Electric Shower Heads – Crazy
Hot water showers are something of a rarity in Central America as its so hot. In South America so far, at least in the mountains, hot water is much more important. The problem is that when you do find hot water its often using an electric shower head.
Best case scenario is that they turn cold water into barely luke warm water. However mostly they leak, spraying water in all directions – often straight up to the ceiling, and coating all the electric wires with water.
The worst ones manage to electrify themselves and we’ve learnt not to touch any buttons or switches as you invariably get a shock.
I can imagine the Health & Safety mafia at home would have a fit.
Valle de Cocora
One of the highlights of a trip to Colombia is to visit the highlands of the Valle de Cocora. This is where the highest concentration of the Wax Palm can be found, which is Colombia’s national tree.
The gateway to Cocora is a small colonial town called Salento. We visited Salento with the intention of spending the night but the only viable place we could find was to either park in the central plaza or on a side street so we decided to push on to Cocora (another 15km) after exploring the town.
The road to Cocora is narrow and winding but paved the whole way and when we reached the small hamlet we discovered a few small restaurants and that’s it apart from a number of scattered farms. We quickly negotiated to stay in one of the restaurants.
We arrived late but this didn’t stop us from taking a short walk into the valley and along the central river. We had to cross a very rickety bridge on our way. We saw plenty of the wax palms that make the area famous.
The next morning we got up bright and early for a long hike into the valley. As we set out we were joined by a local dog who had slept by our camper all night. He was really keen to hike with us and kept waiting for us and even coming back to check we were still coming.
The hike started off on a muddy track through farmland studded with wax palms but after a few kilometres entered a cloud forest, following a mountain river. Once in the cloud forest the path criss-crosses the river and there are a number of fairly sketchy bridges to get across. The dog following us no problem running across the shaky suspension bridges but we were a little more cautious.
There is also a waterfall on the way which is slightly off the path. The view isn’t great from slippery rocks and I managed to slip on one of the rocks trying to get a better position for a photo and slid right down into the water. Oops.
After 5km or so we reached a small homestead called Acaime which had a number of hummingbird feeders. They served us a great hot chocolate accompanied by some Campesino cheese.
We walked back 1 km from Acaime and there is a turn up a very steep path which leads to ranger station. Form here there was a nice view of the mountain tops. The walk back to the small village of Cocora was down a dirt road but unfortunately the cloud came in and we had a very foggy return journey.
Every time we go for a walk in Cocora a number of unattended horses walk past us – clearly knowing where they are going.
There is a trout farm in the village and we bought some trout from here for the fridge. It also means that the restaurants in this area serve fantastic fresh trout which we sampled a couple of ways. The first time we had it in a small mountain restaurant where it was served with Patacon and rice. Patacon is a big crisp made from Plantain. However at the restaurant where we stayed the cooking was a step up and we had some fantastic trout with great chips.
While eating at the place we were staying the owner had some friends over – including his brother in law who lived in Florida – and they spent the night singing Karaoke. Sarah joined in for a couple of songs, despite being in Spanish.
We found real peace in Cocora so stayed three nights and would really recommend this beautiful place.
Termales de Santa Rosa
The journey across from one side of the Andes to the other is only 300km or so but it takes the best part of two days of driving to cover this distance. You start at 2800m in Bogota and descend to just over 300m in Honda before climbing again to a maximum height of 3700m and then coming down again to 2100m at Manizales. All this, for the most part on single carriageway, with a constant line of slow moving trucks. At one stage we were stationary for over an hour as we waited for a tow truck to remove a jack-knifed truck that was blocking the road. Once through, there was a 5km long queue of traffic the other side. This was on top of numerous sets of road works where only 1 direction was allowed through at a time. All in all fairly painful.
By the time we arrived at the Termales de Santa Rosa we were definitely in need of some relaxation. We had been told that the road to the Thermals was really bad however when we got there we found a well graded gravel road that was no problem at all. There are two sets of Santa Rosa hot springs and we chose the ones at an old hotel.
These were lovely with a big hot pool with a hot waterfall at one end and a cold waterfall at the other. Above the pools was a huge, 180m high, waterfall which came down into a small meadow.
Although a bit rundown the place was very relaxing and there were very few people there. We spent a few hours relaxing in the waters.
We couldn’t stay for the night at the hot springs but fortunately there was space to stay in a flat area just outside the gates where we had a very quiet night.
Bogota
We debated whether to visit Bogota or to skip it and in the end we were really glad that we bit the bullet and went for it.
In Bogota, instead of building an underground mass transit system they have built a bus based system with fixed stations and dedicated roads. This is futuristically called the Transmilenio. It uses the dreaded Bendy Buses that were so loathed in London but with dedicated lanes (physically segregated from the main road) they are a very efficient transit system.
Given that there was this method of getting around Bogota we needed to find somewhere secure to park the Beast with easy access to the Transmilenio. Like most big cities the traffic was heavy and the driving much worse than outside the city so we didn’t want to drive in and then struggle to park. Right at the end of one of the lines is the Portal 80 Mall and just behind this is a secure parking lot which allowed us to stay for a couple of nights and go into Bogota for the day. The Portal 80 Mall was also handy with free WIFI and some useful shops.
The Transmilenio takes a bit of figuring out particularly as we couldn’t find a map anywhere (other than online at www.surumbo.com) but once you’ve worked out what the signs are telling you it’s very easy. Here’s an overview map of the system.
The journey into the La Candelaria area (the historic centre of Bogota) took us about 30 minutes.
To the centre of La Candelaria is the main plaza, the Plaza de Bolivar with the regulation statue of Simon Bolivar in the middle. There had obviously been a demonstration recently as the statue and some of the surrounding buildings had streaks of paint on them. The Plaza contains the Catedral Primada and also the Capitolio Nacional, the seat of Congress.
In Plaza de Bolivar we saw a couple of guys with Llamas offering rides – the South American version of donkey rides on brighton beach, I can’t quite imagine it in Trafalgar square though.
It was unfortunate that we were visiting on a Monday which meant that a lot of the museums were shut and also a lot of the churches were locked, a phenomenon we have noticed in Colombia in that the churches only seem to be opened for services.
Walking away from the square we went around behind the Congress building. Here the streets were heavily guarded by the military and to get past the barriers you were searched. We were shouted at for stepping on the wrong pavement at one time – although walking down the street was fine. At another time we sat down on a low wall next to a church and a soldier came along and told us to move on. They take their security seriously.
Also guarding the parliament were presidential guards who were very smart in golden helmets.
We spent most of the day wandering around the Candelaria district and had a nice lunch in a modern restaurant. We liked this area and felt very safe.
One of the places that was safe was an art gallery with donated works by Botero. His thing was drawing everything chubby. I quite enjoyed them. At the same gallery there were also a number of works by big artists such as Picasso and Dali. It was free to get in as well.
At around 3.30pm we decided to head back to the Beast and negotiated our way back on the Transmilenio. We arrived back just in time as it started pouring with rain and pretty much carried on for the rest of the night. The day had been nice though with some really hot sun for periods but once the rain started the temperature dropped right down to 10c, not surprising really because Bogota is at almost 2800m.
Zipaquira
Situated about 50km North of Bogota is Zipaquira, a town that is founded on salt mining. The surrounding area was once a massive inland sea which evaporated leaving a layer of salt. Through time and geologic folding this has created a big deposit of salt above the town. This has been mined since well before the Spanish arrived but they brought modern mining techniques.
The tunnels created by the mining have been used to create a massive Salt Cathedral under the ground. The Cathedral is absolutely enormous consisting of huge corridors cut through the rock (a mixture of salt and carbon). The main Nave of the cathedral can accommodate 8400 people for the services but the main use now is as a tourist attraction – in fact they claim to be the most popular attraction in Colombia.
You have to enter the Cathedral with a tour but these are big groups of people (about 100) and the tour was in Spanish so we decided to lag back and explore the cathedral on our own.
The first section of the cathedral is a tunnel with 13 crosses each representing one step of the day that Jesus was crucified. The crosses are carved out of the rock and each is different and lit in a different way. Some are backed by vast tunnels that stretch 200 metres into the rock.
After passing the crosses you move down into the three massive chambers of the cathedral itself. The central one of these had a huge cross at one end and pews arranged before an altar.
We had also arranged to do a Miner’s route tour in the cathedral. To do this we were outfitted with hard hats and miner’s lights and lead into a labyrinth of tunnels above the cathedral. The guide explained some of the geology and how the mining was carried out .The highlight of this tour was using a pick-axe to mine some salt. The rock is surprisingly hard and it takes a number of consecutive strikes of the pick in the same place to chip off a chunk of salt. In the days before explosives this would have been very hard work.
Villa de Leyva
Villa de Leyva is one of the premier tourist spots in Colombia and is an easy drive from Bogota so gets busy at the weekends. The town is in a highland valley, although lower than Bogota, with a pleasant climate. It was declared a national monument in 1954 limiting any development so time has literally stood still since then. There is however a lot of development on the outskirts and surrounding area, fortunately for the most part in a sympathetic style.
We based ourselves in a Zona de Camping, 20 minutes walk from the centre of town enabling us to explore the surrounding area as well as the town.
Villa de Leyva has one of the largest central plaza’s in the Americas – it’s 120 metres square but unlike most central plazas in Latin America it is completely bare except for a fountain in the centre. No shaded benches to sit on and wile away a sunny afternoon. The town itself is very nice and the buildings are almost all in a uniform colonial style. There are a large number of restaurants and artisan shops which cater to the influx of tourists.
Importantly for us we found a Lavanderia (launderette) as we’d been hand washing clothes for the last couple of weeks, not a favourite pass-time of ours!
We spent our time in Villa de Leyva making short trips out to tourist sites. The first of these that we visited was El Fosil. A building has been built around the site of discovery of an almost completely intact fossil of a baby Kronosaurus (still 7m long). This is a survivor from the time when this area was part of an inland sea – surprising, given it’s at an altitude of over 2000m.
After El Fosil we drove down a very rough track to El Infiernito (Estacion Astronomica Muisca) which has a reputation of being the Colombian Stonehenge. It didn’t quite live up to this billing. One part of the site consists of parallel lines of stones about 1m apart which was used to determine the seasons, the other part is a field of phallic standing stones.
We also visited Pozo Azul which is a collection of natural ponds which are a deep emerald colour (of course they change with the sun) and a small eco-park containing a number of waterfalls (La Periquera).
The journey to La Periquera did not go smoothly. As we drove up the narrow dirt track to the site we got trapped between a low tree branch on one side and a muddy ditch on the other so we couldn’t go any further. We had to reverse about 500m up the track round some tight corners. Whenever you’re in this situation a local with a beer in hand seems to appear to help (something of a surprise at 9.30am !). If you are the same size as the Beast you can park by the entrance to the lane but if you are just an inch or two narrower and lower you could make it the whole way through to the small car park at the end of the track.
Hidden behind a hostel just outside the town is a nice hike up a small river to a viewpoint high above town passing a couple of waterfalls on the way. It’s pretty difficult to find the track though so ask at the reception desk at the Renacer guesthouse and they provide you with a helpful map.
When we left Villa de Leyva we decided to drive to a nearby National Park – The Sanctuario de Iguaque. This didn’t go quite to plan. We found the entrance road which was a gravel road heading uphill. The road wasn’t too bad – until we made a wrong turn when the road started getting rougher – including one bit which was about 10cm wider than our tyres with a 2m drop into a big hole on one side due to road works (a little bit heartstopping but the only way past was to gun the engine and cross your fingers !). We couldn’t find anywhere to turn around and we ended up crossing out of the valley and back to the main highway. After taking a couple of hours to go 15km and the cloud cover descending we decided to forget it and drove on to Tunja.
San Gil
San Gil is at first glance a fairly uninteresting city at the bottom of a hilly descent. However the streets reward walking around and it opens up as a friendly mountain town.
After walking the streets of San Gil, finding a supermarket to buy a few essentials and checking email we went to a small park at the North end of town, El Gallineral. This park was on the river and had lots of trees draped in a type of moss called Barbas de Viejo (Old man’s beard). There were a large number of red squirrels in the park as well, a novelty for those of us from England as they have been wiped out at home.
After this we needed to find somewhere to stay for the night and settled on a Balenario about 4km up the hill from town. It was really quiet and had a big pool to cool down. The nights here are cool but the days are well over 30c.
In the morning we set out of for the town of Barichara which is a very slow 15km from San Gil and is a beautiful old colonial town. All the buildings are painted white and are in similar style, the streets are cobbled and the pace of life is so slow that it feels as though time has barely touched this little town.
In the afternoon we drove 15km the other side of San Gil, on a paved but heavily potholed road, to Cascadas de Juan Curi, a 180m waterfall. The hike in was only around 20 minutes through forest. On arriving at the foot of the waterfall we had to cross the river – flowing very fast over a slippery rock floor – with the aid of a rope across and then climb a small cliff to get up to the main waterfall.
We had taken our swimming costumes for a cooling off dip but it was really pumping water and the wind it created was so strong that it almost blew you off your feet. There was no way to swim under the waterfall that day. A week later after leaving San Gil we heard that the town was flooded so I guess it’s probably not always that powerful.
Chicamocha
The drive South from the Caribbean Coast is long and hot – down a decent road that is stock full of trucks. This slows down the pace somewhat. Once you hit the mountains themselves the number of trucks reduces slightly but the road becomes slower. It took us almost 2 days driving to reach Chicamocha National Park which is a large canyon with a cable car stretching from one side to the other.
At one end of the car park at Chicamocha is a police building so we asked them if it was ok to stay the night here. Thankfully they were happy for us to do so as we were still 40km from San Gil and with the windy mountain road and truck traffic this was probably at least an hour long drive in the dark. As it turns out this was a good place to stay and it was a cool night (our first for what seems like a long time).
The park itself was quite entertaining (although expensive) with great views and a monument to the Revolution at its centre (The Monumento a la Santandereanidad). The cable car was fairly interesting as it takes you right down to the bottom of the Canyon and back up the cliffs at the other side of the Canyon but the ride back is fairly dull as you’ve done it before. You can of course walk down to the bottom on a steep goat trail but this did not take our fancy !
Colombia’s Caribbean Beaches
Before starting our trek South towards Ecuador we decided to spend a few days on the beach. Our first days drive ended at Playa Velero which was a deserted Caribbean beach where we could park for free only a few feet from the water. However the beach was a bit uninspiring and we didn’t have much in the way of food so we decided to move further East to the Tayrona National Park area.
We have discovered that shopping centres and supermarkets in Colombia tend to have underground or multi-storey car parks. No good for us because of our height and it can often be difficult to park anywhere nearby. We did manage to find a shopping centre in Santa Marta with a large Carrefour which had a private Parquedero across the road. This was fortunate as we had turned the fridge off for our crossing to Colombia and didn’t really have any food at all.
After managing to stock up with food we drove to the beaches to the East of Santa Marta and settled into a place called Casa Grande – right next to Tayrona NP but without the expensive entrance fees. This was a lovely Caribbean Beach – albeit with crashing surf making swimming difficult. The place was practically empty while we were there and we spent a few days relaxing.
We didn’t hang around in the North too much though because we were craving the cool nights of the mountains.
Cartagena
Cartagena de Indias is a sprawling city of over a million people which is a major shipping hub on Colombia’s Caribbean coast. However at the heart of the city lies the original walled town, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and it is this ‘Cartagena’ which is the magnet for tourists.
As I mentioned in my last post on Shipping we arrived in Cartagena on Wednesday night, the week of the Summit of the Americas. This is a Summit for all the nations in the Americas which is attended by the Presidents and a host of camp followers. From the Friday through to Monday morning the old town was sealed off and everyone going in was searched. Vehicles were prohibited from entering the old town for the duration of the Summit apart from official Summit vehicles which were each labelled with the country they were servicing. At any time a motorcade escorted by police could come flying by. Even Shakira was in town for the weekend!
Unfortunately the Summit meant that hotels were booked solid and flights were expensive. So it cost us a lot more than it should have to get to and stay in Cartagena. However we did manage to book a hotel in the San Diego district of the old town which was very central to the tourist area and a short cab ride to the Manga area where we needed to go for shipping. We only had this hotel for three nights but when we realised that we wouldn’t get the Beast until Monday we booked another hotel for the extra three nights (we couldn’t stay in the one we had been in because it was full).
The plus side of the Summit taking place was that with all the police, various countries security services and the army, Cartagena must have been one of the safest places in the world that weekend.
The walled city is a wonderful place and doesn’t need an itinerary. Just strolling around and taking in the sights is the best way to attack it and eventually you’ll walk past all the main attractions. Many of the buildings are brightly coloured and covered in flowers making a real assault on the senses. The difference between the weekend of the Summit where the town was pretty empty and the following Monday was enormous with the streets exploding with life and people.
On one of our walks we practically bumped into Hilary Clinton doing the same thing – albeit surrounded by Secret Service (those who hadn’t been sent home in disgrace that is!).
Shortly after seeing Hilary in the Plaza de Bolivar we went into the Cathedral where we did a really good audio tour of the building. The history of Cartagena is amazing – the Cathedral was almost completely destroyed even before it was finished when Francis Drake sacked the town in 1586. In fact pirates sacked the town 5 times in the 16th century leading to Spanish building forts to protect the town and building the walls around the town itself.
One of the Forts, Castillo de San Felipe de Barajas, is one of the most awesome defensive structures ever built. It has five different defensive areas each of which if over-run can be attacked from the others. The final line of defence is a keep in the centre which has a wooden access stairway which was burnt when under attack leaving no way out for the defenders. The fort is built on a hill and the interior of the hill is riddled with passageways which run right down to the water-table. They were used to store ammunition , explosives and supplies. There is an excellent audio tour that you can do which really brings the fort to life and tells you about all the battles that have been fought there.
One of the real features of the town was the heat. This is probably the hottest place that we have been and we were really glad to have an air-conditioned hotel room to retreat to for a siesta in the hottest part of the day. Talking to locals its hot all year with little variation, even they use air conditioning when they can!
Of course the heat meant that we wanted cool beer. There is a great bar called Cafe del Mar on top of the city wall looking over the Caribbean sea. Its expensive but you’re paying for the view !
FromAtoB 