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...