A (brief) Tangent

Arriving at the first ''backpacker hostel'' I've stayed at in months, and my first in Colombia, I finally realized why I haven't met many backpackers during my stay in Colombia so far. It's because they stay in the hostel all day long, eating, drinking, watching episodes of "Two and a Half Men," and waiting for the sun to go down so they can get the party started with Colombia's most famous export. I hoped it was just a rumor that I had been hearing along the way, but indeed many of the 20-something backpackers in Colombia are here for only one reason. It's sad, considering the fact that they are in one of the most beautiful countries in the world (as I was told by a slightly intoxicated Colombian young man last night "Colooombia es paaaaaradise!") and they never see it in the light of day.

Here's an article about backpacking, cocaine-seeking tourists that sums it up well. http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2008/apr/01/colombia.southamerica

Being here, I have also learned first-hand about what the cocaine industry has done to this country. The amount of money that is made from exporting cocaine is extraordinary. A lot of which goes to para-military groups and the FARC (made by implementing ''taxes'' on drug trafficking organizations). I met a friend of Linnea's last night whose mother had been kidnapped and killed in the 90's by those groups. 3 million Colombians have fled the country as refugees and 40,000 have been killed since the early 90's. Being here really makes it sink in that making the decision to use cocaine isn't just affecting yourself, but an entire country.

Medellin: former headquarters of Pablo Escobar's drug cartel...

...Now the safest city in South America.

A fantastic change from crowded, overcast Bogota, Medellin had the perfect mix of sun, beautiful people, and a wonderfully organized metro. Part of the metro included the cable cars that I didn't realize were in store until it was too late. Those of you who have been lucky enough to witness my fear of hights first-hand should be glad you weren't with me in that metal box of death, precariously swinging hundreds of feet above the ground.

It was way higher up than it looks

Birthplace to Colombia's most famous artist, Fernando Botero, we spotted his chubby statues all over town. He has museums in both Medellin and Bogota which are FULL of his paintings and sculptures of overweight Latin lovers.

Plaza de Botero

We took a side trip to see "El Peñol," a huge rock that reminds you of Sugar Loaf in Rio, surrounded by a lake. It is one of the most beautiful places I have been on this entire trip. I can't even try to describe it, so I'll just post some pictures. Even they don't really do it full justice. I want to retire here.

"El Peñol"

The view from the top

We also went to the neighboring town of Guatape, which was the epitome of what I imagined a Colombian town to look like. Sitting on the side of a lake, a beautiful plaza surrounded by jeeps and colorful tuk-tuks, a cupcake colored church, cowboys standing in doorways and fresh empanadas for sale on every corner (the tastiest ever).

a street in Guatape

tuk-tuks by the cathedral

After returning to Medellin and spending one last day soaking up the sun and some disappointing botanical gardens, I got on a bus back to Bogota with Robin and Jun, two new friends who I'd been traveling with since Salento. They stayed with Linnea and I for a few days and had a squillion laughs together.

The Colombia Coffee Region, aka Heaven

I had been planning to take a trip last week up to the coast, stopping in Colombia's Adventure capital, San Gil, along the way. But then I ran into a CouchSurfing friend, Russ, I had met in Arequipa and decided to go with him to the coffee region and Medellin.

We left early Friday morning, settled into our cushy, wide seats in the front of the bus and prepared ourselves for the 8 hour trip. (They cost the same as the other seats, so why not? We tried to ask the other people on the bus why they weren't sitting in the comfy seats and they just shrugged.) The bus ride was beautiful, which made the 8 hours to Salento feel more like 5. Or so.

Salento is a beautiful, small, colonial town in the coffee region with brightly colored buildings and quite the local nightlife. Everyone goes out to the plaza on the weekends and drinks until dawn.

Salento

The place we stayed at was the cutest little hostel, with a very outgoing owner, Lili. Every time we told her "gracias" she said "con todo amor" really dramatically. Everything she did was fairly dramatic. She is the epitome of latina carinosa. And possibly made the best breakfast I have had on the whole trip.

casa de lili

Next day we took a trip to a little organic coffee plantation. A man of 70 years greeted us down the road and introduced himself as the owner, Don Elias. He didn't have any teeth, so you can imagine how well it went trying to understand his Spanish. His grandson gave us a tour of the farm which included a little crash course on growing coffee plants. He also showed us how they cultivate and roast the coffee, then we all tried a little sample. YUM

on the way to Finca de Don Elias

artfully demonstrating the roasting/grinding process

Seeing as how it was Friday night, we decided to spend it like the locals do, playing a popular game called Tejo. We asked Lili where we could play and she led us to a wonderfully seedy bar down the road. After getting over feeling a little strange being there, the 7 of us gringos started getting into it.

Tejo consists of throwing a metal weight underarm into a wooden packing crate. The wooden packing crate is filled with clay and set at an angle (see picture). Squished inside the clay is a metal ring. The object of the game is to get your weight to stick in the clay as close to the metal ring as possible.

where the action took place

Then just to make the game a little more interesting and a lot more Colombian there are folded paper triangles of gunpowder placed at the top and bottom of the metal circle. These triangles are touching the metal circle and, obviously, if you get metal hitting metal with gunpowder between them you get a large BANG! The best part! (And the scariest part for me when it happened the first time...)

We were playing with smaller weights and a smaller distance to throw, just trying to make it on the crate at first. The local men that were playing there were amazing at it, throwing their weights 80 feet (and 15 feet in the air) and getting it to stick in the clay every single time. It was good we were playing the smaller version (about 15 feet long), or else it was a concussion waiting to happen.

We played for a while before we started getting the strategy and really wanting that BANG! Eventually, one of us got it and we all flipped out, including all of the old men that were playing there too. A couple of rounds later, I got the BANG! Best part of my day :)

The next day we had another early morning (which was ok considering that i had been sleeping in until 10 or so every day in Bogotá) and headed to Valle de Cocora, a beautiful, green, lush ''valley'' with huge wax palms towering over it.

wax palms in Valle de Cocora

We hiked around for a few hours, making our way to a home where the owners has attracted hundreds of hummingbirds. Incredible. There were quite a few rickity bridge crossings, so I was glad I had brought my chacos and could just walk right through them. Tobias hadn't been so lucky, and his lack of balance caused each crossing to be quite the adventure.

tobias crossing the river, with russ holding a stick that will be used as a railing for tobias

After visiting Don Elias' finca, four of us decided that we wanted to find one of our own secluded finca to stay at. We put on our adventure hats and said ''lets just get on a bus and get off when it looks pretty and stay there.'' But the whole trip was pretty (breathtaking, in fact) and we were indecisive, (and most of the places charged over $30 per person) so we just ended up going all the way to Medellin.

So Colombia. I am officially very much in love with it already. From the moment I arrived, I noticed that it is much different than most places I have been to. Here's some of them:

• you can drink the water. and it doesn't taste bad!
  


• you can flush toilet paper down the toilet. so very nice to not see brown-streaked toilet paper overflowing out of the trash bin.
  

• you can pay with credit card pretty much anywhere (very financially helpful for me at this point in the trip...) and all I need is my CA driver's license. Everywhere else I have needed my passport. Not a fun thing to carry around in my purse all day. STRESSFUL

• there is regular, decent, relatively easily navigated public transportation in most cities.
  

• people are so ridiculously friendly, wanting to help you even when unsolicited

• groceries are a little more expensive, but produce still stays cheap cheap cheap. here's to eating vegetables for every meal!

• I am living in a city of 8 million people where I can easily occupy myself daily (for under $5 a day) without work or other obligatory activities.
  

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Thank you, Colombia. Life is good.

A Series of Unfortunate Events

It's been a while.

Funny story. About two weeks ago (maybe even three by now...) I was headed to the internet cafe so that I could write another blog and mention how good I was at blogging lately. But then when I got there I found out that all of my pictures from the entire trip had been deleted off of my little flash drive. (I have no idea how that happened. I just plugged it in once and they were GONE!) So then I was a little preoccupied trying to figure it out so I didn't blog. The pictures are still deleted but it's ok because I have most of them on Picasa. But I did lose a lot of my pictures from Arequipa and the first half of Bolivia. it's a shame. shame shame shame. Gotta figure out some better way to save my pictures so this doesn't happen again.

That was in Sucre. Between Santa Cruz and Sucre I went to a place called Samaipata, which was absolutely beautiful. It's a beautiful little hippie town and I saw tons of animals and stayed at a cute place where I had a feather pillow. Feather pillow! I think it had to have been a mistake, but I didn't tell anyone because I didn't want it to be taken away. No pictures :( they are gone

Then I took a plane to Sucre because I'd heard from a lot of people that the bus ride was at least 17 hours and absolutely terrible. Plus, a plane ticket was only $50 so I splurged! Definitely a good choice.

Sucre was a beautiful city, the former capital of Bolivia. It was stolen away by La Paz years ago and they are still pretty bitter. The supreme court is still in Sucre, but everything else is in La Paz. Outside of Sucre there are dinosaur footprints so I visited those. They are on a vertical wall thing because of the techtonic plates moved. They aren't sure how much longer they will last because it is eroding.

can you see the footprints?

I was there for a day extra since I missed my bus to Uyuni. Caught the bus the next day. Good thing I flew to Sucre because it was a long long bus ride where I was sure that the bus was going to break down any minute. Luckily it didn't break down and I made it to Uyuni by sundown. I was supposed to meet up with friends there to do a tour of the Salt Flats together but hadn't heard from them and couldn't find them in the tiny tiny town of Uyuni so I booked a tour on my own. The tour was incredible. It felt like I was on a different planet. Everyone who had done the tour before told us how horribly freezing it was (-20 degrees celcius at night, which is around -5 farenheit) and you stay in little huts with thatched rooves. I was prepared for the worst, but the nights weren't that bad. The bad part was at 6am when we got a flat tire. I thought my toes were going to freeze off. Luckily, they didn't.

salt flats

At the train cemetery

''Arbol de Piedra'' - Stone Tree

After Uyuni I took an 11-hour night bus back to La Paz. I only had one day there so I walked around doing all the touristy stuff I didn't do last time I was there. Again, I really enjoyed La Paz. It's truly a city unlike any other I've ever seen.

A bus in La Paz

Had a flight the next morning (Tuesday) to Bogota, Colombia that I was SURE was at 11. Unfortunately, when I arrived at the airport at 9, I was informed that the flight was actually at 9. oops. (I am calm about it now, but you can be sure I was the opposite when it happened. not a fun day) So after a series of frustrated phone calls in both Spanish and English, I finally got myself on another flight on Friday to Bogota with ''only'' an $83 fee. With my newly acquired 3 extra days in La Paz, I mostly just lounged around on my friend's couch and watched Grey's Anatomy and Lost.

I made it to Bogota, and now I'm loving the city, hanging out with Linnea and Trish, and planning my upcoming trip to the coast. hooray!

Villa Tunari

Hopped on a bus/van from Cochabamba to Villa Tunari last Monday. I told the driver a few times that I wanted to get off at Villa Tunari, but he went a mile or two past it anyway. I was able to get a taxi back after multiple questions and an hour or so of waiting. Spent the rest of the day wandering around the town, taking some pictures. I had a permanent layer of sweat on my skin because of the heat and humidity, which was a nice change from the frigid cold of the mountains.

View from my hotel. I spent a lot of time here reading or doing nothing.

The next day I went to Parque Machia, an animal refuge that has lots of young backpackers working/volunteering there, including a couple of friends I had met in Arequipa. (Wasn't ever able to meet up with my friends, and got an email from one of them telling me he had gotten bit by a monkey -again- and that's why he couldn't come meet me when I came by the park...) It was a beautiful area, I hiked around the park where they had monkeys jumping around from tree to tree and also some beautiful macaws. They charged extra to bring your camera in so I decided not to. So no pictures, unfortunately.

After a lunch I took a ''trufi'' (shared taxi) to a resort hotel that you could pay to take a hike down to the natural swimming holes on their property. It was a beautiful, relaxing hike, but not quite hot enough to swim. It started raining on my way back and ended up pouring for 20 minutes or so, luckily not until I got to my hotel.

The trail on the way to the swimming holes.

One of the swimming holes

The next day, after asking around a lot about how to get to Santa Cruz, I set out with my backpack to wait on the highway. The sun had come back out and I was drenched in sweat after just 5 minutes of waiting for the bus. After about 10 buses passed me by without stopping, I started to get a little nervous. But every time I asked someone, they said just wait there and a ''flota'' will come by. They said a flota is a big bus but I thought the big busses had already gone by. But once the flota arrived I knew which one it was. (it was huge compared to the others) I hopped on and got the last seat on the bus. It was a sweaty 5 hour trip to Santa Cruz, and it had started raining by the time I got there. I asked the taxi driver if this weather was normal (it's supposed to be the dry season) and he said no, it's only today. ok phew. I didn't leave Seattle to spend days in the rain.

I stayed at one of the best hostels I've encountered on my trip, and met a couple of other travelers. We tried going out that night, but after the first bar it was absolutely POURING down rain so we called it a night and went back to the hostel for a few beers.

The next day the weather continued. Freezing, windy, and pouring down rain. I felt like I was in a minor hurricaine. Not an inviting climate to wander around a city in. So I plopped myself down on a beanbag in the tv room and watched about three movies. Stepbrothers was a hilight. We braved the weather for lunch at a Bolivian-Mexcan restaurant and bought pasta to make for dinner. I didn't leave the hostel again that day. Unfortunate about the weather because the hostel had a great-looking pool.

DEFINITELY wasn't expecting that...

While wandering the streets of Cochabamba a few hours ago (which, may I add, is a little underwhelming on first glance...) looking for a place to throw away my yogurt container, I finally found a dumpster. I opened the lid to toss in the trash and there was a PERSON inside!! I yelped and ran away. But not before I threw the yogurt container in. I think it might have hit him.

I'm in an internet cafe where there are 13 computers, all but one have adolescent boys playing world of warcraft and yelling ''mierda'' and ''puta'' a lot. those are bad words.