Medellin – my favorite Colombian city

Hi all. I´m back in Bogota to chill out for a few days before boarding my flight to Los Angeles on Wednesday (I am going to be back in the states for a week before flying out to Istanbul). I spent six days in Medellin, but I could have stayed for weeks more. Medellin is known for its perfect year-round spring climate, stunning setting in a valley surrounded by green mountains, excellent plastic surgeons and Pablo Escobar. During the heyday of the Medellin Cartel in the 80s and 90s, Medellin was infamous for rampant drug-related crime. With curfews and loads of motorcycle assassins, it didn´t attract too many visitors at the time. Medellin today, however, is an entirely different place with an extraordinarily vibrant nightlife and some of the friendliest people you will ever meet.

After arriving on Saturday morning, Chris and I ended up at the Palm Tree Hostal, a lovely hostel with the cleanest communal kitchen I have ever seen in Colombia. Generally speaking I don´t cook very much when I travel because kitchens are often dirty and it is usually cheaper to eat out. The Palm Tree, however, offered free coffee, unlimited oranges to make fresh juice and two eggs per day. We ended up making breakfast and dinner every single night, a really welcome change after eating so much tasty but not very healthy Colombian food for weeks. It´s amazing how delicious steamed broccoli tastes when you haven´t had it in awhile! Chris is a very good cook so we took turns with the meals. The other travelers were really into cooking as well, so the hostel had a great, homey feeling to it. It was also small enough that you knew everyone who was staying there, and the group was pretty diverse – in addition to the usual Aussies and Brits, I also met travelers from Switzerland, Italy, France, Argentina, Brazil and the US.

We were pretty tired from the bus journey, but since it was Saturday night we felt obligated to go out and experience the famous Medellin nightlife. It definitely did not disappoint! We started at an electronic club with some people from Palm Tree, where I had my first dose of serious Colombian plastic surgery. Holy crap! I don´t think I have ever seen so many fake tits in my life. The ass implants were pretty entertaining as well. Some women were really starting to look like trannies though, which I don´t think was the intended effect…

That club closed at 4am, which felt way too early. We wandered outside to ask where the next spot was. After a short chat we ended up in a car with some very drunk but friendly Colombian guys who plied us with whiskey and red bull as they drove us to the next club. I would never get into a drunk stranger´s car back home, but the rules when traveling are a little more…relaxed. I rode in vehicles and motorbikes with drunk drivers in Southeast Asia all the time, just because, well, everyone was drunk and there wasn´t much you could do about that.

Anyway… the second club reminded me a lot of the clubs in Vegas, except that it was full of Colombians, not Midwesterners. More electronic music, more expensive booze, etc. I ran into some travelers I had met earlier in my trip, which happens a lot more often than you would think. Right outside the club were street vendors selling cigarettes, lollipops, gum, and all sorts of random crap you might want for a late night at a club. At around 6am we finally got tired of dancing, caught a taxi home and flew through the city as the cabbie blasted the best hits of UB-40 while driving like a maniac. Nice.

Sunday was spent doing pretty much nothing as we nursed our hangovers – had some food, watched movies in the living room and chilled out with the other hungover travelers at the hostel. After that indulgent and extremely lazy day, we did go out and explore the city a bit during the rest of the week:

Monday – Indian vegetarian restaurant for lunch, and then the Botero museum and plaza. The overview of modern Colombian paintings was really interesting.

Tuesday – Took the cable car up to the top and explored a neighborhood that used to be a total slum. The cable car has transformed this neighborhood by connecting it to the rest of Medellin. Now people can go to school or work with much more ease. Also, a huge, modern library has just opened up in that neighborhood, and we saw several offices that looked like they were giving business training. And there were tons of adorable kids running around!

Wednesday – More paragliding for me, first time for Chris and Adam (Aussie from the hostel). This time was even better because of the fantastic views of the city. Also, I wasn´t scared at all this time, so I took a lot more photos. We landed in a big dirt patch in a poor neighborhood where the kids gawked at my camera and hopped around us. As we headed to the metro afterwards, we ended up stopping at an empanada stand and eating about 20 potato empanadas (they were small!) while chatting with some friendly locals.

Later that night we went out in Zona Rosa, party central in Medellin. Since it was Wednesday night it was pretty tame, so we had just one drink and headed back (I still felt like I was recovering a bit from Saturday anyway). There were TONS of bars and clubs in that area though, and it looked like it would be really fun during the weekend.

Thursday afternoon we caught a bus to Manizales, a city in the heart of Zona Cafetera, the coffee-growing region of the country. I really didn´t want to leave Medellin, but forced myself to do so because of time constraints. I will be back though! Who knows when…

 

Carnaval and Colonial Disneyland

Greetings dear readers! Sorry for the delayed posting. I only have a week left in Colombia and I just can´t bear the thought of leaving (but I won`t whine too much about it since most of you are reading this from florescent-lit cubicles).

I ended up staying in Barranquilla for five days for Carnaval. Our host procured tickets to one of the best parades for us, so we spent an entire day drinking free beer in the Aguila stand (Colombia´s most popular beer), eating fried street snacks and dancing to LOTS of salsa. I am a terrible salsa dancer, by the way. I love to dance but have never been good with coordinated dance moves, and salsa is no exception. However, if you have a good dance partner, you can look really good! It´s amazing.

After the parade started winding down around 5pm, we headed home to change and then off again to a few more outdoor salsa parties. When you are at these huge outdoor parties it feels like the entire city of Barranquilla has shut down, except to celebrate Carnaval (which is pretty much the case). After drinking all day and dancing til 3am, we went home and slept like hibernating bears.

Two more days of Carnaval followed, but I must admit that I did a whole lot of nothing besides lazing around Camilo´s posh apartment – rented some movies, cooked some amazing meals and met his friends. Barranquilla is not usually very interesting to travellers because it`s a port city that isn`t particularly attractive. It reminded me a lot of Los Angeles actually – tons of shiny malls, flashy cars, palm trees, high-maintenance women, wide roads and vaguely Spanish-colonial apartment buildings. Oh, not to mention the Tower Records, Blockbuster Video, etc etc.

After Carnaval was over, Darren and I peeled ourselves off of Camilo´s couch and headed to Cartagena, the crown jewel of colonial towns in South America. Camilo drove us and we met up again with Chris, a British guy we met on the Ciudad Perdida trek. Cartagena is by far the most touristy place in Colombia, and you feel it the second you arrive. You do see lots of beautifully restored colonial buildings, but it feels a lot like a Florence or Venice – absolutely gorgeous, charming, romantic, etc. but totally overrun with tourists and businesses that only cater to the tourist industry. We walked by tons of dressed up Americans eating in fancy restaurants, not something I have been seeing much of in the country. The highlight may have been Camilo’s aunt’s apartment building in Cartagena, where we lounged on the rooftop pool and watched the sunset over the ridiculously picturesque city.

After two days in Cartagena we spent a day at Playa Blanca, a huuuuuuge white sand beach with warm blue-green water and gentle waves, perfect for floating and evening out my stomach tan. Within hours of arrival we had been plied by friendly beach vendors with oysters, fresh fish, beer, mango (excellent with pepper and lime, by the way) and massages. I desperately wanted to stay for a few days, but with only a week and a half left in Colombia at that point I felt obligated to move on. So I said goodbye to the Caribbean, goodbye to the coast, goodbye to Darren (he stayed back a few days to hang out with his new Colombian lover) and boarded a overnight bus to Medellin with Chris.

Bus travel in Colombia is always interesting. Overnight buses are pretty nice here – plush seats, bathroom and air-conditioning so cold that you need blankets or layers of extra clothing. As usual, a crappy action/thriller/suspense movie came on. This time it was Blood Diamond. Leonardo DiCaprio stills looks like he is overacting when he´s dubbed in Spanish, in case you were wondering. I was a bit startled during the movie when a soldier with a huge gun came onboard and walked by. I hadn´t realized that the bus had stopped at a police check, which is very common here. Most long bus journeys pass through multiple police checks. Sometimes they just get on and take a cursory look around, but other times they make everyone get off the bus. After that they search your belongings, pat you down and look under the seats for god knows what (drugs I think). Sometimes these police checks add hours to your trip, which you need to factor in when planning to get anywhere. It can be annoying, but it also means that the main roads of the country are actually navigable again, as opposed to being overrun by paramilitary/ guerrilla groups.

After the thirteen hour bus journey, we arrived in Medellin on Saturday morning and took a cab to what is now possibly my favorite hostel in all of Colombia. It´s time for dinner, so more on Medellin later!

 

Lost in the Jungle

After a week of adventure boot camp, Darren and I took an overnight bus to Taganga, a tiny town on the Caribbean coast. We wanted to go on the famed Ciudad Perdida hike, which travelers in Colombia rave about.  Ciudad Perdida (¨Lost City¨) is a series of ancient ruins nestled deep in the jungle of the Sierra Nevada mountains, accessible only by foot.  You are required to go with a licensed guide, so we signed up with Turcol and ended up in a ragtag group of nine with a people from London, Los Angeles, Seattle, Bogota and France.  It felt very much like adult camp.  Or the first week of freshman year. After hiking, eating and sleeping together for six days, we became comfortable very quickly and spent an inordinate amount of time talking about the state of our digestive systems.  Travellers LOVE talking about parasites and tropical diseases they have acquired/staved off. 

 The trip cost $230 for the six day hike, all food and accommodation (hammocks) included.  Every day except the fourth day (which was spent wandering around the ruins) we woke up around 7am, ate breakfast, and hiked until about 2pm through steamy hot jungle and crossed the river many times.  In the afternoon we would have lunch and usually jump into a pristine swimming hole.  This left us with a LOT of free time.  It´s an interesting social experiment to see how nine adults entertain themselves with no booze (the delicious cheap rum-iodine tablet water-tang cocktails ran out after day 2), no music, no internet and no activities – just birds chirping and pitch black darkness beyond the candle on the camp table.  We held insect championships by catching them in plastic cups and trying to force them to interact with each other, vigorously scratched at the hideous number of bug bites we received and had lots of discussions about travel and politics.  I led an impromptu yoga class after the Colombians asked me about my idle stretching, and we all received mini-massages from Erin, the masseuse and self-proclaimed ¨hippie plant girl¨from Seattle.

Ciudad Perdida itself was pretty stunning, lots of circular stone ruins set into the green, green jungle.  I think we definitely appreciated the effort it took to get there. About forty soldiers patrol the area, and they are all young, friendly and very bored.  We heard them shrieking as we climbed the last 1200 steps to reach Ciudad Perdida.  When we got to the top we realized what was causing all the commotion – they were taking turns swinging on a vine into the trees, Tarzan style (not paying much attention to their M-16s).  Since the last incidence of guerrillas kidnapping tourists in 2003, the government has stationed soldiers there around the clock and it is extremely safe now.

I loved the fact that we saw almost no other travellers during the entire hike.  Generally speaking, the only people we passed were indigenous people living in the area.  If Colombia continues becoming safer and safer, this hike is going to explode in popularity. 

On day six, we returned to Taganga, where I had my first real shower in a week.  We became so dirty during the hike that I almost forgot what my skin looked like without mud or hundreds of insect bites from mosquitos, bees, sand flies and spiders.  Darren is now calling me ¨refugee legs,¨ with all my cuts, scratches and bites.    I have so many bites on my back that several people have taken photos of it (which I am not posting here).  But I have to say that despite all this, the hike was totally worth it.

After Ciudad Perdida, we hopped a bus to Parque Tayrona for a few days.  Parque Tayrona is a national park on the north coast of Colombia with gorgeous PERFECT Caribbean beaches.  We hiked a few hours to the best beaches and slept in hammocks.  Waking up in a hammock to the crashing morning waves may sound pretty idyllic, but hammock sleep is not good sleep.  You spend a lot of time swatting at bugs and tossing and turning in the hammock, which almost never leads to a comfortable position.  But you really can´t beat $5 a night in Colombia, so hammocks won out.

I just arrived in Barranquilla last night for Carnaval, the city with the second largest Carnaval celebration after Rio.  I am staying with a friend of Brendan´s in a beautiful, huge apartment.  After all that outdoor time I am reveling in clean sheets, chic plateware, air conditioning and Argentinian wine. Life is good.

 

Adventure Boot Camp

My apologies to the faithful blog readers who have harrassed me for not posting during the past two weeks. I have been lazy about parking myself at an internet cafe for more than a few minutes.

 I finally left Villa de Leyva and arrived in San Gil, a small town further north of Bogota.  San Gil is famous for outdoor activities so I figured I would spend a day or two rafting or something and then heading up to the Caribbean coast.  I ended up staying there for a week, which keeps happening to me in Colombia.  Here´s what I did:

 1. Whitewater rafting (twice) – The first time was grade 3 rapids for one hour, $12.  The activities here are ridiculously cheap.  I got totally hooked on rafting and signed up for another trip, this time grades 4-5, safety kayaks, the whole deal for 3 hours, $60.

2. Rock climbing – all afternoon, $12 including transport.  Darren (travelling buddy I met in San Gil) and I watched our “instructor” climb a wall with a cast on his right arm.  Nice.  They didn´t have any rock climbing shoes so I climbed barefoot.  Pretty exciting.

3. Paragliding – Woooooo!! So fun, and only a little bit scary.  $30.  I have photos, and video, but I don´t know how to post them right now.  Sorry.

Wow, what else did I do for a week?  I visited another colonial town for a day (Barichara, pretty and totally deserted), drank a lot of fresh tropical juice from the market, spent many hours reading Guns, Germs and Steel in the hostel hammocks and ate a bunch of Colombian food with Darren, who is as obsessed with food as I am. $1.50 at the market will get you a soup, teeny salad, lentils, yucca, rice and a suspicious beverage.  Total steal! 

I am now up on the Caribbean coast in Taganga, a small fishing village.  I just got back last night from a six day hiking trip to Ciudad Perdida, ancient ruins nestled deep in the jungle and only accessible by foot.  Much more about that to come in my next post!  

 

The Kindness of Strangers

After almost a week in Bogota I arrived in Villa de Leyva, a gorgeous little colonial town about four hours north of Bogota. The lack of international tourists in this country is very refreshing – you don´t get endlessly harrassed by touts at the bus station to stay at their guesthouse and locals are not always trying to scam you or drag you into their mediocre “tourist” restaurants. However, it does mean that there isn`t much English spoken so I really need to figure everything out in my halting Spanish. It`s been working out pretty well though. I`ve found that people here are incredibly warm, helpful, and also totally curious about why I am traveling by myself. I have experienced more random acts of kindness during my four days in this town than probably a year in the states.

A few examples:

*My first afternoon here an elderly Colombian couple visiting from the southern coffee-growing region of the country (Zona Cafetera) asked me to take a photo of them in front of a famous ice cream shop. After our twenty minute conversation, they gave me their address, home and cell phone numbers and insisted that I stay with them when I visit that part of the country.

* On my third day here I woke up at 5am to horrible stomach pains and continuous vomiting. Around noon I hobbled weakly out of my guesthouse to buy some water when I ran into a man and his three year old son I had met the day before at a cafe. When he asked how I was doing, I told him I was feeling sick (total understatement, I felt like absolute shit). Before I knew what was happening, he immediately tracked down his niece who speaks English. She insisted on taking me to the doctor, even though I was pretty sure it was just food poisoning. She came with me to the doctor’s office (the visit cost $7, by the way, and this was the “good” doctor) where I vomited yet again (into a toilet that had a turd floating in it, ughghghgh). She sat with me during the appointment and translated everything he said, filled my prescription, and walked me back to my guesthouse. Total angel.

*This morning I decided to go on a six hour hike with another traveler in a national park nearby that was supposed to have a beautiful lake at the top (it ended up being kind of a pond). Anyway, I was woefully underprepared – hadn`t eaten breakfast, and carried in my backpack a small bottle of water, a roll, a cliff bar, and two pieces of fruit. Dumb, dumb, dumb… so of course I was dehydrated and starving when I got to the top. Two different groups of Colombian families were picnicking by the lake, and members of both groups plied us with various snacks, yummy!!!! Maybe they could tell I was contemplating licking the salt off my arm…

*When the hike was over and I reached the bottom, I sat down, anticipating the hour and a half wait for the bus to take me back to town. One of those same families offered us a ride into town. Elated that we weren’t going to be soaked by the rain that had just started coming down, we jumped into the car. I looked behind me and realized that we had displaced the aunt and the little boy who were now sitting in the TRUNK. Seriously. Ok, it wasn´t like they were in the trunk of a Honda Civic, but it was a tiny minivan type car and the very narrow trunk area was clearly designed for a few groceries, not people. And they were now crammed into that tiny space, sitting on top of each other. I tried multiple times to switch places with them, but everyone kept shrieking “No, no!! Esta bien!!!” and refused to budge. So I stayed put, thanking them profusely.

I am very sad to leave this lovely town, but it`s time to move on.  Tomorrow I`m catching a bus to San Gil, another small town a few hours north of here that´s famous for rock climbing and whitewater rafting.  Woohoo!

 

Bogota and my newfound empanada addiction

Welcome to my first blog entry!  I´ve been a little slow going on getting this started, but I hope to post once a week or so.  FYI, I haven´t figured out how to replace that ugly green tunnel photo above – Windows in Spanish is too much for me.

 Today is my fifth day in Colombia.  I arrived last Thursday on a flight from LAX-Panama City-Bogota.  If you want to buy a Lacoste shirt at the Panama City airport, you are in luck – there are four Lacoste stores.  However, if you are desperately searching for an Economist because you accidently packed all your books in your checked luggage, no success whatsoever.   Not a SINGLE magazine or newspaper to be had!  Ergh.

 I arrived in Bogota not knowing exactly what to expect.  It´s billed as one of the most cosmopolitan cities in South America, so I expected it to be crazy, crowded, and full of hustle and bustle.  I was not aware before coming that most Bogotans are on holiday from Christmas to January 6, so it´s been fairly mellow.  I´m staying at a hostel in La Candelaria, an older neighborhood that is packed with museums, cafes and colorful but crumbling colonial architecture.   You´re not supposed to walk around alone at night, but from what I´ve seen there are way fewer street urchins and crack addicts here than near my old apartment in the Haight.  My hostel is a bit rundown but full of friendly travelers.  I´m paying $8 a night for a bed that may or may not have clean sheets (thank god for my sleep sack) and a lukewarm-to-usually-cold shared shower.   Woohoo!

This city is absolutely massive (pop. 8 million).   My impression is that wealthy people tend to live in the north in nondescript modern apartment buildings while the south is full of the aforementioned crumbling colonial buildings and cobbled alleyways where the not-as-wealthy live.  And then there are the slums hugging the mountainside that seem to be present in most major South American cities. 

My friend Michelle connected me with some Colombian friends she met while living here last summer, and they have been showing me a fantastic time around the city.  I´ve been to a fair number of restaurants, bars and clubs in the city now.  One of the first things I noticed about the restaurants is that waiters are always reminding you to put your bag away in a safe place (i.e. under your table or in a secret compartment in your chair) even when you are sitting inside in a corner…

Which brings me to the security situation in Bogota.  It is impossible to miss the police, tourist police, and military guarding the city at almost every turn.  There´s also usually a soldier with a giant gun posted in front of every ATM machine.  This was a bit startling when I first arrived, but I don´t notice it too much anymore.  Bogota is much safer than it used to be even a few years ago, and I assume this giant military/police presence has something to do with it.  And all that said, I do feel safer here than in parts of Los Angeles or New York.

What else… oh, the food!  Of course.    One of my absolute favorite parts of travelling is trying all the local food.  Here are the culinary highlights and lowlights of my experience in Bogota:

HIGHLIGHTS

-Empanadas: delicious, cheap (15-30 cents), usually filled with rice and a little chicken or some type of meat, eaten with aji, a spicy cilantro sauce.  I´ve been eating these every single day.

-Ajiaco: a Bogotan specialty, chicken/potato/corn soup served with sliced avocado, cream and capers.  One of the very few things to eat that is not fried.

-Arepas con queso: Corn pancake-type things with cheese inside.  Fried, of course, and served by street vendors and restaurants everywhere.

 LOWLIGHTS

- Hot chocolate with cheese (chocolate santafereno??), another Bogotan specialty: This isn´t as gross as it sounds.  In fact, I bet if you like hot chocolate you would think it was delicious.  Since I´m not a huge fan of chocolate, I don´t think I will have it again.  You drop pieces of mild cheese into the hot chocolate and it becomes this gummy mass at the bottom of your mug which you retrieve with a spoon and eat with bread.  The hot chocolate doesn´t end up tasting like cheese at all, in case you were wondering.

-Wobbly-fat stew: ok, I have no idea what this is called, but without inspecting it very carefully I ordered a portion of what looked like a delicious spicy potato stew from a women at the market yesterday.  As I was about to dive my fork into it, I noticed that it consisted almost entirely of huge chunks of quivering animal fat and two tiny potatoes, covered in a spicy red sauce.  I took one ginger bite of potato, not wanting to waste food, but then threw the entire thing away.  I´m feeling a little ill thinking about it right now.

Other foods that Bogotans seem to be obsessed with are ice cream and giant cuts of meat for lunch and dinner.  I´ve avoided the giant slabs of meat so far, but I´m glad I started eating a little meat again before I left because as a pure vegetarian, I would be subsisting solely on french fries and arepas.  I am very much looking forward to the seafood on the Carribbean coast!