple I had been travelling with in the Amazon, Lolo and Lucas and they were heartfelt in the wishes they offered me.  On the bus I lucked out and got a front row seat on the second deck next to two Brazilian girls which was cool (awesome actually!).  Chatting and laughing we made it to Puno, Peru, before we unfortunately had to part ways.  Me to Arequipa and them to Cuzco, bugger!  But, what a small world..... Next it was in Puno that I met up with some French girls I had met in the Amazon as well as my first Aussie, YAY!  Unfortunately the French were off in a few days back home, but the Aussie, Cassie was heading my way.

Catching a cab in the wee hours of the morning with Cassie we ended up at the Wild Rover hostel in Arequipa where they gifted us some early beds so that we could sleep and recover.  Cassie too is a solo traveller and like myself a little less prone to planning and stuff.  The mentality of go to do what you want, when you want it was her perspective.  With each of us feeling like resting rather than hoping on the tourist gravy train we spent 4 days in Arequipa eating at the local markets (which have the most amazing food and juices!) and relaxing.  Bloody awesome!  It was during this time I met a lot of other solo travellers and soon I came to realise that this approach to travelling is totally different than the couple thing.  No ittineraries, do what you feel comfortable with and just relax into the travelling experience, that was the theme.  Travelling alone opens you up to so much more possibilities and you find the locals as well as other solo travellers are so much more likely to interact with you.

After 4 days in Arequipa, which is an awesome place, I made plans to head for Lima and 2 couch surfing dates with some local girls.  It´s probably at this point you are thinking, ha! he is really chasing the girls.  Well not really, I just seem to be meeting more of them and what I found out later after my first couch surfing date was that here in Peru, the girls are more aggressive at chasing guys than visa versa.  This explained why I only had girls responding to my couch requests....

Well hopping on the bus to Lima I found myself again up the front but this time I was seated next to a local guy from Lima.  Immediately we got to talking (which is my style) and for the whole trip we traded stories, recommendations, etc.  Arriving in Lima he hit me up to come and meet him and his girlfriend during my stay and gave me a hand bargaining the pesky taxi drivers.  I think it was the Aussie hip hop I played for him (on my stellar new shiny laptop!) from the Hill Top Hoods that sold him on me ;).

Arriving at my hostel, where Cassie was already staying, I quickly prepared for my first couch surfing date with Maria.  Well ain´t the Peruvians a friendly bunch!  Marie was a bubbling collection of enthusiasm and curiousity.  She gave me three choices for what to do:
1) Grab some coffee and later some dinner (eh...).
2) Grab some beers and later some dinner (tempting....).
3) Go to a local soccer match and see her favourite team play for some big stakes  

Being the Aussie I am, I picked the soccer match, not for the game, but for the craziness I new was to come...  Well quickly scooting off to the stadium, which was right off in the burbs, I was not dissapointed in the least.  Hopping off the bus, we were straight into a taxi, because walking around in the burbs being 6 foot 2, white and with lighter coloured hair was not a good idea I was told.  Soon enough I got to see why!  Being told to shut up and not speak a word of English (or bad Spanish) we dashed from the cab, through the massive mobs of brawling hoons and riot police to the secure area at the gate of the stadium.  I can definitely say I was the odd one out and people knew it.  Oh My God!  The riot police here are carying equipment that looks like it gets daily use!  Bean bag guns, battons, whips, shields etc.  They are kitted!  Not taking any crap they also had attack dogs, horses etc and they were hitting anyone not progressing the ticket line, getting in the way or just looking funny.  This was full on!

Inside the stadium, people were off the chain!  Drums, fireworks, chanting and general hooning was rife.  All the local kids were yelling stuff at me while Maria was kindly translated what it was they were saying.  Well, apparently I looked just like their team goalie and they were chuffed with this, and so was I....for a while until I saw how crap he was.....  Then we began to think this was a bad thing, because if he let a goal in.......oh crap.  So I cheared like buggery for the goalie!  Luckily the game was a nill all afair!  Phew!

Dashing from the stadium and trying to keep my head down we scored a ride with a local father and son back to my area in Lima for free!  People here are so generous.  Then it was on to eating some local specialities and drinking some beers.  Maria told me just how full on the situation was I was just in....nice to know after the fact!  Later we chatted exchanging other stories and experiences.  Dissapointingly, I had to pull the night up short because of a chronic lack of sleep I had been having over the past 5 days (too much partying in Arequipa with some Cassie and some American girls, hehe!).  

Sooo....I think I can get into this lone travelling thingy!  For now I recon my compass is pointing to Columbia.  I will eventually make my way out of Lima and on to Mancora, a surf town in the north, before entering Equador and finally arriving in Columbia.  Cause Columbia sounds awesome! 

Into Obolivian

Bolivia has been pretty epic so far.  It is a bit of a wild ol country with safety being a little backwards and organization being a fleeting dream.   Hell it is cheap though!  In plodding our way around over these last 3 weeks I have been electrocuted in the shower, hit my head on many non-regulation building awnings and eaten in some very questionable premises.  

Here are a few observations I would like to share with the reading public.

1. I don’t believe there is such a thing as electricians in this country.  All the wiring around the place is basically speaker wire with no positive or negative brandings.  Best of all there is no such thing as earthing and insulation is any kind of tape you can wrap around a joint.  Fixtures hang directly off the wiring and junctions, be them high tension, external or even in the bathroom are completely open to the touch.   
2. Bolivia is cold at altitude, really cold and showers are made to match.  Cold!  WHY!
3. Drivers here know how to fix cars so that they can hop in them and drive them like maniacs.  The only problem is the fix it when it is broke mentality rather than preventative maintenance.  When you are flying along a dirt road at 80km/h looking out the windscreen to see only 10m through the dust, the thought of the bald tires bulging on the front of the car are not reassuring. 

There are so many things like this that crop up and play on your mind here in Bolivia.  It helps to be a man of faith or simply naïve if you want to sleep at night.

Another funny quirk regarding this country is the monkey see monkey do mentality of the local entrepreneurs.  If one guy has a good idea, 15 look alikes pop up.  And they copy everything, except the proper levels of organization.  This applies to shop stalls, tours and all manner of businesses.  How can 15 mandarin stalls all next to each other be viable?  HOW?  

But we have observed the craziness, marveled at the workings and saved some money along the way.  Unfortunately, Bolivia has another memorable point.  It is the place where the Dutch-Didi team has ended.  Annalie and I have decided to call it quits here after 4 months of travels together.  We will each be going our separate ways from here on.  With her goes the computer and my means of easily writing blogs.  I do plan however on keeping up with my travel observations so keep tuned and maybe I can still provide some insight to my traveling world.