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.

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.

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.

November 21-22, 2007
Days 784-785

A gold statue.

I went to the Gold Museum only to find out that they were closed for remodeling. That was tough for me because it was my main reason for staying in Bogotá. I found out that they had moved some of their collection to another location, but when I went there, I found out that they were closed on Tuesdays. Double Whammy.

The next day I went back, and it was still pretty impressive. There were a bunch of museums in one, so I got to learn about Colombia's old money and some artwork in addition to all seeing all of that sweet sweet gold.

I also went to the top of a large hill overlooking the city via cable car (this sounds familiar). At the top I met Judy and Ivan, who were accountants from Medellin on a quick holiday to Bogotá. After the hill, we went to Parque 93, which is a trendy park in the northern part of the city. We were chatting over a cup of coffee when a Colombian soap opera star walked in with a few of her friends. I was fascinated at how fascinated Judy was with the star, who just looked like a regular person to me. But I guess having people stare at you all the time is the price of fame, even in South America.

The photo album for this entry is here.

November 19-20, 2007
Days 782-783

I had been complaining to myself about the price of transportation in Colombia for awhile, and today was no exception. Buses cost more here than anywhere in South America other than Brazil and the Guianas, but the reason always seemed to be more than economics. Colombia is the only country in South America (other than the Guianas once again) with almost no large buses. Small buses mean less passengers which means higher prices, yet the mini buses seem impossible to avoid.

Today was no different as I rode to Bogotá in the back of a minivan, but it was well worth the money. There were only four passengers out of a possible eight, but the driver didn't care enough to attempt to pick up any random people off the street. He must have been getting paid a flat rate. The fact that we were in such a small vehicle meant that we were able to fly around all of the large trucks occupying the highway and got to Bogotá much quicker than expected. Oh yeah, and the scenery was spectacular as usual.

I wasn't expecting much when I arrived in Bogotá. I viewed it as merely a place to pass through on my way to my next destination. However, my impression of the city was much better than expected.

I found it easy to get to the center of the city without having to take an expensive taxi, then I found a reasonably-priced hostel in a nice area. The city government had planned to build a subway system for over thirty years, but then scrapped the idea in favor of a cheaper system of buses called "Trans Milenio." The large buses got their own lanes and had their own enclosed stations, so it was easy to get around the city like a subway system, and fast because the buses didn't have to fight the masses of traffic.

I went to the northern part of Bogotá for a few hours and was blown away by all of the shopping malls, trendy restaurants, and people walking around in business suits. It was like walking around Times Square. In the movies, Bogotá is the kind of place where as soon as you leave your hotel, ten guys jump you, beat you nearly to death, take everything you own, then kidnap you just for shits and grins. But the Bogotá I found today was nothing like that. I'm getting really sick of cities, and this one is the fifth largest in South America (after Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires, Rio, and Lima), but I suppose I can handle the hustle and bustle for a few days.

November 17-18, 2007
Days 780-781

I went with Manisha and a friend of hers to the soccer stadium, but there was no game today despite what we had been told. Instead, we played a bit of basketball on the courts outside the stadium. Nobody wanted to play against us because Manisha (six feet tall) and I (six-foot-three) looked like giants to the South American crowd, but considering that I averaged maybe half an hour of basketball per year, their fears were unwarranted. And sure enough, we got our asses handed to us within five minutes of playing against another trio and had to resort to a game of PIG amongst ourselves for the rest of the morning.

It was especially hard to get around the city this weekend, and eventually I figured out that all the main streets were blocked off because the marathon was in town. Manizales sits at 2100 meters above sea level, which isn't very high by South American standards, but that's still over one-and-a-quarter miles high, quite impressive for long distance running. We went over to the finish line and watched as the exhausted runners achieved their goals. I guess I shouldn't have been quite as surprised as I was when I found out that a Kenyan one the race. Yeah, the Kenyans are also the best runners in Colombia, not just the USA.

After the marathon, we also went to the same park where we had watched the symphony the night before. It was on a hill overlooking the city, making it a great location for a relaxing nap. I was asleep too long, though, and woke up with the worst sunburn I'd suffered on my trip. Even after two years of traveling, it was hard to remember that despite the cool temperatures, I was only a few degrees from the equator, and the sun was much more powerful than at home.

Behind the park was a wilderness area that looked just like a kid's version of some of the jungle expeditions I had done. There were great paths, zip lines for adventurous people who wanted to fly over the canopy, and lots of information on the various flora in the area. We also learned firsthand that the area provided some protection for society's lower segments when we saw several security guards and police officers running after a kid who had stolen someone's digital camera. Eventually he got caught and led away in handcuffs, but I was told that his only punishment would be a few days in jail. The police would probably be doing him a favor considering his normal living conditions.

November 16, 2007
Day 779

The symphony playing Queen.

I took a walk around the center of town near my hotel today. Just about every city in Colombia has a central plaza named after Simon Bolivar, and Manizales was no exception. However, the mandatory statue in the center of the plaza depicted Bolivar having the wings and head of a bird, but he still had a very human body part hanging between his legs. I know that a naked bird-man statue normally passes as an acceptable form of art, but this statue was of the most famous man in South American history, not just some random guy. The beak and wang combination seemed a bit disrespectful to me.

Tonight I met up with Manisha and some of her friends to go to the symphony. The entire presentation was taken from the best of Queen's songs, and it seemed a perfect fit when they played "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "Flash Gordon." "We Will Rock You" didn't work well, but overall the concert went great and it was good to get a different kind of cultural experience than the normal tourist stuff most people do when traveling.

Later, everyone went out for some dancing. Salsa wasn't as popular as it was in Cali, and the way people danced was more intimate than the "Let's just have fun and not care who's watching" attitude of Cali. This made sense because in Manizales the climate was colder and the crowd was mostly college students who were motivated by peer pressure, rather than the older crowd of Cali who didn't have anything to prove. But despite the tamer nightlife, we still somehow managed to stay out until dawn.

November 15, 2007
Day 778

Manisha in the Plaza Bolivar in Manizales.

Aiana and I split ways this morning. She headed up to Bogotá to meet a friend, but I still wanted to go to Manizales, in the northern part of the coffee-growing region. It took several trips on small buses, but I eventually made it to my destination city late in the day.

I was supposed to meet a girl named Manisha, who was a friend of Urzuz (my last Couchsurfing host), at a place called Cable Plaza. I had no idea where that was, and after talking to a few people determined that it was too far to walk, so I took a taxi. Manisha didn't specify which part of Cable Plaza we should meet in, but I figured out why (or so I thought), when the taxi driver dropped me off in front of a tiny square with a single cable car acting as a monument of sorts in the middle. There was no way we could miss each other in such a small place, so I began waiting contentedly despite the chilly evening.

After nearly an hour, Manisha hadn't shown up so I decided to call her again. Colombia has a strange cell phone system where you only get charged for placing, and not receiving, a call, but if you call someone who has a cell phone plan of a different company, it costs at least three times as much. There are at least four major cell phone companies in Colombia, so the higher price nearly always applies. The end result is that everyone here has a cell phone, but nobody can use it. The local entrepreneurs have come up with an interesting solution, though. They simply own a cell phone from each company so they can always make calls at the lowest rate. Then they walk around with signs around their necks stating "minutos," and any random passerby can make a call on their phone for a small charge. Anyway, I got hold of Manisha again, and she said something about meeting me in a few minutes, so I continued waiting.

Another half hour went by and I was ready to go home. I called Manisha one last time, and she said she had already started walking home after waiting for me so long. Something didn't seem right, and soon enough I figured out that we were waiting for each other in two different places. I asked somebody where Cable Plaza was, and they said one block away. I never even bothered asking if I was in the right place when I first got there because the taxi driver told me that it was Cable Plaza, and after all, it was a plaza with a cable car in it. But alas, Cable Plaza was actually a shopping mall that had nothing to do with cables or plazas, and that's where Manisha was waiting for me. We finally met after the snafu and headed to a bar to drown our sorrows.

Despite the inauspicious beginning, meeting Manisha was a interesting experience. She's originally from Mumbai, India, and when I asked how big her city was, she responded with, "Half the population of Colombia." (She wasn't too far off. Mumbai's population is 18 million and Colombia's is 44 million.) A few months ago, she landed a job teaching English in Manizales and suddenly she was in South America for the first time without knowing anyone and having no knowledge of the Spanish language. But despite the obvious difficulties with adjusting to a new culture, she really seemed to like living in the relative peacefulness of Colombia and actually kind of discouraged me from visiting India with all her stories of extreme poverty and crowdedness, but then she said it's a great place to visit, just not to live. I guess I'll have to experience it for myself someday.

The photo album for this entry is here.

November 14, 2007
Day 777

Aiana and I wanted to check out the more remote areas of the Valle de Cocora, so we went on long uphill walk today. The path was muddy from the horses digging up the soil, but it went through some amazing cloud forest deep into the Colombian wilderness. The walk finished at Finca del Bosque, which was an old cabin with a great view of the forest in the valley below, but the thick fog blocked the lookout for all but a few minutes.

We hiked back down, packed everything up, and barely caught the last truck of the day going back to Salento. The vehicle was a classic jeep with seating for maybe five passengers, but I counted fourteen adults (along with a few children on their moms' laps) including Aiana and myself. I was standing on the back bumper and holding onto the roof along with four other guys. As we were driving, a guy haled the vehicle, and I didn't think it was possible to fit anyone else on board, but they always find a way in South America. As I was standing there wondering where the guy could possibly fit, I saw a new hand grab the roof just to the left of me, followed by the same thing on my right side. The guy rode all the way to Salento straddling the bumper behind me. It was a humiliating experience.