Two Amazons in the Amazon

We are just back from three days in the “Parque Nacional de la Macarena”, at the gates of the Amazon area of Colombia. We drove from Bogota to Villavicencio through an amazing road rushing down the steep mountains, very scenic but also vaguely ominous. then we took a small plane (eight seats) from Villavicencio to reach Macarena, a frontier town located at the entrance of the park.

The park has only been recently opened to tourism. It had been off limits for 25 years due to guerrilla activity in the region. But now everything is back to normal, and tourists start to flow in. The army is very present everywhere though. I guess they want to make sure nothing detrimental to the nascent tourism industry happens. The highlight of the park (also called Canos Cristales) is its rivers. Between July and November an aquatic plant blankets the bottom of the rivers and turns them into a crimson shade that is amazingly beautiful. People can swim there, I did not, I just put my feet in the water and it was a bit too cold for me. It was not really cold actually, but it was so hot outside that it felt very cold. There are beautiful cascades and water holes. We were with a Colombian couple; it was their first time there too. Actually the father of the woman had wanted to go there all his life but never been able to because of the political troubles. So her daughter had decided to come to fulfil the wish of her father. 

The crimson rivers are a bit difficult to reach: we had to take a boat on a wide muddy river, then hop on a four wheels drive vehicle and then walk under a blaring sun, crossing streams and getting water up to our thighs sometimes. The hiking part was a bit hard on be due to the heat and some annoying blisters on my feet, I wish there had been more boat and car rides than hikes; but ecotourism is trendy nowadays, so my wish was only wishful thinking… Surprisingly, there were quite many visitors, most of them Colombians and sometimes the crimson rivers were a bit crowded… despite the fact that the park management claims to limit the number of visitors to 160 per day. Anyway, it was a beautiful trip.

Tomorrow we are heading to the Zona Cafetera, up in the mountains again, through the same steep scenic road. More on the next post!

Medellin, une ville très tranquille!

Medellin : Pablo Escobar, baron de la drogue, cocaine, knidnappings, meutres, argent… Pablo Escobar a été assassiné en 1993 et maintenant Medellin est une ville très tranquille. Elle est le deuxième centre économique du pays avec environ 3 millions d’habitants.

L’architecture se compose de maisons et de building en briques. Tout est rose !

Ce n’est pas une ville très belle mais elle a tout de même un certain charme.

Nous avons visité la place Fernando Botero ou trône une vingtaine de sculptures faites par lui. Il fait des sculptures avec des femmes et des hommes bien enveloppés. J’ai mis un album sur ma galerie de photos : https://www.flickr.com/photos/124600605@N06/sets/.

On a aussi visité le jardin botanique avec des magnifiques orchidées et toutes sortes de fleurs. Dans ce jardin il y avait un lieu pour garder les papillons c’était magnifique.

Nous avons visité Villa de Leyva, encore une ville coloniale ! Son architecture est superbe. La ville est entourée de montagnes à la peau pelée. Aux alentours nous avons vu des « pozos azules » plusieurs lacs de montagnes et le monastère « Ecce Homo » fondé par des dominicains.

Nous sommes à Bogota maintenant où il fait très froid… Demain nous repartons pour une aventure en Amazonie ! J’espère que ça va être grandiose !

Life Elevated

We are now in Santa Fe de Bogota, the capital city of Colombia, about nine million people at an altitude of 2’600 meters (7’800 feet). So far, we have no problems with altitude, except for the cold. Icy winds are  sometimes blowing from the surrounding mountains, piercing the bones to the core. We sleep soundly with three blankets at night and drink a lot of water during the day. It never snows in Bogota as temperature does not go below zero. Unfortunately, the city is very polluted and is, let’s say, architecturally challenged…but it has nice museums. The tourist office organises free tours of the city twice a day; we spent a pleasant time strolling the old town listening to the guide. Today we took a cable car up the mountain to 3’200 meters and enjoyed a gorgeous view of the city; it is big, indeed and beautiful when seen from above.

We have found a workshop specialised in fibber glass to repair the damages on the van. We will retrieve it tomorrow morning. In a way, we made the most of this unfortunate encounter with the iron rod: at least we did not have to worry about parking the camper… parking is a real headache in Bogota. 

Posos Azules

Tomorrow, we are heading to the Amazon, almost at sea level, and tropical weather; going from one extreme to another, as Colombia is actually. This country is a melting pot in everything: geography, population, culture, standards of living, animals, birds, flowers and fruits, some or them truly unique. Internet connections are excellent, but some roads are not yet paved… We saw a wedding in Villa de Leyva, a display of genuine elegance, but we saw abject poverty as well. Colombia has one foot on the 21st century and the other  in the 1950s. Let’s hope the second foot will catch up soon!!! 

Never Trust a Shortcut

After having spent two nights in Medellin, we are now in San Gil in the province of Santander. This is a beautiful area, green, hilly with tobacco plantations and beautiful mansions scattered on the countryside.

When leaving Medellin, we decided to take a short cut to save about a hundred miles. The road was showing as paved on both online and paper maps and it is a peaceful area. So this was going to be a straightforward matter, at least on the map. And what was supposed to happen at some point during this journey did indeed happen: we ended up driving at night on a mountainous road that was only partially paved. It took us almost four hours to drive 60 miles, creeping up and down on a narrow road, alternatively dirt and paved (but full of potholes), among trucks, carts and various kinds of vehicles. The scenery was just gorgeous. We finally reached a small town after 7pm where we could spend the night in a small hostel with very nice owners. We went up to 2’500 meters high. We cannot recall how many times we saw signs of “obras en la carretera” (work in progress), “desvios” (detours) or area geologically unstable… Apparently the road is under construction, so the maps are a bit ahead of time. During the last hour, my eyes were constantly on “Maps With Me” to check our progress and how far we still were from the small town; I was not driving of course and it was pitch dark outside. Our official photographer was doing the driving, so there is unfortunately no picture of this beautiful area… 

Well, this is a learning experience, we will now stay on major highways as our camper is not exactly designed for mountain unpaved roads. Although major highways are not any better sometimes… 

We are going to hang around Santander for a couple more days and head off to Bogota, the Amazon and the Zona Cafetera, hopefully on paved roads!

Mula Carro!

Cela fait maintenant 11 jours que nous sommes en Colombie et on a déjà vu pas mal de choses.

Tout d’abord Capurgana qui est une ville située sur l’océan pacifique c’est là ou nous sommes arrivées après notre voyage en bateau depuis le Panama jusqu’à la Colombie passant par les îles San Blas.

C’était un voyage vraiment époustouflant ! Il y a autant d’îles que de jours dans l’année, certaines sont minuscules avec un ou deux palmiers et d’autres sont plus grandes où on peut accueillir les villages des Kunas. Ce sont des paysages magnifiques dignes des plus belles cartes postales. Les Kunas sont des indigènes qui sont complétement indépendant de l’Etat du Panama, ils ont leurs propres lois, leurs gouvernements, leur justice. Ils sont panaméens mais n’ont recours au gouvernement de Panama que pour les passages de frontières ou les délits très graves. Ils sont agriculteurs, ils possèdent les plus grosses récoltes de noix de coco du monde, pêcheurs et le tourisme commence à faire son apparition.

Revenons à Capurgana. On ne peut y arriver qu’en bateau. Il n’y a pas de voitures que des chevaux et des ânes. La Colombie est un pays vraiment différent de ce que nous avons vu avant. Tout d’abord ce pays est très métissé : les gens sont d’origine européenne et amérindien, d’autres sont d’origine caucasienne et enfin il y a ceux dont l’origine est africaine.  C’est peut être comme au Brésil !

Dans la rue les gens jouent aux cartes (ramis) aux dominos pour de l’argent.

Cartagena est une ville coloniale très bien restaurée, avec des balcons et des fenêtres en bois. Les maisons sont très colorées et assez grandes avec un patio derrière pour trouver la fraicheur. On trouve beaucoup de café mais qui est fait comme le café turc. Le meilleur café est exporté.

Nous sommes à Santa Cruz de Mompos. C’est une autre ville coloniale qui a été fondée 7 ans après Cartagena. Là, ce qui orne les balcons et les fenêtres c’est du fer forgé. Dans chaque maison il y a des chaises à bascules. Entre le hamac et les chaises à bascules les Colombiens doivent très très cools…

Hier nous avons pris un bateau (Mompos est dans les marais) pour aller voir des oiseaux. Au bout de 10 minutes de bateau on a fait un transbordement. Enfin, on est montées sur une calèche avec une mule pendant une demie heure (ils appellent ça « Mula Carro ») puis on a embarqué dans une autre calèche pour aller sur le marais. C’était une ballade magnifique ! Le marécage est assez profond ça ressemble à un lac mais c’est un marais. Il y avait beaucoup de plantes dans l’eau et des espèces de nénuphar. Pour rentrer on a pris le même chemin, la mule était tellement contente de rentrer qu’elle s’est mise au galop. Bien sûr il faisait presque nuit. Sur le bateau du retour on a eu droit à des chaises parce que il n’y avait pas de banc.

On the Road Again

After one week in Cartagena de Indias, we are on the road again. We are currently in Santa Cruz de Mompox, a beautiful sleepy colonial town, that was the stage of “Chronicle of a Death Foretold” a novel by the Colombian world famous author, Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I am currently reading  on my Kindle “Hundred Years of Solitude” by the same author and will probably download “Chronicle of a Death Foretold” soon as I have now been to the place where it takes place. 

Santa Cruz de Mompox is quite difficult to reach as it is surrounded by a river and swamps and there is no road to speak of. So we took a launch from Magangué to a nearby village and then hopped on a “collectivo” to reach the place last night. The trip was quite fun. We had to wait for the launch to be full before heading off on the river, and then we had to wait for the “collectivo” to fill in before finally embarking on a 40km trip on mostly dirt roads. We left the van safely parked in Magangué. Mompox is worth the efforts to reach it. It is charming and relaxing place with numerous churches and beautiful houses with iron-wrought doors and windows. 

I had a little accident with the van yesterday when leaving Cartagena. There was some work in progress and I did not see a short iron rod planted in the middle of the way (well, actually it was on the side of the road to be really honest, but it was in a curve and the road was narrow). This stupid piece of iron ripped the right side of the van, tearing off two plastic pieces and damaging the footboard. Damn, damn, damn… It is nothing serious, but we need to fix this somehow and I do not know really how… Anyway, it good that there were not more damages than this.

I had to buy a new pair of shorts in Cartagena, as it is really hot here, so one more pair is not a luxury. I thought that was going to be quite straightforward; it was actually quite complicated to find a short my size… had to go to five different shops before finding one. They all had small sizes only. Well, I know I am not exactly skinny, but I am not fat either, just a bit chubby maybe. Well, Colombia claims having the most beautiful women in the world, I cannot really judge this, but what about all the other ones??? So long…

Let's visit Colombia before tourists come

We are now in Cartagena de Indias, a beautiful fortified city on the Caribbean sea. We have retrieved our vehicle from the claws of Colombian bureaucracy; it took us two days, running from one office to the other trying to get various forms, signatures and inspections, but we finally made it. We were so knackered that we went to sleep at 9pm afterwards… I want to stress that we did not have to pay any bribe, nobody even asked for anything, it is just the process that is awfully complicated. So once again, what about building this highway, at long last???

Our vehicle is now in the shop for a complete revision and fixing of suspensions before we continue our journey down south. I am myself surprised that we made it that far, with only minor issues on the way, all things considered. We have gone a long long way, you can just check this on the map on the blog. When we left Denver, four months ago, I was not thinking we would reach South America, really. But the journey goes on and this is great.

Botero

So Colombia is not what most people think it is. First of all, we have not seen any people shooting at each other on the streets. That was a long time ago, and things have improved dramatically since. Even though the country is still technically in a civil war, it does not feel like it. Or is it really a civil war? Or shall we call this internal troubles or civil unrest? My former colleagues from the ICRC might know more about this. Secondly, the streets are not packed with drug dealers, nobody proposed us any drugs, maybe we do not have the right profile, although we look Gringas enough. Of course, we will be careful: staying on highways, driving during the day as we always do anyway and avoid the troubled areas. So everything should be fine. We plan to stay one month in this country, as there is so much to see and we are on schedule. I reckon Colombia has the potential to become one of the world top tourist destination, once it gets rid of this bad reputation. So let’s visit before mass tourism comes!!! 

Had a blast in San Blas

Yeah, I know, but I could not resist putting this title… 

Anyway, we have now reached Carpugana, a small and cute village on the Caribbean sea, close to the famous (or infamous?) Darrien Pit. The Darrien pit is a swampy jungle area between Panama and Colombia stretching over about fifty miles. There is no passable road there, and this is because of this small strip of jungle area that we had to go through all the complications and expenses of shipping our camper. Our camper is now on its way on a cargo to Carthagena and we will retrieve it, if all goes according to plan on Friday…

Instead of flying to Colombia, we decided to do the trip on a speed boat through the San Blas islands over four days an three nights, plus another day travel to Cartagena. This trip is called “San Blas Adventure”, and an adventure it was, indeed. So off we went on Friday morning, a pick up truck picked us up at our hotel at 5am and we drove for about two hours  on very steep roads to a small port on the Caribbean sea. It was raining cats and dogs so our bag was completely soaked by the time we arrived. Fortunately, the rain stopped when we boarded the speedboat. We were part of a group of 26 people, most of them backpackers in their twenties. We were the two oldest on the trip… Well, I guess we have to start to get used to this, it is not going to get any better as time goes on…

The San Blas islands, also called Kuna Yala is a territory that is technically part of Panama, but completely autonomous in reality. The Kuna people is an Indian community that managed to keep their land and gain their very cherished autonomy. The Panama government does not get involved in their issues, unless specifically requested. The downside of this, is that there is very little investment done and the whole area is quite backwards compared to the rest of the country.

This area is absolutely gorgeous, with hundreds of post cards islands, most of them inhabited, with just coconut trees and white sands beaches. We slept on one of them the first night on hammocks after a lobster dinner. It was the first time I was sleeping on a hammock. It is quite nice, but somehow I felt a bit cramped, because it is nearly impossible to move. But I still could sleep. I woke up at dawn and watched the sun rise on the archipelago, simply gorgeous. We spent the rest of the day sun bathing and snorkelling on the islands. 

Then we moved east and spent a night in a Kuna village… an experience I do not want to repeat. This place was hopelessly filthy. People live among piles of garbage that they do not pick up, there are plastic bottles and cans of beer floating everywhere near the village. We slept in a private house; the place was dreadful. I drank five cans of beer to give me the courage to climb into my hammock. We continued our journey the next day. There was a huge storm in the morning so we got completely soaked, fortunately we had wrapped our bad in a plastic bag. Then the sun suddenly appeared and everything was fine again. We had lunch on a deserted island and spent the night in a very simple but very nice hotel with a view on the islands.

This morning, we crossed the boarder and continued our journey to Capurgana. The sea was quite agitated so we got soaked again, by the waves this time. The ride was quite something, with the boat jumping the waves, taking off and landing at full blast, I was a bit afraid it would capsize at some point, but it did not. We got a glimpse of the Darrien area, from the sea: hilly, covered by jungle, deserted, a bit ominous… We are going to stay another day at Capurgana, before embarking on the journey to Cartagena. Another ride on a boat and nine hours by bus.

San Blas islands are gorgeous, but to the governments of both Panama and Colombia, what about an highway between your countries??? That would be sooooooooooo nice!!!

Deux heures pour vider une bouteille de propane !

La compagnie maritime nous avait dit : “Vous devez vider votre bouteille de gaz avant d’embarquer’’. ‘’Il suffit de débrancher un bouton !’’.

Quand on a sortit le van du garage, on a voulu trouver un mécano pour vider la bouteille de gaz. Nous avons fait cinq lieux différents pour finalement arriver aux pompiers de la ville. A part les pompiers personne ne savaient comment libérer le gaz. Le capitaine des pompiers nous a dit qu’ils ne faisaient pas ça. Il a appelé deux compagnies de gaz pour voir s’ils pouvaient mettre le gaz de notre bombonne dans une autre bombonne. Une entreprise à dit oui mais vu l’heure tardive (14h) à laquelle on appelait ce serait pour demain matin…

La voiture devait être le lendemain matin au port pour embarquer. Nous allions perdre le droit d’embarquer parce qu’on avait pas pu vider notre bouteille de gaz.

En plus nous avions remplit la bouteille au Mexique pour que ça nous dure longtemps. Au Panama il fait chaud, on ne peut pas mettre le chauffage et la cuisine ne consomme rien du tout.

Finalement un des pompiers nous a dit ‘’Revenez ce soir, on va vous libérer le gaz en mettant de l’eau dessus’’.

Durant le reste de l’après-midi on a essayé de consumer du gaz en allumant les brûleurs… Au bout d’une demi-heure ça n’avait pas bougé… et puis ça chauffait le bus. On a appelé Pamela (la vendeuse de la compagnie maritime) ; elle nous a dit que si on ne le vidait pas on devait payer 300 dollars de plus parce qu’on transportait des combustibles dangereux !

Le soir, les pompiers se sont attaqués à la pompe à gaz. Ils ont branché l’eau et l’ont envoyée sur la bouteille et ils ont ouvert le gaz.

Il a fallut deux heures pour vider trois gallons de propane et au moins 4000 litres d’eau pour asperger la bouteille. Je crois que c’est les minutes les plus pénibles que j’ai vécu dans ce voyage ! Je ne savais pas du tout que c’était si dangereux de vider une bouteille de gaz.