Southbound Gnomads

Sea-Santa rolls into the Poblado, Medellin Another week in Colombia and there is plenty on the go!  We spent 4 busy days in Medellin, the second biggest Colombian city after Bogota. Made more famous these days with Narcos and the infamous "P.E." (he who shall not be named!)- we quickly learned there is so much more to this place than it's dark past. We rolled in after a long overnight bus from San Gil, and needed a power-nap at our Art City Hostel before we could carry on our wanderings. We planted ourselves just outside the Poblado, which was a busy hub of restaurants, bars, and people everywhere. Although we relish the local food when traveling, there comes a point when rice, arepa, beans, and plantain just don't cut it. And so the falafel, veggie burger, and bibimbap we found in this neighbourhood were sooo welcomed! (Only sad part was the tragedy of the missing Korean leftovers- talk about heartbreak come lunch time the next day). Watching the wor...

San Felipe de Barajas fort Here we are on the montha-versary of our South American adventure! We are rolling along, thoroughly enjoying our time here in Colombia and not particularly fussed at our slower pace. So, how are we doing so far? Hostels checked in to: 11 Flights: 1 Hours on buses (apx): 38 Walking tours: 3 Games of Crazy 8s played: 6 Bug bites: Too many to count Jelly fish stings: 5 Books read: 3.5 Items left behind: 4 (sunglasses, bandana, bodyscrub, socks). Colombian beers tried: 7 (Toucan wins so far) Sun burns: 2 (never Brian!) Grocery shopping fails: 1. When the package says salsa tomate, this is not to be literally translated as tomato sauce. Turns out Colombia sells herb ketchup. Not a great choice for pasta dinner. :( Chewable Pepto tablets used: 18 Popular veggie street foods: 3. Arepa, a round pancake looking corn bread: arepa con queso, arepa chocolo (surprise- chocolo is cheese, augh!); empanada con queso, tamales. Fa...

(Nota: These posts are backtracking a week or so, for processing time...ya know how it is) Gordo kitty, the welcoming committee How wonderful to be back in the mountains! We arrived in Minca after a hairy bus ride from Camarones- we held on to our seats as the bus driver sped along the road, passing on solid yellow lines around blind turns. Arriving back in Santa Marta we hopped a cab up to the mountain town of Minca, which was about 30 min up a winding road from the coast. Being without internet for a number of days we hadn't booked anything in advance, so we found ourselves a cafe with wifi (and lovely local Toucan beer!) to do some research. Lucky for us we met a very friendly British couple who recommended their hostel, the Casa Loma, which was walkable from the small downtown, but felt far from it. They warned us it was a climb, but with our backpack sandwich in full force, the stone steps, up, and up, and up felt rough! All 310 steps in turns out (sheesh!) but sooo...

Flooded road to our hostel Onwards we go! Here's a wee run-down of the week that was in our world...  After our beautiful but exhausting 4 days on our Lost City trek, we were very much looking forward to kicking up our feet for a while and hanging loose on the beach, and so eastward we went along the coast to the beach community of Palomino. We stayed at the Coco Sankala Hostel, which was a 10min walk down the road from the beach, a comfy (cheap) place to stay with good breakfast and many hammocks to choose from. We ran into some of our trek-mates from the trail which was great, and braved a crazy downpour with a Colombian friend, an bubbly Aussie, and two cheerful Belgians for a pizza dinner to reminisce about our hike, the guides, and the mud. The pizza and beer were worth braving the rain, which left Palominos roads under water for much of the rest of our stay there. Where the Palomino River meets the sea Sunday we thought two hours of tubing down the Palomino River...

Fresh and energized at the beginning of the trek Brian stumbled across the Lost City while researching some of the top things to do in Colombia- or South America for that matter. You may have heard of Ankor Watt, Machu Picchu, or Cichen Itza- but nowhere was this place on the radar. And so we must go! We signed up for the tour and had the option of a 4 or 5 day trek, so we grabbed the 5 with the option of cutting it short if need be. 23 km each way? Yeahhh we've got this. We drove 3 hours east of Santa Marta down a glorious paved road often in view of the ocean and many a banana plantation. After a brief stop it was time to turn south and head into the Sierra Nevada mountains, where we weaved along a rough mud path for 40 minutes of bumpy, twisting, stomach-turning fun. So much for my motion-sickness bands! There we had lunch and got acquainted with our guide, Oscar, and some of the other members of the tour groups leaving at the same time. The mural on the wall with our ...

Greetings lovely people, We are back from the jungle, a little torn up but feeling fine! Baihia Concha We last left off before embarking on a trip to Santa Marta, a bustling city on the Caribbean coast. We had a nice couple of days there, and although the beach left something to be desired (plenty of garbage and right across the bay from a shipping container yard), we found beautiful sandy spots in the surrounding area- Baihia Concha in Tayrona National Park (this outing included snorkeling without the snorkel- nice fish as long as you could hold your breath!), and then Playa Blanca near the very fun beach town of Rodadero.  Mulata Hostel was a comfy place to spend a few days, with a spunky tabby cat named Matilinda to keep us company and a pool table and a bar for evening fun. One of our nights we enjoyed a wild thunder storm where the skies opened up while we were still at the hostel, and completely flooded out the courtyard with rain. Great light show after f...

We made it! Bri and I touched down in the capital of Bogota in the early hours of Friday morning, after an 8 hour lay-over in Atlanta. We took advantage of our stay there and made the trek downtown to good ol' Waffle House, and then the Civil Rights Museum. This was a crazy eye-opener to a scary past in south that it turns it we didn't know as much about as we thought.  Gorgeous sunny stroll through Olympic Park, past the College Football Museum (Bri will be back for this!), and back to the airport we went.  The Candelaria district of Bogota After a flight with enough turbulence to spill our very full cups of wine, we were relieved and of course excited to finally set foot here in Colombia. Despite much research and planning, you never really know what you're getting yourself into until you actually land in a place. Bogota is a sprawling city of over 8 million people, and full of overwhelming sights and sounds.  We stationed ourselves in the Candelaria district, ...