Bad blogger!

Believe it or not, it's been three weeks since our visit to the Amazon and we've covered a lot of ground in the meantime. In fact, we've moved countries, we're now in Colombia! For us, constant moving around subsequently leads to blog neglect. I'm trying my best to rectify the situation with a report of the last few weeks, not only to keep Mum happy, but for my own records when I get home.

I'm writing from San Gil, an adventure/eco-tourist town in central Colombia. We arrived here after a bus ride that was more like a roller coaster. I'm serious. The only difference was that there were no seat belts (added bonus), it lasted four hours and every now and then we passed soldiers armed with heavy-duty shotguns. But I wont harp on about buses again, even though this one was yet another gem. Having been wifi-less for some time now, we're skipping the abseiling and rafting opportunities in San Gil and opting for an 'admin day', to catch up on emails/blogs etc, before we hop on an overnight bus to the Caribbean coast. I have to say, it's a welcome break!

After our Amazon trip it was back to Quito, a city I've already mentioned as not having warmed to. So, not surprisingly, after tasting the Quito nightlife with some of our Amazon tour friends, we 'had to get the heck out of the area' (per 'Dimitri' on youtube) and head north-west for an overnight visit to Mindo, another adventure town similar to Banos. With plans for canopying - which entails zip-lining through rainforest canopies in a harness - we booked into the gorgeous Hotel Bambu which overlooks a nearby cloud forest. Unfortunately, the crumby Ecuadorian weather was not surprisingly uncooperative and canopying was not an option in the rain, so we spent a lazy morning waiting for the bus back to Quito as we were due to fly out the following evening. That night I was, however, compensated for Mindo's disappointments with a delicious (and enormous) seafood paella at Quito restaurant that lived up to its name: Paella de Valenciana.

The view of the cloud forest from our hostel, Mindo

The next day was spent killing time. Again the weather did not agree we us but, determined to spend the day outdoors, we spent $8 to sit on the covered Teleferico cable car which took us over 4km high and boasted 'sweeping views' of Quito. The car went about 1km an hour and all we saw were clouds. Thanks again Quito! One upside to the day was getting a seat on a very crowded city bus. I was impressed by how polite one local was when she tapped me on the shoulder as she got out of her seat. Thinking she was exiting at the next stop, I soon realised she thought I was pregnant, as I hadn't removed the bag I'd stuffed in my jacket to keep dry from the rain. Feeling slightly guilty, I couldn't bring myself to admit that in fact I wasn't an up-the-duff backpacker, so I spent the remainder of the trip sitting practically under her, with a maternal hand on my belly. Perhaps a strategy for naughty school kids back home who don't stand up for adults?

Me, with child (and our friend Anna).

Fiiiinally it was time to head to the country we'd heard so much about, Colombia. For some reason, my travel agent had booked a puzzling route for our reaching Colombia's capital: Quito - Lima - Bogota. Yes, that makes sense. Just for fun, why not fly south to Peru before heading north, crossing Ecuador again, to get to Colombia when there are direct flights between Quito and Bogota? To make matters worse, our landing time in Bogota was scheduled for 3.30am. So we knew we were in for a long evening and, when the whole plane simultaneously cheered when we hit the tarmac safely in Lima (is this not a normal event?), I was unusually apprehensive about the next flight. We did, however, arrive in Bogota and finally hit the pillow at 5am. This was neither in the hostel or neighbourhood where we'd booked which, according to our very friendly cab driver, was in an area that was 'no seguro' (not safe). By the third hostel we were in luck, this one found by our driver who had been getting in and out of the cab in the pouring rain to ask if there were vacancies. Our first experience of Colombian warmth.

I'm not going to lie, neither Bec or I are huge fans of big cities in South America. They're usually much more dangerous and far less appealing than the typically beautiful country towns. There's often a lot of cheesy tourist traps that can suck you in, such as the Teleferico in Quito - no more cable cars for me! So, when in big cities, I have to admit you might find us in the odd shopping mall here and there, or a movie cinema, luxuries you miss from home. This sometimes does have its benefits. In Bogota we went to see a film called 'Millenium' (based on the novel 'The girl with the Dragon Tattoo'), which was advertised as having Spanish subtitles. Almost always these movies are in English, but this one was in Swedish, so it turned out to be great Spanish practice. I was surprised how much I understood. Our trip to the mall also scored me a much needed new pair of non-imitation Nikes for our upcoming trek of the Lost City, something you don't usually find in the countryside.

 Some 'big-city' security in Bogota.

Our Bogota explorations did, however, go further than the Zona Rosa mall. We enjoyed an 'Almuerzo' (set lunch) at a local haunt, and ate an unidentifed piece of meat - who eats wins is back! We ventured to the gorgeous 'Plaza Bolivar' and enjoyed a spot of people watching and dodging of sky-bombing pigeons. We took an interesting tour of the National Police Museum which is also the office of the Bogota Police Major. There were plenty of acne faced teenagers who were just starting their careers as policeman, conducting tours and proudly showing us the variety of artillery used by the Colombian police over the years. Their hospitality even extended to an offer to taste Colombian coffee, which is fantastic by the way. The big finale was a trip to the Museum's basement, which is dedicated to the hunt and execution by the police of Pablo Escobar, Colombian's infamous Drug Lord. The room is fit with some gruesome photos of the dead Escobar, along with some of his accomplices, and also houses a plank of wood with the remnants of blood stains from the final shot to Escobar's head: nice. What's more, the place was swarming with school children. Not exactly the most uplifting or G-rated location for a school excursion! We ended the day with a visit to the oldest chocolate shop in Bogota, and an art museum boasting some big names like Picasso and Cezanne, quite cultural of us really. Finally, I was able to catch up with a friend of a friend from university who's living in Bogota working for the UN. She took us out in the Zona Rosa and then back to her house where we met some of her Colombian friends and chatted a lot about the country's interesting history. It's always nice to hear a local perspective.

 Bec in the Police Museum.

Bogota was also our base for a day trip to Zipaquira, a small town around 45 minutes away and well known for its Salt Cathedral. The catch is, the Cathedral is built in a salt mine and is 200m underground! After a 15m walk uphill through a park swarming with families for Mother's Day, we reached the Cathedral's entrance. We were taken on the underground tour, past fourteen small chapels representing the Stations of the Cross and on to the huge Cathedral itself. The whole place is architectually amazing and was well worth the visit.


I also had a pang of homesickness in Bogota, as it was while I was there that two of my good friends from home were married in Byron Bay. While I tried to be there in spirit by toasting them with a glass of champas, it was hard knowing that some of my best friends were all congregated in the one place while I was across the other side of the world. Photos have starting circulating on facebook and it was the most beautiful wedding, congratulations Belly and Clare!


It only took a rainy Monday for us to decided to move north-west to Medellin, another big Colombian city. The main reason for our choosing Medellin was so Bec could welcome 25 years in a place where there was good nightlife and somewhere we could celebrate in style. The celebrating in style part came off well, but unfortunately the nightlife part fell well short of our expectations. Being 'foodies' (we're both lovers of good food and wine), I took Bec to a trendy restaurant/bar called 'Herbario'. The place was like any you'd find in Sydney, complete with a jazz band on the second floor. We spoiled ourselves with goat's cheese, proscuitto, prawns, steak and copious amounts of wine, finished off with a creme brulee with mango coulis (I even had the waiter put a birthday candle on Bec's dessert, to her utter mortification). A little boozed and ready for a party, we headed to Medellin's stylish Poblado region, to find all the bars closing within the hour. Apparently the clubs and bars only take off on weekends, so it didn't help Bec's birthday falling on a Wednesday. So the night ended with vodka and oranges at our hostel, chatting to Jorge, the hostel night employee, about his university calculus homework...interesting. Not to worry, there was still the following day, Bec's actual birthday.

 Bec and her birthday dinner.

After a little sleep in and an impressive lunch at a Thai restaurant, it was time for the birthday present: a three hour pampering session at a local Spa (and a one hour massage for me - the birthday girl can't have all the fun). When booking, I was offered the 'Mother's Day Special', which included a free blow-dry, so all Bec knew when she got to the Spa was that if there were any quesitons about her children, they were at the hotel for the day. Massaged, facialed, parafined and blow-dried, Bec emerged from the Spa a little older, probably not much wiser, but a new woman. With plans for an early departure to the Colombian coffee region the following morning, we had a quick bite at a Mexican restaurant, and headed back to the hostel. You can't reach the big quarter of a centuary without a birthday cake so, as my last surprise, we gobbled down cake in our dorm room while chatting away to our American room mates until the early hours. Who needs bars when you have chocolate cake?

Amazon Jungle Fever

The Amazon jungle is a hot topic on this continent, and understandably so. It covers five and a half million square kilometers, spans over nine countries (one of which is Ecuador) and is home to 25% of the world's animal species. Now that's impressive! We'd been umming and ahhing about whether or not to visit the enticing green mass as we knew it would be a sure cash-drainer. It seemed, however, that curiosity would out do stinginess on this occasion, and we booked a four day, three night tour to see out our last week in Ecuador.

As seems to be a reoccurring trend, our trip didn't get off to the best start. Our tour meeting point was at a hotel in Lago Agrio, a small town in north-eastern Ecuador (also a past target of the FARC guerilla group, information I may have failed to mention to my parents). The plan was to spend the day travelling eight-hours by bus - thus lessening our chances of highway robbery, just an added bonus in these parts - and spend the night in a hostel in Lago Agrio. As it would turn out, however, the 'safest' option, according to our travel agent, would be to take the 11pm night bus which arrived at 6am. This meant yet another day in Quito, a city we have not warmed to at all. Nevertheless, like good little travellers we found ways to amuse ourselves, which included a ride on the impressive 24c Quito trolley bus out to the Equator line...when in Ecuador, I guess. We took the classic cheesy 'Equator' snaps, but failed to actually visit the real Equator, a few hundred metres away. So we earned a big 'F' for accomplishing that tourist attraction. Needless to say, the visit did kill time before what would be a very uncomfortable bus ride.

On the phony Equator line

As I've quite clearly stressed in other posts, bus rides in South America are events in themselves, and not always positive ones. This was one of the less favourable ones. Eight hours on a windowless bus in unbearable heat inhaling recycled air left us sporting dark circles and colds when we reached the deserted Lago Agrio. This jungle thing had better be worth it, I was grumpily thinking to myself. Well that 'jungle thing' turned out to be the highlight of our time in Ecuador.

Our bad morning made a turn-around when we met our tour group: Marieke and Enno, a Dutch couple enjoying a three week work holiday; Dom and Julie, fresh from finishing uni in the UK; and the gregarious Katie, living and working as a teacher in Guayaquil, originally from New York State. Completing the group was our tour guide Washington (named after big George of course), an entertaining Amazonian native who, after 12 years, had worked his way up to tour guide status after learning English from tourists. So it was in good company that we meandered two hours down the Cuyabeno River in a motorised canoe, stopping a number of times to witness squirrel monkeys make suicide missions, leaping the width of the river from one tree to another (some of the less-experienced ending up in the water). By afternoon, we'd practically forgotten the effects of our sleepless night after reaching the secluded lodge we'd call home for the next three nights. Fit with an open-air bathroom overlooking the jungle, moonlight showering to the sounds of the jungle was sure going to be a first.

The next three days were packed with activities, with a couple siestas curled up in a hammock thrown into the mix. After an hour of settling in, we set off to a large lagoon where we swam under the setting sun, out of the way of the piranhas and alligators which, according to Washington, prefer to hang out in the reeds. Before watching the sun set we went pink-dolphin spotting, but unfortunately only saw a couple of shy grey ones.

The next day we woke at 8am and, after a hearty breakfast, explored the rainforest. This consisted of negotiating 'jungle bridges' (logs submerged in mud) and learning about the various flora and fauna, including particular ants nests which locals raid for angry ants, a remedy for lazy working dogs - I guess you'd be more attentive when covered in biting ants! The walk lost its magic, however, when the heavens opened and we saw more rain in half an hour than we have all year, it was seriously pelting down. It didn't help that our boat's engine suffered mechanical issues on the way home, which left us floating aimlessly down steam. 'Well girls, this is jungle living', was Washington's response when he saw what must have been our very unamused faces. Jungle living it was, and embrace it we did. There were no complaints.

By the afternoon, the clouds had cleared and the sun peeped through, perfect whether for...piranha fishing! That's right, where else can you do this but in the Amazon jungle? I've never been into fishing, but this is fishing of a different kind and it's possible I may have missed my calling. There's an art to piranha fishing, which incorporates raw meat as bait and a piece of fishing line tied to a stick. There's none of this fancy rod stuff. In short, you thrash your stick around on the water, near to the shore (presumably to imitate the last seconds of some poor animal's life), and then you let the line go as deep as you can, the biggest hang out in the deeper parts. When you get a bite - and you'll feel it - with a quick flick of the wrist you jerk the stick upwards and back into the boat, hopefully with piranha attached. Let me just say though, piranhas are scary little buggers. If it's not the normal squirm factor involved when a live fish is flopping around a dry boat, it's the audible snapping of their razor sharp teeth that accompanies this, which resulted in many squeals (and apparently a near Bec-overboard incident). I was quite chuffed as, being the first to snare one that day, my prize that night was a 750ml beer from Washington.

Me with my piranha.

With day two being so eventful, I didn't think day three could match it, not on the action side of things. Why? We were scheduled to watch the making of yucca bread, made from a root vegetable, by an indigenous community, followed by a trip to the local Shaman. It was interesting listening to the Shaman talk through his medicinal plants, one of which was a hallucinogenic vine, and to volunteer as the subject of a good-health ritual (although that night my cold got worse...), but it sure wasn't piranha fishing. Things got a bit more exciting when we set out on a night walk through the rainforest. If I wasn't squirming in the boat the day before, I was now. Not quite an aracnophobic, but close too it, seeing a tarantula crawling up my fellow travellers' faces was, while amazing from where I stood about three metres away, slightly nauseating. I definitely preferred the frogs.

So after a little nocturnal excitement, we returned to the lodge, thinking the events of the evening were over. Who was I kidding? How can you take a city girl, put her in the jungle, and not have a bit of drama? Our gumboots were covered in mud from the night walk and, so that we didn't trudge it through the lodge, we dipped our boots into the river. While the others went to where the tide had risen over the end of the wharf, I followed Washington, who was leaning on a chair and crouching to get his boots into the water. Mistake number one. Mistake number two was to lean on the same chair which, unbeknown to me, was not attached to the wharf. You can probably guess what happened next, both me and the chair went into the drink, me head first! 'Piranhas, piranhas, piranhas', was all that was going through my mind as I spluttered to the surface, then, 'alligators, alligators, alligators' (both shore-dwelling). Other than being a tad shocked I came out relatively unscathed, apart from having a few unidentified pine needle-like objects lodged in my hand from some water plant. It wasn't until I was having a beer at the dinner table later that Washington told me it was the electric eels that had concerned him, and that one had killed a Mexican boy who went swimming some years ago. So that's why he'd yanked me out of the water so fast! Certainly one for the memory books.

So I've written a bit of an essay here, but the Amazon is totally worthy of it, we had such a memorable and unique four days. The photos don't nearly do it justice but I'll post some anyway. Katie took some of these with her fab camera.

A glimpse of the view from our jungle bathroom.

Rain in the rainforest, appropriate.

Washington heading up the boat.

Another gorgeous sunset.

A 300+ year old Ceiba tree, amazing!

It must have been pretty interesting...

And some video clips:

Piranha

A brave squirrel monkey taking the plunge.

The 'Poor Man's Galapagos'

Travelling for a year means big time budgeting and can sometimes also mean saying no to certain pocket draining activities and places. For us, the Galapagos Islands is one of those destinations. When you're living on $20 a day or less and have seven months of travel ahead of you, including an inevitably expensive stint in Europe, a 'splurge' of $3000 or more for a couple of weeks is completely unjustifiable.

For miserly backpackers like ourselves, however, there's an island off Ecuador's south coast that provides a little slice of the Galapagos at a fraction of the cost. Part of the 'Parque Nacional Machalilla' and located about 30km from the shores of beach-side-town Puerto Lopez, Isla de la Plata (the Silver Island) boasts a variety of species also found on the Galapagos Islands, including, among others, the red and blue-footed booby, albatrosses and South American sea lions. Known as 'The Poor Man's Galapagos', we felt a trip to the coast was a must, so we set off for Puerto Lopez from Cuenca by bus.

It would seem our six-week bus hiatus washed away my memories of the trials and tribulations of South American bus journeys, but you'll be glad to know that the past week has reinstated my love hate relationship with this form of travel. While the scenery has been unbelievable - lushious green jungle and twinkling coastlines, not something you'll see up close from a plane - there's just something about it that I'll never get used to. Being crammed for hours like chickens in a coup (at one stage I was literally sitting next to an angry rooster), this time in the tropical Ecuadorian heat, was not fun. I'm actually considering enduring the humiliation and getting one of those bum pillows people with boils have to carry around with them, just to make the trip that little bit more bearable. And then there are the bus vendors, who are both friends and foes. Sure, we've had many a tasty empanada and some delicious fruit for the ride. If, however, they sense any form of a glance their way you're in for it and will be bombarded with various sale items. Some are practical: lunch items or lollies, others are not so much: underpants, spoons, lottery tickets. I even had one guy fit me with sunglasses - unasked, I might add - while my own were sitting on my head! It's a mixed bag every time.

So after a trying bus ride from Cuenca, we arrived in Puerto Lopez in the late afternoon.  I can't say there's a whole heap to do in this town that's main tourist attraction is the Isla de la Plata, but that's what we were there for afterall. Being on the coast though, I was able to have some quality seafood which is right up my alley, so I was happy on the food front, particularly after devouring an impressive pasta marinara at the shore side Carmita restaurant.

And what of the subject of this entry - the 'Poor Man's Galapagos' - did it live up to its name? Well I guess I can't really give a balanced review, having not been to the big G, but if I had to guess, I'd be pretty sure the spectacular-factor of this place has been fairly over-exaggerated. What you do get is a stomach-losing ride in a fishing boat on the high seas, a 3km walk around the island where you'll see a few species of birds, and an enjoyable half-hour snorkeling session where you'll see one or two species of tropical fish. Don't expect to be inundated with spectacular varieties of flora and fauna at every step you take as, although you'll read of their descriptions in and around the island, you'll only be witness to a handful, if that - we only saw albatrosses and blue-footed boobies. But I wont say my $45 dollars (which included a $15 National Park entry fee) went to waste. It was a beautiful day to be on the water and we enjoyed the walk around the island's coastline, the fresh fruit and sandwiches we were provided for lunch and cooling off with a snorkel at the end. I say, if you keep your expectations low, it's an enjoyable day trip out to the island and worth the visit to the chilled-out Puerto Lopez, particularly if you're up for a rest before hitting the jungle, which is where we're headed next.

Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!

Ok, so there weren't any tigers but there were four lions (actually six, after the birth of two cubs), and a paddington bear look-alike who scaled the walls of his enclosure like a mini MacGyver. Only in Ecuador (or South America generally) could you volunteer to work so closely with these types of animals. I refer to the last two weeks spent at the Santa Marta Animal Rescue Centre. In previous posts I've erroneously referred to this place as an animal sanctuary, which it's not. Tucked away on a dairy farm and reached via a very bumpy ride in the back of a truck to high above the small town of Tambillo, this place works closely with the Ecuadorian police to rescue animals, many of which have suffered some form of abuse or have been kept illegally in domestic homes. If possible, once the animals have been rescued and often brought back to good health, the centre prepares them for release into the wild or at least to rehabilitation centres or zoos.

A quick tour of the place on our first day confirmed the type of work the centre does. There's Barbosa, a majestic ex-circus lion with one cloudy blue eye, blinded after it was whipped. There's Brenda, a beautiful jaguar that despises humans after her 'owner' continually poked and prodded her so she would growl for snap-happy tourists. You can see the animosity in her eyes as she stares you down while pacing in her enclosure, there's no way you'd come out of that cage alive! Then there's the amazing Galapagos turtles, one of which had his shell used as a shooting target, and by shooting I mean with a gun. And everybody loves the always-energetic Coatis that crawl up and kiss you on the neck, but you can't help but notice the one missing an eye. He lost his eye when his 'owner' got impatient and used it as a cigarette stub.

These stories were just a few of the terrible accounts we heard. There are other types of sad though, not the out-right abuse kind, but the stories of animals so far domesticated that they are beyond help and will never be released back into the wild. These animals include two woolly monkeys. Both arrived separately having been fed with bottles and kept in nappies. One even puts his hands over his face like a crying baby to get attention. There's also Leo and Pumana, two beautiful pumas that were kept as pets and can be pat through their enclosure just like domestic cats but cannot be contacted directly, as their idea of 'playing' could kill or seriously injure you - they are pumas after all. Then there are the countless talking birds, nick-named the 'hola birds'. They will never be released into the wild purely because they could threaten whole ecosystems by introducing Spanish/English words to natural habitats.

So it was an eye-opener from the first day and my first 24 hours was a mixed bag. Before cleaning out the mammals’ enclosures, I was an accidental witness to a donkey being slaughtered for the sake of a lion, something that happens a couple of times a week here. Luckily I didn’t have to be part of the machete-armed team that carved it up, as nobody has to kill an animal if they don’t want to at Santa Marta. I was then on ‘cub watch’, making sure the two cubs that were born hours after we arrived made it through the night. The centre owner was concerned they wouldn’t because they were the offspring of a circus lion which may have been inbred but, two weeks later, they are still going strong and the plan is for them to be airlifted to a nearby animal rehabilitation centre. I can’t say I’ve ever approached a new mother lioness in the middle of the night with a torch before, but I’ll tell what, you she will roar if you get too close to her cubs (which I had to in order to see they were still breathing). Now that was a tad scary!

During the week we’d work from 8am-1pm and then 4pm-6pm and had weekends off after feeding the animals on Saturday mornings. The days were long and the breaks cherished, particularly after sometimes hours of physical work deconstructing cages or lugging buckets of puma poo from their enclosure to a waste-pit 400m away (that’s some heavy shit…). We were lucky to have two lovely roommates - Iza from Poland and Andrea from Portugal - to share laughs, recipes and beers with. Iza was particularly taken by the popular Australian dish of ‘fairy bread’ – I’ll call it a dish (bread, butter and sprinkles). Bec and I produced it on ‘cake night’, a Thursday night centre ritual.

The highlights? I definitely had a few favourite animals - both woolly monkeys and the amazing Galapagos turtles, which were surprisingly full of personality and loved a rub on the chin. The contact had with the pumas was a once in a lifetime experience too. We also had a weekend in Banos, a gorgeous little town hidden in a valley three hours from Tambillo with a reputation for massage therapy, so you can guess what went down there. On one of our last days we had to say goodbye to around 45 animals, most of them birds but some of them a fair bit bigger. One lovely memory I have is of the delighted smile on local cab driver Danilo’s face when he was recruited to help an eight-man team heave a sleeping (tranquillised) lion up to his cab which was that day loaded not with people, but a zoo-worthy cargo. Imagine passing that taxi on the highway, another only-in-South-America moment!

Of course there were the downsides too, caring for animals you knew had not long to live, such as rabbits and guinea pigs, often menu items for the animals. Bec and I had a morning of chopping up the bottom end of a guinea pig we’d fed the day before. But I guess the snapper turtle we were preparing it for had to eat something, just like the lions, jaguar and pumas. We also volunteered to take shifts feeding a very sick rabbit that had contracted an infection during pregnancy and were there at 2am when she decided to fly the coup and go to bunny heaven, us still holding her. Then there was the misogynistic macaw, ‘Evil bird’, as named by previous volunteers. He hated woman and would attack any female that came near him. Evil bird, however, had no issues with men or police, and police sometimes have to drive their car a little way up the driveway before getting in, in order to get away from the bird, which always wants to come too. Maybe the police saved Evil bird from a wicked female owner, who knows?!

So you can see, Santa Marta is an experience in itself, so many charismatic animals with different personalities. I would recommend it to any animal lover who is willing to work hard and doesn’t mind getting their hands dirty…very dirty!