14- Colombia: Rewriting their story

Out of all the countries we’ve been to, Colombia is the one that had the most people react with- “why would you go there?”, “is it safe?”, “are you mad?”. It’s a country that developed a dangerous reputation (rightly so) but has failed to shake it fully yet. That will continue to change. The latest Lonely Planet says “of course anything can happen but compared with neighbouring countries, Colombia is much safer”- so there you have it- you worried about the wrong countries!

Most people associate Colombia with cocaine buying & selling, guerrillas, paramilitaries, kidnappings, Pablo Escobar, general mayhem. Escobar was killed in 1993 but his shadow certainly still hangs over parts, Medellin especially but generally there is very little indication that all this mayhem once went on. We found the Colombians to be lovely people, very welcoming and they are owners of an amazing country that we were lucky to explore.

Our flight landed in Bogota and we took a few days to explore there before moving on. It was my least favourite stop in Colombia but to be fair, the rest of the country set the bar really high. Two highlights of the city were a bike tour around Bogota we did on Easter Sunday and a day trip the following day to the Salt Cathedral. The bike tour was good fun, bringing us to areas of the city that we wouldn’t have gone by ourselves and introducing us to lots of things locally, which is always good. Thankfully on Sundays lots of roads are closed to cars as I’m not sure how safe I would have felt doing it on a busy traffic day- as with most of these countries I don’t quite trust the road users!

Bogota is one of the first cities in the world to legalise graffiti in the city and the local council actively encourage graffiti artists to display their works around the city- obviously me writing “BMC woz ere” on someone’s wall doesn’t qualify. It definitely gives the city something different around the place with large paintings along many of the main roads.

As the last stop on our cycle tour, they brought us to show us a local pastime called “tego”. You could say it’s like a game of bowls except instead of a bowling ball, they throw rocks and instead of rolling them along the ground, they throw them in the air and instead of trying to hit a jack with the ball you are trying to hit firecrackers to make them explode- Same same but different! The locals claim that accuracy is improved the more beer you drink, can’t say we stayed that long to find out but I’m sure it could be put to the test with bowls!

Our last day in Bogota we took a trip to an hour outside the city to the Salt Cathedral- an amazing structure built by the miners who used to operate the salt mines in the area. Obviously all underground. Really cool to walk around with each room set up to reflect one of the twelve Stations of the Cross and then the final room is a huge underground cathedral. Great day out. We hired a driver to bring us there and back. When we met him in the morning he politely explained that he couldn’t find a babysitter so would we mind if he brought his two ten year old twin boys with him- well we’re supposed to be leaving in 3 minutes so I don’t think we’ve a choice! A real family day out for us- was able to impress them with my knowledge of Colombian footballers- limited though it is, they were delighted when I dropped Faustino Asprilla into a conversation- All about earning those cool points with the kids!

From Bogota we took a night bus to Medellin- a really nice city, much preferred it to Bogota. Had great fun here, lots of nice cafes, bars, restaurants around the place and lots to see and do. Did a good walking tour here, which again was a great way to see the city and get an insight into its histories and the stories behind different areas. Obviously the big thing a bunch of tourists like that want to know about is Pablo Escobar- the world famous drug dealer who is thought to be responsible for over 4,000 deaths and was once listed by Forbes magazine as one of the ten richest people in the world. Our guide was happy to receive questions but asked us to refer to him as “The Doctor” (one of his nicknames) as if locals overheard his name being used they could get the wrong idea about the type of tour that was being run.

The city has so much going for it, it’s amazing that twenty years ago it was such a mess. To demonstrate that change, in 2013, it was voted most innovative city in the world, beating New York and Tel Aviv to the award. The city has built public libraries, parks, and schools in poor hillside neighborhoods and constructed a series of transportation links from there to its commercial and industrial centers. It really is lovely! All this isn’t bad for a city that was once the most dangerous in the world- the murder rate has dropped 80% from 1991 to 2010.

There are specific tours you can do to learn about Escobar- one tour charges an extra $10 to meet “a member of his family”- emm no thanks! The basic summary of what we learned on the tours we did do was that he was a murdering megalomaniac who by giving away pocket change (a few million dollars out of a $30 billion fortune) bought the loyalty (and subsequent votes) of a lot of poor people in the region who turned him into this Colombian Robin Hood type figure which is complete rubbish. I’ve three stories that sum him up- two demonstrative and one to lighten the mood.

 

(1) He wanted to kill a Presidential candidate who opposed him and so planted a bomb on a plane which killed 110 people- the result? The candidate never actually boarded the flight so he killed 110 innocent people for naught. The candidate went on to become President and one of the main men trying to bring Escobar down.

(2) He didn’t like what a journalist and his newspaper were writing about him so he had him killed- our tour guide referenced the “Je suis Charlie” murders in this story. To commemorate the journalist the city built a statue in one of the parks. Escobar didn’t like this either and had someone attach a neck bomb to it in order to blow the head off the statue. They rebuilt the statue and he did it again. It was rebuilt a third time after Escobar’s own death and is still there now.

(3) Escobar, with so much money to spend, built himself a huge zoo outside of Medellin and illegally imported loads of exotic animals. During the crackdown on him, his houses and belongings were confiscated by the Government, the animals amongst them. However, nobody knew what to do with the four hippopotamuses that he had so they just left them there to die. Strangely enough hippos can happily survive by eating grass and so began their life in the area while multiplying along the way. There are now over forty hippos running wild in the area creating havoc but as they are a protected species worldwide, there is nothing anybody seems to be able to do about them. The outskirts of Medellin is the only place in the world outside of Africa that has wild hippos- thanks Pablo!

So after discovering that Medellin’s past reputation is no longer a reflection on the reality, our next move was to head north to Cartagena who’s reputation as a very cool place to visit was now up for scrutiny.

Well I’m glad to report that it more then lived up to its reputation. The main tourist area of Cartagena is within the walls of the city fort. All the exteriors of the buildings inside the fort are protected and preserved as a UNESCO world heritage site. Makes for such a lovely city as you walk along the fort wall with cobblestoned streets everywhere and preserved buildings. The fact that the city houses a huge amount of cafes, restaurants and bars also helps its cause in our opinion! 

The main attraction here is just to get lost amongst the streets and enjoy what you find. Easy to pass a number of hours this way. The main tourist site outside the fort walls is the actual fortress or castle, Castillo San Felipe de Barajas which was built on the hill outside the walls to protect against any invaders. It’s a huge castle and really well preserved and is another example of us enjoying the lax regard for health and safety in these countries! No problem with us strolling right onto the battlements to have a look, no areas restricted access just go where you like and deal with the consequences! So much fun. No chance you’d get such unrestricted access in a western country which in many ways is a pity, a whole lot safer but still a pity!

The other reason tourists and locals flock to Cartagena is the beaches and the most famous of those being Playa Blanca (or white beach for those non-bilinguals amongst us!). Beach is very busy, we were there at a weekend, which no doubt doubles the amount of people watching you can do. Traders going up and down the beach, some stationary, some moving person to person, all up to something. Our favourites were definitely the guys who pushed wheelbarrows up and down the beach stocked with various bottles of spirits, various fruits, mixers and of course machetes to cut up the fruit to make that cocktail that you really need to have! Wonderful entertainment. No chance a small sharp knife would do for these lads or perhaps have something pre-prepared- why would you do that when you can walk around with a wannabe sword to do the job! Love it.

So after enjoying the creature comforts that come with such a beautiful country we decided it was time to get down and dirty and with that headed to Santa Marta to prepare ourselves for a 4 day trek into the jungle to visit Ciudad Perdida or The Lost City- this is a city deep in the jungle that was lost for 350 years. The obvious comparison for it is Machu Picchu- whereas Machu Picchu receives about a million visitors a year, Ciudad Perdida currently gets about 9,000. Besides Peru being more developed tourist wise there’s also the fact that a train brings the majority of tourists to Machu Picchu while the only way to access the Lost City is two days and fourteen hours of trekking through a hot and humid jungle to get there.

The big thing about the trek is the fact that you will be damp and wet with sweat for four solid days! Nothing dries when humidity is that high and having a backpack on, it takes two to three minutes for a new t-shirt to be drowned with sweat! Lovely I know. As Shakira once said (I think)- the sweat don’t lie! So our tour group was left off for lunch in the nearest village, 23km from The Lost City where we enjoyed a cold beer and being sweat free- no ice to cool down beers or us for the next few days I’m afraid.

The two-day trek to get there was manageable if tough with lots of ups and downs with the humidity being the real drain on us. Thankfully it’s set up so that we stop at places to swim a few times a day to provide relief. Well needed. You mightn’t be clean after the swims but at least they cooled you down!

I can’t remember Indiana Jones ever having this trouble in his movies. I suppose the scene where he discusses what to do about his profuse sweating and choice of deodorant might have been in the directors cut!

Besides seeing lots of jungle, rivers as mentioned were all over the place- there was one day where we had to cross the same river nine times! They don’t do direct routes around here. One of the other things we saw quite a lot of on the trek were indigenous tribes. Lots of them around. They lead such a simple life it’s incredible. Really are from a different time and judging by the plain beige/ brown clothes they all wear, fashion certainly isn’t their thing! Incredible to think that the ones we came across were the sociable ones who didn’t mind tourists/ foreigners coming onto their land. There are plenty of others who hide away in deep jungle and don’t want anything to do with it. A real life of isolation. The standard family size we were told is between 8 and 15 children- first group in the world that makes the McCarthy clan below average! As such their numbers seem to be increasing if anything, which surely goes against what you’d expect of these tribes in the wilderness. I would have thought that there’d be an exodus to villages, towns or cities but apparently not. Interesting.

Ciudad Perdida, was built in 800 AD, 650 years before Machu Picchu, and was the main city of the Tayronas, the native tribe of Colombia. When the Spanish invaded they chose to abandon their city rather then let them take it. After the Spanish killed all of the Tayronas, the location of the city and its treasures were lost and it was reclaimed by the jungle. It lay hidden for almost 350 years.

After two days and about 14 hours of trekking, on the third morning we arrived to Ciudad Perdida. When I say arrived, what I actually mean is we got to the steps that lead up to it. These are the steps that in the early 1970’s grave robbers found and followed all 1,200 of them to discover the Lost City. We followed in their footsteps up the stairs but not in robbing the graves as all the gold and valuables that the Tayronas buried their dead with are long gone.

It’s a really fantastic site once you get there, made all the more special by the fact that you haven’t seen anything resembling civilisation in the two days beforehand. It really is in no mans land.

The city itself is large at 12,000 square metres and they think at one stage between 4,000 and 10,000 people lived there. So there is a huge amount to see but on top of that there’s another 9,000 square metres of buildings that the Indigenous have refused the Government permission to excavate so they don’t really know where the whole thing might end. Watch this space. We had a lovely morning there exploring the buildings, staring in wonderment at the views and getting a history lesson from our guide. After all that was done, the trek all the way back began (yes, another two days trekking to get back)! The reward for these Lost City discoverers was nothing more then a swim and at some stage hopefully clean clothes and a shower. Living the dream!

So after four days of sweaty adventure we got back to where we started and rewarded ourselves with the novelty of beer cooled using ice. Score. The reward of a nice hot shower would have to wait as northern Colombian hostels don’t have hot and cold taps. The temperature you get in the shower is whatever the sun has heated it to! Who says you can’t clean yourself in cold water?

One of the things that we especially loved about Northern Colombia was the efficiency of the bus service. In most countries, potential passengers go looking for their bus. Here, the buses seem to go out of their way to find you! You’d walk down the road, with a backpack on and next thing at the top of the road, we heard the hollering from a bus driver’s assistant of “Tayrona! Tayrona!”- with a thumbs up from 50m away the bus pulls in and waits for us. These guys know how to fill their bus! Of course this system is great to get you onto the bus but be warned, this routine happens every few metres as they try and get anyone within shouting distance onto their buses. Estimated travel times are very much an estimate!

With all that said and done, our final stop was to head to Tayrona National Park (by bus as I’ve explained!) to do some camping and time on their beaches. Still pretty rustic but when you’re no more then 50m from the beach, you get over it pretty fast! A gorgeous part of Colombia that came highly recommended for good reason. Any place where you can see sand, beach and sunset from the door of your tent is well worth a trip.

Just another of Colombia’s greatest hits. They put in a great audition to get themselves very high on our rankings of favourite countries to visit. The competition is heating up- Guatemala, what have you got to show for yourself?

Click here to see a selection of photos from our Colombian trip

Our route:

Fly to Bogota, bus to Medellin, bus to Cartagena, bus to Santa Marta, 4 day trip to the Lost City (“Ciudad Perdida”), 2 day trip to Tayrona National Park, Palomino, back to Santa Marta, fly Santa Marta-Bogota, Guatemala City

13- Brazil: No strings attached

On leaving Bolivia and flying across the continent to Brazil we moved from one of the poorer South American countries to one of the richer. But our first impressions weren’t with the contrast in wealth but with the contrast in clothing. Obviously weather plays a large role in the dress codes of the respective countries but so does lack of inhibitions! Brazilians seem to spend so much time on the beaches that their swimwear is effectively their national dress but in most cases its far closer to a state of undress!

Built more with an all round tan in mind, the locals wear them with pride and for the locals in question it doesn’t matter if they’re built to wear a thong or not! No holding back with this lot so whether the subject entices you to look at them or to avert your eyes, they really don’t care. Not a bother on them and certainly contributes to a day at the beach being a feast of people watching. It’s not often your wife turns and says “this’ll be the only country I’m likely to say this in but quick look at the ass on that girl over there!”  

We flew into the second city, Sao Paulo, but hadn’t scheduled much time there so any fans of the city have a right to feel neglected. So after virtually skipping Sao Paulo we began our trek north by heading to the wonderfully named Paraty. Any city with party in the name is fine by us and by the luck of the Irish, didn’t we arrive there on St Patrick’s Day. If you’re celebrating Patrick’s Day abroad, it’s always nice to go where there are loads of Irish so that you can celebrate together. As an alternative route we went to a town where we were the only Irish so that we could be treated like Z-list celebrities for a night. “Hello Ms Brazilian girl, I see you’re wearing green, did you know we’re Irish, oh you don’t speak English, how about I show you my passport and point out the word next to Nationality instead. Bingo, new best friend for the night, easy as!”

As well as being a place that loves Patrick’s Day and the Irish, Paraty is a very nice cobblestoned town with great access to beaches and has lots of things to do. Our first 5 days were spent between here and a nearby island, Ilha Grande. They gave us a nice welcome to Brazil and especially to Brazilian beaches. It has almost 7,500km of coastline so you can be sure that they have plenty of amazing beaches to show off. We dipped our toes in to prepare ourselves for Rio and some of the most famous beaches in the world.

Brazil has a reputation of being a dangerous country and to a certain extent its justified but on travelling through the country the vibe that comes to the forefront is more their love of life and fun rather than anything darker. They certainly know how to have fun and we did our best to try to jump on that bandwagon by going to the beach and drinking beers, just like the locals. We did give the thongs a skip though!

The owner of our hostel in Rio had a funny anecdote about Brazil culture- he told us that there are many rich people in Rio and many poor people in the favelas but once they get to the beach, all Brazilians are equal. “We all wear the same type of togs, we all drink the same brand of beer, we all sit on the same sand and we all rent the same deckchairs for a dollar…….. because Brazilians are all lazy, we don’t want to carry our own chairs down to the beach!”. Sums them up, they really do have their priorities right!

Rio is an awesome city and is a city best enjoyed while bathed in sunshine- I suppose most cities are but visiting there and not being able to avail of the beaches is such a tease. Thankfully after arriving into Rio in the rain, the weather cleared up and we really got to see what all the fuss is about. The postcard picture of Rio is of Christ the Redeemer. As it is so big and is so high up, there are plenty of places around Rio where you glimpse it looking down on you. It’s a fantastic thing to be walking along and randomly glimpse the site of it through a gap in two buildings.

Once the sun came out, we said we would make the trip up the hill to get a closer look at Him. Shuttle buses run regularly up to the hill and from there you can walk the last few hundred metres, or catch an escalator if you’re feeling the heat. On getting to the top, two things will strike you:

1. The statue is really cool and the views from the top are spectacular 

2. Tourists are such funny creatures!

We were there during their low season but even still the place was thronged with sightseers each trying to capture the perfect moment of them with the statue and nobody in the background- a virtual impossibility! Given the height of the statue (34m) it’s hard enough to get a photo that includes Him and you, let alone get the angle right to exclude everyone else (although using a Brazilian flag to block out the crowd was one of our better ideas!). You have people everywhere, you have people walking into photos, you have silly poses, you have people lying on the ground hoping you don’t get stood on to take a picture- guilty on all counts, your honour! It’s manic and it’s fantastic.

But all that fooling about shouldn’t take away from the views, Rio is definitely best viewed from a height. White sand beaches all around surrounded by skyscrapers, with the bays full of boats. Spectacular. Our next stop was to get another view of that scene but this time, higher up and including Christ the Redeemer in the vista. In order to do that we crossed the city and took a cable car up Sugarloaf Mountain for another spectacular view, this time with the sun setting over the city. It made for definitely one of the most memorable days of our trip. Rio in all its glory and it very much lives up the hype.

Along the way we were introduced to one of the joys of Brazilian cuisine- the “per kilo” restaurants. These are very common restaurants that are a buffet style restaurant whereby they weigh your plate each time you go up and charge you whatever their per kilo rate is. Quite a good way to eat and we had varying success with them. Obviously all of the restaurants operate with a different per kilo rate but generally they’re a pretty cheap way to eat. One of the quirks that we learned early on was to check what type of plates they use because there’s a considerable price difference from when the restaurant uses plastic plates (good!) to when they swap them out for large heavy ceramic ones (bad!). In these restaurants presentation isn’t the key measure for how we evaluated them!

This links in with the funny way in which their nightclubs operate. On entering the club you’re given either a docket or a plastic card with your name on it. Every time you want a drink you hand it over and its added to your tab. No money is paid over the bar. But the catch is that the bouncers will not let you out of the club until you provide them with a receipt proving you’ve cleared your bill. In an instance where you misplace or lost your docket, fines can be up to 500 reais- not an ideal outcome. As was mentioned previously our Spanish is at remedial levels, however compared to our level of Portuguese we’re A-level students! So trying to decipher why the bouncers wouldn’t let us out of the club when we hadn’t bought anything took a while. The trick then came when we realized on going to get our exit stamp that there was an entry charge- very clever! I suppose now that I think about it, it’s probably akin to an exit fee rather than an entrance fee. We were hostages within a nightclub- could be worse I suppose!

So besides beaches, sunshine and strange billing systems, what else does Rio have to offer? Well, actually quite a lot, we did a wonderful walking tour one day around the city, which gave us a great insight into the history and a lot of the sites that we may not have been comfortable doing ourselves. I suppose that is one of the unfortunate things about being a tourist in Brazil- you are confronted with so many warnings not to walk in certain areas, to get taxis most places, to always watch the stuff you have and to always bring minimal things with you. Generally during the day we had no issues and no reasons to feel uncomfortable but it does affect your overall experience as we happily walked around Asian cities one after the other without any hassles. I suppose its better to be too cautious then too cavalier. That was a long explanation for why we found ourselves on a walking tour rather than walking ourselves!

But by walking alone you definitely miss out on the history so it was nice to get some anecdotes about the place- my favourite being that at one stage in its history Rio de Janeiro was the capital of Portugal! The only South American city to ever be a capital of a European country- I suppose it figures that it wouldn’t be that common an occurrence! On our tour, we visited the Seleron steps which are fantastic- the story being that a local artist (Seleron) who lived nearby thought they were very dull so decided one day to paint them to brighten them. When he was finished that he decided that tiling them with colourful tiles would be even better and so what turned out to be a lifelong art project began. As time went on, people from around the world began visiting and Seleron continued to put down new tiles. This constant evolution was assisted by those tourists sending tiles from their own country to him to put on the stairs! All this ended very strangely when he was found dead on the stairs one morning, no explanation has ever been given for why he was there or how he died…….

So Rio was a big hit with us, one of our favourite cities. Lots to do during the day, lots to do at night. We stayed five nights but would happily have stayed five more but we had lots of places to see so another night bus was boarded and off to Ouro Preto we go. It’s a lovely little town with narrow windy cobblestone streets and lots of hills. We spent a lovely afternoon walking up and down these streets as we navigated around the towns 23 churches! No town this size needs 23 churches but it’s a great way to spend a day. All very different styles, all with varying views. Some of them built at the top of hills amongst bushland are really beautiful.

Continuing our voyage north, we hopped on a plane (we do have a night bus limit!) and headed for Lencois and the national park that is around that area, Parque Nacional Chapada Diamantina. It’s off the beaten track but well worth the visit. We did two day trips here into the park and did not regret it. Beautiful sites, very different to anything we’d seen anywhere else. The highlight of the first day being a swimming stop in the turquoise blue water of Poco Azul. When you’re in there you realize that the water is actually perfectly clear but that the amazing colours are coming from a combination of the sunlight and the rocks underneath you. 

The itinerary for the second day was changed from the original schedule as rain the previous week had ruled out one of the commonly visited sites for us. We weren’t too happy about this but to compensate us we were going to visit some caves instead. In hindsight we were incredibly lucky. It always helps when expectations aren’t that high starting off but the Torrinha caves were one of the highlights of our Brazilian trip. We spent two hours underground, going 2.5km into the mountain to view the incredible array of formations that were to be found there- too many stalactites, stalagmites and columns to count as well as one formation that has been found nowhere else in the world and they are still confused as to how exactly it formed. But it wasn’t just the constant views that entertained us, it was also the fact that many of the routes to get through the caves involved crawling or stooped walking to get through. Luckily we were behind in laundry so clean clothes weren’t being worn! We were going along routes 2 and 3 through the caves. When we enquired why we weren’t going on route 1, we were told that this route was no longer safe. Oh OK! When do you expect it to be reopened? Probably never we were told. Well, that’s emphatically uncomforting! Thankfully routes 2 and 3 proved nice and stable and rewarded us with a great afternoon. Reward for our bravery came in the form of sunset over the valley and a bottle of wine back in Lencois. It’s the least a brave tourist deserves!

Lencois as a town was a lovely chilled out place full of lovely cafes and restaurants. Perfect base for tackling the national park. It did have more cobblestones to test our decision to buy wheelie rucksacks over regular rucksacks- we stand by the decision based on them being put on our backs twice in a five-month period but they really do not work on cobblestones!

Our final stop in Brazil was to Salvador, the afro Brazilian capital. A big change in vibe and skin colour- we definitely didn’t blend in as easily! It’s a really fun city, very vibrant with lots to do. As with a lot of these cities, the main tourist area lies in the Old Quarter where all the buildings are protected and so it’s like taking a step back in time. In Salvador its very hard not to notice that there is a very heavy police presence around these areas also. Keeping tourists safe was clearly a priority. We had a lovely time there getting to experience the local culture, which is very music heavy with a bit of capoeira (Brazilian fighting/ dancing!) thrown in.

This is where we spent our Easter so got a chance to see the locals take on the stations of the cross. We also spent time looking at the local churches- Brazilian is over 60% Catholic, hence the large amount of churches. Makes a change from all the temples in Asia we visited! Our favourite was Sao Francisco church- amazingly ornate, huge silver chandeliers, massive amount of gold inside there all contribute to the spectacular view inside. However the devils in the detail and it’s the little touches that make it so much different. The church was built by the slaves in 1700’s but the slaves weren’t allowed to practice their own religion. As acts of defiance the slaves didn’t carve the cherubs as you traditionally would, instead they carved some of them deformed, some of them pregnant, some of them very well hung! It’s bizarre but certainly adds to the story of the place.

On one of our last nights in Salvador we went to Barra, which is a beach suburb away from the CBD. While there we watched sunset and discovered that the Brazilians in this region really do love their sunsets. The beach was thronged with people and once the sun disappeared over the horizon the whole crowd burst into applause! It was brilliant and apparently happens whenever they watch sunset (the same thing happened in the national park)- in many ways it’s a nice way to sum them up, they are generally just a very happy bunch who appreciate the little things in life.

So this is the end unfortunately, a fantastic few weeks. We had a rainy start but the sun shone on us emphatically for the last few weeks. We met some great people, saw some amazing things, tasted many caiprinhas and really got to know the Brazilians and their love of sun, beaches, music and fun- our kind of people! 

Now it’s time to samba onto a flight bound for Bogota and see what the Colombians can do to compete with their neighbours. We can’t wait!

Click here to see a selection of photos from our Brazilian trip

Our route:

Fly to Sao Paulo, bus to Paraty, bus & boat to Ilha Grande, Rio de Janeiro, bus to Ouro Preto, fly to Salvador, bus to Lencois, back to Salvador, fly Salvador to Bogota, Colombia