strange goings on!

Me taking on the monsters!

Jude's not so tough opponent

Bogota

Salt Cathedral, about two hours from Bogota

So far I haven´t been able to write too much on this blog as I´ve been assigned the task of getting the pics on, which takes forever as the comps are pretty much useless here. Anyway, I`ve finally found some time to write and include some previously missed stuff!

Our first impression of Colombia consisted of us being hounded by about 5-6 bus people trying to sell us tickes after we'd crossed the border. After flicking them out the way we got into the actual terminal to be confronted with the largest speaker system playing at level 11 with the whole terminal gyrating to the bongo music.... and I mean everyone...the pleople behind the counters, the people in the shops, the people by the stalls, the actual travelling customers, and all the other random people who didnt have anything better to do on a Monday afternoon at 1pm than come to the local bus terminal and jump about to music and throw their hands in the air! It was very strange trying to get a bus ticket off a man who every 10 seconds proceeded to spin and dance in a circle. More strangly we havent actually experienced anything quite like that in Colombia since, which means we should be getting down to the local bus stop more often!

Weird hotels have also been occuring more often, the strangest being in Giron where the staff looked at us in bewilderment as to what we were doing there, and thought it strange that we gave them the key when we left the hotel, and we needed to almost force money onto them as they didnt seem to know what to do with it. I still wonder if we actually just forced our way into somebody´s house without realising it, oh well!

After finding the beautiful village of Ville de Leyva we read that there were a number of local things to see only one hours walk away. After being told `just follow the path` we found ourselves lost in the middle of the countyside with nobody around, the sun streaming down, and infront of us were 5 different paths all leading in completly different directions. A major problem that we've noticed in Colombia is that they have a fear of writing any signs anywhere unless it is completely and utterly neccessary, which means never. Therefore not surprisingly this occured again, and we just had to make educated guesses. Yep, we screwed it up, but by doing so we came across, of all things, an ostrich farm....... IN COLOMBIA! we had to check it out, and had the opportunity to feed the horrible things. Jude obviously pooed her pants and kept hiding behind me, lucky me, though she was up to the task of dealing with the baby goats.

Anyway, after getting lost a few more times and finally finding some big fossil that we'd been aiming for (wasn´t worth it) we realised we'd been on our feet for almost 6 hours. So to make sure we got back we then walked along the road, with every bus and taxi not stopping for us (they really love us gringos) we came across aload of farmers trying to get a broken down car onto their truck. After a bit of hulk hogan shenanigans we got it on and then were given a lift back to town. I dont want to think what the other tourists thought when they saw a dirty bashed up smelly truck with a farmer, wife and kids with us squeezed next to them, these 2 white lanky sunburnt faced gringos, smiling like freaks as we were so happy to finally make it back!

since then we've been drinking in bogota, eating massive amounts of food for nothing (i'll save that for a blog entry of its own) and watching Changing Rooms on our bedroom tv. Imagine our surprise when we saw Carole bloody Smiley on the telly!!

Bloody cold Bogota

I really didn´t think that I would be cold in Colombia, but I think I´ve spent most of my time here in a jumper! I´m sat typing in my hat, if I could wear my gloves and write this I would!

There´s not much to say about Bogota, it´s a big city (so I finally found a post office which was a relief after looking for about a week) with lots of people and lots of noise.

We went to the Salt Cathedral today, which felt very fitting for a Sunday, have a look at the picture above...

Ville De Leyva

I can sum our time up here as...stuffed!

We found a great resturant that served all the local specialities and so went for bandeja paisa, an assortment of fried mince beef, sausage, a dense corn cake, crispy pork belly, a hunk of avocado, and enough beans and rice for three people, oh and chips. Heart attack on a plate.

It was bloody amazing.

I have never eaten to much in one sitting, I nearly feel asleep at the table!

Barichara

A small town that we went to yesterday thats 40mins from San Gil. Its a picture postcard place that the Colombians flock to during the holidays

Our first sandwich (that actually tasted really good)

We couldn't come all the way to San Gill and not eat in Betty´s, especially when we found out they did sandwiches - woo hoo!

After nearly a month of being denied anything other than a ham or cheese sandwich - and considering the name of this blog - I felt it was only right to dedicate a whole entry to this wonderful sandwich eating experience...

After our initial excitement we found that they only had ham, cheese and chicken, but this was still one up on the usual offering so we ordered away. I ordered Pollo and Tim had Pollo, Queso and Jamon (he had three days of not eating to catch up on after a funny stomach).

It was AMAZING. Betty, or whoever the rather gruff Colombian woman was, is a genius with a sandwich toaster, the combination of mayo and tomato ketchup was surprisingly good and even the sweet bread was just perfect. We finished the sandwiches off with a Fresca and Mora Jugo (Strawberry and blackberry juice, made with milk - you can see my spanish food vocab is improving!)

Total bliss.

Wet in San Gill

Sitting in a flourist writing this (actually they are mostly fake flowers but still pretty, sort of)... the strangest places have internet here!

I'm dry for the first time today - this morning we went rafting (and it only cost us about 7 pounds each) and then it rained. Despite my fears (must have drowned rafting in a former life) it was actually really good fun. I didn't even mind when the instructor chucked us in on purpose, twice. In fact the bit that scared me the most was the climb down the rocks to get to the rapids, took me about 5 mins whilst the instructor literally ran down them, carrying the raft!!!

Had a couple of cakes to celebrate my new found rafting experience!

note judes ´the drowned rat´ look afterwards!

Thankfully these are out of season here...

Culonas, short for Hormigas Culonas which literally translates 'big ass ants'. This is a traditional dish, found nowhere else in Colombia, and maybe around the world. The Culonas are 'leaf-cutter' ants (big ones!). Their heads, wings and legs are removed and the rest of the body is toasted and salted.

Yuck!

Mute?

At lunch there was a line on the menu which caused some confusion...'Domingo Mute', we couldn't work out what it was, were we supposed to eat in silence because it was Sunday??? Even the spanish dictionary couldn´t help us, Wikipedia had the answer...

Mute: A thick soup made with beans, corn, garbanzos, potatoes, various meats (including fresh pig feet, pork loin chops, beef spareribs).

So if any of you travel to the little village of Giron on a Sunday you can order some Mute, and know what you're going to get!

Full bellies

We´ve just had a huge meal and beers and it came to 6.50 pounds, now that´s why we´ve come to Colombia!



It´s Independence Day here and it feels like a huge village fete. There are kids running about blowing bubbles and eating sweets, there´s a band and parades, there are stalls selling drinks (mainly cups of ice which you can pour a flavour over, call it Colombian Slush Puppies) and snacks (mango cut into very fine strips using a piece of equipment usually used for cutting metal! And sheets of circular wafer which they put a sweet goo between) and lots and lots of noise! There have been fire works going off since 9am, the church bells go every hour for about an hour and the band plays on and on!

All very interesting.

Our hotel room overlooks the square so we´ll have prime seats for any celebrations this evening!

Tims heaven and my heaven, guess which is which!?

Berlinas Bus Bliss

After our first coach journey in Colombia both of us were dreading our journey from Cartagena to Bucaramanga, but after a bit of research we found that Berlinas was the coach company to go with.

We got searched before we got on the coach (wasn't quite sure if this was a good sign or not) and then the next 13 hours passed pretty uneventfully. There was loads of leg room, a clean loo, air con that didnt freeze us and we even got a free bag of crisps and a drink. The only down side was the rubbish Steve Martin film that was in spanish..... doesnt get much worse than that!

Bucaramanga...can´t say much about it, we spent about 10 mins there before getting in a taxi and heading to Giron.

Cheese and wine!

Jude and I have finally found nirvana.... its a litre carton of lovely chilean and argentinian wine for about 2 pounds 20p. Its what the locals here drink as there stuff isnt really up to scratch, and when you can buy good stuff so cheaply you can understand why. We obviously then had to try out the local cheeses, which only had about 4 varieties, one being mozerella, another one is Finest (we dont know either), a 2 milk cheese (???) and then this rubbery holey wet cheese which really didnt smell nice at all, though i quite liked at first until the smell overtook!

To be honest, none of the cheeses were that good, though we still managed to finish them all apart from the smelly one, though i think the wine helped. So far the only decent cheese we`ve had was in the mountains of venezuela where they served us up beautiful soft goats cheese for breakfast...... yes that right breakfast! Anyway after all the wine Jude decided to dance on her head! And she's only been away from home for 3 weeks, think what she`ll be like after 10 months!!!

Cartagena

Food and Cartagena

After what can only be described as one of the most awful travel experiences ever we arrived in the beautiful city of Cartagena. I feel like I´m walking through the set of a romantic film...leafy squares, balconies full of flowers, cobbled alleys, quaint cafes and stylish resturants (we can´t afford them so we just window shop!) and lovely shops.

I really don't feel like i am in Colombia, it feels more like a Spanish village. We´ve been here three days now and we´ve just been walking about soaking it all up. Will put pictures up later today.

The street food here is amazing and cheap. You can get fruit (mango, oranges and water melon mostly), kebabs, Corn patties, crips made from plantain and sweets on nearly every corner. There are also loads of bakeries and they smell divine - I cant walk past one without popping in to see what they´ve got! Mostly they sell different breads stuffed with sausage or ham or topped with cheese and yummy little biscuits with jam in the middle or nuts or coconut on top (I´ve had quite a few of them!)

Tim brought what he thought was a bagel this morning but it was bread stuffed with a sweet paste which looked a bit like caramel. You can't seem to get just plain bread here! Like Venezuelans, Colombians also like their cheese and ham but they don´t have sandwiches, instead they have things that look a bit like sausage rolls. They also have corn bread patties (look a bit like cornish pasties) that have all sorts of fillings, queso, carne, pollo. I had one yesterday that was filled with what tasted like a chicken stew! You never quite know what you´re going to get here, but that´s part of the fun and means i just have to keep on tasting!

last pics of venezuela

cable car up the sierra nevada

going down the sierra nevada

mountain village

the posada we stayed in

on our 4 hour off road jeep ride back to merida

More pics

our boat in Los roques

Henry Pitter naional park


Dragoman bus that we used for amazon trip


speeding along the catatumbo river

Our crazy guide on the largest lake in south america (lake maracaibo)

getting ready for some sugar to be made

and here it comes!

A few pics

Los roques (me with gay swagger)

puerto colubia

floating village (not that i really need to say)

top of sierra nevada

After two bus trips - one very, very bumpy and one very, very long and freezing from the air con - we arrived in Merida at about 7am. Merida is much cooler than anywhere else we had been because it's at altitude 1,600.

After a day of checking out the town, especially the bakeries (cheese and ham is the only sandwich option here too) we decided we needed to get some trips in...

The first one was to see Catatumbo lightening - basically lightening that happens without any thunder (it's much better than it sounds) due to weather systems.

We were picked up at 6.30am by our guide, Alan, the butterfly catcher and wildlife expert (he´s found a new species of butterly which he´s named, luckily it´s not called Alan). We were taken to our vehicle for the trip - a Dragonman Truck! We traveled on the truck with some hyper English girls, the Dragoman guides, a Belgium family and Alan, it was an interesting mix.

The truck went through amazing mountain and jungle terrain, we stopped to catch some butterflies along the way which Alan was very enthusiastic about, and then arrived at South America´s largest lake, and it started to pour. Alan's prediction of the rain stopping in 24 mins was sadly not correct, think it was more like an hour so the Vodka, Rum (or Ron as it's called here) was passed round to help the time pass. When the rain finally stopped and we got on our tiny speed boats to take us to the floating village where we were going to spend the night. The lake was HUGE, we saw dolphins and monkeys plus loads of birds and butterflies and the lightening, it had already started (usually starts about 2am)

After about 2 hours we got to the village and on to our shack for the night. We pulled up a pew and watched the light show. It was impossible to take pictures of the lightening cause it was so fast but it was amazing. We slept in hammocks on the balcony of the building covered in mosi nets and got up at 5am to see the lightening again. Then it was off back down the river for more dolphins and monkeys and back home via a sugar factory and tabacco factory.

We booked into a cheap posada, had a much needed shower got some sleep and got up at 6am for our next trip to Los Nervados - a tiny village in the moutains.

We took the the world´s longest cable car up to 4,000 feet and then we treked for 4.5 hours across mountainous terrain, at one point we were about 4,500 m heigh! we slept in Los Nerados - 2,700m - it was freezing even with 5 blankets on the bed! The next day our legs were just a little sore so we got a jeep back to Merida!

That night we decided we'd done everything we wanted to (well could afford to) in Merida so headed to the bus terminal for a bus to Maracibol. That makes 7 nights sleeping in a different place - we're getting about!

finally my first entry!

Hello all,

We`ve already left one country and i havent had a chance to even write one post. As expected we`ve been running about the place trying to fit everything in and its finally caught up with us, so we`re now taking it easy in cartagena (columbia) for 5 or so days. Quick recap of what we`ve been up to:

Landed in Caracas (sh1thole) to then stupidly get another flight which was leaving 30 mns later to the undeveloped caribbean islands of Los roques. The people of ven`s only stroll very slowly at the best of times, so what they made of 2 tall white lanky people running hell for leather back and forth (we couldnt find an ATM that would work, resulting in me shouting f*ck rather loudly!)) paying for leaving taxes etc not quite sure. But thankfully it was worth the mamouth trip as it had the best beaches i`ve ever seen. It was an incredibly relaxed place, so perfect after the last week before we left or so (yes i know i`ve been bumming about for the last 2 months!).

After that we went to another beachy place (tough i know) called Puerto Columbia and experienced the locals celebrating independence day (imagin northerners on a friday night after there local footy team one the fa cup!).

Then a great 11 hour bus journey to the mountainous town of merida (1600m). we went through the jungle and across rivers to experience the catatumbo lightening phenomenon (loads of lighting and no sound) whist hammoking next to a river village. Saw monkey, tucans, dolfins, rare butterflies etc.

Back to merida we then got the cable car to 4050 metres then climbed the rest of the sierra nevada to about 4500m then across to a village in the hills for the night. Amazing and beautiful views which will be hard to beat!

We then had to leave merida a bit early as there was a possiblility of a coup due to some students getting killed a few days before in a protest (about some other students getting killed!) who are all agaist Chavez (everybody says he's nuts and it could be another mugabi). So jude and i took on the mamouth journey of travelling all the way through to columbia (took about 26 hours). we had about 8-9 passport checks, and arrived at 11pm with the temp at 28C. Best to not say any more about the experience yet....... think it`ll take a few more days to stop waking up screaming.

Anysway, will quickly write another post with some pics on it which will hopefully make you all jealous before i get bitten by anymore mossies!

Sitting in a library in Puerto Colombia (seaside village in Venezuela) surrounded by kids doing their homework - the internet is FREE though and there´s air con so all´s good!

We´ve been here three days and we´ve seen plenty of sun and sea but sadly no sandwiches! Instead, what´s eaten like a Chicken Mayo from Pret is a deep fried corn bread pattie filled with cheese or meat or fish. The bread is quite sweet so the cheese one we ate this morning tasted like a donaught filled with cheese - strangely addictive!

We also ate the most amazing Hamburgesa last night - it gave Gourmet Burger a run for its money! Packed with meat and salad and amazing sauces with the cunning addition of shredded crisps -yum!

Before Puerto Colombia we were in Los Roques, I can only describe is at Paradise. Pure white sand beaches, turquoise sea so clean even I swam in it! And yes there were sandwiches, but the only filling we could get was cheese and ham. They like their cheese here!

When we get some time in a proper internet cafe we´ll upload the pictures