Friends, we are three weeks from home (yah/boo)!
We are really in love with Colombia and have had some major highlights here. We started out in a city called Popayan, which was beautiful but had no special thing to set it apart from the other beautiful cities we had seen (except maybe for the hordes of street vendors selling candied peanuts, major yum).
After our days there we headed into coffee country, to a town called Salento. Without any complications we arrived to this breathtaking pueblo that is snuggled into mountains coated in jungle and fruit trees. We stayed at a hostel on a coffee/fruit plantation appropriately named Plantation House. The plantation was incredible and we spent an afternoon learning the whole process of making coffee from tree to cup! We also spent time wandering the sloped and muddy trails throughout the plantation, and in order to do this we donned what seems like mandatory footwear around this town: Wellington boots. Intermingled in the plantation were coffee trees (both the traditional and modern varieties), lime trees, pineapple plants, bamboo forests, avocado trees, lulo trees, orange trees, banana trees, plantain trees, three waterfalls, orchids, birds of paradise, and beautiful views! This was an amazing place to stay and they served their own brew of coffee all day for free! Nathan had a heyday! The town itself was very colourful, every door and curb and rooftop being painted vibrant different shades. There was also incredible hiking just outside of Salento in Valle de Cocora. We spent a day hiking there and found ourselves crossing very rickety suspension bridges with no railings (more than once!), walking along stream beds, sitting in a hummingbird sanctuary with six hummingbird varieties flitting all around, and wandering through the sparse wax palm forests (the trees are about ten metres apart, with only grass in between them, have very thin trunks, and stretch up to sixty metres high!). It was absolutely stunning, like something out of a Dr. Suess book. We would love to show pictures, but do not have access to a computer where we can upload them. If you want to see what these forests look like you should Google "wax palms Cocora", they are amazing!
We left Salento very content (and with the scent of coffee wafting out of our bags) to make a "twenty" hour bus journey to Cartagena. Buses here are very expensive and are not nearly as nice as those in other countries, such as Peru. Here we paid more than double what we would pay in Peru, were cramped in, were subjected to loud and violent movies, had no bus stewardess bringing us hot meals (spoiled?), and arrived over five hours after schedule! I think that the buses are the only downfall of Colombia!
When we arrived in Cartagena on the Caribbean coast we stepped out of the refrigerated bus and immediately started to sweat! It was so humid and so hot that we often sought the refuge of ice cold limade and watermelon while wandering the beautiful old port city. We stayed within the walls of the old city, which is full of incredible buildings with bougenvelias (spelling?) pouring over every balcony. Most of our time was spent wandering but we also visited a modern art museum that had extensive collections from some prominent Colombian artists.
Next up was a city called Santa Marta. It is a big city that also sits on the coast. It has a great food market full of cheap and local fruits, vegetables, and fish. The fish made it pretty rank in there but it all added to the experience! We wanted to spend some time swimming in the Caribbean before leaving the continent. After seeing the litter covered beach in Santa Marta we knew that we had to look elsewhere. That is when we made one of our best choices yet, to head to Tayrona National Park.
We packed our big packs into storage in the hostel in Santa Marta and made off for Tayrona in a minibus, carrying food, water, and a change of clothes in search on tropical bliss... And boy did we find it! The minibus stopped at the entrance to the park, from where we walked two hours through the jungle to a fruit plantation called Finca Don Pedro's. Here they have tents set up among the fruit trees which you can rent for a marginal price. It was a beautiful setting... And on our walk in we were privy to the company of armies of ants, a crazy huge millipede (maybe a googilipede?), orange monkeys, blue crabs that all had one huge white claw, and heaps of different types of lizards. Within an hour of walking from our tent you could reach beautiful deserted beaches, a great bakery (with hot fresh chocolate filled buns every morning!!!), crashing blue waves, calm coves for swimming, massive rocks for exploring... All the elements of tropical bliss! We were in love with the place immediately. We managed to stretch our food to last us four days (thanks to the chocolate buns, banana trees, and coconuts free for the cracking) and loved every minute of it. If any of you ever come to Colombia (which you should), this place is a mandatory visit!
After Tayrona we ended up in a fishing village called Taganga. It is nice but the beach is not even a shadow of the beaches in Tayrona... Maybe we should have come here first! It is nice though because the breeze blows cooler here than in the nearby Santa Marta and there are ample hammocks hanging around to lounge in.
We will return to Santa Marta tomorrow because early on Saturday we take our first hop on the journey home. We have a flight to Bogota (for fifteen dollars more than the "twenty" hour bus ride would cost us if we went by land) and then from Bogota to Miami... Weird right! But, in order for us to get from Colombia to Belize for less than a thousand dollars we have to overnight in Miami. So counterintuitive! We will arrive into the arms of Blaine and Melissa on Sunday, and we very much look forward to it!
The last two and a half weeks in Belize will be a good transition back to reality, and be a great way to get a good solid dose of family time. Tomorrow is our last day as wanderers, and I don't think that is so bad.
Big love,
Chloe (and Nathan)
