HOT SHOWERS!!!!!

After a month of showers ranging from luke warm to freezing cold, there is nothing like a HOT and POWERFUL shower. Apart from the warm showers had during my week and a bit in Medellin, I don't think I've had a hot shower since leaving Quito. Isn't it a magical thing!

Anyway, I was thinking that I should really be posting something since I am about to leave Bogota and its been a while since I last posted. A lot has happened. Let me try to give you the abridged version. I think the last time I posted I was still in the Cartagena area.

On the 17th of November, I left Cartagena and travelled south down the coast to the quiet beach town of Tolu. Its supposed to be a nice beach, yet undiscovered by the average gringo. Well, I can say half of that statement is true - the latter. The beach was not nice. About 20 kms farther south in Coveñas was a somewhat nicer beach, but still not the splendor I was expecting. It was however void of foreigners which was nice. It was nice on the drive there, passing through beautiful countryside, and knowing that very few foreigners go this far. It wasn't however anything like what was to come.

After leaving the coast, I travelled inland to an spot even more off the gringo trail, to Mompos. Mompos was never one of my original destinations, but when I was told what a wonderful and well preserved little colonial town it was I thought it might be a nice little stop on my way to Bogota. Unfortunately, again I was not overly impressed. I had imagined a little riverside town, so deep in Colombia that it had changed little over the last 500 years. I guess that is the problem with travelling with high expectations. The town was ok, it had 7 churches and a nice waterfront, but nothing to write home about... so I stop here. Oh wait, I saw a sloth... there was a sloth in a tree! (Emily, are you interested in that??? Maybe you can tell us about the sloth!). It was so ugly, like a giant furball coughed up by an even bigger cat!! Ok, I stop now.

The greatest thing about Mompos was its remoteness. The reason most tourists don't get there is because it is so far inland and complicated to get to. Let me describe my arrival. I left Tolu at 6am and got a bus to the closest city of Sincelejo. From there I took a taxi for an hour with my friend Fabio, a man and his little daughter, and an old man sitting in the passenger seat. The taxi dropped us off at the side of a river where I took a "ferry" across the Magdalena river, zigzaging back and forth through the dense lily pads for another half hour. The boat dropped us in a little riverside town called El Bodega, from where I took another taxi with 6 other people to Mompos, about an hour drive. We arrived early enough in the day that we were able to visit the town and leave the following morning.

The drive from Mompos to Bucamaranga was similar to the drive there, but even more remote and thus more fun. We got up at 4:30 to get the 5 am truck. From Mompos, we (Fabio and I) drove about 4 hours in the back of a covered pick-up truck with 7 other people, it was a tight squeeze. The funniest part was for the first part of the drive when they had the mud flap at the back of the truck down to keep the dust out. It was dark and all you could do was look at the person sitting across from you; I felt like an illegal immigrant trying to sneak across a border in the middle of the night!

It was a spectacular drive though. Again, I felt like I was seeing things that no other tourists get to see. We drove down the dirtiest, roughest and muddiest roads. Roads blocked by great masses of cow resting and lined with donkeys and pigs grazing. Around 7 am we started to pass kids dressed in uniform biking to school, girls in skirts riding on the cross-bar a a boy's bike. We passed kids diving into the ditches, flooded by the high river, and mothers washing their little babies on the roadside. At one point we passed a guy working on his boat at the canoe at the side of the road. He turned, and with a huge smile, blew a great big arm sweeping kiss. Now, it could have been intended for any of the other men riding in the back of the truck, or perhaps for the old lady carrying the 1984 Crown´s TV on her lap, but I like to think it was for me! *sigh*

So anyway, this route went kinda like this: Truck, truck on ferry across river, truck, boat across river for 20 minutes, then bus for something like 5 hours. By the end of the trip I was completely exhausted.



Fabio knew a young Colombian couple in Bucamaranga, so I stayed two lovely nights with them. They were so hospitable and it was such a nice break from staying in hostels. I left Fabio with them for a week of spoiling and moseyed on my way.

From Bucamaranga I went to San Gil and Barichara, still about 8 hours north of Bogota. Barichara was a really cute white washed colonial town. From there I did a 2 hour walk down a trail to the little (even cuter) village of Guane. This was an interesting hike! I was told given a map of Barichara with an arrow in the top corner with a note saying "Guane". So, I made my way across town to this road. After walking some time I realized that I was walking down a road... like a proper paved road, not the "camino", or path, I was expecting. I waved down a truck and asked them about getting to the path. The driver told me I would have to walk down the road some more until I got to "las piedras", the rocks/stones. Well, as my luck goes, the side of the road was covered with rocks, big and small. Finally I came to a point with a stone fence and a small passage through it. Feeling uncertain, I surveyed the path below. I couldn't see the end of the path but I could see a dirt road a the bottom of the hill, so I passed through the fence and wandered down. Sure enough, when I got to the bottom of the hill I discovered (thankfully by footprints only) that this was not the correct path and that rather I was in the middle of a cow field and surrounded by barbed wire fences on all sides. I hurried back up the hill and continued down the road. FINALLY, after some time I came to the marked entrance to the path. The walk was nice, quiet, and scenic. I did however, come head to horn with some cattle at one point and had to come up with my own alternate route - climbing over the stone fence containing the path, throwing my half eaten mango at the cows, getting paranoid about snakes, grabbing a stick and hurrying down the path. In the end I made it to the wittle itty bitty town of Guane, really cute and oooh so tiny. I guess, being such a small place, the transport services aren't all that frequent. Since I had to make a connection in Barichara back to San Gil, and it was already 5:30 pm, I hired the son of the corner bar owner to give me a lift back on his motocycle for 5,000 pesos... it was good fun.

Oye... I did say abridged didn't I?

Ok, so at 8am the morning of the 23rd I got a bus to Villa de Leyva (or rather to Tunja, and then another bus from there). Unfortunately, I chose the bus that broke down the minute it pulled into the station (payed for the ticket before it arrived), then proceeded to break down 3 or 4 other times on the road. I guess, on the bright side, it did provide a great opportunity to get off the bus and stretch.

Villa de Leyva is another beautiful colonial town with, I think, the biggest main plaza in all of South America. It is a popular weekend destination for Bogateños so there aren't too many good deals to be found there. I only stayed one night. The following morning I got up early and went off on another walk. First, I walked 5 kms to a museum that holds an unmoved dinosaur fossil. The fossil is of a prehistoric sea creature. It was pretty cool, and supposedly the region is filled with sea fossils. From there I walked another 4 kms (the whole time questioning where I was going and how much farther I would walk while wondering this) to an archeological site dated 200 years B.C. named (by the good Catholic Spaniards) El Infernito, the little Hell. The site was scattered with these, oh so sinful, ... stones.

Ok, best leave it at that. I will write about Bogota later.

And for those of you who sat through it all, here are some pictures. I am having problems at the moment uploading pictures to the blog.

An exciting few days!

Mum, you remember the time that Corene Taylor and I decided to play in the muddy vegetable garden one spring way back when and we got stuck and thought it would be a good idea to just lay Corene's coat out like an island and sit on it until help came? Well, I had similar experience just the other day, though I must say this mud time was much more fun and with fewer consequences.

This week I went to a mud volcano about 60 kms north of Cartagena. I wasn't sure exactly how this phenomenon works, so I have taken the liberty of finding someone else's definition online. According to this source, a mud volcano is

created by natural gases emitted by decaying organic matter underground. As the mud is pushed upwards by the gas, it deposits and hardens above ground. As more mud oozes out and spills over the edge it grows in size, gradually forming what you can see today - a miniature volcano with a rich, creamy mud crater at the top.

Well, I must say, when we arrived it certainly wasn't what I expected. As we came to the top of a hill, our taxi driver pointed to what, from that angle, looked like a gigantic ant hole at the end of the road. At the bottom of the hill were the usual kiosks and vendors selling everything to make a buck, even empty pop bottles filled with mud from the volcano for its curative purposes. After paying my 2,500 peso entry, I made my way up the wobbly looking stairs to the crater of the volcano. When I got to the top I found a crater of about 3 or 4 metres squared full of gooey grey mud, laughing Grey People, and screaming, SCREAMING babies who wanted to be anywhere but in this scary unidentifiable muck.

It's funny because I really had no idea what to expect when I arrived there. I hadn't really imagined what it might be like once inside the volcano. Well, first of all, something completely understandable but something I hadn't thought about at all is that because this IS a volcano of sort, it is also bottomless. Try as you might, you won't find a bottom. This may worry you, but sinking to the bottom is impossible. The consistence of the mud is such that you actually have to work quite hard to get yourself covered in it. Its actually easier to roll yourself in the mud than to submerge yourself. It has a kind of puddingy texture. You can float in it, but you can't swim. If you set out to 'swim' to the other side of the crater you will find yourself paddling with all your might and moving very little. I actually got into the pool in the most unorderly way, but very 'Laura' nonetheless. Apparently, along the edge of the crater there is a ledge. The guy told me to step there, which I did but unfortunately I only got the edge of the ledge and lost my grip. Well, you can imagine what happened next. That foot sunk into the mud, and I fell backwards with one foot deep in the mud, my face up to the sky, and the other leg still clean and sticking up and over the edge. Very lady-like. Myself, and my companions (Niamh, Fabio, Alicia, and Gabrielle) played around in the mud for around 2 hrs. The girls got massages from the guys working there and though they looked divine I have learnt from my last massage experience in Cusco and declined the offer... multiple times. haha.

After getting out of the mud you have the problem that you are now covered, quite literally, from head to toe in mud. Solution: down to the river. Now, this was an interesting experience. Upon arriving I realized that it was not so much a river, or a lake, or a pond, but rather a bog, wherein I was about to clean myself off in. Not being a huge fan of water I can't see through, and particularly, water with millions of little lily pads, I was a little reluctant to entre. Fortunately, there were some nice ladies standing by the edge and one of them led me safely in. When we got out far enough she told me to sit, and at that point I realized that these women were here to help us wash off. This was an extremely peculiar experience, I felt like a little baby all over again. This woman had a little bowl and she used it to pour the swampy water all over me, washing my hair, washing the mud off my back and shoulders, and even sticking her finders in my ears to get any stray mud out of there. Then, before I knew it ***WAM BAM RACK OF LAMB*** the lady had my bikini top off and was washing it clean in the swamp!!! Wow, talk about a shocker! And I couldn't stop laughing for the life of me. I tried to warn my friend Niamh who was a couple metres away being bathed by another woman, but couldn't easily since my lady kept pouring water over my head. Then, after replacing my top, she ordered me to take off my bottoms so she could wash them off too. This was ok though since the water I was sitting in came up high enough. Anyway, she got me quite clean and it was a really fun experience in all.

My second exciting trip was probably the most adventurous so far of my travels. A couple days ago Niamh, Fabio and I thought we might like to check out this famous Playa Blanca (White Beach). There are several ways of getting there, and I guess we took the most inconvenient. The easiest way to get there is to do a tour of some other islands and then on the way back to Cartagena they stop at the beach for lunch and a swim, but if you like you can just get off and stay a few days. Instead, because we weren't too keen on the island tour we thought we would just get there on our own. The easiest way to do this is to get a taxi down to the market (ew so dirty) and get a boat from there to the island where the beach is. This we did. However, after finding a boat and sitting on it for an hour waiting for it to leave, we eventually got off after several other locals because they didn't think it was going to leave. Probably better that way since the boat looked over capacity anyway. Unfortunately the boat left about 10 minutes after we got out.

We decided then that we would try the longer and more complicated voyage. This meant taking a bus (ours had excellent taste in decor!), then a ferry, then a jeep or some kind of transport, then walking. A total of up to 3 hours. By this point two other women we had met a few days earlier had joined us. So off we went. Everything went smoothly and at every changing point the local people were very helpful in getting us oriented, until we had crossed on the ferry (aka a big canoe with two men frantically paddling against the current to reach the right spot on the other side). Once across we found that it was too late to get a jeep and all that was left was a group of young men waiting with their motorcycles. This is what we here call a mototaxi. The walk to the beach would have been about 3 hours longer and after weighing out options we decided to take the mototaxis to the next town and from there we would walk the last hour and a half. I don't know that I have ever been on a motorcycle, I think I have but can't remember when, but this was more fun than anything yet. Here we were, this convoy of five mototaxistas and their gringo clients. In fact, it was so much fun that by the time we got to the next town I was more than willing to pay the price all the way to the beach, and so that is what we did. And it was a good thing too, because while I thought the roads were rough getting to the town, they got far worse the farther we got from the town. Puddle after puddle, and deep ones too! I even had to get off and walk around a couple because we weren't sure if we could make it through. And the mud!!! I had a great time playing in the mud a few days earlier, but I wasn't much looking forward to falling into it that day. Finally, after much difficulty we finally arrived to the beach with smiles on every ones faces. I think I would have been happy to turn around and go back again through it. After making our way through, the 10,000 pesos we were paying them for the ride really didn't seem as much as it did at the beginning. So, in good 'Laura' fashion I offered them each a banana (of which unfortunately weren't in particularly great condition after the ride!).

The beach was absolutely gorgeous. However, we arrived at about 1pm and were starving, so rather than hitting the beach we had some lunch..... great fish!! By the time we had eaten, relaxed, and swam for a while (ooh, the water was soooo warm and blue! I could actually see through it, just as I like it) the sun was going down and it was getting cooler. Unfortunately, after going though hell to get to the beach (a very amusing hell) the lovely electric storm we admired that night across the sea actually turned into a horrible storm that lasted from the middle of the night onto about 3pm the following afternoon. At that point we were thoroughly unimpressed and decided to return to Cartagena rather than spending another night. Although the weather is nice now, it rained again this morning so I don't regret the decision. Plus, had we stayed we would have had to either stay the night with the French religious fanatic Gilbert, or with the crazy pathological lying German, Raymondo. The German was definitely more entertaining.

Anyway, that's it for now. Onto new adventures!

A Parque National Tayrona review for those who don't like to read a long story unless it involves themselves...

The location














The "hotel" and accomodation

The Backyard

The Neighbours

The Food

Ahoy!!

I am writing now from the absolutely beautiful and enchanting city of Cartagena on the Caribbean coast of Colombia. Of the colonial cities I have seen in my day this one is certainly on the top. I mean, I can't turn a bleedin' corner in this city without taking one, two, maybe even three pictures, often of the same wall. Its hopeless. Have a look at the pictures, the historic centre of the city is made up of narrow one-way streets lined with tall and colourful houses, each a different colour from the one beside. To add to it, many of the houses have these gorgeous balconies and wooden "bars" (I have no idea how to describe them) around the windows. Honestly, its impossible to refrain from taking pictures, it really is.

Not only is the city beautiful, but it has a really old colonial port city kind of feel to it - I feel like I am in a pirate movie or something.

You know, I have always wanted to be a pirate so this is the perfect place to live out that dream. What's even more perfect is that with the huge (I mean really wild) week long festival going on here, no one really notices a foreign gal running around the streets with a red bandana tied around her head, a cover over one eye, and an open bottle of rum in hand. Its completely acceptable!

Last night was the second last night of this huge bash (the Independence Day of Cartagena). The night started with a big parade passing my hostel. On my way back from the centre to view the parade I noticed that several people were throwing flour or pouring paint on each other, a couple guys thought they would like to get me with the paint, but I gave them a good look and they changed their minds....

After the parade a group of us went down to the plaza at the end of the road where the whole neighbourhood had gathered to dance and drink and throw mini fire crackers. So here I am, oh so cautiously making my way through the crowd trying to watch out for guys lighting these terrifying explosives when we came to a cross roads. It was kinda dark and we (myself and travelmates) weren't sure which road we should take. Finally, we came to a conclusion and just as I take the first step in our new direction I see this pair of hands coming for my face, blurring my vision. The next think I know, these wet hands are a being rubbed all over my face, in my eyes and in my mouth. I thought to myself, is this water all over my face? Wishful thinking I guess. I wipe my face with a finger and to my surprise I realized that my face (and shirt) was now covered in wet bright blue paint. Yup, everywhere. It was good fun though, I got a lot of impressed looks from the locals.

Here is a video of the entertainment that hop from bus to bus making money:



Anyway, here are some pictures of Cartagena.

More Medellin pictures

Remember I was saying the Chiva bus in Ecuador was slightly inadequate? These are what real Chivas should look like!!



















Another form of "Campesino" (farmer) transportation from Santa Fé de Antioquia.

The Metro and Metro-cable (pronounced: metro-cablay)

El Penol de Guadape. This is a huge bullet shaped rock the is just sticking out of the earth. The "GI" written on the side is actually the beginning of GUADAPE, started 3 years ago and never completed.. not sure why. When you get to the top there is an amazing view over what looks like a lake district but is actually an artificial recervoir, or in other words, the tops of mountains as opposed to individual islands.... and don't anyone give me any of that "...but islands are tops of mountains" crap!!

Famous Colombian artist Francisco Botero's Birds of Peace, Parque San Antonio, Medellin. The original one was once a bright, plump canary. Today, it sits charred with its body blasted open and jagged edges exposing its hollow core. The second bird, a perfect duplicate, stands tall (at Botero's request) beside the original as a statement against the guerrillas who bombed the first Bird of Peace statue in 1996.

Santa Fé de Antioquia, 1.5 hr drive from Medellin. Part of which is through a tunnel lasting 6 minutes!!! Not comfortable.

The long awaited (yeah, I'm sure!) Ecuador Update.

For anyone interested in how the elections went in Ecuador this is what I have understood of the situation. Noboa (1) and Correa (2) won with the most votes. However, because neither had at least 40% of the votes there will be a run-off election between the two of them at the end of November. There were some problems which I don't really understand and haven't seen much reported on with the online voting system. I think the system didn't count the votes properly or completely messed up thus losing a large percentage of votes. As I say though, I am not exactly sure whether this is correct or not. In any case, there will be another election the end of November between Noboa and Correa.

Halloween in Medellin, Pablito, and more....

Let me just start with how much I love Medellin. I have been here just over a week now and I am trying to brainstorm ideas that will allow me to stay which don't include being locked behind bars or dragged into the jungle. Why do I love Medellin, well that's a very good questions. Let's see.... (1) Its a nice size, not too big not too small; (2) It is a really clean city, which I think is partly due to all the abuse the city took in the 80s and 90s with the guerrillas and the drug cartel, the people here are really proud of their newly regained city and try to keep it as clean and comfortable as possible. The streets here are 100 times cleaner than the streets in Toronto. Also, the city is COVERED in green, green trees. I love it. The residencial neighbourhoods up on the hill are so green and fresh felling. (3) It is the most modern Latin American city I have been in, complete with a 3 metro/ sky train lines and a metro cable (like a ski lift) that goes up the side of a hill giving access to the poorer people who live there. (4) And last but not least, the people are lovely. Like I think I said before, because Colombia has so much fewer tourist than Peru and Ecuador the people here aren't tainted by foreigners' cash. They are far more genuinely interested in you as person than your money. Its nice. Also, for that reason its easier to make friends with local people. I found that in Ecuador it was really fun to have normal relationships with local people.

Halloween really snuck up on me here, I wasn't prepared and thus I had probably the worst costume ever. I cut two eye holes out of the new hair scarf I'd just bought, then ended up wearing the damn thing around my neck all night. In any case, it was a good night. I went with some friends from the hostel to a bar/club called Mangos. You've probably never heard of it but its supposed to be pretty renowned around South America and back in the day used to be frequented by the rich and powerful drug lords of Medellin with their plastic ladies. Man, I don't think I have ever been in a room with such a high volume of silicone. Unbelievable. However, despite the unnatural cup sizes that surrounded me, I was impressed with the costume selections. I hate that Halloween in Canada has become an opportunity for girls of all ages to dress in the skimpiest thing they can find, its so boring. Here, I don't know if its because Halloween is still a relatively new holiday, but girls here actually still wear stupid clown costumes, scary, witch outfits, and FARC guerrillas. There were the few token French maids and sexy devils, and such, but not as many as in Canada. Mangos is a pretty entertaining place with lots of hired entertainers, dancers, ect. On the 31st, there were tons of little princesses, super heroes and ninjas running around town going from store to store collecting candies. Its funny, unlike at home where bratty little kids are known to say things like "trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat", the kids here sing "Paz y amor, un dulce por favor". Translation: Peace and love, a candy please. Though I am sure there are a few smart asses who have created less innocent rhymes. We are supposed to be having a Halloween party at the hostel this weekend, so I will try to get pictures, though we travelers don't tend to be too creative.




This past Monday I thought I would take a wee trip to see the grave of Pablito (to some), otherwise known as Pablo Escobar. For those of you who (like I myself once was) are too innocent to recognize this name, Pablo Escobar was the drug lord (the 7th richest man in the world according to Forbes in '91) who ran Medellin for many years until he was eventually hunted down and killed by the police on a rooftop in 1993. I was hesitant at first to visit the site because I wasn't particularly keen on glorifying someone of his character, but in the end I decided to be the typical tourist and went on my way. Well, to my dismay, when I arrived at the site (with a Swedish friend Emil) I found that his grave stone had just been removed that week due to the death of his mother and probably won't be replaced for a month. So I guess its wasn't meant to be. We (or I) was frightened for a minute when all of a sudden a nipsy-rustle of soldiers climbed up out of seemingly no where and started walking towards us. My first reaction was "oh no, they think we are drug dealers because we are at the grave and they are coming to arrest us!!!" Little did I notice, not one of them was armed. They were there for the funeral of a fellow officer but a few wanted to check out the notorious Pablo's grave before the ceremony got started... how appropriate! haha. Anyway, an interesting fact, the reason some people here refer to him as Pablito (the -ito makes the name cute, like a term of endearment) is because Pablo actually did some good around Medellin. He apparently is responsible for the building of a hospital here in Medellin and several soccer stadiums and little-league soccer. But then, he was also accredited for the creation of what is known at the Colombian neck tie. Note, those with weak stomachs should stop reading.... Lieran, that means you. The Colombian neck tie is when you cut someone's throat, then pull the tongue through the gash. Sorry.. I know its gross. Anyway, if you want to read up in more detail: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Escobar#_note-0

That's all for now, here are some pics.