Sanyu's World

Going Back to Cali ... I Don't Think So.

Cali, Cali, Cali. I was so happy to reach my hostel after my dreadful bus experience. No hot water but I was in desparate need of a shower. Downstairs in my hostel a gin and tonic party was well underway. I was still feling a bit ill so I abstained. A few of us headed up to stock up on more beverages and I was lucky enough to find good old Canada Dry gingerale. Stomach saved. We were pretty much just hanging out drinking, chatting and watching the Simpson's Season 6 DVD when a guy from Norway invited me to sneak out and check out the town. Who am I to say no to a Norwegian? The bar and club district was nearby and we hopped from bar to bar to check out the salsa scene until we were kicked out of the last one at closing time. People do dance very well here. The salsa is much more showy than on the Caribbean coast.

I planned to get a lot done the next day but as things would have it, it wasn't to be. Spent the mornig on the Internet checking on flights home and then took a quick tour around the city. 'Ick' is my best description of what I saw. It's as dingy and boring a place as Ive been in months. The small area where my hostel is located has been gentrifying and looks quite nice with posh litle shops and restaurants. Apparantly it was little more than a slum 5 years ago. I was too late to catch up to some people from the hostel on their way to the zoo so I did my big city thing - manicure and pedicure - two and a half hours, I kid you not. Everything takes longer in Colombia. Afterward I was feeling great and decided to just go for it and book all my flights. 'Why are all the airline websites rejecting my bank card?' Can you believe it, my freaking bank has canceled my card AGAIN!

Luckily it was just a temporary block and after about an hour on the phone they told me they would remove the block withing 24 hours. Nice. They can turn it off in a split second but they need 24 hours to turn it back on. I headed back to the hostel to chill out with some travelers and laugh at the house dogs. There are two big british bulldogs in the house. One is the mother and the other is the son. The mother is in heat and the son is happy to give her some action so the poor son has to be chained up for most of the day and the mother walks around the house in little yellow panties.  That , a bit of rum and some good conversation was enough to amuse me for the night. I spent the better part of the next morning back in the Internet cafe finally getting everything booked and then decided that I'd had enough of Cali and headed off to the bus station.

I was lucky to catch a bus to Armenia leaving immediately and from there I transfered to a small shuttle to Salento in Colombia's coffee growing region. The hostel was lovely and I ran into a guy whom I'd met months ago in Taganga. I had dinner at a restaurant with him and his folks who had just flown down from the States to visit. Salento is a tiny town with not much to do so I was quite happy to hit the hay early. I woke up to my noisy alarm at 6:30 and quickly got myself together to head down to the town square to pick up the only morning shared jeep to Corcora, a small nearby town known for their beautiful cloud forest and giant wax palms. I checked out the palms but the trail to the cloud forest was inches deep in mud as I'd been promised. I decided against the walk and caught the jeep heading back into Salento (the next return jeep wouldn't have been for another 6 hours).

The whole reason I've come to Salento is to see coffee so once back in town I headed an hour down the hill to check out 2 nearby coffee plantations. One was small and a bit disorganized but the owner was lovely and his son gave me a great tour of the plantation and described how they process the coffee into a form they can bring to the co-op. It's not harvesting season yet (May and November) but there were still a few ripe beans, yellow ones for Colombian coffee and red ones for Arabic coffee. At the end, the señor made me a cup of coffee and sent me on my way. I couldn't find anyone at the bigger plantation so I just wandered around a bit and took pictures of some cool flowers. I decided on a trout lunch which is served with a whole plantain that's been rolled paper thin and fried into a giant plaintain chip. It was so much food that I had to waddle back to the hosteland get straight into bed to sleep off my food baby.

I headed out the next day with a Danish girl named Anne to make our way to Medellin. We caught the early bus to Pereria and lucked into a van taxi ready to go.  We made it to Medellin in record time and found our hostel which was near the southern bus terminal. It looked very suburbany from the outside but once inside, the hostel is big and warm and everything is nearby including a big supermarket and the metro. I went for a long walk around the neighborhood and then met up with some people gearing to to go out for a night on the town. We all walked down tothe bar area together passing a few park where hundreds of students were happily sitting and drinking outside. The bar area reminded me a lot of Plaza Serrano in Buenos Aires, lots of bars surrounding a central square. Anne and I snuck offsince the rest of the guys were hanging out waiting for someone. We found a nice patio bar and had a few drinks while we watched all the partiers ander from bar to bar.

The next two days were pretty chill. I slept late and wandered around the city. The Botero Sculpture Park was fantastic and my search for Pablo's grave was a dud but it is all about the journey isn't it. I wish I had more time in Medellin but I've enjoyed the time here. It's a very easy city and the hostel is perfectly located. I went back to the bar area to have a glass of wine on the patio. They call Medellin the land of eternal spring and it most definately is. I ordered a very small and very expensive sushi roll to accompany my wine and it was absolutely worth it. So South West Colombia is now done. I've got to run backto Taganga to pick up my big bag and then I leave from Bogota to SF on Saturday. Can't wait to see you all!

San Augustin and Tierradentro

Ahhh Popayan. It's finally getting warmer now that I'm traveling further north. The hostel here is really just a woman's house with a few beds for rent. But it's probably the best  place in Popayan to stay to exchange information on conditions traveling to nearby San Augustin and Tierradentro. It felt like a college dorm atmosphere with everyone hanging out in other people's rooms and drinking copious amounts of rum. 10 hours of bus riding had me beat so I pushed the last person off my bed and went to sleep.

I was feeling great the next morning and headed out to track down the nearby Internet cafe. What should have taken me 10 minutes took me almost 2 hours. They call Popayan the 'White City' for good reason and its a bit disorienting. Add to that the typical Colombian use of numbered streets (carreras north to south and calles east to west) and I kept getting hopelessly lost for most of the day. I grabbed some lunch and found my way to the bus station in the afternoon to buy a ticket for San Augustin for the next day. The agent refused to sell me a ticket. It seems he was too busy eating his chicken lunch and just couldn't be bothered with me. 'Come back tomorrow at 5:30am'. Grumble, grumble, grumble. I'd heard from other tourists that the bus always sells out but what could I do?

Back at the hostel I met a Swiss girl who also wanted to go to San Augustin the next day. We synchronized our alarm clocks and hit the hay. We left the hostel at 5am, stepping over a group of coked up touristas still gabbing away. We found a cab and made it to the station right on time. We bought our tickets and were happy to know we had seats as five people had to stand for the 5 hour bumpy journey. We had some time to kill so we went to a little restaurant to buy breakfast. I ordered a yogurt but it was a horrible gelatinous goo. I put it aside and just wrote it off but Dorotea grabbed it and started arguing with the waitress how we weren't going to pay for it. This quickly escalated from the waitress to the private security guard to a police officer. By this point she quickly rushed to her purse and paid (I'd paid for the cab so she was paying for breakfast). Don't choose battles you can't win.

The bus journey was horribly uncomfortable but it was over soon enough. San Augustin is a tiny little town and we were instantly accosted by people wanting to help us find a room or sell us a horse tour. I had a map to a recommended hostel so I escaped as quickly as possible away form the center. The hostel was run my a really cool Colombian guy named, Lizendo and was situated up the hill from town so the view was lovely. Lizendo made us some tea and gave us a wonderful overview of the statues and sites we'd be visiting that afternoon in the archaeological park. We cleaned up a bit and then walked into town to find the bus to the park. We first walked though the small museum and then along a beautiful path lined with the carved stone statues. Finally we walked to 4 nearby sites to check out even more statues. the scenery was lovely and the walk was just what I needed after spending the entire morning on a bus.

We walked back into town and found some delicious food at the restaurant Lizendo had recommended. We hit a nearby bakery for a sugar fix and then headed up the hill to the casa. I closed my eyes for a minute and the next thing I knew it was 6am. I packed up my bag and headed down to meet Lizendo for my horse ride to a few of the more famous nearby archaeological sites. Lizendo was great. He grew up in the mountains around San Augustin he knows a lot about the culture and history and many of the stories passed down by word-of-mouth. At La Pelota, he showed me 2 trees, side-by-side, one leaked a yellow dye and the other leaked a red dye. Amazing. He's very spiritual and pointed out many beautiful things in the scenery I would have completely missed had I walked the sites by myself. 

We galloped back to the casa. It's really the first time that I've felt really comfortable on a horse. I grabbed my bag and headed out the door. I would have stayed one more day to go on a jeep tour of some nearby waterfalls but there just aren't enough tourists around to fill a car so no tours are going. I walked down the hill and  quickly bought a chicken dinner to-go before jumping in the back of a pickup truck taxi going to Pitalito. From there I lucked into a shared taxi to La Plata. On the way, we passed through 5 or 6 tiny towns all of which had giant cathedrals, each one bigger and more beautiful than the next. The driver gave me great advice on where to stay in the tiny town and helped me find out when the earliest bus to Tierradentro was leaving the next morning.

The bus was right on time and lucky for me, it went directly to Tierradentro. Most buses only pass by the crossway about 20 minutes down the road. The driver dropped me off right in front of the museum where I dropped off my big bag and headed off. It was 20 minutes up hill to the most famous burial site called Segovia. All the tombs were locked and I was terribly disappointed until the guardian came over and opened them up for my one by one. There are so few tourists around that he doesn't bother leaving them open.The tombs are quite dark and are carved out of white stone, some with preserved colorful paintings. The spiral stone steps down to each tomb were a bit tough to navigate but I managed. The guardian for the next site, El Duende, walked with me up the hill and opened the tombs for me. Segovia is definitely the most beautiful and best preserved. From there it was another 5 minutes uphill to the main dirt road and then a 20 minute walk to El Tablon to see a few more statues and then on to the small town of San Andreas de Pisambala where they have a beautiful white church with a thatched roof.

On my way back to the museums I ran in to 2 Americans I'd met in both Pasto and Popayan. I had lunch with them, quickly checked out the museums and headed out on the 20 minute walk to the crossing to catch the 1pm bus to Popayan. This bus trip was by far, one of my worst. I was just feeling so ill. I was puking, couldn't sleep and needed a bathroom for almost the entire 3 and a half hour ride. I just wanted to die. As we got close to Popayan, half the bus got off to transfer to a bus to Cali. That's what I wanted to do but I needed to get to a bathroom before I internally exploded. Don't worry, I made it. I need a vacation from this vacation.   

Pasto to Ipiales to Popayan

The Santa Marta airport was surprisingly beautiful, set against a small patch of beach about 20 minutes past Rodedero. I was hoping to take a taxi so I could linger a little longer in Taganga but when I heard the price I quickly finished packing and headed down to catch the bus. The flight stopped in Bogota where they kicked me out of the secure area even though I had a connecting flight. Understandable as they only have 10 very small gates. We were off on schedule and I enjoyed my second nap of the day.

I spied out the window as we were landing to see scattered houses all with giant swimming pools.They say that there's a lot of money from the cocaine trade. I guess so. I only have my small bag with me so I headed straight out of the airport to find a collectivo (shared taxi) into town. I was squished in between 2 large men in the backseat  and I held on for dear life as the driver navigated the windy mountainous twists and turns. The mountain scenery here is beautiful and the small city of Pasto is evident from its huge churches and cathedral rising up out of the town.

We were all dropped off in the center of town at Plaza de Nariño. Luckily my hostel was only a few blocks away. The hostel looks so ordinary on the outside, but inside are 3 stories of relatively nice rooms circling an open air courtyard. Even better, hot showers! I haven't seen one of them in over 2 months. I took a short walk around town to find food and orient myself. This place reminds me of Arequipa, Peru for some reason. There were a few casinos on the main square. Instead of offering free alcoholic drinks they offer free tang-like drinks and ham sandwiches, ugh. After losing $3 I decided to call it quits and hit the hay.

The next morning was church morning. I found a small restaurant willing to sell me roast chicken at 8m (I love Colombia) and headed out to see some of these famous Pasto churches. For the most part the city looks quite modern but when you come across one of the mammoth cathedrals you instantly realize how old the town is. I decided to stop in for a minute to a nearby Internet cafe where I received an excellent surprise: a school wants me to come in for an interview. Yay! What a great start to the day!

In the afternoon I headed to Laguna de la Cocha, a lake about 30 minutes from Pasto. The LP lists the wrong address for the collectivos but luckily a traveler turned me on the where I had to go. I had to wait half and hour for the car to fill but that's why I always carry my book with me. The small town by the lake is a strange Colombian-Swiss hybrid and all the men run around touting for boat trips to the nearby island sanctuary. A boat was leaving just as I arrived but they told me I had to wait for the next one. Hey, how about you just charter a boat just for you, silly tourist. I told them that I wanted to join a group and was willing to wait. I headed to a nearby restaurant, ordered a beer and started practicing Chinese characters.

Some locals chatted me up and after an hour I decided to play my hand at negotiations. I offered half of the price of a boat as it was just me and the guys seemed to agree and told me to wait, and wait and wait and wait. All of a sudden, a family showed up and climbed in a boat. There was still room so I asked the boatman if I could join. He handed me a life-vest and pointed me to sit in front. As I was sitting down the guys on the dock whispered to him and all of a sudden the boat could only accommodate 4 so I needed to get out. Bullshit. I just kept asking why and telling him that I didn't understand and after a few minutes of this abuse he pushed off from the dock and we were off.

The boat ride to the island was only about 15 minutes along the waterway between tall reeds. We got off the boat and visited a small chapel before heading on the path across the cloud forest island to see the view from the other side. It was a beautifully lush and energizing 30 minute walk and then the boatman carried us back to town. There was only one collectivo left but I took a chance that he'd wait and went in to have some lake trout that one of the locals had been telling me about. What a great meal and the senora whipped it up in about 10 minutes. Not sure if that is good or bad as food in Colombia usually takes the better part of an hour to prepare. Anyways, when I walked out the collectivo was still there and he was itching to get back to Pasto so returned with just me in the car.

I talked to a few travelers and headed off to bed as I was getting up early the next morning to head south for 2 hours to Ipiales, see the Lajas Santuary and then head 8 hours north to Popayan. The mountain scenery from Popayan to Ipiales was everything the guide book described and more. And because it was so early the bus arrived in Ipiales in record time. I walked though town to the collectivo stand an within 5 minutes we were on our way to the sanctuary. When we arrived I walked along the obvious path lined with stalls selling various crap. The path wound left and right and I was ready to give up until I turned one last corner and there it was. Definitely a heart-stopper. Who would think to build such a glorious thing. The waterfall and scenery around the sanctuary have me at a loss for words. Just beautiful.

8 hours to Popayan. Can't wait.

Out of Taganga Take II

Well, the hoard of Colombian travelers has taken a sharp decline and Taganga is seeming more and more like the sleepy little fishing village that I know and love. I've been feeling a bit lost these days with my essays all done and me just waiting for my last references to come in. Now that all my deadlines have passed and the diving has dried up I don't even know what to do with myself. I've been surfing the web, hitting the beach and drinking my last few gulps of delicious freshly made fruit juice before the bubble bursts and I've got to leave, again.

The turistas here can really drink and they put me to shame the last few nights. But with only a few days left here, I don't really feel like wasting half the day in a hangover state. I'm enjoying milling around, reading something other that Harry Potter in Spanish and even made it to Rodedero one day. It's a nearby beach that much more posh and built up than Taganga. I didn't love it but it was a nice change of scenery for the day. A quick side story ... I was finishing my delicious mango-banana juice as I got on the bus for Rodedero. A man behind me asked me if I was finished with the cup so I nodded and handed to him. He took it, opened the window and tossed it on the road. That's Colombia!

I've finally made a plan to get out of here. I've booked a flight to Pasto, which is in the very southwest of Colombia, and will head back up to the Caribbean coast by bus. Flying means that I don't have to do a loop and that I have an actual go-time as opposed to the dreaded 'I'll leave tomorrow' syndrome. I'm excited to get moving again. It's been a good long while since I really backpacked but I can't wait. I'm leaving my big bag here, even though it will be a pain to come back and pick it up. Somehow it makes me smile knowing I'll have to come back to Taganga to retrieve it. Even if I'm back for only an hour or two. It'll be worth it. 

Ups and Downs in Taganga

Well I sent a bit of a guilt trip email to my 2 referees who with less than 24 hours to go hadn't submitted my references. Max asked me to work on January 2 and I hemmed and hawed but in the end I said I would becasuse I had given up on the idea that the references would be in by the deadline so I decided that I might as well do something useful with my day. Thank heavens, everything worked out a-ok in the end. The divers didn't turn up but my referees did and they submitted their docs in time. Ahhh stressful but one down and two to go.

It's been really busy at the shop with 2 full boats going in the morning and 2 in the afternoon. I worked for the next 3 days straight, morning and afternoon, which means you get back at about 2pm, grab your stuff, hop out of the boat and someone directs to hop in another boat with a bunch of strangers and a styrofoam container containing lunch. It was great though. A stong current that comes through here very year at this time has dropped the water temperature but increased the visibility tremendously. I was paired with Peter and Nene for most of the dives and we just did them all together which was a blast.

I showed Peter and all the excited divers where the lobster party was at El Piedro del Medio but my star moment was slowly pushing a giant conger eel out of the sand for everyone to watch. I was on cloud nine and even clapped for myself underwater. All the way from that to my disaster of a day the next day. Perfect first dive, a crazy current on the second dive had us pushed much too deep and we eventually just gave up and surfaced. I got sent out again in the afternoon and were dumped at the same site with the stong current. We descended carefully and were shocked to find the current gone but the clear water was gone along with it. We couldn't see anything. I told Heike to stay close to me and told the 2 other divers, who were cousins, to stay together.

I had told Nena a few weeks before that I'd never lost a diver and she had said 'you will'. I pretty much ignored that comment because I turn around to check on people so frequently. Well, today was the day. I kept turning around and waiting to make sure everyone was together. About 30 minutes in I only saw Heike. I told her to wait and I swam a little way back and found one of the cousins heading off to the left . He hand signaled that his cousin had headed off in that direction so I got everyone to follow me and swam quickly to see if we could find him. Nope nada. The rule in diving is look for one minute and surface so that's what we did. I yelled for the boat captain to come and help us search but about 2 minutes later the guy popped up. Very scary.

If only that were the worst of my day. For our last dive I made sure to brief everyone on the one minute search rule and we were off. The visibility was better and were just following a wall. what could happen? The guy disappeared again! I looked for a minute and then hauled everyone up to the surface. The boat captain was close by and came to help us look. We waited and waited and about 5 minutes later some fishermen in a boat about 500 meters away were calling that they could see his bubbles. I couldn't freaking believe it. The boat dragged us out there and I descended to try and grab him but I lost his trail about 20 meters down and had to come back up slowly. By the time I surfaced he was even further away. It took about 20 minutes and 2 more times of  me descending until I spotted him. I grabbed his tank, spun him around and hauled him up to 5 meters where we did a safety stop. At the surface I asked him if he had heard me mention the one minute rule. Ya, he, uh, forgot. Poor guy though. Everyone was so mad at him. I told him I was really glad he was OK because I really thought he had died.

Out dancing and drinking rum with Heike and some guys from the hostel to help me forget about my terrible diving day. Its now the end of high high season so things have died down quickly. Just relaxing and hanging out with hostel people. Something I haven't been able to to do before because I was always revising essays of studying Spanish or Chinese. God, I'm such a geek. Such a weird feeling to be so relaxed. Even better my ATM card finally came (Thanks Andrea!) I rushed out to the store and bought lots of silly things like good shampoo and conditioner and expensive tins of corn. OI realized that I've spent only about $20 a day here so I'm really pleased with my decision to return to Taganga and will spend the next few days splurging out.

I can't leave until all my references are in. Everything is done on my end. Everyone made the deadline on the 10th and I'm just waiting for the 15th is the last deadline and then I'm outta here!

All I Want for Christmas

Whew! It's been a great week!I spent the December 22nd at the Poseidon office Xmas party which was also Lil's grad party for divemaster. They had the party catered at the shop. the food was amazing but even the salad had meat in it so Lil (she's a vegetarian) was pretty much eating rice and potatoes to prepare her stomach for her rum-thru-the-snorkel final test. I decided to take the whole weekend off from essays and applications and the like so I was ready to roll. And roll I did. Everyone was in a great mood and we headed to the local bar to chill out for a bit. I danced and drank some more and snuck out as early as I could to save my liver from too much damage.

The next day was full-on recovery mode. After slurping down a full bucket of watermelon juice at Chez Luis the highlight of the day was catching a rerun of America's Next Top Model to find out who got kicked off on Tuesday. We have a TV-o-saurus here who arrived last week and won't give up the remote for anything. Lots of families from Bogota have arrived and the beaches are covered in people. It's definitely interesting to see you deferential people here are to the rich holiday seekers from Bogota. In the evening we headed out at night to see Casino Royale at the cinema in Santa Marta. The theatre was plush and the tickets were still only $3. Why are we paying so much back home?

Ah December 24th. The girls at a nearby hostel threw a Xmas eve party starting at 9pm which took a lot of pressure of what to do. What started as a small affair turned into a party for almost 50 people on the hotel patio. Great music and food. We all chipped in about $5 and had a great time until the power went out just after midnight and we all headed out. Lil and I decided to head back to the hostel sand sang Xmas carols at the top of our lungs all the way home. Well, most of the way until this giant tree jumped out in front of me and smacked me in the head. Quite the shocker. I actually don't remember hitting it but I do remember complaining about it the whole way home.

The 25th was our little Xmas party. We wanted something small and since there were only about 10 turistas left at the hostel it worked out perfectly. Jenna and I picked up Lil from her morning dive we headed into Santa Marta to buy supplies. We made it back by about 5pm and went straight to work chopping up salads and getting Drew to fire up the Bbq. Everyone brought or made a little bit and we had a fantastic night eating and drinking under the stars. I had been scheduled to take someone out on a night dive but thank heavens I finagled my way out of it as it really was a lovely night. More recovery and watermelon juice on the 26th and then it was back to my 8 hour days on the computer with my essays. They really feel done but there are still little things that I'm fixing but it is almost over thank heavens. We all met up at the cinema to see the movie Eragorn but after 2 minutes of beautiful scenery, the voice over started in Spanish and we all split.

New Year's Eve was one of the best ever. We didn't want to do too much in case we couldn't get everyone on board so Lil and I planned to run into town and get some stuff to make salads and chips and dips and we'd play it by ear. Lil had to work in the morning (and, as it ended up, the afternoon) so I had to head in to town by myself. I spent over and hour just trying to find a ripe avocado. Picked up everything and made it back by noon only to find out that the dive shop had been looking for me all morning to come in and lead a dive. oops. I started preparing salads in the kitchen and people started wandering over to find out what I was doing. All of a sudden everyone was on board. They all up and left to run into town to pick up supplies and Jarad volunteered to work the bbq. It was a lovely hassle-free dinner with about 25 people and the cool Dutch girl, Nasca, singing and playing her violin and Jack playing the guitar. We somehow all had the presence of mind to head down to the beach at 11:30 and made it in time for the countdown. More laughing, drinking and even a little swimming before we rocked up to El Garage to dance til dawn. I couldn't have planned a better night! First application due January 2nd. More on that later ...