Finally on the coast of Colombia

It’s election weekend here in Colombia. While in most countries that would mean some sort of election sware, in Colombia, it means complete country shut down. All the bars are closed, the streets are empty, everyone is at home. Not a drop of alcohol is allowed to be bought or consumed. Supermarket refrigerators are plastered with red tape bearing the words ‘ley seca’ – or dry law. I thus have ample time (though I sit here watching Gladiator) and no more excuses to leave you hanging any longer about my adventures.

So I left you in Salento, at ‘and off we went with Omar’ to his Dairy farm at Eagle’s nest….

The view from the road up to the property was spectacular. We of course stopped along the way to take like obligatory touristy photos as we made the climb to over 3000m above sea level. Luckily for me, the bout of motion sickness that had struck me down on all my recent bus trips within 5 minutes of driving, had decided to give me a day off. I have never, ever, suffered from motion sickness before, but my recent brief encounters with the horrible nausea that sends you straight to the back of the bus to sit by the toilet for fear of vomiting is one of the worst feelings I’ve ever known. Thank God we’d bought sea sickness pills for Claire for our trip to the Poor Man’s Galapagos. This meant I only had to hold off from vomiting for half an hour while they kicked in – a very painful half an hour. Bus journeys when I forget to take them are not good. Even a recent car trip, though a rather bumpy one at that, sent me to the curb as soon as the vehicle came to a halt. I hope this doesn’t last and is just a side effect of the anti-malaria medication we have been taking. Anyhoo – tangent, once again. Back to Omar.

My crappy attempt at a panorama shot of the valley

After a tour of the house and a quick squiz out the window at the view, Omar drove us 45 minutes further up the road to a viewpoint (and very randomly placed soccer field). Here, we were surrounded at every turn by Palmas de Cera. So, I must admit, that I am not normally one that will travel out of my way to see a bunch of trees, though I did click away aggressively at the Ceibo in the Amazon. To me, they are just those tall things that can come in handy for shade and rain cover, and which sometimes spring really pretty flowers. In fact, I think my knowledge of tree names is limited to the good old gum tree, which I might add grows everywhere here. How you ask? Gondwana land. Thank you year 8 geography – though one tour guide did try to tell us the Spanish brought the trees to Australia, pre it's discovery by Captain Cook. Hmmmmm. Anyway, to my mind a tree is a tree. I must admit though that in tree terms, Palmas de Cera are very special - they can only be found in Colombia, they only grow in a few isolated spots and can grow up to 80 metres tall. As far as trees go, I’d say that is fairly exciting. There is something about them that is just so out of the ordinary that you can’t help but find yourself captivated.  So, once again, though with not as much passion as Katherine who like a kid in a candy shop wowed, ooed and ahhhhhed continuously for a good hour, I excitedly clicked away at the clumps of palms that blanketed the valley and surrounding hills.

There’s a person at the bottom of that tree

Because of our over enthusiasm for wax palms, Omar decided he would give us an extra treat and take us on a special walk (up a very step hill…) retracing some of the footsteps of Simon Bolivar along the 400 (?!?! from memory, probably older) year old national treasure and government protected ‘national camino’ that joins Salento to Bogota. Which brings me to another tangent -  I cannot believe the nerve and ignorance of some people. The owner of the hostel we stayed at in Salento also owns a coffee plantation not far down the hill, reachable only on foot via a section of the ‘national camino.’  Annoyed with youngsters who often raced motorbikes down the path past the front gate of his property, this guy, after petitioning the local council to no avail, decided to take matters into his own hands and dig up the ‘national camino,’ installing steps to deter bikes. STEPS!?!? He told us all this with a wide grin on his face. I had to bite my tongue to stop myself from telling him off. He then continued to tell us other ways he had ruined this national treasure to stop people racing down. I stood their eyes wide and dumbfounded, poking Claire in the back in absolutely disbelief that someone could have such little consideration for a piece of national history.  Grrr, it still makes my blood boil. What a pompous ignoramus.

Anyway, back to Omar’s farm. That afternoon, before watching a spectacular sunset as we sat among the clouds on the mountain top, we were introduced by the property farmhand to the local game of ‘tejo.’ In typical Colombian style, the game involves none other than your good old fashioned gunpowder. The aim, to throw your metal weight onto a piece of paper full of gun powder, which is on top of a clay covered metal ring. The result, a big bang which gives everyone a heart attack for miles. If you miss the clay covered area and your ‘tejo’ goes rolling off into the distance (or nearly clonks an innocent bystander as mine nearly did) the rule goes that you have to take a huge swig of your beer. This goes on and on until someone gets 30 points, or until everyone is so blind they can no longer throw the tejo even remotely close to the clay. Sounds like a game Australians would have invented actually and one I will definitely be teaching my cousins at Christmas.

Sunset from cloud height

To complete our ‘finca’ experience we were woken up by Omar at 5am to milk the cows so we could have warm chocolate milk with our breakfast. Well, I will admit that we were spoilt. There was no trudging down to the dairy for us in the dark. Omar brought the cow right up to the house for us, with bull in toe, so we only had to walk 5 metres in the cold. The bull had come for his honey (?!?!?), which apparently he gets every morning. Random. 

Got milk?!

Holding a cup filled with chocolate Nesquik in one hand, we all, having no technique lesson, pulled, squeezed and massaged in our own different ways with the other in an attempt to get a squirt of milk out of our cow, all the while being totally upstaged by the farmhand, who seemingly without effort got a frothy coffee effect and filled his glass and those of his two children in the time we had not even half filled ours. Guess I won’t quit my day job.

Gross, warm milk…

One thing that had definitely happened on this trip – the reigniting of my childhood love of cows. They are so cute! What really made me croon though was being introduced to something I never knew existed and something that may only exist in South America – the midget cow. (Ok, so I know that is a photo of a calf, but I couldn’t manage to get close enough to a midget cow to take a good shot…) At two years old, this poor little thing was at least half the size of other cows the same age. We spent the rest of the afternoon madly midget cow spotting. I think Omar got a bit frustrated with us asking “is that a midget cow?” every two seconds.

Sadly but surely our time had come to an end with Omar and his farm, and we were taken back down to Salento to continue on our  way. For Claire and I, this meant more trees. As if I hadn’t fulfilled my Palma de Cera quota already, we piled into the back of a little blue jeep and headed a very bumpy 30 minutes out of town to the Valley of Cocora where you will find more wax palms as you wander around.  With fears about our levels of fitness and how well we are going to cope with our upcoming 5 day trek to the Lost City, though our legs were aching from a sudden exponential increase in exercise over the previous few days, we turned down the far too skinny looking horses at the front gate (that probably couldn’t have held a 12 year old in their state, let alone myself after 6 months of very little exercise) and took on the 12km on foot. The palms here were not in clumps like we’d seen with Omar, but were scattered sporadically throughout the valley. Insert dinosaurs and you would have a scene taken straight from Jurassic park. Spectacular.

By now, I was getting over green and was getting desperate for some blue – bring on the sun and surf, so we decided to beeline it straight to the coast. From Salento we braved the night bus back to Bogota (assured it was ok by our hostel owner) so that we would arrive in time to get the 5 am (eeeek) bus onto Villa de Leyva. We absolutely sweltered on the first bus. For some reason bus drivers here think people won’t notice if they turn off the air-con at night. You don’t, until you wake up in a puddle of sweat unable to breathe because the air is so thick. Gross. Everyone seems to polite here to say anything though. Instead, the men take off their shirts and use them to fan the women and children they are travelling with, all the while everyone’s skin glistens increasingly in the fluorescent lights of the bus. Lovely.

We had planned big things in Villa de Leyva – Dinosaur remains and the like - but just our luck (or wishing) the rains came in as soon as our bus pulled up at the terminal. So, instead, and am in no way am I complaining, we got to peruse the local shops (which actually had some really nice stuff, though I still haven’t lost enough things to create space in my backpack, but it definitely is getting lighter cause I am slowly leaving a trail of my belongings everywhere I go) and have a long awaited Lebanese meal for lunch. YUM! 

The baron main plaza of Villa de Leyva

From Villa de Leyva we headed further north to San Gil and then on to Taganga. Again on the advice of the hostel owner, we braved the night bus. I almost shat myself when the bus broke down at 3am in the morning. All I could see out the window was jungle and all that was running through my head was ‘crap, crap, crap, we’re doomed’ as I’m sure was happening in everyone else’s minds – no one made a peep as if our silence in the bus would stop guerrillas or anything else out there from seeing the ginormous glowing object stationary in the middle of the road. Thanks to all the really helpful people that didn’t stop to help, but just sped past. 

So after a long and fairly non-eventful few days, for the first time in over a month, I finally could see blue sea. Though Taganga wasn’t the Caribbean haven we were expecting from the rave reviews we’d heard (replace blue water with water littered by garbage) it was so nice to wake up in the morning, look out the window and see the sun and surf or laze about in the afternoon in your hammock and read a book.

The view from our room

The heat did get to me after spending so long at higher altitude. Our hostel was extremely thoughtful however in dealing with the heat issue we had and made sure we were kept cool – they only gave us bottom sheets for the beds (?!?!), and only had cold water showers, with the water functioning only sporadically. Though hard to get into at first, an ice cold shower is very refreshing when it is 35 degrees outside. I actually began to look forward to them and I must say I felt a lot better when I found out that no one in Tagana has hot water showers.

Taganga beach

Unimpressed with Taganga beach, we decided that we should venture around the point to the apparently deserted and pristine beach of Playa Grande. Replace ‘deserted’ with ‘packed full of annoying people trying to rent you a beach chair or snorkel, or offering you a greasy massage (they literally carry round a 5 litre bottle of what look likes cooking oil) and ‘pristine’ with ‘you couldn’t fit more people in the water’ and  you have a more  accurate description of Playa Grande. Unimpressed we ignored the pleas of the beach nags and kept walking along the cactus stricken path that followed the Colombian coast, round several more heads until the path gave up the ghost and we were forced to retrace our steps back to Taganga, not without excitement of course. A huge green lizard made sure it gave me the biggest fright when it scurried off the path as my foot came down right upon it.

Next, we thought we would try our luck with Tayrona National Park. Once an area controlled by the FARC, Tayrona is now a weekend haven for Colombians and now I know why. They are really onto something special. The park, which runs along the Caribbean coastline,  has some of the most spectacular beaches and coves that I have ever seen. Big grey boulders surround white sand beaches; palm trees shade sunbakers and crystal clear and wonderfully warm water laps at the sand. Put a cocktail in my hand and I would have thought I had died and gone to heaven.

 
It wasn’t all spectacular, though hilariously amusing retrospectively- it wouldn’t be an adventure without a mishap or two along the way.

Being the good little backpackers that we are, we found the cheapest way possible to get to Tayrona National Park ($5200 COP instead of the $16000 tourist trap – yay!) and in doing so got another dose of Colombian hospitality. Sitting right at the front of the bus like dorky little school kids, we were too preoccupied with gazing out the window to avoid thinking about the speed with which the driver was taking corners and dodging in and out of traffic to think about our belongings and the fact that the bus door was wide open just in front of our feet. With one violent swerve, a bag went flying out of the open bus door as the conductor hung out the side trying to get bums to fill the last remaining seats. “Did something just fall out the door?” I said to Claire as I heard a rustle and a clunk. “Ummmm….” was her reply until we both looked down to discover our bag of supplies missing from under our feet (we’d bought up big at the supermarket in preparation for the munchies as we walked the 2 hours of so into El Cabo beach. Marshmellows, packets of cookies, bottles of water, coke, we had it all). The packed bag had somehow managed to squish itself through the small gap at our feet. Next thing we knew, the conductor was off the bus, dodging traffic and risking his life to save our oatmeal cookies that were now sprawled all over the road while we sat on the bus looking like idiots having no clue whether we should jump up and help, or tell him not to bother. Ah, I thought, he is already off, and I did so very much want those marshmallows. Within a minute he handed us back a now gravel shredded plastic bag, with everything inside. Woo hoo!! Something ironic though – all the maniac bus drivers have “how’s my driving stickers” on their back windows. Hmmm. I wonder sort of response you would get if you rang the number.

 
As for our second story of misadventure -  we spent the night at El Cabo, where you can hire out hammocks (my new found bed – they are so comfy) or a tent. Thinking it might get a bit chilly at night, we (insert ‘stupidly’ here) opted for a tent. What can go wrong with a tent you ask yourself? Besides the fact that we had failed to notice the huge black tarpaulins that lay beside the tents that would have suggested to any intelligent person that they may leak and would end in absolute disaster should it decide to rain during the night, which it is almost guaranteed to do at this time of year. On cue, it rained.  Out we jumped and covered our tent to no avail however. Somehow, water managed to flood Claire’s side of the tent, which must have been slightly on the down hill. The poor thing woke up in the middle of the night, absolutely soaked, lying in a puddle of water. Not the highlight of the trip.

The coconut that would have landed on my head had I not gone straight into the water

To makeup for midnight water misadventures, we opted for the easy way out of the Park - we hired horses for the last hour of the journey. We weren’t going to. We were going to be good and walk the whole way in preparation for the Lost City Trek, but the guy kept dropping his price lower and lower that it became too hard to resist. Lucky me too – I finally got a good horse!!!! With the slightest squeeze off he went in a beautiful canter. YAY!

Now, back to Taganga for the 5 day Lost City Trek, which is going to be a serious test of my fitness, or lack thereof…

Ps. Have you ever seen a pineapple growing?

Weird, huh?

Colombia – how the world should be (except maybe for the cocaine)

 
Ok, it’s been a while, sorry. But Colombia has me entranced like so many travellers before me brave enough to ignore the ‘reconsider the need to travel’ warnings issued by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs.

Talking to fellow travellers along the way, you develop a list of ‘must ask’ questions. ‘How long are you travelling for?’, ‘Where have you been?’ and ‘Where are you going?’ are all stock standard. But the one question that gets the most startlingly consistent response is ‘What’s your favourite country in South America?’ Hands down, everyone replies ‘Colombia.’ When you ask why, it is the people that make this place. Everyone here, without exception so far, we have found to be so polite, so compassionate, and so willing to go out of their way to help you. From our bus driver yesterday who walked us personally to the ticket counter and inquired about tickets to San Gil for us, to our cab driver on our first night in Bogota who helped find us a hostel at 4 am in the morning - we waited in the car and he knocked on doors to ask if there was space, to the wait staff at restaurants who without fail reply ‘con gusto’ (my pleasure), and the police at the police museum in Bogota who were shocked when we said that we had not yet tried Colombian coffee and ran off and made us some, nothing seems to be too big an ask for the people of this serene country. It is a wonderful change to countries like Argentina, where wait staff raise their nose in disgust at you when you ask for another glass of wine, and throw your meal down on the table at you like you are below them.

This country is so much more than how it is portrayed. It is such a shame that its reputation remains so negative. That is not to take away from the fact that there are still huge problems here stemming from the production of cocaine, which provides the world with 80% of its cocaine and from the presence of guerrillas that still exists in the jungle and in the plains of the Andes. Current President Alvaro Uribe has made significant inroads into these issues, promoting foreign investment and creating initiatives such as Posadas Ecoturisticas de Colombia that helps families get out of the cocaine industry and into tourism or sustainable farming, however, with the Constitutional Court’s decision to block a referendum which would have allowed his re-election, after eight years of rule, by the end of May, Uribe will be no more. Instead, the people of Colombia, whom I might add are not legally required to vote, are left to decide between Mockus, a Green and favourite with the younger generations whose moto is “with education everything is possible” and Santos, Uribe’s former defense minister. Clearly two very differing perspectives on how the country should be run. It will be very interesting to see what happens come the end of May.

To add to the appeal of Colombia, the landscape is spectacular and the food hits the spot, though we have noticed a huge increase in the number of times we have to visit the ATM each week.

We began in Bogota, the capital.  The highlight had too be the police museum. Shown around by an incredibly over-smiley and pimply officer who could not have been older than 15, we got to see the ins and outs of policing in Colombia. Including a ‘special tour’ of the Cornel’s private office, where, pointing out the Cornel’s desk and chair (the only things in the room) and talking about the reason behind the colours of the Colombian flag our tour guide’s smile increased 10 fold, if that was possible. The building housed the most insane collection of weapons you will ever witness from bazookas, to guns disguised as pens, but to top it off it came complete with the blood stained floor board (no, not his blood stained jacket Lonely Planet) from where drug lord Pablo Escobar fell in 1993 when he was shot by police as he retaliated and gruesome photos of his offsiders with wholes in their heads.

Bazooka anyone? How about some rifles?!!

Interesting Colombian armed forces facts we learnt:

• Military service and training begins here as early as 10 years old (wtf?!!?)
• The size of the Colombian armed forces (police, military etc) is some 250,000. The size of the Australia’s army is 30,000 full time soldiers. Hmmm.
• There are so many types of police here, from ‘auxilaries’ to your normal officer, that it is impossible to keep track of them all and to know who does what
• What I do know it that they all look about 15 and carry semi-automatic weapons almost as big as them, slung over their shoulders. It is not uncommon to see them stationed along the side of the road, a tactic used to prevent bus hijackings. It’s really comforting to see these guys on the side of the road, not. I think this one might even be on his mobile.

 
To complete the Bogota experience, we thought we’d get some cultural experience. We ventured throughout the city on a ‘city walk’ which included the oldest chocolate shop in the city (the chocolate itself tasted like it was 100 years old, gross), and the Botero museum which houses the likes of Picasso, Renoir, Dali and Monet as well as works by Colombia’s own Botero. His specialty, slightly amusing yet endearing at the same time, are his ‘fat people’ and my favourite, his take on the Mona Lisa:

And who could go past visiting the underground salt cathedral at Zipiquira, a short bus ride from Bogota. Both haunting, yet mesmerizingly beautiful. Apparently people get married down there, some several kilometres underground. A bit eerie if you ask me.

Anyhoo, with the big 2-5 approaching for me we headed to Medellin, the second largest Colombian city, famous for once being the centre of the Colombian drug cartels in search of a good bar and restaurant scene. Hitting two big cities in a row did nothing good for our constitutions. We quickly found ourselves bored with the usual ‘head to this cathedral and then to this botanical garden’ information that sprawled the pages of our Lonely. Coupled with not being able to find the train station thanks to the totally inadequate directions from our hair extension wearing numskull of a hostel receptionist, consisting only of a wave of a hand in the air, we quickly gave up on seeing down town Medellin. We headed instead to our old time favourite, the movies. Nothing beats a movie, mega popcorn and diet coke!!

That night, with it being my ‘official’ birthday in Australia, we headed out to celebrate. We googled, researched and asked around for a restaurant with a pit of pizzazz. Just my luck though, the one that I had set my heart on no longer existed. Ignoring the requests of the sleezy cab driver, who offered to take us out for dinner we headed to another one that had taken my fancy, El Herbario. Medellin just wasn’t giving us good vibes though. We couldn’t find this one either at the address we had. With our first stroke of luck for the entire day however, while heading to the end of the street to get a cab back to Poblado we stumbled across it. Apparently here there are many houses with the same street number. Can you think of anything more idiotic.

The venue was spectacular – a converted warehouse with beautiful lighting and a live band that serenaded us from above. The food was even better. Caramelised peaches with lightly torched goats cheese and apple for entree, followed by steak with mushroom volcano (literally mushrooms exploding out of the centre of my 2 inch think steak) and for Slurry, prosciutto with rocket for entree and lemon prawns for main with a mango crème brûlée each for dessert. Accompanied by copious amounts of champagne, vine, and sticky, I was in heaven. The perfect way to begin my Colombian birthday celebrations. Thank you Cogswells! Unfortunately, Medellin did not share my happy celebratory spirits. Much to our shock, everything here closes at 12pm. I suppose it was a Tuesday. Disheartened, but not defeated we headed back to the (empty) hostel bar to continue celebrating my day of birth with Heratio, the night watchman, who continued with his calculus homework while making us more and more vodka oranges.

Ahhhh, so by now, I am officially 25, in all parts of the world. Crap, half way to 50. Claire loves that I can no longer call her ‘old.’ To celebrate my ‘South American’ turning 25, we headed out for a long awaited Thai lunch. Oh how I miss having Pad Thai every other day over here. In fact, good food like Chinese sweet and sour pork and Pad Thai are some of the things I miss the most from home. Anyways, tangent. Then lead through the winding and very confusing streets of Medellin by Claire, we arrived at a beauty spa – woo hoo!! My birthday surprise – a beauty spa package treatment!  For 3 hours I was absolutely pampered with a massage, the best facial I have ever had, my hair washed and blow dried and paraffin put on my arms and legs. Thanks Slurry!!!!!!!!!!!!! Best present ever!!!!! With my mullet (yes, I am in desperate need of a hair cut) groomed to perfection we ventured to Ay Caramba! for some Mexican to top off an all-round fabulous day bringing in the quarter of a century. I really felt like dessert, but we couldn’t find any ice cream shops. Claire, always prepared, had sneakily already got me a huge cake which she surprised me with when we got home. I thought she had fallen in the toilet with the time it was taking her. Turns out she was running to the fridge to get my cake. Which, I might add, with the help of a couple of Americans, we devoured in entirety.

To top off our Medellin experiences we ate Mondongo. I will get to what it is. By a stroke of misfortune rather than anything else, we walked into what looked like a really nice cafe where we could just grab a sandwich. It was packed and looked really nice. Unbeknown to us however, the only thing that was on the menu was this ‘Mondongo’ stuff. Either a full Mondongo, or a half Mondongo. We decided to share a full Mondongo. And now I know, I’m glad I didn’t eat a whole one myself. What arrived at out table was a huge bowl of soup, a banana and an avocado. Random. Looking around, the locals just grabbed the avocado and ate slices of it. We quickly followed. We later learned that the banana was supposed to go in the soup. I’m sure we looked silly eating it normally. Anyway, putting the banana in the soup wouldn’t have changed anything. It was what was in the soup that was the problem - a slightly fury looking thing. You know the coral that looks like it is hairy, the one that sways with the currents of the ocean. This looked like that, except the ‘this’ was TRIPE. VOMIT! Scared for life!!!

OMG – IT”S TRIPE!!!!

Desperate for some country air we decided that we would loop back south from Medellin to La Zona Cafetera – to the small town of Salento, an hours drive from Armenia. Salento’s surrounds are absolutely breath taking. Luscious green valleys full of coffee plantations is all that exists for miles.  The town itself is an eclectic mix of colours. The houses have bright funky coloured doors – blues, pinks, yellows and inside, bicycles and sombreros hang from the ceiling. But the best part of Salento is what is just outside it, in the Valley de Cocora. It is one of the only places that you will find palmas de cera or wax palms in Colombia and in the world. These amazingly weird trees that were traditionally used to make candles but that are now protected, take some 200 years to get to the height you see in the photo. Some grow as high as 80 metres tall.

The valley looks like a scene straight out of Jurassic Park!

The best part of Salento however had to be our trip to a Salento local named Omar’s dairy farm. Around the hostel dining room table our first night in Salento we were lucky enough have started chatting to an English traveller, Catherine. Talking away late into the night while waiting for photos to upload, Catherine told us of her plans for the next day. She was heading up to the El Rocio, ‘Eagle’s Nest,’ being picked up by Omar at 630 the next morning. It sounded spectacular. The property, with no electricity, is set high up in the hills of the national park. At night, sitting around the fire, you can look out the big glass windows 180 degrees, and see over 18 towns that light the valley below.  Understandably, with little coaxing, she managed to convince us to join her and a Swiss guy Julian for the 630 am pick up.

After organising a wake up call with the bizarre night watchman (our phones were both dead – Colombia has weird power points), we rushed back to our rooms (it being now about 1130 pm) to begin packing a little bag. Being the polite dorm mates that we are, we packed our bags outside our dorm room and put our bags in an empty room so not as to disturb everyone when we got up in the morning. However, our 6 am wake up call by the ‘bizarre night watchmen’ never came. Luckily, my paranoia about not waking up on time meant I was waking up every half an hour or so all night. When I looked at my watch and realised that it was 610 we jumped up and raced to get dressed, only to find an angry sign and big padlock on the door of the room where we had put our bags. With Claire’s clothes locked inside, I raced up to reception to find the ‘bizarre night watch man’ still snoring. Helpful. Anyway, we finally got our bags released and off we headed with Omar.

To be be continued… I have to get on a bus to the BEACH!!

Being George (or Jorge in these parts) of the jungle

The jungle is always something that I’ve been drawn too. No idea why. Maybe it is because it holds some crazy figure like 1/2 of the worlds flora and fauna. And, I’ve always wanted to see an anaconda in the wild since seeing the movie ‘Anaconda’ when I was little. For some reason it has stuck in my mind.

So, for 3 nights and 4 days we lodged and canoed (electric canoe that is) through a slice the Ecuadorian part of the Amazon Jungle, piranha fishing, monkey spotting, dolphin watching and swimming in the river to our hearts content.

  
Zooming along in our electric canoe

Expecting to be rouging it because we’d gone for the cheapest lodge we could find – Jamu Lodge - we were pleasantly surprised to find ourselves living rather luxuriously, except for the cold water showers, and occasional animal that pooped in your room thanks to open air living. Warned to check your gumboots for spiders before putting them on, and to check toilet bowls before sitting down for frogs, we all survived the Amazon without an major incident, except for Claire, who thought she would try her luck swimming with piranhas and electric eels.

After returning from our jungle walk during which we got trapped in a torrential downpour, we all had to wash our gumboots. With the submerged section of the pontoon occupied with the rest of our group, Claire decided she would join Washington, our guide, and dip her feet into the water while leaning on what turned out to be a not so stable chair. As she attempted to delicately dangle her foot into the water the chair toppled over, and so did Claire, headfirst, straight into piranha and electric eel infested  water.  Washington was very quick to react, and immediately pulled her to safety, all before I even knew that she had gone in. I was busy making splashing noises with my gumboots while trying to wash them, and had not even the fuzziest idea what had happened until someone, whom I thought was playing a practical joke said “Claire just fell in the water.” I looked up to see her saturated from head to toe, sitting on the pontoon, her hand full of thorns from a prickly tree.

   The remnants of Claire’s fall. Spot the floating chair…

I didn’t fancy trying my luck with electric eels. Instead, I voluntarily let a creepy crawly climb all over my face, and not a small creepy crawly at that – an enormous tarantula. On a night walk through the jungle, Washington, our jungle guide, spotted a huge tarantula in its hole. After carefully coaxing the thing out of its hole with his fingers (?!?!) he offered it around for people to hold. Little did I know at the time, but Washington’s plan was to then make it crawl up your neck and sit on your face. Ewwww, it felt gross. Your initial reaction is to flick the thing off, but instead you just stand there squirming for fear of it biting you. One of the girls on our tour took a photo of it sitting right on my cheek. I’ll post it as soon as I get it.

Apart from the creepy crawlies, the jungle was absolutely spectacular. As you drift down one of the many rivers that will eventually flow into the Amazon, you are immersed in a world of the brightest and biggest blue butterflies you will ever see (known as morphos’), complete with monkeys soaring above your head trying to cross the river (not all making it). Here is one that did:

But my favourite parts of the whole trip had to be swimming in the river (well away from where the electric eels and piranhas call home) as the sun set in the distance and piranha fishing. Who knew that piranhas would be so difficult to catch?! One fishing line lost two hooks in a matter of minutes because the greedy little things with their razor sharp teeth took the whole thing off in one bite. I must say, ii takes quite a bit of technique to catch them, though by the end of the day we’d pretty much all mastered the jerk necessary to trap them on the hook. Somehow though, the hook never really seem to get them well enough. All my piranhas managed to escape just before I got them into the boat, which I’m retrospectively thankful for. Many piranhas dropped off the line just as they were suspended over the boat. Loose piranhas failing around on the floor of our canoe caused much panic and rocking of the boat for fear of loosing toes! On several occasions, we were all almost piranha bait! 

No anaconda though, poo!

The Amazon at sunset

I cannot say that I wasn’t a bit fearful about arriving in the small town which our tour departed from – Lago Agrio. Lonely Planet describes it as a FARC haven. Apparently they cross over the Colombian/Ecuadorian boarder and hide out here when they start feeling the heat. Hmmmm. To add to my fear of the FARC, we were told we had to take a night bus to Lago Agrio, though we’d planned to get a midday one. According to many travellers, night buses are a faux pas in Ecuador, many people being victims of bus robberies. Luckily for us, our biggest happening that night was the complete lack of air conditioning on a bus with no windows. While a chilly night outside, the temperature inside the bus rapidly became that of a sauna. That will happen when there are 40 people breathing for 7 hours with no means for air to circulate. Gross. Even though I stripped down to a singlet, and rolled up my light cotton pants to my thighs, I was still left sitting in the most uncomfortable heat I have ever experienced. Forty-five degree temperatures in Walgett cannot even compare. And, like clockwork, we both developed colds that we are still trying to shake. Not wanting to relive that nightmare, we splurged on the way back and flew home to Quito.

Though getting over Quito, having to wait until 11pm to catch our bus to Lago Agrio did mean that we had some time trek out to the ‘must do while in Ecuador’ equator. In typical Claire and Bec style however we missed the real one. Though we knew that the equator marked was at least 200m off (thanks to the French apparently) we had no idea that the real equator was marked in one of the museums close by. Whoops. Oh well, we have some good photos of the fake one.

Next stop, COLOMBIA!!