Monthly Archives: December 2007

Drunk with Pleasure

December 7, 2007
Day 800

El Cocuy National Park Trip Day 4

Me on top of the snow.

I got up at first light today and left the relative comfort of my tent for the freezing cold conditions outside. Last night's rain turned into a sheet of ice that covered the fly of my tent this morning, and I had to huddle close to my stove while I was cooking breakfast to try to warm myself up. Too bad I got rid of most of my warm clothing when I finished mountaineering in Bolivia. I started walking as soon as I could and shedded layers along the way.

The path I was following up the side of the mountain was full of hoof prints, but it didn't look like any people actually walked on it, especially not by themselves. As I continued walking, the clear skies and strong sun warmed me up quickly. I passed lots of horizontally-layered rocks that I was told were once covered with snow before the affects of global warming took over. Now there's just a thin strip left, which I was determined to reach.

After several hours of walking, I reached the snow line, but I couldn't see any path heading that way. The altitude started to get to me at that point as I felt drunk and found it hard to concentrate on anything. I had gone way higher in Bolivia but never had problems with the altitude because I had been acclimatized properly. I stopped and looked around for a few minutes and eventually spotted a few rocks stacked on top of each other on a high plateau. I figured that must be the path and headed that way, despite my soroche.

Getting to the top of the plateau required a bit of climbing, but I managed it with my long legs. From that point on, there was no more path per se, but every now and then I spotted a rock pile to guide my way. The problem was that sometimes the â€œpiles" were only two small rocks on top of each other, which could've easily been a coincidence. But if I seemed to be lost, I just kept heading up and eventually found my way again.

Looking at the mountains.

After several hours of walking uphill, I finally made it to the point where there was only snow. It was an incredible place surrounded by mountains, lagoons, and of course lots of snow. The silence was deafening as there were no other people or animals for miles. But I knew I had to head down once the soroche got bad enough that I couldn't walk without stumbling around everywhere and the clouds started rolling in and blocking my view of the way back down.

I had barely started my drunk-walking downhill when the fog got so bad I could only see about twenty feet in front of me. Suddenly those rock piles 100 feet away weren't helping to guide me at all. I stumbled my way along the rocky terrain awhile longer but saw no signs of the path. At one point I stopped and squinted at the clouds for several minutes, hoping for a clearing. Suddenly, I thought I saw a house way below me, so I couldn't have ventured too far from the path. When I got back to the point where there was some vegetation, I realized that I must have bypassed the plateau entirely and figured out where I had to walk to find the path. It took about eight hours round trip to get back to my tent.

The owner's wife made another appearance this afternoon, but she still wasn't saying much and had a horse to take her down to her house tonight. It looked like it would rain again, and I didn't want to have to cook outside in the wetness again, so I caved and stayed in the cabin. Even not having anyone to talk to, I kept my mind occupied by making a fire and was in better spirits by bedtime.

The Early Milk Truck

December 6, 2007
Day 799

El Cocuy National Park Trip Day 3

My icy tent.

Everyone I talked to yesterday, including the park ranger, the refuge owner, and the owner of my hotel told me that the milk truck left at 5:30 in the morning, and could drop me off near the refuge. I began looking for the truck at 5:15, bud didn't see it. I was surprised to see a few people standing around so early in the morning, and they gladly gave me the bad news: the truck already left at 5:00. Since when did anything happen early in South America? So the list of adversity continued to grow: first the bad information on the park's access point, then my food poisoning, followed by the damaged road, and the lack of maps in the park ranger's office yesterday, and finally the early milk truck. Everything was going against me.

I walked back to the hotel to think about a decision. My only choices were to wait another day for the next milk truck, cut my losses (again) and head back to Bucaramanga, or walk to the top. Normally I'd walk to the top in an instant, but I was without a map or even decent directions, I had barely started eating again and still didn't have much energy, I wasn't acclimatized to the altitude and would have to walk up another 1000 meters, and of course I would have to carry my heavy backpack to get there. Still, waiting around a town as small as Guican for a whole day by myself would've bored me to tears and I had already come so far, I didn't feel like giving up at that point. So my decision was made. I'd take my chances and walk to the top.

The lady at the hotel claimed there was only one road, but of course, the road split into two almost right away. Eventually I found a farmer who showed me the right way. There were a few farm houses dotting the road, so I was able to get updated information for most of my walk. The landscape where palm trees gave way to pines and eventually no trees at all reminded me of what I had seen in Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador (it was really incredible now that I think about it), but the people were different. I had never seen so many tall, white-skinned, blond-haired, blue-eyed "natives" in my life. The walk was indeed more difficult than it would have been had I been in good health, but I still made it by mid-afternoon by taking my time.

The refuge I was walking to consisted of three Swiss-style cabins and a couple small administrative buildings. The only people around were the owner's wife and son. The Colombian tourists were supposed to start showing up in about a week for the Christmas holiday, and it was very rare to see a foreign tourist there, despite the fact that the park was listed as one of Colombia's highlights in the Lonely Planet. I put up my tent and tried talking to the owner's wife, but I only received one-worded answers to every topic I tried to bring up. Soon she informed me that she was sick and was going to take her son down to their house. I was then the only human around.

I'm sure the area was beautiful, but a thick fog had blanketed the region by midday and refused to go away. The constant cold wind made sitting outside unpleasant, so I walked around a bit, but quickly headed back because I couldn't see anything anyway. I was happy when it got dark at 6:00 because it meant I could cook supper and go to bed, but that's when the rain started. At first it was just a thick drizzle, like the clouds were trying to empty themselves, but soon it turned into a heavy downpour. I was attempting to cook under the overhanging roof of one of the cabins, but the deck was built further out than the roof extended, so the water ended up splashing all over the place. Soon I was freezing cold and soaking wet, and getting back into the tent was a great pleasure. But my tent had taken some damage in more than a year of heavy usage, and the water started soaking through the barrier of the fly. I started to think I was cuckoo for going to Cocuy.

Guican, One Day Late

December 5, 2007
Day 798

El Cocuy National Park Trip Day 2

The park at the center of Guican.

I took the first bus out of Soata this morning at 7:00 AM. It was another terrific journey as we went higher and higher to the point where I caught my first glimpse of snow in Colombia. But the trip felt a bit like deja vu because we kept stopping in small towns that all looked identical and the bus driver must have only owned one tape because we kept listening to the same five songs over and over again. We got to Guican, the last town before the park, after seven hours on what some authors would call "Bone Crushing" roads.

The military police stopped us along the way, which made me feel secure because their presence meant that there weren't any paramilitaries in the area, but I seriously doubted their methods. They only made the men get off the bus and searched us thoroughly, but they did nothing to the women and only gave the bus itself the once over. So the men weren't carrying any weapons, but the bus could have been filled with drugs, guns, and bombs and the military would have never known. The same thing happens in dance clubs where men get searched, but women, who are the ones carrying purses that could easily conceal weapons, don't. I don't see how this sexism could possibly be effective, but I've been told that the area is much safer than it was a few years ago. It's better than anarchy I guess.

Eduardo had a friend who owned a refuge at the edge of the park, and I learned that he had been expecting me when I called his this afternoon. But surprise, surprise, there was no public transportation that could take me up there until tomorrow. It would be possible to walk, but I'm at high altitude again (3000 meters), and the refuge is another 1000 meters up from here. On top of that, I still hadn't seen a decent map of the park as even the park ranger was all out, and there likely would be dozens of different paths crossing each other with absolutely no indication of where they led as is the norm in South America. Also, after I ate lunch I looked white as a ghost and nearly passed out, and seriously doubted my ability to do a difficult walk carrying a 20 KG backpack. But at least I could eat.

The photo album for this entry is here.

Trouble on the Road

December 4, 2007
Day 797

El Cocuy National Park Trip Day 1

I was up early this morning and got a taxi to the bus station in time to catch the 6:00 AM bus to Malaga. It was a long ride over beautiful terrain where we constantly headed up and down the area's peaks and valleys. We stopped for breakfast which normally means rice, eggs, and fried beef for the locals, but I got a few arepas (heated pieces of thick bread), and to my surprise, I felt a sensation I had not experienced for several days: slight hunger.

We got to Malaga a bit later than expected, but I was still making good enough time to make it to the park tonight. I shared a taxi with a few locals to Capitanejo, but that's where the fun ended. In Capitanejo, I learned that a landslide had made the road going forward impassible. To add insult to injury, this just happened yesterday, so if I hadn't gotten sick, I would have made it through on the cheese truck two days ago. I could either cut my losses and head back to Bucaramanaga or make a major detour by taking a different road around the damaged section. I chose the longer route.

I took another bus to the small town of Soata, but that was it. There were no more buses today. The damaged road only cost me a day so far, but I'll probably have to take the same detour back. So after thirteen hours on buses, I made it a grand total of forty-five miles from Bucaramanga as the crow flies. The only consolation was that I was able to eat a plate of lentils and rice for dinner tonight, my first full meal in four days.

My Worst Illness Yet

November 30-December 3, 2007
Day 793-796

Eduardo, ever the Renaissance man, informed me that he was taking classes in poetry at the local university. I went with him to a recital, and was subsequently forced to read a poem to everyone in Spanish in which I didn't understand half the words. During the recital I got a headache and started feeling run down, which I attributed to nerves.

I still wasn't feeling well later in the night, but I decided to go out with Eduardo, Marina, and Ana Maria to a concert in an open air college campus. One band played a local version of salsa music, in which the dancing was much slower than that of Cali, and the next band played vallenato, an extremely popular home-grown version of the classic love song. In the middle of the concert, I suddenly felt the need to get fresh air, but I was already outside. I ended up vomiting all over the bushes in the parking lot. I felt better and drank some water, but five minutes later, the rest of the contents of my stomach were expunged until I could only dry heave bits of acid.

By morning, my entire body was emptied of its fluid contents, but I still couldn't eat or drink anything without puking it back up a few minutes later. Eduardo hooked me up with a ride on a cheese truck that goes to Cocuy National Park once per week, but it soon became obvious that I wasn't going to be able to take it. It felt like someone had pummeled my whole body with a baseball bat, and I ended up spending a couple days rolling around in bed hoping for sleep or death.

My illness was so bad that for the first time on my trip, I went to the clinic for testing. It turned out my guts were packed full of amoebas, and I was given heavy doses of antibiotics to kill them and a shot in the ass to stop the vomiting. I'm not sure what caused the amoebas to get there, but they most likely came from some of the river water I swallowed while rafting a few days ago. After a couple days I was feeling fairly normal again and was definitely ready to get on my way to Cocuy. I had already been cursed with bad info about the park and now the illness, but I was still determined to get there.

The only other major happening of those few days was that Hugo Chavez was defeated in his referendum to change Venezuela's constitution. Eduardo's house happened to be across the street from the local Venezuelan consulate, and all of the Venezuelans in town lined up to sing the national anthem before the voting began. I think that vote was one of the most important turning points in Latin American politics. If Chavez had won, it could have pushed Venezuela, and eventually all of Latin America toward full-blown communism. But the people have said enough is enough, and all appears to be calm once again on the political front here.

The J Peterman of Colombia

November 29, 2007
Day 792

Eduardo reading the paper.

My next destination after adventurous San Gil was Bucaramanga, set near the Andes on the way to Venezuela. There wasn't much there in the way of tourism, but Manisha, the Indian girl I met in Manizales, recommended that I meet a friend of hers who lived in B-town. Ana Maria and Manisha originally met in Mumbai, India when Ana Maria was living there for a year and Manisha was considering taking a teaching job in Colombia. Now they live once again in the same country on the other side of the world.

Ana Maria and her parents introduced me to the family business, a chicken restaurant they have owned for a quarter century. They gave me a sample of their product, and I must say it was the most succulent chicken I have had in Colombia, and I'm not just saying that because it was free. We also drove past the city's many parks during my introductory tour. The city had so many parks, I found it easy to get confused as to where we were because there was no central place by which to orient myself.

Ana Maria hooked me up with a place to crash at her aunt Marina and uncle Eduardo's place. Eduardo immediately began schmoozing me with his perfect English and tales of his travels. In his youth ("When I was about twenty like you," was how he put it), he traveled around the world for fifteen years before returning to his homeland of Colombia. Most of his stories related to his time living in a kibbutz in Israel, falling in love with Greece and France, and earning his college degrees from Boston University.

Like Ana Maria's parents, Eduardo was in the restaurant business, and he wasn't at all shy about showing me his empire. Every few minutes, he'd relate something he saw with an old story. "One day before there was a restaurant here, I was walking down this road eating a piece of fruit, and I threw the pit on the ground. It eventually grew into the tree you see here." ... "When I was traveling through Greece, I fell in love with the columned architecture that was so common there. It inspired me to put columns in this restaurant." ... "When I was in Israel, my kibbutz turned a desert into a forest, just to prove that it was possible. That hard work helped me realize my dream of building a restaurant here." The deluge of commentaries continued well into the night, when I retired to my room surrounded by paintings of the Colombian flag and the wildlife of the Amazon, eager to learn what Eduardo would surprise me with next.

Don Eduardo's restaurant photos
Parque Flores photos

Rule Number Two: Don't Drown

November 28, 2007
Day 791

Our raft.

The adventure activity of the day today was rafting. I met up with a couple of Aussies named Adam and Nick that I met yesterday on the waterfall, and we headed out in a van to the Suarez River near San Gil. On the way, we had to read the standard disclaimer document and sign our lives away. They even made us give them a thumb print, probably to help identify the bodies. The strange thing is that yesterday I didn't have to give my guide anymore than my name to rappel down the waterfall.

We started out with some basic instructions on rafting. It had been a couple years since I had gone (even though it was on this trip), so I listened closely. The guide for this trip didn't speak English, so all of the instructions would be in Spanish. My Spanish has gotten pretty good on this trip, but my brain just doesn't work as fast when I'm heading over a rapid and a guy is shouting commands to me like a drill sergeant in a foreign language. It would be a good test of how far I could be pushed without losing my temper.

Our first rapid was a class III+ called "Zapato" (Shoe) because people tended to lose their shoes in the water as they went over it. It was a big rapid to start with, but the raft went over it smoothly. We hit a few rapids of similar size without incident, but then when we hit a relatively easy class III, my poor luxury sandal ripped apart, I lost my footing, and fell over the edge. Suddenly I heard someone shout "Rescue!" and was being pulled back into the raft. My sandal somehow stayed on my foot, but the back strap was torn apart. From that point on, I would have to go barefoot.

Later we came into a rapid a bit out of balance and the right side of the raft went into the air. Nick (one of the Australians) lost his grip and fell into me, knocking us both into the river. The rescue wasn't so easy this time, however, because we were still in the middle of the rapid. I was under the water for a few seconds, then when I came up, I tried reaching my paddle to the raft. Suddenly we hit another huge wave and I was back underwater for several more seconds. Luckily when I came up, the raft was still right there and I got dragged back aboard without bashing myself on any rocks.

We were really in the swing of things when we hit a class IV perfectly and headed toward the confluence of two rivers in the calm water that followed. Just then, our guide told us to paddle to the shore and we were done for the day. It was a nice finish, but the trip was way too short for me. I think from now on I'm going to have to learn how to kayak if I want to have any real fun.

The photo album for this entry is here.

Rule Number One: Don't Fall

November 27, 2007
Day 790

Two Aussies going down the falls.

Besides being my failed gateway to Cocuy National Park, San Gil is quickly becoming known as the adventure capital of Colombia. The region's natural surroundings have given birth to a whole host of adventure sports, and I figured my visit wouldn't be complete without trying something fun.

I went with some people from my hostel today to a waterfall. I had already seen lots of waterfalls in South America, but this one wasn't just for looking at: It was for rappelling down. We made the short walk to the waterfall in the hot equatorial sun, then did a bit of exploring while our guide prepared his equipment. Soon we were getting a demonstration of how to handle the rope as we made our descent. Our guide said that the first rule was was to keep your legs spread apart, but I think the real Rule Number One should have been Don't Fall.

A couple of Colombians went down first. As her husband disappeared down the sheer vertical drop and his voice was drowned out by the force of the roaring water, our guide tried to calm the wife's nerves and eventually got her to go over the side. He stood cavalierly on the edge as he watched them make their way to the bottom. Next, a couple Canadian guys went down, and then it was my turn. I was paired up with an Australian girl named Rachael.

My knees started to shake as I carefully walked over to the side and looked down before being secured with my harness. Crossing the pipe that marked where the waterfall officially began was mentally tough, but I soon saw that it was indeed pretty safe and started guiding the rope as I made my way down. Soon I was drenched, but I was too busy concentrating on the slippery rocks to care. Rappelling soon became a game of chicken of sorts as we tried to get deeper and deeper into the waterfall's fury without being violently thrown about. After several minutes of bouncing about the rocks with water spraying in my face, I was down.

It was my first time rappelling down a waterfall, but hopefully it won't be my last. The adrenaline rush was so great, it seemed like I was at the bottom almost as soon as I started. Hopefully my next waterfall will be even higher so I can enjoy it more.

The photo album for this entry is here.

The Instant Gratification Mail System of Colombia

November 26, 2007
Day 789

Back in Villa de Leyva, I spent a day buying presents for Christmas with the intention of sending them home right away. Last year most of my presents from French Guiana got stolen en route to the USA, and I really wanted to avoid repeating the bad experience. Villa de Leyva didn't have any decent postal system, so I carted my box of gifts to nearby Tunja (a larger city) in hopes of getting it sent.

Half my day was spent walking around Tunja carrying seventy pounds of stuff (my backpack plus the box). I went to several shipping companies, but they only had air service. The prices were so high, I practically could have flown home with the gifts for less money. The concept of sending stuff home on a ship simply didn't exist in Colombia. Nobody had even heard of such a thing.

I finally bit the bullet and decided to send my stuff by airmail. The lady at the desk then asked me if I had a receipt for everything, and I just about lost it. I calmly explained to her that you don't get receipts when you buy handmade goods from hippies on the streets, and I certainly wasn't going to fly back to the Galapagos just to ask for a proof of purchase on my $3 blue foot booby souvenir. She seemed to understand but insisted that US customs required receipts for everything. That's weird, I had never heard of such a requirement before, and I just sent some stuff home from Ecuador a few months ago. So I guess the current plan is to try to send it again once I get to Venezuela, although that means carrying the aforementioned seventy pounds of stuff across a border that has a dangerous reputation from a country whose most famous export is cocaine into a country that's getting more politically unstable every day and whose president considers the US government his biggest enemy. OK, you can stop laughing now.

To add insult to injury, I ended my day by taking a bus north to San Gil, from which I wanted to travel to a national park. The owner of my hostel told me that the roads were too bad to go from there and I should have gone from Tunja instead. That was completely the opposite of what I was told yesterday, but this guy really seemed to know what he was talking about. Well I sure as hell wasn't going to take another bus back six hours and waste another day in the process. I think there's still a way to get to the park from further north, though, so maybe all is not lost.

It's getting a little frustrating traveling around a country with such a small tourist infrastructure. The people are what make Colombia great, but they've seen so few tourists, they're not quite sure how to respond to questions regarding the logistics of getting from one place to another. Colombia does have a lot of great natural sights, but for the most part, they are controlled by guerrillas and paramilitaries, and are therefore too dangerous to visit. The park I wanted to go to was one of the few safe places in complete wilderness, but nobody I talked to had ever been there, so it proved quite difficult to reach.

Another Colonial Town

November 23-25, 2007
Days 786-788

The sign entering Villa de Leyva.

It took me a whole day to get to Villa de Leyva on a series of buses from Bogotá. It still is difficult for me to get over how much time is wasted on transportation to seemingly close places in South America. Villa de Leyva was a small colonial town dating back to hundreds of years ago with whitewashed buildings everywhere, a kind of small version of Popayan. Most of the town was nice, but the plaza in the center, which was supposedly the largest in Colombia at over one hundred meters in both length and width, had nothing in it save for a small broken fountain in the center. No trees or benches make for a useless and ugly plaza, which carries over to the entire town.

While I was searching for a place to stay, a lady named Rita approached me and offered me a spare room in her house. It was kind of like Couchsurfing, except I had to pay. I think Rita had been driven a bit crazy by the small town lifestyle because she constantly talked to her cat as if he were human. She even cooked him a big steak dinner one night, cut it up, and fed the little bits to him one at a time. Rita's real estate business seemed to be doing pretty well with all the foreigners wanting to buy houses in the area, but the prices (upwards of 1 billion pesos) looked ridiculously high to me considering that it's Colombia after all. I just hope her occasional boarding of the tourists brought in enough money to finance her cat-pampering habits.

The photo album for this entry is here.