Colombia (Colombia)

Sorry I haven't written in a bit; I'll blame it a bit on bad Internet and being busy, but mostly just being lazy. We ended up spending an extra day in Medellin, as our tourist activities had been stunted from being robbed the day before. We spent all day walking around the city, visiting churches and plazas, and the house where Pablo Escobar had been killed.

Medellin was actually wonderful, and has the most sculptures per square kilometer of any country. It also apparently has a pretty big transvestite and transgender community. When we got back to the hostel, we were exhausted and spent the rest of the evening lounging and prepping for our drive the next day to Bogota. The drive was relatively easy. Jared was feeling very aggressive, and in a daring attempt to pass a truck on a blind curve in the mountains, accidentally broke off the driver's side mirror when we encountered a truck coming towards us and barely squeezed through the two...we then switched drivers. We got into Bogota just before the sun went down.
 We were staying with a friend, Topher, who generously offered his home to us. It was such an amazing gesture, because we had to stay there several days to wait for a phone and credit card shipment from my parents. The first night, Topher, Jared, and I caught up over a few beers, and then Topher and I headed out to hit the clubs of Bogota...hard.  We spent a pretty epic night dancing and drinking, and stayed out wayyyy too late! The next day, I was a zombie and poor Jared had to drag me around looking for a GoPro, as he no longer had a camera, without success. We were pretty lame that day, napping and watching movies.  That night, Topher took us to a good arepa restaurant, and guided us around his area a bit, showing us all the bars, restaurants, and shops. Bed early that night. The next day, Jared and I got our tourist hats back on and headed to the historic district of Bogota. First stop, the Gold Museum, with an intricate history of gold and metalwork throughout the Americas.
                             
Then we walked around and took pictures of the cathedral and churches, the president's palace and the old architecture.  Topher remembered that he had an extra GoPro from his brother, so Jared was able to buy that one off of of him.  That night we went to dinner at Bogota Beer Company, a standard gringo hangout, and watched a movie before heading to bed.
The next morning, Jared and I headed to the Salt Cathedral of Zipaquira. A salt mine, that housed a pretty interesting cathdral with stations of the cross woven through the tunnels. We then got a tour of the mines, and unsuccessfully attempted to mine some emeralds. The cathedral was beautiful, yet odd.

They had basically turned the stations of the cross into a Las Vegas-esk display, complete with technicolor lights that morphed into all the different flags of the world. After the mines, we headed back toward Bogota to Cerro de Montserrate, that you take a cable car to reach. The views of the city were stunning, exactly what we were trying to capture in Medellin (grrrrr), I digress. We spent almost an hour looking around.

There is a pretty unimpressive church atop, so we basically just took in the views. We finished up and went back to Topher's apartment.  The three of us headed out for some to-dos, and Jared was able to buy some accessories for his GoPro.  We went to the grocery store and grabbed some food for dinner, as we were pretty fried-food-ed out.  We sipped rum and beer and cooked a great and healthy dinner of chicken breast, tons of veggies, and quinoa.  Another movie and early bed.
The next morning, we packed up our stuff and waiting around a bit for my package to arrive.  Right on time, at 10am I received my old phone and new credit cards!  We finalized everything and headed out close to noon for Salento, coffee country, an easy 4-5 hour drive...
Along the way, we had planned on finding a junkyard to buy a new mirror for the side of the car; unfortunately, the police found us first.  We got pulled over at a random checkpoint, and the first thing the cop said as he approached the car was "oh this is a fine" pointing at the missing mirror.  He then pointed at a crack in the windshield and claimed that was an additional fine.  I attempted to make small talk, as I normally do to get us out of these situations, but the cop was not having it, which is when I got into my sassy Spanish.  I informed him that the crack in the windshield had been there since we drove from the US, and we had already been pulled over in Colombia, so we were not going to pay for that.  He then said, we couldn't drive without the mirror and they were going to have to impound the car, and we would have to pay a $1500 fine.  I told him, the mirror had been stolen on our way to Salento that morning, and we had been looking for a junkyard to buy a new one.  He wanted to look in the trunk (no doubt to try and screw us over with some bogus new fine).  Jared popped the trunk, and I ran out to watch them.  A different cop was more succeptable to our gringo charms, and wanted to know all about who we were, where we had been etc.  He asked what we did at home, I said I was a nurse, and that Jared was in the military, and had actually come to Colombia in the past to train the infantry.  He misunderstood me, just at the perfect time.  His boss walked over , with a huge gun, and the nice cop explained that Jared was in the country (right now) to train the infantry of Colombia!!  Couldn't we just continue driving to Salento to find a new mirror, and they could look the other way?  It worked!!!  We thanked our lucky stars, vowed to find a new mirror, and continue on to Salento.  As dusk approached, we were weaving through the mountains when, you'll never guess, the brakes went out again!!!  Jared was driving and said they felt funny and we needed to pull over "right now".  We thankfully saw a mechanic shop on the side of the road and, attempting to stop, flew right by.  We finally slowed to a stop using the emergency brake and reversed back up the hill.  The mechanic looked at our brake pads, and said we would need two new pads on the front.  He would happily go into town and find us new ones.  We waited around for two hours for him to come back, and when he did he slammed us with a $150 bill for the new pads!! He then placed them and said we owed him another $100 for the work.  As we went to get him money, I exploded.  I called him a thief, recalling how cheap out brakes had been in Guatemala, and saying he had done a crappy job anyway, and we would have to replace the pads again in a month.   I said he had cheated us with unexpected costs (including his cab ride back from town).  In the end, I got nowhere, but it was good to vent.  We had had a rough day.
We got into Salento, much later than expected, and couldn't find any place I had researched that had available beds, so we ended up parking at a hostel, and sleeping in car.  Needless to say, sleep that night was not easy, and we were exhausted the next day, yet happy about having an extra $10 in our pockets.  We had breakfast at the only joint in town open at 6:30, which ended up being a well known traveler spot with great food.  We met the owner who was very informative, and helped us plan our day in town.  We went to a hostel to sign up for a coffee tour in the area.  The owner of the coffee plant, looked and sounded exactly like the grandfather in Jurassic Park!  We walked down to his plantation, and spent a few hours learning all about how to grow coffee, and were then able to roast and drink two different varieties of coffee from  the plantation.  We can now definitely start our own coffee plantation!!

We had hoped to have time to hike in the national park close by, but we had to buy a new mirror and make it to or next location that day, so we unfortunately had to skip the hike. There were no mechanic shops in Salento, so we drive to the next closest, and bigger, town, and after a bit of searching found a place, with a suitable mirror, and ghetto taped it into place. Our car is looking more and more legit! The rest of the day, we drove to our next location, Cali; an easy drive. We came into a ghost town. Apparently it was their independence day, so everything was closed. We found the hostel, and a cheap parking garage, and rested a bit. Cali is the world capital of salsa dancing, and there happened to be an international salsa festival that night!! We spiffied up, and headed to the hotel where the festival was being held. We grabbed dinner at the hotel, and attempted to enter the festival, but were told (after an up-and-down by the hotel staff) that tickets were sold out, and we couldn't even stand in the back to watch. We were insanely bummed, also because our other event for the night, tejo, had been nixed when we heard the neighborhood where people played tejo was not so great. As we got into the cab to head right back to the hostel, I asked the cab driver if he knew another location for tejo. He told us about the same place we had previously cut. Buuutttt, our cab driver was awesome, and said for a fixed price he would take us there, wait for us, and drive us back!!! We were down! Tejo, is a traditional Colombian "sport" for old men, much like corn hole, but with iron disks...and gunpowder! When you throw the iron disk at the target, if you hit a small triangle around the main hole, it explodes and sets on fire!! We were naturals! Everyone also thought that we were athletes partaking in the World Games (we had never heard of these either, but apparently they are like the Olympics. Over 80 countries participate, including the USA [???], and it occurs every 4 years, this year in Cali, and they just ended August 4th). Everyone wanted pictures with us, and offered us free beers as we were heading out! In the end, our only night in Cali was a success; Jared had a bit of fun the night before his birthday, and we were able to end our Colombians adventures on a good night. The next morning, (WAS JARED'S BIRTHDAY!!!) we packed up and went to find our long lost Panama-Colombia sailing "adventure" friends, Alex and Kenny, as they would be joining us for a bit. We planned on driving alllll day to make it to Quito, Ecuador that night...yea right. Before we even left the city, the brakes sounded weird, and we did not want to be stuck in another mountain ripoff situation. We pulled into a reputable mechanic, and ended up waiting for several hours as they replaced one of the back tire brake pads, that had cracked. When we finally got back in the car, Ecuador was out of the question, but we had already looked up an auxiliary location on the Colombian side of the border. We drove and drove, and the sun went down, and we were still nowhere near the border town we had hoped to reach. We ended up asking police officers who stopped us, where we could stay, and they steered us towards a gas station motel...enter bad scary movie script. We played cards and drank some beers, before heading to bed with, thankfully, no scary movie aspects. The next morning, we woke up at 5:30, loaded up the car, and headed for QUITO!...almost.

             

                                                                

The border was simple, and shockingly free on both the Colombian, and Euadorian sides, but in true border fashion, the aduana attendant had stepped away...for about an hour. The whole process took 4 hours, making Quito again, outside of our reach, but at least we were through! Colombia was hard on us: car shipping, robbery, police bribery, brakes etc. Also, Colombia is tough to drive through with just Jared and me, because both tolls and gas are outrageously expensive!! I think Topher and coffee helped us survive. Goodbye Colombia, hello Ecuador!

It Finally Happened, We Got Robbed (Colombia)

Jared and I picked up the car Monday afternoon.  It was a bit confusing to find our way around the huge port lots, but after a bit of waiting, a man escorted me in his truck to the lot where RORO car are kept, and we were able to finalize our documents.  Unfortunately, the car had been ransacked; everything that had been in an cubby hole was all over the seats and floor of the car.  The made it out with Jared´s utility knife, a bunch of AAA batteries, and my debit card.  All-in-all, the damage was not too bad though.  We headed back to our hostel, Hostel Marlin, and finalized packing and mapping out our route to Medellin.
Tuesday morning, Jared and I woke up at 4 am, to go pick up the car from the lot where we had parked for the night; we were out the door at 5:30 am.  The drive was pretty eventless, however, at one point we encountered a long line of huge trucks just stopped in a on the highway, border-style.  As we have discovered from crossing borders, the rule of thumbs is to just bypass the entire line.  When we arrived at the head of the line, a Colombian man in a military uniform informed us that there were riots in a town about 50 kilometers up, and the line was a caravan being formed to drive safely together with a police escort; the caravan would be leaving in 3 hours.  As we pulled over and debated what to do, the same officer said he had called his chief and informed him that a car of foreigners was trying to pass and that we could drive ahead and meet up with the chief for a personal escort; he also found another small passenger vehicle that wanted to join, so we would have a caravan of 3 total.  As we proceeded down the highway, we did in fact see many military personnel, but never got our police escort.  We also never ran into anything that appeared to be a riot or even a group of people congregating in any town.  The only mischief was perhaps all the trees that looked as though they´d been chopped down on the side of the road (looked my like landscaping to me), and the pipes that were open and spewing water all along the next 60 kilometers.  We finally arrived after about 12.5 hours in Medellin and found our hostel, Lleras Park Hostel, easily.  That night, we grabbed a relatively cheap dinner of fast food Mexican, and went to sleep early.
Yesterday morning, we woke up and planned our whole day to squeeze in all that Medellin has to offer.  We planned on taking the metro to the cable car, and ascending to Parque Arvi, grabbing free bikes and getting some good shots of the city and the park.  Then we were going to head back to the University district for some great parks and architecture, finished off by the center of town as the most tourist condensed area.  We grabbed our maps and cameras and headed to the metro, which is actually really clean and easy to maneuver.  The cable car ride took about 20 minutes up to the park.  As we had been informed, they did provide free bikes for up to 3 hours, so we headed off to one end of the park to see a laguna and the mirador of the city.  At the end, we were informed that we had to leave our bike and walk the last 10 minutes to the look-out.  About 5 minutes into our walk, 2 men came running out of the trees to our right.  At first, we only saw 1 guy, and based on the look on his face, I thought he was playing around, Jared thought he was going to try to sell us something.  We both noticed there was nothing in his hands.  Then we saw the second man run out about 3 feets behind him, which is when my heart dropped.  The first guy jumped in front of Jared and drew a knife as he pushed Jared back, the second guy immediately came infront of me, also wielding a knife.  Jared´s assailant was much more aggressive and constantly hacking at Jared´s upper body with the knife.  I kept trying to keep that guy from swinging the knife, while my guy kept trying to keep me from him.  The only thoughts running through my mind, were that Jared was definitely going to get stabbed, and that I had pepper spray, but wasn´t sure I should take that chance of getting it out;  I had no idea if it even worked or how to get the safety latch off, as I´d never really tested it.  They forced Jared to hand over his camera bag full of both his water proof and regular camera, and all his lenses (a total of about $1500.00) and his iphone 5, and my wallet.  As they ran back into the woods, we were both hit by what had just happened.  Jared was beside himself, while I was terrified they would come back and just wanted to get the hell off the mountain.
When we reached the location where our bikes were held, we informed the attendant who called a police officer up to us.  We led the officer back to where we had been robbed, he looked around in the woods, took our information, and told us we should have used a guide.  Several hours later, the woman that runs our hostel called the park outraged, and discovered that the officer that took our information, had basically just trashed it, and had not reported the robbery to anyone.
When we got back to the hostel, we spent the next hour or so doing damage control for his phone and my wallet.  We are pretty handicapped now, as we have no mapping system, and good maps are impossible to find, and I have no way of accessing money.  Together though, I think we can make things work until we get some of our items back.  The rest of the night was filled with feelings of anger and regret.
It was a good lesson though, and something we realized should have been discussed as a precaution sometime at the beginning of the trip.  As Jared and I recounted our feelings to one another, we realized we were on different pages.  I was terrified he was going to get stabbed; he said he at no point thought he would get stabbed, but thought I would, as I kept getting infront of the guy swinging the knife at him, in an attempt to diffuse the threat Jared posed to them.  He also had no idea I had my mace or was thinking of whether I should use it.  In the future, we at least now are a bit more prepared in terms of knowing how the other thinks in a situation like that.  It is entirely possible, this will not be our last time in this situation.

WOOHOO!!! (Colombia)

FINALLY!!!!!  We have been in Cartagena now for over a week waiting for the car.  Highlights included, eating at the same cheap restaurants everyday, watching the entire first season of Newsroom, napping, reading books, Zumba in the Getsmani square, paying a cab to go to the closed shipment office on Saturday (when it was actually Sunday), walking around the mall for some great AC action, watching movies, getting a total of 5 new roommates, and calling the shipment office every 30 minutes along the way.
Today´s highlights include getting the news that we will be able to pick the car up this afternoon, buying car insurance, and GETTING THE CAR!!!!
Tonight, we will pack, and head out for a long long drive tomorrow morning to Medellin.

Waiting Around for the Car (Colombia)

Last night, we had a great feast with our friends and hungout for, possibly, the last night we would all be together.  Today, 3 of them left to go to Santa Marta.  Tomorrow, 2 more will leave, and lastly, we will leave, with a new member in the car, Evette.  We are all going to Santa Marta, but based on when the car will be released to us, we may miss some of them there.  So, it was great to hangout!
Today, we woke up and had breakfast.  Jared and I headed out to get some notaries for the car, and then went to the shipping company to turn in our papers.  We then came back to our area to attempt to buy car insurance, which ended up being a wild goose chase.  We did finally find a company that would provide the mandatory car insurance here, but they required a document from customs before we could proceed, so we were back at square one.
We headed back to the hostel, where I met up with some of the girls to go swimsuit shopping, as my bottoms were pretty much destroyed by the mud from yesterday, and another pair has become so loose, they almost fall off whenever I´m in the ocean.  Against my better judgement, I did end up buying 2 bottoms, BUT I don´t think 3 swimsuits are necessarily too many for the trip...and they are small.  After shopping, we split up, and I headed to the grocery store to buy something for dinner.  Ended up buying all the fixings for a yummy chicken, noodle, veggies stir-fry for a grand total of $11, which was split between 3 people!!
When I returned to the hostel, Jared was asleep, so I twiddled my thumbs for a while and hung out with some of our friends, until we finally voted to wake him up, and get dinner started.  The meal was yum, and a sweet release from all the fried dough we´ve been eating.  A popular street food dish here is an arepa, which is basically just fried dough with cheese, and maybe a bit of chicken if you´re lucky.  Heading to bed soon; hopefully, we can be a bit more productive with the car tomorrow.  Finger crossed.

Cartagena (Colombia)

The day we arrived in Cartagena was a bit of a blur.  We were all massively sleep deprived from the boat, and starving and dehydrated, as we had run out of water and food (did I mention this was the boat ride from Hell?).  After getting off the boat, we all cabbed from the port to the hostel area we had heard about to walk around and look for the best deal.  We found a great place called Hostel Marlin that has...wait for it...AIR CONDITIONING!!!! AND it was cheaper than the rest.  Shocking.
Basically our whole group from the boat stayed together, and we all settled in and showered for a much needed lunch.  We found a yummy place around the corner, and spent almost the entire lunch sharing our terror stories about the boat and having a good laugh and cheers over the whole debacle.
After lunch, Nicole and I headed out to catch a few sites in before she had to head to the airport.  We walked over to the Castillo de San Felipe, the largest fort the Spanish ever build!  It was pretty neat with an intricate tunnel system with an acoustic system that allowed the Spanish to hear the footsteps of approaching enemies from anywhere within the system!  Pretty neat.
                                            
After our quick tour, we headed back to grab a couple beers with our new boat friends before Nicole hopped into a cab to the airport after a tearful goodbye :(
I was insanely exhausted, and after setting up a rendezvous with everyone for dinner at 9 pm, went to bed for an epic nap that ended...at 5am.  Woops, missed dinner.  Turned out everyone else did too!
The next day in Cartagena, everyone was out and about doing touristy things.  Jared still wasn´t feeling very well, so we got a late start, but did end up being able to walk over to the old town, and walk all the way around the murallas (protective walls surrounding the city), and snap some photos.

                                                

 After a few hours of tourism, we headed back to the hostel for showers.  We got all dressed up for our new friend Alex´s birthday and walked much longer than expected to end up right back by our hostel for a delicious dinner in her honor.  We had all planned to go out crazy and dance the night away to salsa tunes (we are in Colombia), until to everyone´s elation, the birthday girl said she was too tired to go out anymore, a very much shared sentiment!!   We all headed back to the hostel exhausted and passed out straight away.
This morning, we woke up and grabbed a quick breakfast before our tour to Volcan Tutumo...potentially the weirdest tourist experience       we´ve had thus far!  What we had read about the "volcano", a complete misnomer, was that it actually spewed mud instead of lava, and the mud had very curative and rejuvinating qualities with 55 minerals.  When I spoke to the tour guide, she said we could get mud massages inside the crater, and it would be very relaxing!
What we got, resembled more of a pig sty, than a spa bath.  The "volcano" was an ant hill.  When we approached the top, well really the pictures are a better description, but what we saw was a hole maybe 10 feet deep jam packed with people crawling all over one another.

  It was more hysterical than anything else, and many people had a hard time keeping it together.  As we climbed down a ladder into the mud pit, a man grabs you from behind and forces your head pack into the mud: "relax relax! It´s ok! Relax!",  before sliding you off into the pit to be grabbed by a new man who tries to give you a full on rub down...aka massage...aka gross!  It´s literally just local guys who try to make a couple bucks by rubbing tourists legs and backs, no thank you!  After refusing several times, he basically tried to kick me out of the pit.  Movement was so weird, not sure if anyone has ever been stuck in mud, with a massive amount of people rubbing up against one another, without being able to touch the ground.  It is impossible to move!!  Luckily, our whole gang went, so we were able to pull one another through the throngs.  My mud experience ended when Jared jokingly dumped a load of mud over my head, which ended up in my eyes...with no way to wipe it off, because everything is mud!!!  But fear not, the experience doesn´t end there.  We hopped out of the mud pit and walked down to a lagoon, with possibly the warmest natural water I´ve ever felt, as women drag you in and force you to your knees so they can "help you wash"...aka molest you!  A woman started dumping water over my head, pulled up my entire bathing suit top and proceeded to help herself to my female mammary organs.  Then, just to make sure she hadn´t missed any spots, shoved her hands down my bottom to check for that last bit of mud.  The entire time dumping water over my head, so I couldn´t open my eyes.  Honestly, I was just laughing hysterically the entire time, there was really no other reaction I could think of at the time.  After that whole experience, we headed back into our bus to head to the beach for a bit of lunch and some fun in the sand before going back to the hostel.
When we got back, Jared and I had to snap back into travel mode and get some to-do´s done for the car.  We headed to the office of the shipment broker with our passports in hand to fill out some forms.  The car still hasn´t arrived yet, but tomorrow we have a load of papers to get notarized and insurance to buy, so we can head out as soon as the car is ready.
Tonight we are cooking dinner with our friends and having some beers, before probably calling it a night!