Colombia

You may recall that Colombia wasn't on the original itinerary... But I'm glad I snuck it on there! We spent one more week with Jimmy and Amy before they headed back to the states, visiting Cartagena, Medellin, and Bogota.  

First off, Colombia has significantly cleaned up its act, and is not the same dangerous crime-plagued country it was in the 90's. We felt safe the entire time we were there and found that Colombians to be some of the most polite and warm people we've met!

First stop: Cartagena!

We spent three days in this beachy, colonial city in the North of Colimbia on the Carribean coast.  We spent most of our time in the historical town - where you'll find bright colored colonial buildings, cobblestone streets, lush plazas, and abundant street vendors, all surrounded by thick fortress walls.  It's a small area, but we managed to get ourselves lost in the winding streets more than once!

No trip to Cartagena would be complete without some good quality beach time!  On day two, we hired a boat driver to take us to Punta Rena, a nearby island with some of the best beaches and straw cabanas.

On day three, we took a much longer boat ride to Playa Blanca (literally "white beach") for snorkeling, lunch, and a fair amount of beach bumming.

  

Enjoying our piña colada IN the freshly macheted coconut prepared by our mobile bartender with a wheelbarrow full of boos, ice, and most importantly, coconuts!

Next up: Medillin!

We had two days to explore Medillin... Which was a quick stop but I think we got a good feel for the city. Medellin is a HUGE, modern, metropolitan city! Spreads across the entire valley, which seems to stretch on forever! 

Our first day was spent walking around an getting a feel for the city.  We went to a free, spanish play downtown en El Teatro Pequeño, then had dinner and drinks in the trendy Zona Rosa, near where we were staying in Barrio Poblado.

The highlight of Day Two was our Pablo Escobar Tour. Our tour guide drove us around the city while telling us about the life of Pablo Escobar (Colombia's most notorious drug lord) and pointing out significant Pablo landmarks. Most of the city is built of local red brick... his compounds and office buildings were all symbolically white.  As you can imagine, he is a very controversial man in Colombia, and few like to talk about him.  Colombia's Dark Era started in the 80's and lasted until after Pablo's death in the mid 90's... there are stories of him advertising that he would pay anyone U$500 for every police officer they shot... and that's not even the worst of them!  

Our guide...

Pablo's aunts old house - scene of his controversial death. Either the police killed him or he poisoned himself... Or maybe he's still alive, hanging out with Elvis!

Final resting ground...

Final stop: Bogota!

Amy's friend from a college study abroad program now lives in Bogota with her Colombian boyfriend.  They were sweet  enough to play tour guide and let us spend two nights on their living room couch!  Bogota has a lot to offer - historic neighborhoods dotted with monuments, museums, and cathedrals, to posh plazas surrounded by designer shops, brew pubs, and cafes. 

Taken right before our homemade Colombian dinner.  Now I know how to make arepas and plantain chips :)

Strolling around Plaza de Bolivar

Another in the historic neighborhood

Catedral Primada in Plaza de Bolivar

At the Botero Museum - this guy likes all things chubby!

That's all for now... Next stop, Peru!

Nuestra Semana en Ecuador

I think it's about time for a little summary of our week in Ecuador!  First off, a week in this beautiful and diverse country is only enough time to scratch the surface.  We spent our time getting to know the highlands north and south of the capital, Quito, with Dan's younger brother, Jimmy, and his girlfriend, Amy.

We didn't have too much of a set itinerary so we decided to rent a car and just wing it. We tried to see as much “cool stuff” as possible in our short time - I think we succeeded!

Quito

On our first full day in Quito (travel days hardly count!) we went to the tourist information office to ask about things to do... they handed us a map and pointed out about eight different churches and plazas that we HAD to see... so off we went! Well, we didn't get to them all, but the ones we did see were pretty amazing. We took a guided tour of La Iglesia de la Compania, which was almost completely covered in gold plate... pretty impressive and over the top!  We also visited La Basilica, a gorgeous church on the hill, complete with high towers that tourists can climb up. The view was definitely worth the hike but I wouldn't recommend this to anyone who has a problem with heights.    

To get to one of the towers, you have to cross a creaky bridge over the nave of the church to reach a ladder that gets you outside to the roof...

Next you climb about 40 feet up the side of the main tower on a flimsy staircase hanging off the side of the building.

Then you're there!  Just try not to worry about the low "guardrails" or high winds!

Another gold-plated church

Public concert in the plaza! We're dancing, duh!

Baños

We first drove south to the pueblo of Baños where we did some hiking and nearly got lost in the woods. About three hours into our six hour uphill hike to a supposedly stellar view of the Volcan Tungurahua, the weather turned on us and started to downpour.  We toughed through the muddy "trails"/creeks and made it to our destination, which would have been much more rewarding if the fog wasn't blocking the top of the volcano!  

One of the most memorable parts of the hike was meeting a little girl who lived on her family's mountaintop farm.  She stoped us as we were making our way through to the "trail" gave us all bananas, watched us eat them, then asked us for 45 cents and galletas (cookies).  I felt a little bad for her and happened to have a granola bar on me, so I gave it to her.  She was so excited that she gave us the grand tour of their farm, insisting that we "saca una foto" (take a picture) of their pig, mama and baby cow, chickens, and nearly every flower and rock!  I finally had to tell her that our camera was out of memory so we could sneak away! Cute but very bossy little girl!! From then on, the command "saca foto!" was the running inside joke of the trip.

Cotopaxi

Our next stop was to visit Cotopaxi, Ecuador's perfectly cone-shaped volcano, located about halfway between Quito and Banos.  The plan was to drive our little two-wheel drive compact car over the dirt "roads" to the base of the volcano, then hike up to the edge of the glacier cap.  Of course we hadn't planned for another fogged-in volcano.  We attempted to hike but the sandy-winds were strong enough to carry us away! The weather started to ease up a bit as we started an easier hike around a lagoon and were able to catch a brief glimpse of the glacier peak!

Believe it or not, there's a volcano in front of us...

Here it is after we drove down lower on the base

Pic of the volcano on the next [clear] day... Gurrrr!

La Mitad del Mundo

On our way up north we stopped by La Mitad del Mundo (the Middle of the World) where you can spend an hour or so taking pictures of yourself with one foot in either hemisphere of the world. Not too far away from the famous monument we found an amazing view of a crater and a pre-incan archeological site. 

Cotacachi

Lucky for us, Amy has some friends living in the northern highlands of Ecuador in a teeny-tiny little town called Cotacachi, about 3 hours or so north of Quito.  Just driving there was an experience in itself! Single-lane roads curving through the Andes, buses passing giant trucks (two or three at a time) on blind curves, single lanes turning into two at any moment, blinding high-beams, and non-stop honking horns - I'm actually surprised we made it there and back in one piece!  Good driving, Jimmy!! 

We stayed three nights with Amy's hospitable, ex-pat friends, which was so much fun and interesting to hear about their transitions from the US to Ecuadorian way of life.  

On the first day there we took a 6 hour hike around Cuicocha, a beautiful, nearby crater-lake.  We started the hike later in the day and were worried the entire time that we weren't going to get back before sunset... obviously (and thankfully) we made it!!  

On the second day we visited a waterfall... which was not quite Iguazu Falls but still gorgeous enough to snap a bazillion photos of!  Later that day, our hosts threw a killer, homemade, brick oven pizza party with all of their new ex-pat friends.  

Unfortunately I wasn't feeling great on our last day and stayed home in bed while everyone else worked on their bartering skills at a large handicrafts market in a nearby town.  I was sad to miss it but happy that Dan finally bought his 100% authentic Ecuadorian Panama Hat that he had been talking about since before we left for South America!

Then it was back to Quito for one last night before we jumped onto our [VERY] early Colombia-bound plane!  We had an amazing time but were all excited for the Caribbean beaches that awaited us at our next destination... hasta luego, Ecuador!

Chilin' en Chile

Hola!

OK, I am extremely behind on my blog entries, so here it goes!  Dan and I spent 7 days in Chile... awesome but also unfortunate because we could have easily spent another three weeks getting to know the entire 7833 miles of coastline of this beautiful and diverse country.  

Our first day was spent mostly in buses, planes, and taxis... but probably the most memorable day of the trip.  We left Bariloche, Argentina, by bus at 7:30 am, which was scheduled to arrive in Osorno, Chile at around 12:30 pm, plenty of time to make our 2pm flight from Osorno to Santiago... so we thought.  After about 30 min of traveling by bus, the bus pulled off the road for about 30 min. We didn't realize until later that it was because some woman had missed the bus, called the driver and asked to wait for her while she hired a taxi to our stopped bus. Very aggrivating.  Next we get to the Argentine border control station where we disembarked, and had our passports stamped and bags sniffed by drug dogs.  This took a while but not nearly as long as the time we had to spend at the Chilean boarder control station.  We first had to wait for two large buses in front of us (probably because we were 30 min late because of the late tourist) to clear the border crossing, then it was our turn.  Sixty passengers waiting for one Chilean official to check, register, and stamp our passports.  At this time it was already about 1:30 pm and we were 100% sure we were going to miss our flight until someone told us that we gain an hour in Chile.  Even so, we were cutting it dangerously close. We talked to the bus driver and he said that we would make our flight... but looked a little worried.  Right before we were about to get back on the road, he told us to grab our bags and get on the bus behind us, which was scheduled to arrive at the Osorno airport before his bus.  Either way, we had 1.5 hours to board our flight, and we were still about 1.5 hours away.  So, already convinced that we would miss the flight, jumped on  board.  At 1:52, the bus pulled to the side of the road, told us to get off and grab our bags.  We were confused because we were in the middle of a field with nowhere close to anything that resembled an airport.  Then the driver pointed to a small building in the distance and said it was about 700 meters "over there." So, backpacks on, we took off running.  By the time we arrived at the only building "over there," were completely out of breath.  There wasn't anyone at the check-in counter but we saw someone in an airline uniform.  The only thing I could get out was "Santiago!" Casually she told us, "sure, you just need to check in," and very slowly started checking us in. I was freaking out a bit, wondering why she wasn't moving faster and asking her if our bags would make it on the plane.  It wasn't until we received the boarding passes when we realized that the flight was delayed 20 min.  Everything after that was like a dream, still wondering how it was possible that we made the flight that we had already given up on.  All I can say is that we had a very nice and smooth flight to Santiago, and made it to our comfy hostel before sundown!

The next two and a half days were spent in Santiago where we did loads of touristy things: hop-on hop-off bus; steep cable car ride up to the Statue of the Virgin (their Statue of Liberty); ate lots of seafood in the trendy neighborhood of Bella Vista, where they always have nightly live entertainment, and lots of wandering around!  One night at a random bar called "Harvard," I ran into a friend from college who had recently taken a job in Santiago - such a small world!  We ended up hanging out with him and his buddy for the rest of the night, sharing beers and tales of our travels.

On day four, five, and six we rented a car to drive ourselves to the coast.  The first two days were spent in Valparaiso, a historical port city directly to the west of Santiago.  Valparaiso is a precious little town with brightly painted buildings built on top of one another, dangling off hillsides.  Every winding alley was a picture perfect post card, full of color, hills and pacific ocean.  Some areas were so steep that many used telefericos (gondalas) to get to and from home.  Valparaiso has a huge artist community and many are hired to grafity/paint murals on their homes.  For me, this town was a good mix between San Francisco and Chinque Terra (in Italy). 

We spent most of our time wandering and getting lost in the windy and steep neighborhoods, took a free walking tour of the historic sites, visited the house of the late Chilean author, Pablo Neruda, and ate lots of fish.  

The next day and a half was spent driving north of Valpariso and getting to know a few coastal towns.  My favorite was Horcón, an old fishing village full of colorful buildings an markets, pelicans, and hard-working fishermen.  There the fishermen still do things the old-fashioned way, hauling their small fishing boats to the shore by horse.  Everytime a new boat is drug to shore, a crowd of locals hovers around to check out the fruits.  Since it was a fall, mid-week day, Dan and I were the only two tourists around... kinda fun!  

We ended up staying in Zapallar, a resorty-coastal town which looks very similar to an under-developed Carmel or Monterey.  Zapallar  was also completely empty of tourists which made for a fun day at the beach.  For the most part, we just took it easy - watched the sun set, then watched a futbol game with the locals at a rustic tavern (where they serve a mean ceviche!).

The next day we drove around a few more sleepy-coastal towns before making our way back to Santiago for a final evening in Chile before heading off to Ecuador.  

All in all, Chile is a beautiful country that looks a lot like California, especially the coast. We would have loved to have traveled further north to the Atacama Desert or explored the southern Patagonia, but you can only do so much in a week!  Guess that just means that we'll have to return someday... :)

OK, that's all I got!  Next up is Ecuador!

Besos,

Kristen