Covering Ground

June 20, 2014

From Bogota we made our way to the coffee district of Colombia, specifically Manizales. Here we delighted in delicious free coffee all day, which might have been a strong catalyst to us finding the motivation to give Dolores a new floor. We tore out the carpet and put in some classic linoleum wood flooring. A much needed change in the humid climate.

We stayed on a fully operating coffee farm so we took a tour of the process from - berry to bean to buzz.

Since the World Cup was still going on, everyone was trying to find a place to watch the came, ourselves included. The owner of the place we were staying offered his grand viewing screen – huge projector under a nice palapa. We drank entirely too much of his nice agardiente (the local liquor) and cheered the Colombians to another exciting win!

The warm sun, cool nights, good company, free coffee and hammocks held us for too long before we made our escape to seek out hot springs. After a day soaking in the Termales de Santa Rosa we made our way to Valle de Corora.

Valle de Corora unexpectedly stole our hearts with its crazy tall high elevation wax palm trees. We crossed paths with our German friends and were excited to explore the area with them. A hike through these lofty giants also promised a humming bird viewing area – but after our birding adventure, which you might remember from here, we felt pretty fulfilled in the birding department. However we were impressed with the variety and number of humming birds we saw while we enjoyed our hot chocolate. The views of the trees continued to impress. We made it back just in time to watch the Colombia game – and another win!

A stop in Buga in search of good beer resulted in an over night in a parking lot.

A stop in Silvia at the colorful market to stock up on our way to National Natrual Park Purace, was a delight with many of the people in traditional dress. I loved their top hats and colorful panchos. Purace was windy, rainy and cold and after attempting to hike to the volcan we set our sights on Popoyan.

In Popoyan we received word that the FARC would be closing the roads for the weekend. So we put our plans to cross the boarder into Ecuador on hold and explored the city. We toured a former presidential palace, with interesting historical artifacts like letters to and from Bolivar and pictures of President Roosevelt (that the guide made sure to point out to us). Here we also watched what would be the final game for Colombia. We shed a small tear and expected riots in the city. To our surprise the reaction of the city was pure excitement and pride that their team had done so well. Hats off to your sportsmanship Colombia!

Bogota

June 13, 2014

Bogota had been a much-anticipated stop for us. We’d heard of a recommended mechanic that could do some of the work that we needed done to the van and the conveniences of a modern city was also on our list of things to be excited about. Despite the insane driving, the kindness of the Colombian people showed true even in this massive city.

We arranged to drop the car off at 9 in the morning on a far side of the city and in true Latin America fashion we waited for an hour before there was any sign of life at the shop. After we got the van into the tiny space, we were talking about all the work we wanted done when another customer arrived to discuss his racecar that was also in the shop. Yep, that’s right Dolores was getting worked on by a Race Car mechanic. Anyways the other customer, Juan Carlos, started chatting us up and before you know it, he offered us a ride to back into town. We learned more about him during the drive - that he owned a few hotels in town and a shipping business in Miami. As we neared town, he decided to take us to his hotel and insisted on buying us breakfast and having his driver return us to our hotel another 30 minutes away. He also offered to help us with anything else while we were in town. His generosity made our heads spin.

It sounded like the work on the van could be completed on Monday. We had dropped it off on Friday so this gave us 3 days to explore the city. There was plenty to see, but 3 days turned to 5 and 5 turned to 7. At one point we thought we were going to have to jailbreak Dolores, but despite the numbered mechanical set backs, and the massive damage to our budget, we loved every minute in the city.

We explored the gold museum, which holds the largest collection of gold works in the whole world. Many of the relics were found in Lake Guatavita, which you may remember our visit from here. There were tiny intricate figurines, stunning pieces of jewelry, masks, weapons, full body armor and so much more. The designs and ways they learned to work with the gold by heating it to different temperatures and mixing it with different metals was fascinating. We thought our spin through the museum would be quick, but it was so impressive we ended up being the last people ushered out at closing time.

Most mornings in the city for us started at a little French bakery we found around the corner from our hotel. They served the most amazing jamon y queso croissants - they were buttery, light, fluffy and flaky, pure heaven in a bite. With the great coffee and fresh orange juice and fluffy eggs, they were hard to beat.

Perhaps one of the most exciting days was when Colombia played their first game in the Cupa del Mundo (World Cup) in 16 years. We knew the city would be wild and crazy, you could tell from the build up of vendors selling Colombia gear on every corner, taxi drivers decking their vehicles out with flags and banners in short – the city was a sea of yellow, red and blue. We had scoped out our places to watch the game the day before –Bogota Brewing Company down the street. The owner of our hotel warned us that the city could be pretty dangerous on a day like today so we need to be extremely careful. We expected total mayhem in this city of 5 million people, but the craziest thing happened. In the hours leading up to the game air horns blared from every corner of the city, taxi drivers excessively toted their horns, everyone was wearing their jerseys and flags as capes things were shaping up to be pretty wild. About an hour before the game it happened. As we opened the door to leave our hotel we looked around we saw the most stunning scene. In a city that hadn’t stopped in the three days that we had been there, we looked out on complete stillness and quite. There wasn’t a car on the road, not a person to be seen, it was absolutely silent. We both looked at each other in awe. Everyone in the entire city was glued to a TV somewhere ready to cheer on their team. As we made our way to the Bogata Beer Company you could begin to hear out of every tienda, bakery, restaurant, and place with a TV or radio the same announcer introducing the Colombian team. It was the only thing to be heard and it echoed across the entire city.

After an exciting win against Greece the city exploded. Cheers, air horns and boys running around blasting anyone and everyone with flour and powdered sugar riddled the city. As a precaution all of the squares were closed and we saw only one wild chase involving police on motorcycles and the epic take down of the runaway.

We took to the street on bikes on a Sunday. We quickly learned that many of the main streets in town were closed to cars on Sunday and replaced with vendors, bikers and Sunday strollers out enjoying the sun.

We checked out Monserrate, a famous city look out. Originally we were going climb to the lookout, but after our friends told us about their encounter, which you can read about here, we took the tram up and down. It was a bit of a gloomy day, but still made us appreciate the massive size of the city.

When Dolores was finally released back to us we felt fulfilled about our time in the city look forward to visiting there again.

Is the Lake Half Empty or Half Full?

June 11, 2014

As we continued to make our way south towards Bogota we tried to make an interesting go of it. Based on advice from a few other travelers we skipped the salt cathedral in Zipaquira and headed for the smaller salt mines of Nemacon, which made for a pretty interesting afternoon of licking salt walls and exploring the underground mine.

From there we headed to Guatavita where we were hoping to see a volcano crater that actually had water in it, but as you may recall from here, we weren’t getting our hopes too high. Turns out there was water in the crater and it was pretty stunning seeing more of the mountains of Colombia. Many pre-Colombian cultures also held this place sacred and there were tales of years of continued sacrifices here involving a golden raft and the beheading of many a virgin.

We met a nice lady outside the park that invited us to stay in her yard for the night. She wanted us to join her for a cup of agua panella before we left, during which she sweetly asked for my Patagonia down coat. I had to sweetly tell her that I needed it, to which she sweetly replied, but you can always get another one. We wrapped up our cup of tea, and thanked her for her hospitality and pointed Dolores towards Bogota.

A Little R&R

June 5, 2013

From El Cucoy, we made the long drive to Villa Del Levya, which offered us a much-needed place to rest. We pulled into Hostal Renacer as the last minutes of daylight slipped away, Sara and Lupe (of SardineTaco) greeted us, “we both knew the sound of that vehicle!” Amazing hot showers, free coffee all day, and some of our friends on the road made it a great place for us to set up camp for a few days. We explored the town and surrounding area on bikes that our new-found friends, the Germans, Doris and Torsten lent to us.

We ventured to the town of Raquira and enjoyed bounties meat and pottery.

 

We ate ice cream, read books in hammocks, drank hot chocolate every night and reveled in the amazingness that is Colombia.
As we continued on our way to Bogota we stopped in Suesca and were surprised to find very few accommodations to offer, or even a place to park. After driving around and finding nothing appealing, we were forced to consult our last resort, the Lonely Planet. It mentions one hostal in the area, which after a little asking around, we found in the middle of a field. The place was dark and the sign hanging half-off lead us to believe that it must have shut down or was closed for one reason or another. Seeing that turning around at the end of this dead end road was going to be difficult, we deiced that this place was as good as any for the night. Sleeping with the cows would be fun. So we made dinner and settled in for the evening.
As we were getting ready for bed, a knock came on the door. Not a scary, make you jump a little knock, but a soft, I’m sorry to disturb you knock. George and I both assumed it was one of the neighbors just coming to see what the hell we were doing. We introduced ourselves to the nice lady and after we told her our names, she asked us, ?Que nessicitas? (what do you need?)
Us, Nothing. We were looking for the hostal but we see it’s closed. Is it okay if we park here for the night?
It’s open I’ll show you.
Low and behold through the gate, around the corner and behind two houses, a few big trees, bushes and water tanks there were lights on at the hostal.
Another great Latin America Lesson – open locked fences and wander around peoples yards, otherwise you’ll never find anything.