Day Trip Numero Dos: Santa Fe de Antioquia

We took a couple day trips from Medellin, half the fun of taking these was the bus rides through the countryside, which is lined with beautiful green rolling hills, small towns, and farms.

Santa Fe de Antioquia is a lovely old colonial town.  I feel like it probably looks exactly as it did during the 1800's; narrow streets, whitewashed colonial buildings and pretty plazas full of adorable old men selling treats from briefcases and simply watching the world go by.  We sat in the center plaza observing the lifestyle and tried the local pulpa de tamarindo candy, which is pretty tasty.

We also visited the the Puente de Occidente, an unusual bridge that was one of the first suspension bridges in the Americas.  Our three wheel cab wheeled us over this rickety national monument and the River Cauca.

Day Trip Numero Uno: Guatape

Guatape is a popular weekend getaway destination for Colombians, we visited on a National Fiesta day so the small town was bustling with life.  The town is built alongside a hydroelectric dam and was naturally flooded to create hundreds of acres of islands and waterfront property.  

The homes are bright and colorful, with frescos featuring animals, people other nature scenes.

Pablo Escobar once called this area home, as do many other famous Colombians today, including Shakira.

After a very hearty, traditional paisa meal, we hired a boat driver to speed us around the area and show us El Peñol, the original town that is now submerged 60 meters under the lake.  

We also explored La Pierda, a rock formation (rumored to be a meteorite, which I of course believe) that rises over 200 meters high.  We scaled the rock face, climbing the 635 stairs to the top and enjoyed the open-air viewing area and spectacular scenery.

Metro’n around Medellín

Medellín is a unique city; central parts of town are built along a narrow river valley, further residences and slums sprawl up the steep slopes of the basin.  It makes for a distinctive and spectacular sight at night, thousands of glittering lights dancing across the mountain sides. 

The city has a metro line which runs North to South through the valley – and brilliantly has put in gondola like cable cars to service the poorer barrios rising hundreds of meters into the sky.  Riding the cable cars up the near vertical gradients is an enlightening experience to see how many of the people in this city live; music rising up, kids flying kites on roof tops and playing soccer in the streets.  

Metro Stop: Itaguí

The last stop going South on the metro brings you to a cemetery, where the infamous Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria is buried.  This elusive Colombian drug king is often referred to as the World’s Greatest Outlaw, and his cartel is often regarded as the richest and most successful criminal enterprise in world history.  At his height of power he was reported to be smuggling 15 tons of cocaine a day, worth more than half a billion dollars, into the United States; the Medellín cartel controlled 80% of the global cocaine market.

Although seen as a dire enemy of the United States and Colombian governments, Escobar was a hero to the poor in Medellín.  Given he rose from poverty himself, he worked to create a ‘Robin Hood’ like image - building football fields, hospitals, schools and churches, and frequently distributing money to the poor.  As you will see in a future post we also visited his summer home in Guatape, an exclusive lake community in Colombia. 

Metro Stop: Parque Barrio

Parque Barrio is the center of town, and boasts the opportunity to wander around a number of unique areas including Parque Boliviar (a relaxed square with a nice fountain), Botero Square (with over 20 of Botero’s memorable bronze sculptures), and De la Luz Square (a very modern art installation leading into the library).

Metro Stop: Poblado 

El Poblado is the area of town where we stayed at Black Sheep; a quick 10 minute walk to the Zona Rosa, an area with many restaurants, and as we discovered amusing nightlife.  For the first time since our travels began everyone at the hostel was planning to go out, so we joined in.  Partaking in all Medellín has to offer, it was a fun night…and morning that concluded around 6am!    

Natural Highs

In a country known for producing a lot of mind-altering substances Heidi and I decided to keep our highs natural.  Safer?  Who knows!  San Gil is the adventure capital of Colombia, a mecca for extreme sports, and the perfect spot to stoke our adrenaline.

The first endeavor was rappelling down a waterfall!  Juan de Curi is a breathtaking, 180 meter tall waterfall set back in the mountains about 30 minutes outside of San Gil.  After a 40 minute hike up the fall we were ready to rappel down the last 70 meters.  It was an incredible rush, harnessed to a rope using my strength to lower myself, all the while being pelted in the face with cold water.  At the bottom was a natural pool, perfect for jumping off the cliffs and into the fall.

The second venture was paragliding around the Chicamocha National Park.  The park’s canyons are extremely stunning - you can’t beat a bird’s eye view!  As well as the spectacular canyons, we flew over tobacco and coffee farms, and the Chicamocha River.  It was pretty thrilling being picked up by the wind and elevated over 1,500 meters in the air, dipping and curving with the wind.  Although we were travelling pretty fast, it was more relaxed than I thought, my tandem mate and I could chat back and forth the whole time. 

How Many Action Movies Does It Take To Get From Taganga to San Gil?

We got up bright and early with the hopes of making to San Gil by nightfall…haha think again!  We have discovered that you need to add 50-75% extra to any bus arrival time.  This one was extreme, an 11 hour trip taking over 21 hours.  There was traffic to cross a single lane bridge (hint: two action movies down at a standstill) and then a while later an accident only half a mile in front of us…5ish hours later we were on the move again, but not before Heidi broke a very young man’s heart in Balitas.  We finally arrived at 8am – at least we saved on accommodation for the evening!

Since it was a long night, we decided a chill day was in order.  We explored the village of San Gil, a beautiful town built up the steep cliffs of the Rio Fonce, and visited the botanical gardens.  Not so botanical with flowers, but some cute little birds (yes I said cute and birds in the same sentence) and butterflies galore.

We stopped for an afternoon snack in the park, a local delicacy, roasted ants!  They were crispy and their bodies were tasty with a cold beer to wash it down; their heads, I just couldn’t get down with that!  

We fed our left over ants to a sweet little kitty and a suspiciously silky, brilliant red squirrel.

Tired, our day was completed with a coffee slushy, empanada and a few rounds of Boggle!

Answer: Four, with plenty of extra time for delightful Spanish music and Heidi’s conversation.

Scuba Diving in Tayrona National Park

The quaint little fishing village of Taganga was our jumping off point to explore and scuba dive in Tayrona National Park.  We stayed at Hotel Oso Perezoso (Lazy Bear), which is a very cool 5 level tree house with hammocks on the various perches for sleeping.  Lola the hotel puppy immediately fell in love with Heidi and I, and followed us everywhere.  If we were in our room, then that’s exactly where she wanted to be.  I would heartily recommend Oso Perezoso, $9 a night with a freshly cooked breakfast, fruit crepes, French toast, or scrambles eggs.  The only downside was my itchy bed…I think the loving Lola may have fleas!

We did two days and four dives in Tayrona National Park, all for under $125US – wow! It was great to be under the sea again, especially with Heidi as she is a very experienced diver and I felt totally calm and safe.  We figured out she has about a month of time - 24 hours per day, 7 days a week, under the ocean’s surface, amazing!  She also has an underwater camera and was able to capture all of the amazing creatures and plant life we observed.  Pictures speak louder than words…enjoy! 

Can You Spot The Octopus & His Eye?

A Muddy Good Time

Perhaps one of the weirdest and most wonderful things I have ever done was to visit Volcan de Lodo el Totumo, about an hour and a half outside of Cartagena…

The legend is told that this 15m volcano once belched fire, but a priest eyeing this as the work of the devil sprinkled it with holy water.  He extinguished the flames of lava and in turn the insides became mud and drowned the devil.  A relinquished devils’ mud bath with therapeutic mineral properties…what could be better? 

Well it was certainly a unique experience…our buoyancy was unreal; we had to be propelled forward by others, feet first on our backs, to move in the thick cream consistency of the mud.  Men were in the mud bath to massage our bodies and hair, and after we were done women waited in the lagoon to whisk our bikini’s off and wash our bodies!

The Vibe of Cartagena

Our hostel in Cartagena was located in the Getsemani district of the city, a modest area of town in the outer wall of Old Town.  At the local restaurants you can order ‘comida corriente’, which is the set menu for either lunch or dinner.  This always consists of rice, plantains, small salad, soup, juice and either fish meat or chicken…all of this sets you back about $2.50.  There were also number snack vendors and cute little café’s with more international food choices.  I fell in love with the bakery and man right next to our hostel, he lured us in with the delicious smells wafting every morning, guava pastry baked fresh was the best! There were also a number of refreshing beverages I fell in love with in this city – Limonatas (Crème de Coconut & Lime, Rum is optional); Agua Panella (sugar cane water, tastes like a slushy sweet ice tea); and of course all of the slushy fruit juices ranging from mango to passion fruit and star fruit. 

Exploring the Old Town’s sheer beauty was simply impressive.  Immaculately preserved within 13km of centuries old colonial stonewall (las murallas) are cobblestone alleys with enormous balconies towering above.  There are cascading flowers everywhere, churches, plazas, and open air cafes.  It has a vibrant Latin feel, the plazas filled with street vendors, dancing, and artists.  I loved all of the large doors with ornate knockers.

In the evenings we felt very safe to walk about our neighborhood, one night we had dinner with our sailing crew and then went out drinking and dancing with Shinji.  Nelson one of the fabulously friendly Colombians we have met so far blended up Limonatas and gave us a taste testing lesson on Colombian Rum.  The band got underway and before we knew it we were all salsa dancing with the locals and learning some new moves from Nelson.

With the streets and alleys extremely narrow, no traffic direction, and scooters zipping everywhere, it is a certainty that the following situation happens daily.  Our taxi was pulled within 5 inches of the curb when Heidi went to get out, and wham the door opened on a motor trying to zip through this sliver of space.  The driver and bike went sprawling and I watched the man on the back simply step off, seeing it coming.  Well, this whole skirmish turned into quite the situation; not because of the cap driver or the motor driver as you may guess.  They were both totally chill, saying it happens and please not to worry everything was fine…the craziness came from this ridiculous passenger on the moto.  He started exclaiming that if it weren’t for his incredible reflexes he would have been dead in the street, going on and on about the stress that this had caused on his system.  All the while he was ranting, his tan linen pants were hanging perfectly and his tan linen open shirt (with tan mesh underneath) did not contain a single wrinkle.  He fanned himself with his hat; fingers clad with jade rings, demanding compensation for his suffering.  Heidi gave the actual moto owner some money in case there was any damage to his bike and as a good will gesture…the other man continued to demand where is my payment?  The other Colombian onlookers involved kind of rolled their eyes every time he started up, we took this as a sign they understood we were terribly sorry and happy to compensate the rightful victim…and got out of there quick.  Quite the fiasco!

Another very memorable experience was our trip to Mercado Bazurto, the central market in Cartagena.  It was equally both dirty and fascinating!  We were the only gringos in sight and it was a great glimpse into the everyday life of real Cartagenos.  Walking through the labyrinth of stalls, vendors were assaulting us from all angles with whistles,“Hola Momma, Para Orden” and just downright sleazy eyes.  It was a huge place, at least 30x30 blocks long and wide.  

 There were stalls with intestines, pig heads, and many other meats and skins piled high and hanging over lines.  There was fish being de-headed, live chickens lined up for killing, fruits and vegetables, spices, grains, condiments in bulk jars, clothes, trinkets, fabric, shoes…basically anything you can imagine being marketable you could find here!