Cartagena - Day 2

Cartagena - We visited a lot of the historical monuments like the Castle of San Felipe de Barajas and saw the fortress that helped to protect the city. One of the small jewels of Cartagena are some of the vendors. We bought some ice cream outside of the castle because it was incredibly hot and the guy offered to tell us about the guy who helped to build the castle. Inside the castle, our tour guide offered us detailed information on the history of the city and how the fortress was used to defend the city. We had lunch at a famous Cartagena restaurant called Socorro and headed back to the apartment. Izzy and Aida took a walk on the beach while the boys watched Colombia lose 1-0 to Argentina. Later that night, we walked along the main street of the Bocagrande section of Cartagena while munching on a bag of chopped mango topped with lime juice. We had dinner at a wonderful institution of Colombia called Crepes & Waffles. If you are ever in Colombia, you must try this restaurant at least once. From what we are told, most of the employees are single mothers. Nevertheless, the food is outstanding and the service is great too. There isn´t too much more to say about Cartagena. We were thinking of going to some of the local islands like Rosarios but we never made it. When you look at the pictures, the last one is of a fast food chicken place. See if you can figure out how to broast a chicken. We are now back in Bogotá for one final day before leaving on Tuesday. Enjoy the pictures.

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Cartagena - Day 1

Tayrona - Cartagena - This day started out nice, we ate breakfast and hiked the 45 minutes back to the pick up spot to go to the bus station of Santa Marta. We bought our ticket and boarded the bus to Cartagena. After about an hour of driving, we stopped for 4 hours because of a protest that shut down a bridge. The military and police showed up and had to use water and other elements to dispatch the crowd the reopen the bridge. We have no idea why they were protesting but we do know the protesters got angry. Our bus driver suddenly boarded the bus and turned us around to drive in the opposite direction because the angry protesters were breaking car windows out of anger of being disbanded. We eventually were far enough away from them to turn back around and after about 4 hours of waiting, we started moving again. As we got onto the bridge, we heard the radio operator ask our driver where we were and he told them we had just made onto the bridge and the operator told him to go go go because they were about to close the bridge again. We went through Barranquilla and eventually arrived to Cartagena around 7 p.m. that night. We took a cab ride with one of the coolest cab drivers, who was cruising in an old Dodge Dart. We stayed in some ocean front apartments for our stay in Cartagena. The only downside to Cartagena is that it is a tourist trap so there are vendors everywhere screaming "Rosarios, Rosarios, collares, apartamentos!" trying to sell you whatever they have. The cost of everything in the city is also higher than say Bogotá. On Friday, we walked down to the old part of the city but it rained on us a lot. We ended up going through the Museum of the Inquisition and saw the various torture devices used in medieval times. We also went by an old convent called Santa Clara that is now the most expensive hotel in Colombia. Cartagena is beautiful and full of history but with the amount of tourists there, it almost takes something away from the beauty of the city. Nevertheless, we enjoyed our stay somewhat. Enjoy the pictures.

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Parque Tayrona - Day 3

Parque Tayrona - Day 3 - Today we set off early for Pueblito with the intention of actually going this time. We passed by some Spaniards who checked in when we did and they told us that it was worth the journey. The hike was about an hour and a half each way, all uphill, 2.4 km in distance and we went up 267 meters. As stated previously, we were better prepared for this with stuff like water and towels and jeans for the mosquitoes. On the first part of the hike, we encountered plenty of mosquitoes so we had to wear the jeans. The terrain was rather rough but the portion between 30% and 50% of the journey was by far the worst part. The way up was carved out by a series of large stones that created steps but in some parts, it took some shimmying and some butt pushing from others to get you over the rocks. At other times, we looked like Spiderman scaling the rocks too. We stopped often to catch our breath, take pictures, and drink water. Everyone´s clothes were so wet from sweat, it was disgusting. We passed one girl coming down around 70% of the way and she told us the worst was over. We continued hiking even though there were definitely times of wanting to turn around and say to hell with this. After the longest hour and a half of our lives, we arrived at Pueblito. It contained a couple of huts and a lot of stone circles and other ancient structures from the peoples who once inhabited the area. We found a small boy selling hot water and cokes and he didn´t seem to speak much Spanish. A lot of the indigenous dialects remain intact in the mountain areas due to their ability to preserve their language from outside contact. After about 30 - 45 min of poking around, resting, and taking pictures, we began our descent back down. Needless to say, it was a whole lot easier than going up but we were absolutely starving and couldn´t stop talking about food and jumping into the sea. The trail for the town begins around Cabo de San Juan de Guia, the one we spent the day at before and so we ate lunch in the same restaurant after taking a much needed dip in the water. The best part was having a towel to dry off with after swimming. We headed back to our cabaña and relaxed the rest of the night and instead of drinking a couple of beers at the local watering hole, we all had two or three cups of juice to replenish our bodies and played with the kitties that ran around at night.

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Parque Tayrona - Day 2

Parque Tayrona - Day 2 - We set off to hike up to Pueblito, which translates to small town. We walked back to the pool area and found another trail that led us to another camping area that seemed to be exclusively for camping in tents called Cabo de San Juan del Guia. We stopped for a while to explore the area because it had more beautiful beaches, cold drinks, and a hammock filled cabaña on a small portion of a land that jutted out into the sea. We walked up the small path to the cabaña and took some great pictures and just enjoyed the serenity of the view. We decided to put off our hike to Pueblito to the following day and spend the day at the beach of Cabo de San Juan. This was a great idea except we were not really prepared for a day at the beach as much as a day of hiking so I wasn´t wearing swimming shorts but just regular shorts that I swam in, we had no towel to dry off with after swimming, and we were covered in mosquito repelant. The camping area had a restaurant that served some really fresh seafood, fish, and other things. We pretty much spent most of the day there swimming, eating, and just relaxing but our lack of preparedness for a day at the beach was a little annoying to me. As we began our walk back to the hotel, we realized it was prime time of the day for mosquitos so we took the key to the cabaña and walked as quickly as possible back so as not to put our yellow fever vaccines to the test nor spend the rest of the night scratching itchy bites. After a shower at the cabaña, we walked back to the beach in front of our hotel, not swimmable due to the strong undertow, and found a bunch of horses relaxing on the beach. The beautiful beaches and the naturalness to the park is something that is really amazing and relaxing. The seclusion is also really relaxing as a break from civilization is something that we don´t get often enough in our busy lives.

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Parque Tayrona - Day 1

Parque Tayrona - Day 1

     We woke up early on Monday morning to hear a plane is missing as we are about to embark on our own plane ride, isn´t that just fun. We had a 730 a.m. flight to Santa Marta, a small town in the north of Colombia.

     We arrived on time and were picked up by a driver from the hotel in the park. He drove us the hour, stopping for necessary supplies like water along the way, to the park entrance. We saddled up our luggage on some over worked and under paid horses and set off on a 45 minute hike to our hotel through the jungle. As it was our first time in the jungle, we seemed to meander through the winding path that went up and down hill, had tons of horse turds, and fought of mosquitos while we snapped many pictures of the Colombian jungle. We saw some nice morpho butterflies and monkeys having a good time throwing branches and coconuts in the trees.

     After tons of walking and sweating, we arrived to our hotel, where they had a tasty juice treat waiting for us. Check-in wasn´t until 3 o´clock and since it was only 11ish, we had a lunch at a local beachside restaurant to pass the time. The food was tasty and surprisingly not too expensive, and the view, well, it´s the Caribbean, is there really much to complain about? The best part about all of it was the lack of civilization, everything was still in an uninterrupted by progress form and maintained its natural beauty. 

      After lunch, we checked in to our cabaña and took a walk down to the pool, which is really just an area you can swim in near on the beach. The difference in this area and the others was that the ballast stones were further out to sea and broke most of the bigger waves so that they arrived to the shore in a much calmer fashion. After a swim and a walk back to our hotel area, we ate dinner and called it a night.

     It really was like being in another world. Everywhere we looked, there was nature, wild, tame, and beautiful. Wild horses roamed, birds bathed and fished in the standing water, and the sound of the waves crashing made every thought in my mind melt away. The only reminder of where I was was the occasional helicopter flying overheard ensuring the area was secure. The early sunset time had been a bit of surprise to us in Bogotá but along the coast, it was just a different way to view the beautiful world around us.

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