Bus Rides

Traveling on the cheap, as we are, means a ton of bus rides to get where we are going...Going all the way from Mexico to Panama you see a ton of different buses, and you start getting used to the shitty chicken buses, or being packed in like a sardine. But it is never easy to get on city buses that are jam packed with your giant pack and not make a scene...I would rather take a taxi!

The longest bus ride we took in Central America was about 10 hours, but here in South America, that is a small-distance ride. The countries are bigger and the buses have longer to travel, so getting used to 15-16 hour-plus bus rides (and usually overnight!) is not going to be easy.
Especially when taking a ride on a bus here is the exact equivalent of trying to sleep in a meat locker. I am not joking! They blast the air conditioning so much that it is just so uncomfortable. And we even come prepared-we change into long pants and bring a sweatshirt and socks. Last night, it wasn't enough...Instead of sleeping comfortably and waking up at your next destination- you go into hypothermia and just lay there shivering.

Not to mention that other interesting things happen on the bus rides. Take last nights' 9 hour ride, for example. First, the bus leaves late-and there were only 9 passengers...Then, about 30 minutes into the ride, the lady and young guy in the front of the bus turn around and ask Adrian if we saw a furry creature running around our feet?! What the Heck?! The bus lights are all off at this point, and all I can hear is Adrian say "A raton?" and I immediately start to get a bit grossed out. I have just been riding on a bus with a rat or a mouse crawling around my feet?! Yuck!! So Adrian gets out a flashlight and we start looking around our feet, and about the same time- I hear the translation- "You think it's a hamster?" A hamster?! This must be what they call mice in Colombia...So after some scuffle and looking around-the thing crawls by my feet and the young guy dives under the seat in the dark and catches it. It really was a hamster! A cute little orange and white guy!! What the hell was it doing on the bus?! This guy picked it up and asked all the passengers if they lost a hamster...No one had...So the two proceeded to put him in a purse for safe keeping, and feed him a cooked potato...He seemed pretty content in there. I had no idea what they were going to do with it but I just figured they would keep it as a pet. So after we watched the little guy eat the potato and wonder why he was on the bus, they decided to tie the purse closed and put it in the overhead compartment until we arrived. Needless to say the hamster chewed through the purse and is back loose in the bus somewhere, now in the overhead compartments! Good stuff...

We fall back asleep after we caught the hamster and wake up for the 2am rest stop. I go to the bathroom and come out, waiting for the bus to get going. I am standing outside the bus talking to this Australian guy we are traveling with, and we notice that Adrian is talking to some locals and has a little crowd gathered around him...We were so amused watching this scene-at 2 am, this little restaraunt in the middle of nowhere was packed and jumping and Adrian managed to enrapture a group of locals with who knows what...And we were sort of sleepy and wondering what he was doing. It was a really cool scene from afar- you could see them all asking questions, and every minute a new person would come over to hear what was going on-and there is Adrian in the middle, waving his arms around telling some story...So it turns out he was just buying a snack, and starting talking to the restaraunt owner, who asked about his trip, and they all got so curious about him, and us and they were asking him all sorts of questions. They were just so excited to talk to him, you could see it-it was cool. I think the Colombians are so far the friendliest people in all the countries I've been to. And I also think that they are really excited to see tourists in their country, after years of travelers avoiding the country because of the previous dangers.

To top it all off, on our second leg of the bus trip today-the bus broke down! Let's hope my first bus break-down is also my last...I slept for most of the time and only noticed when they turned off the bus and therefore the AC slowly died out and I had to strip off all the layers I had put on. One interesting point, I didn't hear anyone complain about the holdup (or maybe it's just because I was sleeping), but everyone just patiently sat and waited, knowing that they were trying to fix the bus. I'm not sure if that happened at home people would idly sit and wait like that...

So those are just some random thoughts about bus travel...It's weird, even though you may sleep alot, and are just sitting there-taking a bus ride really wipes you out! Time for bed...

Hiking to La Ciudad Perdida

So I just did my first trek!!! Yeah!!

When we were in Cartagena, we ran into a few other travellers we met in Panama and they told us about this 6 day trek to a place in the Colombian jungle called ¨La Ciudad Perdida¨. We hadn´t even heard about it before, but were immediately interested. We decided to tag along with a new group of people and go to the next city and check out this trek. We didn´t know much about it, but got into the city the tour was arranged from and realized that our friends booked the trek to start the next day! Mind you, we got into this city at about 9pm, and the tour was supposed to leave the next morning at 8:30...We talked to the tour operators and decided to go for it, even on the short notice. Who needs sleep before a 6 day trek anyways? We paid 30,000 pesos (=$150 US) and then immediately had to get supplies and pack our bags...and we still hadn´t even eaten dinner :)

The guide company supplied all our meals and water for the trip, so we just need to bring dry clothes, long pants, bug spray, toilet paper, extra shoes, plastic bags to protect our gear from rain, etc. We crammed all that we thought we might need for the 6 days into our small daypacks-the lighter the better.

On the first day we drove about 2 hours to the turnoff to the park, and from there we drove another hour up and down a horrible dirt, mountain road to a small town in the mountains that we would start from. After a lunch of stale sandwiches, we were off. There were 8 people in our group- a nice mix of a few Americans, a French guy, Spanish guy, Swiss guy and and Aussie dude. We were to hike a total of 22km to the Lost City, mostly about 3-5 hours a day, with one long day of an 8 hour hike on the way back down.

The first day was a bit rough, getting back into hiking after a while is always hard. Add in torrential rain and the fact that we were hiking uphill through mud canyons and basically a mud river at our feet. Oddly enough- it was really cool to hike in the torrential rain. Knowing that I had no choice but to keep going and plug on, I think made it fun to be out in the rain (and I was so excited that I had decided to put my dry clothes into a waterproof travel bag inside my backpack!). A strange thought, because it also meant that we would probably see a lot of rain on the rest of the 5 days! After the first days´ hike we made it up to a little house in the mountains where we were to camp, and we got into dry clothes and had some dinner. Our guides really knew how to cook-we had great food the whole time! We slept the night in hammocks and were off early the next morning...

The next couple of days were great hikes. I was a bit sore, but tried to do a lot of stretching to keep the soreness at a minimum. Oddly enough, I think the best remedy for the sore muscles was to just keep hiking! The scenery and the terrain was gorgeous throughout the whole hike. I especially enjoyed that the terrain changed frequently- we´d hike through the jungle, along mountain ridges, up mud canyons, alongside a river, through a river, by little shacks in the forests...We saw a lot of Indigenous families living way out in the middle of no-where. They were mostly very wary of the hikers, and not smile or say anything to us. The adults would mostly stare, while the kids were sometimes a bit more curious. The children were amazing...Wearing little potato sac dresses (boys and girls alike) with long brown hair...Some smart Indios even sold Gatorade at their little houses! If it was cold, I probably would have bought some :) The hike was such a great hike that I was excited to be doing it, even before I made it to the Lost City!

On day three, we finally made it to La Ciudad Perdida. After a pretty tough hike of about 4 hours, we got to the base of a stairway. The stairway looked like it just started right out of the river, so we waded across and started climbing the stairs...I have never climbed so many stairs in my life!!! There were at least 2,000 stairs to get to the city!!! And after already hiking the whole day-our legs were pretty shot. It was tiring, but a cool, mysterious walk up mossy covered stairs into the jungle...

We got to the top and were greeted by a small troop of the Colombian military...They all seemed friendly and amused at our exhausted looks of climbing all those stairs. The military was stationed there to protect tourists from any residual FARC guerilla activity in the jungle-which was fine by me. I was glad to see them instead of rebels...

We spent the next day exploring the city, founded by Tayrona Indians (discovered only in 1975). Our guide didn´t have the complete history of the place as we would´ve liked-but it was still really cool...They had basically built all these round circular stone terraces linked by tons of steps. Set high up in the mountains, it was such a spectacular sight.

The toughest part of the hike was the 8 hour hike down, which started with a descent of all those 2,000 stairs!!! My legs were wiped out immediately...But I made it to the lunch stop and the lunch gave me a second wind for the last 3 hours-whew!

So if you can´t tell, I really enjoyed this hike and was proud of myself for having done it...It wasn´t as difficult as I expected! Maybe that means there will be more treks in my future-who knows!

South America...via San Blas

Now doesn´t that look nice?! Yup, it was pretty amazing...That´s me relaxing in the beautiful water in the "Swimming Pool" in the San Blas Islands. Behind me in the photo you can see a handful of boats docked, and this is where we spent three days of our sailing trip from Panama to Colombia. It was a beautiful spot to swim, snorkle, and hang out on deserted islands.

We had heard many horror stories of these boat rides from Panama to Colombia: people getting lost for 10 days, people running out of food and water, or having a horrible captain...I am glad to report almost exactly the opposite of what we feared. We set sail on the Melody with Captain Marc and his wife Paola. We had a crew of 8 backpackers, 6 Americans and 2 Austrian guys. It was such a fantastic trip!! Everyone was cool and chill (a necessary characteristic for sharing the confined space of the boat!), and the captain really knew what he was doing. Not to mention we were well fed!! Marc´s wife, Paola, was a great cook- we were treated to meals us backpackers don´t normally get: lasagna, fish tacos, and even a turkey dinner! On the first day of the sail we made it to the San Blas Islands in about nine hours, and the seas were really calm. We even had a small crew of dolpins swimming alongside us for awhile. When we got to the paradise of San Blas- we knew we made the right choice instead of flying to Colombia! We were enjoying it so much we actually asked to stay another day at San Blas, which we did! It was hard to get sick of the beautiful surroundings we had...

The rest of the sail from San Blas to Cartagena was supposed to take 36 hours...That sounded pretty daunting to me...And the first day in the open waters was pretty rough, I must admit. The waves were pretty big and I did feel a bit seasick. So much for dramamine! I spent most of the first day trying to sleep and lay down in one spot. As soon as you got up to use the bathroom or move around you would feel sick almost immediately. The second day of sailing was much calmer and therefore a much better sail...We even caught some wind and a current and made it to Cartagena a few hours ahead of schedule. Even with a little seasickness-this was definitely the way to go!

We are now in Cartagena and enjoying the city. The city is surrounded by a huge wall built 500 yeas ago to defend against pirates. The walled part of the old city has these great old buildings and so much character...It is an interesting mix of old and new-you have one area of the city surrounded by an old wall, and then a few miles away you can see the skyscrapers that have been built to modernize the city. At night, the old city is so romantic, and just such a great spot to sit outside and soak up the atmosphere. What a great city!!!

Here´s one last shot of us amid the palm trees in San Blas...