Chau Colombia

The end of the last post saw us just having arrived in Medellin following a terrible coach ride in arctic temperatures and Paul being bedridden after catching some sort of horrible bug, probably from him eating  some unknown stick based meat in Cartegena. Unfortunately for Paul this wasn’t a 24 hour jobby and instead he spent virtually all of the duration of our stay in Medellin curled up in a foetal position in our dorm. This was a big shame as our hostal was really plush and Medellin a pretty cool city. Luckily for me I didn’t have to explore the city alone as a german medical student called Viola, who we met during the lost city trek, joined us and showed me around, Viola having visited Medellin before. Medellin itself is a rather curious beast with the centre featuring some fairly sketchy architecture and a lot of rotund sculptures courtesy of the Colombian artist Botero.

Medellin, famously, used to be the murder capital of the world whilst Escobar was still kicking around and although far safer today the city still has a dangerous edge. A fellow traveller told us that whilst we were touring the city’s art gallery there was a murder occured on an adjoining street, a rather unnerving reminder of Colombia’s troubled past. Despite hearing some horror stories for us Colombia generally felt safe, with the huge numbers of police and army everywhere ensuring that the ministry of tourism’s catchphrase of  ‘the only risk is wanting to stay’ can be read as being just about justified.

Representing with art.

On the third day of Medellin Paul felt a little better and was able to have a look round the city and somwhat bizarrely try on a wedding dress located in a dressing up room inside the city museum. I would like to say he looked beautiful but Paul is so hairy a little bit of sick almost escaped my mouth. The horrible visage didn’t stop plenty of Colombians cracking up and taking photos though, probably in order to scare thier kids or something by proving monsters are real.

Swings overlooking Salento

Leaving Medellin we travelled to the tiny town of Salento in the heart Colombia’s coffee growing region. The town is basically geared towards the weekend when Colombians travel to the town for a big market. Arriving on a Thursday as we did, however, the place was completely deserted apart from a number of feral dogs with massive teats who kept following us around. Despite offering Paul the princely sum of $10 he refused to suckle on the aforementioned teats, much to our disappointment. Whilst in Salento we toured a coffee farm which was surprisingly interesting, the farm not just growing coffee but a variety of fruits which made it seem like a veritable garden of eden. Whilst there we talked to a Dutch couple who showed us a picture of them meeting Gabriel Garcia Marquez in a bar in Cartegena. This was extremely annoying for us as it turned out that the bar was right next to our hostal and they were there when we were there. There goes probably my only chance to meet a nobel prize winner. (Incidentally I was also reading his book ‘Of love and other demons’ which was totally ace)

Ridin´the back of a Jeep in the freezing morning air.

Leaving coffee paradise we returned to the town and to a rather strange evenings entertainment as we played a traditional game which basically involved us throwing metal discs at gunpowder with the intention of making loud explostions happen. Good fun was had by all.

Leaving Salento having picked up another german, a nice guy called Tjark, we left for Cali, Colombia’s third largest city. The city is basically known for two main things, salsa and huge breasts, with Cali being known as the plastic surgery capital of the country. Going out on a Saturday night Viola became obsessed by pointing out all the pnematic breasts on show, which was entertaining but somewhat unnerving. Whilst in Cali we also visited the city’s well maintained zoo, with it scoring big entertainment points due to the fact that the baboons were having some pretty sordid monkey sex.

Tjark throwing metal for bangs.

From Cali we travelled to the small but perfectly formed city of Popayan where we rented bikes and discovered just how unfit we were. After 30km of mainly downhill biking which nevertheless left us depressingly exhausted we rewarded ourselves with an alleged local speciality; hot chocolate with chunks of melted cheese inside. Surprisingly it was sort of edible though it left me feeling dirty inside once the final molten piece of cheese slipped down my gullet. On the subject of food Colombian, and South American food so far, has been pretty mundane, with it mainly consisting of rice, chicken, beans and grizzly soups. Seriously, the cooking is about as heavy and creative as James Cordon. This is not a good thing. Thankfully we’ve discovered the secret to eating well in South America: not eating any South American food. Recently we’ve eaten pretty well, indulging in some fairly good Italian/Vietnemese/Mexican food.

Lumps of salty cheese in hot chocolate.

Just before leaving Popayan we tried to visit a mexican restaurant around the corner from our excellent hostal. Unfortunately this restaurant had stopped serving but happily for us a Colombian family sensed our plight, taking pity on us by whisking us half way across town to another mexican restaurant which was incredibly good, providing us with one of our best meals for the pitiful sum of $3.

Saying goodbye to Viola and Tjark, who were travelling back north, we continued southwards towards the Colombian/Ecuadorian border, spending a night in the nondescript town of Pasto. Travelling to the border the next day Paul had a little bit of a problem with his entrance visa, this problem thankfully ‘disappeared’ with the application of a $20 bribe and one smiling Ecuadorian official. From the border we bussed to a town called Otavalo which is famous across South America for its Saturday market, with it being the largest on the continent. Unfortunately for us we arrived on a Thursday and so this market was present in a largely scaled back form. Paul did, however, purchase some luminous orange trousers which when worn in conjunction with his numerous bracelets make him look borderline hippy. This is worrying for me as I dislike hippies but I can’t abandon Paul as I am still reliant on his Spanish. If he grows dreads it may, however, be too much for me and I’ll be forced to abandon him to his economically parasitical existence.

King of the hill in the Zona Cafaterra

Sketchy death bridge

From Otavalo we returned to Quito, a seemingly simple trip made into total faff by the presence of a 15,000 strong band of conference attendees stealing virtually all the beds in the city. After an hour or so of fruitless traipsing around we finally got lucky, finding a hotel in the old town which we dropped our bags in before immediately leaving to get as drunk as possible with Paul`s Ecuadorian buddies.  So, 5 weeks into our trip and we’re back where we started doing the same thing again. Pro travel.