Day 54 Sunday, April 28th. Collectivo Bus from Taganga to Tayrona Park

We booked to stay at Barlovento Cabana (Barloventotayrona.gmail.com; Barloventotayrona.com). It’s expensive (Lonely Planet “The best place in Colombia”) but not worth it. US$170/night for a double room. The problem is that 3^rd world countries simple don’t have the infrastructure, vision or capability to deliver top-end services comparable to a developed country. The architecture of the place is interesting and it’s featured near the front of several architectural magazines that the owner has left lying around. Dinner and breakfast is included but both are mediocre despite the best efforts of Mia, our Colombian maid and cook. Our bedroom is right on top of the surf and so the noise keeps us awake. A crocodile is asleep on the river’s edge on a sandbank below-I hope the flooring is secure. We move on the next day.

Day 52 Friday, April 26th. Bus from Cartagena to Taganga

Another crowded bus journey (5 hours so not too bad this time) and about US$25 each. We arrive and walk to the Hostel La Casa DeFelipe and manage to get room 24.

Now we are on the north coast of Colombia and on its Caribbean shore.

It’s a nice and busy place and they have a great roof-top common area that catches the evening breezes off the ocean and the sunset over Taganga. An insomniac cockerel and several barking dogs keep us awake at night. Maybe that cockerel is trying to pass a kidney stone.

One problem with extended travelling is that you lose control over your environment. (The bus driver has the radio up too loud; the shower water is too hot or too cold. Etc etc.) It’s what you give up when you catch the bus to work instead of driving your car. After a while this can get to you.

Day 51 Thursday, April 25th Medellin to Cartagena

We fly to Cartagena and check into Hostel Casa Baluarte

It’s just OK, internal room with no window to the outside. No A/c. just a fan. Cartagena is an old walled city but, unfortunately, they haven’t made enough pedestrian-only spaces and it’s a noisy and hot and crowded place and so we decide to move on after only one night. We want the beach and not a city now for our final week.

Day 50 Wednesday, April 24th . Medellin.

Checked into the hostel Happy Buddha (room 101) and take a double room for COP110,000 about US$60). It’s pretty good. We have to spend a frustrating few hours trying to use the Web to book flights to Cartagena and back down again to Bogota and finally give up and walk to find a travel agent who does the job for us. Still takes forever. We take the Metro (it’s quite new for Medellin and you can see that all the locals are glad to have it as rush-hour starts) to see the Botero sculptures. (Why did he portray all the women with huge breasts and buttocks and the men with such small penises?). On the way back Christine gets off at the right stop but I don’t manage to get off before the metro car door closes-trapping me inside as the train moves off to the next station. I try to hand-signal a plan to meet again to Christine as we look helplessly at each other through the train’s glass door. Then I turn and look at all the other passengers and ask “Hablo- Inglese?”. They all shake their heads but look with

concern at my predicament.

Christine and I manage to meet up again and we head back to the Happy Buddha. We are both very tired.

Trafficking counterfeit money in Medellin,Colombia: (Day 49 Tuesday, April 23rd )

as always we arrive at a hostel without a reservation and the taxi meter reads COP36,000 (US$20) and I’m trying to pay him an initial 20,000 Colombian Pesos to keep him waiting while Christine checks to see if the hostel has a room for us. It’s close to midnight and the streets are dark. The taxi driver is looking at my various COP20,000 notes and shouting in Spanish. I can tell he’s mad but don’t know why. All my notes seem to have a pencil-sized hole in them. The Hostel receptionist holds my notes up to a light and explains to me that they are all counterfeit. Someone fobbed them off on me some time ago I suppose. A huge amount of the Colombian currency is fake and people tear them or deface them in some way to stop them circulating further.

Day 49 Tuesday, April 23rd Plantation House, Salento, then bus to Medellin

First we joined Tim’s guided tour of his coffee plantation. Really interesting and an entire “from tree to cup” explanation of coffee including a live demonstration of the shucking of the bean, soaking the bean (to remove the natural sugars) and the roasting, grinding and finally the filtering and drinking.

After that a bus to Pereira and then another bus to Medellin (about 5 hours of travelling) and then a taxi to our hostel Tamarindo B&B. COP88,000 (US$50 approx.). Not very good and so we checked out the next morning.

Day 48 Monday, April 22nd. Plantation House, Salento, Colombia!

Breakfast at Café Eliana and then a walk into town to catch one of the Willies Jeeps there up into the hills for a five hour hike. Steep and muddy. Raining and slippery log and wire bridges to cross before we get up to the place that sells hot chocolate and their home-made cheese (which is very good). We make friends with Colin and Adam from CO and they hike along with us. Pretty tough hike.

Dinner at Café Eliana and then we hang out with some other back-packers around the log fire at The Plantation House Hostel.

Day 47 Sunday, April 21st. Plantation House, Salento, Colombia!

The collectivo was fun. Once again we engage in attempts at using our poor Spanish to chat with all the locals. They all enjoy it tremendously and everyone helps us get off at the right spot and then we all wave goodbye to each other. We checked into the Hostel-Plantation House- where Sarah and Ryan stayed last year. The owners, Tim (a Brit but raised in Australia) and his wife Christina (Colombian) and their dog, "iPod", are very nice and the hostel and our room was great at COP55,000 (about US$30)/night for the room. 

Christine and I share some wine with Tim and Christina on their back deck.

The town of Salento is really great and very cute. A walk across town practicing our Spanish creates 50 best friends. Trying a foreign language amongst the locals is a tremendous ice-breaker and very much encouraged by them (I wonder why I didn’t try it all those years ago when travelling in Europe and when on business throughout Asia. Too many languages I suppose). All the locals would like to speak the little English they have but are shy and a little frightened of doing so. Telling someone “good English!” is quite likely to bring hugs if not tears of gratitude and another friend for life.

We had dinner at Café Eliana which is owned and run by Jesus and his wife Luz Eliana. They have a nice back veranda and make a great curry and breakfasts with home-made bread and yoghurt and fresh eggs from their chickens. Jesus is Spanish and also lived in London for many years. He makes his own sausages and bangers and mash.

He runs a very well regarded coffee appreciation course of a few hours where he teaches you how to look after and make coffee. We didn’t manage to attend it and regret that.

Day 46 Saturday, April 20th La Luna, Otovalo, Ecuador to Colombia!

We visited the famous market in town (mainly locals and they do all seem to be enjoying it but we don’t find anything of interest) and then left by bus for the Colombian border. First a 3 hour bus ride to the border station then a taxi to the border itself then a walk across into Colombia and then a Collectivo to Ipealis, Colombia, then a 2 hour bus-ride to Pasto, then a 12 hour, overnight, bus-ride to Armenia, then another Collectivo up into the Andes to Salento to look at one of the coffee-growing areas of Colombia.

 

Day 45 Friday, April 19th La Luna, Otovalo, Ecuador.

Amazing climate change from the Galapagos. Yesterday at sea level and on the Equator where we were always covered in a light and sticky layer of salt water and sweat. Now we are, once again, in the Andes and we are now at 3300 meters and, even though we are not far away from the Equator, it’s drizzly and a little cold. We take another strenuous hike around the local mountain and lake-maybe 12km and about 5 hours during which it thunders and rains. We light the wood fire in our room and all our gear drips around it as we try to dry out.

Day 44 Thursday, April 18th Goodbye Galapagos.

Up at 6.00am for a quick taxi to the Santa Cruz Island bus station. ($1). Then a 45 minute bus ride ($1.60 each) to the port on the north side of the island. Then a $1 ferry ride to Baltra Island (where the Galapagos Airport is located) for our flight back to mainland Ecuador at Quito’s new airport. Then a 90 minute bus ride from the new Quito Airport to Quito’s old airport ($8 each) then a taxi ride to the Quito’s bus station ($5). We weren’t sure where to go and so I struck up a conversation with my bus neighbor (Jose is an Ecuadorian lawyer and speaks a little English) and he ends up sharing the taxi with us and directing the driver for us. We get to the bus station around 8.00pm and, once again, seem to be the only tourists and non Spanish-speaking people around. We manage to find the bus we need and buy the $2.20 each tickets for the two hour journey to Otavalo (“Otobalo”) up near the Ecuadorian border with Columbia. The bus pulls out at 8.20pm and so we arrive at Otovalo around 10.30pm and manage to get a taxi ($5) to take us to La Luna, our hostel for the night. It’s a 30 minute taxi ride up into the dark mountains along farm tracks. We had called ahead to make our reservation here since it was recommended by fellow travelers that we met a few weeks ago. This place is very beautiful. It’s owned by Kevin (from Wiltshire England) and his Ecuadorian wife Tamara. We have a super room ($42/night including breakfast) with a wood fire and the fire is lit for us and the room soon becomes warm and welcoming. It’s been almost 18 hours of travelling (on most legs we are the only tourists) but at 11.00pm at night we are offered a pizza and red wine by the staff at La Luna. We are the only guests tonight but many more are booked for tomorrow.

Day 43 Wednesday, April 17th Santa Cruz Island, Galapagos. Swimming with sharks!

We take a quiet day as this is our last full day here and we hike the 30 minutes to Tortuga Bay and enjoy the swimming and sitting in the shade of the mangroves at the back of this very nice beach. We both go snorkeling and I search for the White Tipped Reef Sharks (supposedly harmless) and find one a little bigger than me and almost step on him. Then his mate comes gliding under me and settles alongside the first guy. They both look long and sleek and very sharky and I decide to get out of there.

Day 42 Tuesday, April 16th back to Santa Cruz Island, Galapagos!

The sandy streets of Isla Isabella don’t compensate for the fact that it is very sleepy with nothing going on. We walk to the tortoise reserve and that’s fine but not terribly inspiring. We decide to leave and get back to Santa Cruz island and so catch the 3.00pm boat for the two hour journey back.

Later that day we are told of a day boat full of tourists that went to the lava tunnels area to snorkel. A rouge wave came in and took the boat to its crest and then dropped it into the following trough. One broken arm and several people with severe muscle and ligament pulls. No MRIs on the islands and so several unhappy tourists were waiting to get off the Galapagos and back to good medical care.

We arrive back at Isabel’s and she’s happy to see us and gives us some Guanabana juice, it’s very good.

Day 41 Monday, April 15th Santa Cruz Island, Galapagos!

We catch the 2.00pm boat to Isla Isabella today. $30 each one-way. Just like the day-trip to Isla Floreana, the boat takes about 20 people and we are all jammed into the cockpit and unhappy as the boat, with its three 200HP outboard engines crashes noisily through the ocean swells at 50knots for the two hour journey. We are constantly braced for the smack into the next trough and I’m hoping that the hull holds out but I don’t mention that to Christine.

We arrive safely enough and then go wandering down the sandy streets looking for somewhere to stay. Someone has mentioned the Casa Rosata (The Pink House) and we find it but it’s full so we find a great sea-view room in the Hotel Volcano opposite ($50/night) and just use the Casa Rosata for Happy Hour drinks at sunset. This whole island is a sleepy place and we just watch the Iguanas and enjoy the beach in front of our hotel. Mediocre dinner of fried fish at Caesars.

Day 40 Sunday, April 14th Santa Cruz Island, Galapagos!

We walked to the nearby Darwin Center and are hugely disappointed. It was poorly built and with a very modest vision. Now it’s poorly maintained and staffed. Someone with brawn and a vision needs to chase for funds. I wonder if there is a Darwin Center in the UK and must Google to find out. His “Voyage of the Beagle” book is charming.

Day 39 Saturday, April 13th Isla del Floreana, Galapagos Archipelago. Ecuador.

Sorry, couldn't help the flourish with the title. Can't stop myself channeling Darwin-"look at that strangely shaped leaf!".

We paid $75 each and took a day trip to the nearby island of Floreana. The boat has about 20 people on board plus our guide Jorge. He’s a fun and happy guy with lots of enthusiasm and so I end up tipping him $10, he was worth it. He’s 58, short, brown and fit. He shows all the old pirates hideaways and I ask if he knows where they buried their treasure. (If he knows he doesn’t share that with me). He picks the local (and strange-looking) fruit as we walk along and we all try it. Delicious.

On this island we heard his happy grunts before we saw the mating couple. At 18 heart beats a minute it will take him 6 hours to complete his love-making but then I admire the guy. He and his lovely tortoise girlfriend are each more than 100 years old and each weigh twice as much as me. Quite a feat and we cheer him on.

 

Day 38 Friday, April 12th Santa Cruz Island, Galapagos!

We eat at Café Hernand every day, it’s a great place and overlooks the central square and the pier.

We walked to Tortuga Beach. A long and hot 30 minutes but worth it. A great long white beach. We walked the length of it and then to the right to a small and sheltered cove where there was shade under the mangroves and great swimming in the warm water with soft sand. The Iguanas are just your average beach neighbour. Dozens around us.

We like Puerto Ajora, it’s a small town and we are already bumping into people that we have met-it’s a lot of fun.

 

Day 38 Thursday, April 11th Quito to the Galapagos!

Up at 5.15am for a 6.00am taxi to Quito’s new airport ($25). It’s one hour outside of town.

Our flight is at 9.00am and we are pushed back from baggage drop and told we have first to get the suitcases screened so that they can make sure that we are not bringing any plants, fruits etc that would pollute the sensitive eco-system of the Galapagos.

The airport ATM rejects our ATM card (unreadable) and we again realise that we have been careless in making ourselves dependent upon one card for cash. Almost all vendors on our trip to date have insisted on cash and it would be a major calamity to run out of cash or lose our ATM cards. We do get another bank’s ATM machine to accept the card and provide cash but it’s a period of anxiety we would prefer to have avoided. More alternate cards next time.

We arrive in The Galapagos (and pay the $100/person conservation fee) and it’s wonderful, eleven days may not be enough but we can easily extend our stay here. We take the free bus from the airport to the ferry (75c) to the main island of Santa Cruz and then (waving away the hoards of persistent taxi cab drivers/touts) take the bus to Puerto Ajora ($1.50) and walk to the Café Hernand to meet Mark’s friend Laura whom he has arranged to meet and help us. (Mark was the fellow traveller that we met and spent time with in Banos, Ecuador). We are late and Laura isn’t there and so we take a taxi ($1) to the place that Mark has recommended we stay while on Santa Cruz. Isabel’s place is great and she proposes $30/night-which we accept- and we meet her extended family. Hugs and kisses all around and we settle in. No hot water-there isn’t a hot water tap in the shower-but cold water is OK here, you just don’t linger.

Back to Café Hernand for some shrimp and beer and a look around the town. We look in at a pretty swanky hotel and ask the room rate ($330/night) and walk through to the deck overlooking th

e harbour only to find a seal sleeping by the swimming pool! We go to the local supermarket to buy some bottles of red wine and whiskey to keep in our room

Day 37 Wednesday, April 10th Quito

Up late for breakfast at Casa Verde and then we just hang-around the lounge and spend an enjoyable few hours chatting with Mark, Carolina and her boyfriend-Stav.

The taxi picks us up at 12.30pm and we head into Banos for the 1.00pm bus to Quito. $3 each for the 3 ½ hr trip with all the locals. We pull into Quito’s brand-new bus station (all glass, marble and steel) and find our way to the trolley station for the trip downtown to our hostel. A man is praying to a statue of Madonna that is in the corner of the Men’s Bathroom. The trolley speeds along dedicated roads and through about twenty stations. One lady points at her eyes and then our suitcases-warning us not to take our eyes off them. Several people stop me putting my backpack with the suitcases and mime to me that I should keep it on me. Then the whole trolley bus of locals participate in helping us find the right station to get off. We have a lot of fun miming and trying to speak Spanish with them. We get off and the whole bus waves goodbye to us.

An old man gets off at the same stop and warns us of getting mugged by putting himself into a choke-hold. We lug our roll-aboards up the steep cobbled street to the Secret Garden Hostel and then up the five floors to reception. The altitude here is painted on the last step-an explanation of why we feel puffed.

 

A double room with en-suite is $40 but basic although it does have hot water. The people running the place are pleasant enough and there is a great roof-top terrace with bar and kitchen and a terrific view across Quito and its Basilica as night falls and the lights come on.

The hostel has a full-time security guard. He helps us use our street map and find a good place to hunt for dinner and we set off walking the streets of Quito at night. We always leave most of our cash and all the credit cards locked in our suitcases in our room and then spread the remaining cash around several pockets before we head out.

We have been advised to take a taxi (safer) and after a short walk another security guard (they are positioned around the city every few hundred meters) helps us get one. $2 gets us to where we have been told to go and so we then start to walk and look for a restaurant. All of them are seedy and have unappetising menus and we have to settle for one of them and we pay $24 (too much) for chicken which has been hammered flat and then pan-fried and french fries (plata-fritas) and warm red wine.

Quito does look interesting with well-built colonial style buildings and attractive squares but the undercurrent of street crime puts us off spending more time here.

Day 36 Tuesday, April 9th

Misty outside and so we have a lazy breakfast at Casa Verde. We need to get laundry done and I’m trying to book flights to the Galapagos so we can stay there about 10 days and mooch amongst the islands there. We’ll have to get up to Quito and stay there one night so that we can catch the early morning flights out to the Galapagos.

We take a nice hike up behind a large waterfall-the one that Sarah and Ryan did and that she told us about.

Day 35 Monday, April 8th Banos , Ecuador

The bus to Ambato costs just $8 each and leaves Cuenca at 9.30pm and arrives in Ambato at 3.15am. The seats are like coach class plane eats and we cannot sleep, also the bus is moving through hair-pin bends and so we have to clutch the armrests the whole way. Perhaps good that we can’t see the road..

We arrive at Amb

ato bus station and wander around amongst all the local travellers (no-one speaks any English at all) trying to find a bus to Banos but can’t seem to find one. Eventually someone understands us and we get pushed toward the next bus and we pull out at 4.00am and arrive in Banos at 4.45am and are dropped on a dark street corner. I think that we are wearing a sign to all muggers that says “here are the muggees” but there are local people all around us beginning to start their days. It is still very dark.

We manage to find a taxi and he takes us to our hostel for $3 and wakes the place up. Carolina lets us in (we don’t have a reservation but she has spaces). Sarah stayed here at Casa Verde last year and recommended it to us and it’s great. $52/night for a big double room with a king-sized bed. Great breakfast with home-made jams and honey, toast and coffee.

We go on a steep 4-5 hour hike with Mark, a fellow traveller, and we meet other hikers, and we all hike together and then have dinner together in town at the “Swiss Chalet”

Day 34 Sunday, April 7th Guayaquil, Ecuador to Cuenca, Ecuador.

We catch to open topped red tourist bus for a look around Cuenca old town and it’s outskirts. Not bad, it needs that UNESCO help-not sure why my taxes should help a local hotel owner repair his balcony though.

The hotel charges us just $8 to keep the room until 6.30pm and we have booked an overnight bus leaving at 9.30pm to Ambato (arrives at 3.30am unfortunately) so we catch a 45minute bus-ride to Los Banos which is our next destination.

Day 33 Saturday, April 6th Guayaquil, Ecuador to Cuenca, Ecuador.

Usual tedious border crossing (Peru/Ecuador) with a slow-moving one hour line toward bored officials who stamp/stamp/stamp documents that no-one will ever read while equally bored men with guns look on. Arrived in Guayaquil bus station at 5.45am (big, efficient place) and immediately jumped onto a 6.00am departure bus to Cuenca. Just had time to use the bathroom and grab and coffee and a muffin.

This regional bus was almost empty at first but stopped every mile or so to let on locals until the bus was absolutely overloaded with people squashed into standing positions around our seats. One young lady was on the verge of throwing up all over us for a good part of the journey. The bus was full of the rich aroma of all the overdressed woman and men from the farms and we could smell goats, chickens and the vegetables that they grow. Really interesting to people watch- and they watch us. We are usually the only tourists (time of year) and no-one speaks English. The Ecuadorian countryside is very pleasant to look at and seems fertile. We chat to the locals as best we can with our few words of Spanish. We tell them our names and ask them their names. We tell them we are English but live in California. We tell them we have three daughters-we get by and we all have a lot of fun. They are very happy to help us learn Spanish and some of them want to learn English. There is a lot of laughter (at us). It’s tough when the conversation needs to get serious and so we are trying hard to improve our meagre Spanish.

We get to Cuenca at 1.00pm after a seven hour journey from Guayaquil (so with Mancora to Guayaquil that was 16 hours on buses).

We picked up an hotel leaflet at the Cuenca bust station and take a cab to Rio Piedra. They give us immediate access to the room which is on the 5^th floor (no elevator). US$52/night. The American Dollar is the official currency of  Ecuador.

We have settled into a pretty good way of moving around in South America. We catch the overnight buses which have the fully reclining and large seats that we can sleep in. That means we avoid the tedium of long bus journeys and we save a night’s accommodation. We typic

ally arrive early morning and then go and look at hotels/hostels. At this time of year we don’t need to book. We pay what is needed for a good clean place with private room and bathroom but try to pay about $30/night although we have ended up paying $50/night very often. We usually have wifi access.

Cuenca is an old colonial town with cobbled streets, old building with balconies and charming squares. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We wander around to find a place for lunch and stumble across Café Eucalyptus where a Salsa Class is going on and they are prepping for a Saturday night Salsa party and so we decide to go back for dinner and dancing.

It’s a really charming building with a huge central room with an internal balcony. We arrive about 8.00pm (wondering if we will be able to stay awake after our all-night travelling) and have dinner while we wait for the music to start. Pisco Sours are great but the wine is horrible. It’s an 8-piece band (5 on percussion) and the music is terrific. Everyone just can’t wait to dance. Around 10.00pm some sort of dance competition starts and the contestants are all dressed to kill with sparkling outfits. Everyone else is in tight jeans and heels. I need some hair oil. Christine says “look at that man’s maracas!” and she soon has me dancing. We dance until 1.00am and chat to all sorts of interesting local people. A great time.

Day 32 Friday, April 5th Mancora, Peru to Guayaquil, Ecuador.

We are sad to leave Las Olas, Mancora. This has been a great three night stay. Great hosts, s150/night (about US$57) and room 14 was great with its private balcony overlooking the ocean. Plenty of hot water, room made up every day. This is also the best part of town. Mancora is being developed further south with new hotels spread along the coast. The beach isn’t so good there, it’s further from town and lacks character.

We are talking about using Mancora as a future destination vacation spot-it provides hop-off points to Guayaquil (9 hr. overnight bus ride $24pp including a fully reclining seat/bed (cama)) from where you can get flights to the Galapagos.

We have booked our bus seats for the 9.00pm departure tonight to Guayaquil, Ecuador. We’ll have dinner at our favourite restaurant, Sirena, before we leave town.

Day 31 Thursday, April 4th Mancora, Peru.

Still at Las Olas because we love it. I borrow Gustavo’s board again and go out and a young man is out there with flippers on and helping people. Since I’m puffing away (I haven’t surfed in three years) he paddles up next to me and I ask “Cuanto-Cuesta?” S5 ($2) for him to help me and he’s just great. I have another Spanish lesson while surfing but he pushes me out and into the waves with the help of his flippers. “Hercy” (sp?) is 19. I pay him s10 and may go out with him again this afternoon.

We try to book the Galapagos on the internet and with the help of some recommended agents but we can’t seem to get a deal that we would be willing to consider sensible and we wonder just how much we really want to go. So far we are at $4,500 for the two of us (airfare, round trip from Quito included) for just three nights on the boat and that just doesn’t equate to what we are doing generally. We think that we are spending about $150/day and so to spend $4,500 for three days isn’t compelling.

Day 30 Wednesday, April 3rd Mancora, Peru

We go to the same restaurant every day for both lunch and dinner-Sirena (Mermaid?) and I want their Lucaffe sign but they won’t sell it to me.

I’m sick today. No discernible cause, just general malaise-perhaps I have been travelling too much. No surfing-bummer.