Nick Curry

I am now back in Bogota, on my last day off before resuming travel. Next on the itinerary are an express journey through the northern coast of Peru, before meeting up in Lima with my friend Ben from LA. From there we head to Cuzco and Macchu Picchu for 2 weeks before splitting up, after which I get to head down towards Bolivia via Lake Titicaca.

So far the trip has been great – I have been meeting some amazing people, both new acquaintances and old friends, trying a few things I’d never tried before and thoroughly enjoying discovering a continent I knew little of and had been curious about for a long time. I am looking forward to the next two months in South America, even though there have been missing people and things I am missing from Europe.

After a quick stopover back in Bogota, we headed over to Zulma’s hometown of Santandercito, which coincidentally was celebrating its 70th birthday that weekend, complete with school parade and Saturday nite fiesta. We then headed back to Bogota to take off to San Augustin, one of the countries’ most important archaeological sites, with many precolombine artefacts and statues have been discovered. One the way back we stopped by the Tatacoa desert, one of Colombia’s three deserts, and Zulma’s dad’s friend Jorge Enrique in Neiva, a fine connoisseur of Aguardiente, the local poison (to which I had already been introduced).

! The reason for shortening my stay in Medellin was to meet up with my friend Zulma in Bogota, with whom I had studied for my MA in London. Her extensive lauding of Colombia’ many virtues is one of the reasons I had planned on visiting it despite its reputation, and her advice had definitely been appreciated. We first headed off to Leticia, in the colombian rainforest and on the border with Peru and Brazil. A friend from the Lost City had given us the contact details of the head of the local Huitoto indian community, organising tours off the beaten track, with whom we managed to meet after a few interesting diversion including a 2 hour wait in a dentists’ salon and a taxi driver with the voice and appearance of Tom Waits. Overall we spent 2.5 days We also went for a quick boat trip up the Amazon, which featured feeding monkeys in Monkey Island, spotting freshwater dolphins, meeting Kappax, the colombian face of the Amazon whose portrait decorates Leticia´s airport, and swimming in the Amazon itself. One thing is for sure, the rainforest does inspire respect- although the guides insisted they were following the path, I certainly couldn’t make it out, and one really had the feeling that losing them would mean a slow and horrible death through hunger, madness, or snake bite.

I then moved on to Medellin, Colombia’s second largest city, where I had planned to meet up with a friend I had met in Santa Marta. Unfortunately a combination of bus delays, faulty internet connections, unread emails and the fact that I had to shorten my stay meant that I didn’t get to meet up with him, or see much of the city for that matter- however I was fortunate to meet an adorable resident who kindly gave me an express tour of the city’s main attractions, and what I saw I indeed liked- the city had a pleasant feel to it, probably the most european city I saw so far both in climate and in atmosphere.

I then moved on to Cartagena de Indias, a colonial city which I was thinking of as one of the three main highlights of the trip. The architecture of the city is amazing, with each building in the old town looking like it could have been a national monument. Walking around the old town was like walking in Disneyland, in that everything was perfectly coherent and very beautiful too, except that this was a lived-in city (with a bit of restoration). However, Cartagena is not just the old town- a lot of the city, and particularly Getsemani where I stayed, is poor and filled with excitable drug-addicted hustlers, aged between 6 to 66 years old. As a result it was hard to walk around without being hassled, which did spoil the experience a little. The nightlife is not great either, and things got a lot worse when an american navy ship let its sailors loose on the town for the week-end…

Next was one of the trip highlights, a trip to Ciudad Perdida (the Lost City). This is a recently discovered (1974) set of ruins inherited from the Tayrona indians, eradicated by the Spanish and about whom little is known, although it is though that they may have been on a similar level of sophistication as the Incas or the Aztecs. The city can only be reached through a 3 day hike through the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta (2 days back, one nite on site). The particularity of the Sierra Nevada is that it starts on the Carribean sea, and ends at over 4000m altitude – and therefor has climate and vegetation spanning tropical jungle to snow-capped mountains. The way there was on average 4 hours a day mostly uphill, which didn’t sound like much until I started doing it. Our guides were great though, and the ascent up the hidden staircase leading to the city was almost a mystical experience – the city is just above the lowest clouds, and the sensation of arriving to the plateau the city is built on through the clouds after the arduous walk, combined with the abandonned and isolated feel of the city, was exhilarating.

From there I moved over to Columbia, with a slight apprehension due to it’s reputation – definitely undeserved from what I saw though. First stop was Santa Marta, or rather nearby Taganga, a small fishing village famous for it’s numerous diving schools. I thought I’d do a 4-day introductory course, which was fun – I hadn’t ever dived before, and did enjoy it, although it’s not something I’d feel a need to do again urgently. Great fun though was the visit to the Parque Nacional Tayrona, which in Colombia is known for it’s beaches – I stayed three days in total, and amongst other important things learnt how to make “Cafe a la guerrillera” – the ingredients are a few bits of dry firewood, a pan, some water, a packet of coffee powder and some sugar – light the fire, boil the water, add first the coffee then the sugar and presto, a strong coffee with a distinct burnt wood flavour which I thoroughly enjoyed, especially as a relief from a solid rice diet.

I landed in Caracas, but was a little put off by reception – the Lonely Planet warns it’s got a bit of a reputation for being dangerous, and the fact that the first person I met there had just gotten robbed at knifepoint didn’t make me feel any safer. I liked what I saw, Caracas is a big city with a lively atmosphere, however I didn’t really feel it was the best place to start the trip. So, I resolved to move to a more traveller-friendly place after only a night and headed up to Merida, in the Venezuelan Andes. This turned out to be a great place to start out the trip in earnest – it’s a bit of a travellers’ hangout, with a pleasant student-y feel and plenty of things to do. I stayed over 10 days, and tried canyoning, did a trip through the Andes on horseback, and a 2-day mountain hike to the nearby Los Nevados. Most importantly perhaps, I got a better feel for what I was about to get into.