Farewell to Latinoamerica

Well, the time has come; having seriously run out of money and with no immediate prospect of gainful emplyoment here, we are preparing ourselves to go home to the UK. As I write this I am sitting in Carolina´s flat in Bogota, preparing for a last day of sightseeing (we are visiting the world´s only cathedral built entirely from salt) and packing our bags.

The last two weeks have been a welcome change of pace, as we dandled our feet in the bath-temperature water of the carribbean on the island of Baru near Cartagena. We spent our days eating freshly-caught fish, reading and snorkelling on the coral reefs next to the beach, and nights sleeping in hammocks, being eaten alive by mosquitos and lulled to sleep by the song of crickets and frogs.

Leaving this idyll was difficult despite the fierce sun, but we headed next to Medellin, Colombia´s second city and a very civilised place indeed (now that there are no motorcycle hitmen gunning down rival gangsters on the streets). We explored the city, visiting parks and heading out for a daytrip to the ancient city of Santa Fe de Antioca, a calm and pleasant 16th century town with white-washed walls and a relaxed pace.

Another restless nightbus trip and we were back in Bogota, hearing horror stories about missing bombs on the roads we were travelling by only a matter of hours (FARQ and the paramilitaries are evidently not quite finished in Colombia yet!) and chilling out with Carolina´s two kittens Cecelia and Ringo. Bogota is chilly and overcast and probably a good re-introduction to the English "summer" we are (somewhat reluctantly) heading back to, but we are also looking forward to seeing friends and family in sleepy Hereford.

Cecelia (right) and Ringo (left)

South America has been amazing, frustrating, scary, hilarious, awe-inspiring, relaxing and at times extremely challenging. Our spanish has come on in leaps and bounds, and we are both sure that we´ll be back at some time in the not-too-distant future.

PS Here are my awards for best, worst, most friendly etc.

Friendliest people: Colombia (special mention to Otovalo in Ecuador)
Best typical food: Ecuador
Most amazing landscape: Peru
Best value-for-money: Bolivia
Best music: Chile
Most comfortable place to travel: Chile
Most diverse landscape: Colombia
Most hilarious haircuts: tie between Ecuador (for sculpted hair) and Colombia (for omnipresent gangsta mullets)
Scariest journey: Cali to Pasto after dark through FARQ country
Worst drivers: A packed field, but honours probably go to Peru where our bus crashed into a stationary traffic policeman´s booth in the middle of the road
Worst food: Bolivia - particularly vegetarian-hostile and very fond of deep-frying
Favourite place: Machu Picchu at dawn
Country most likely to return to (with a job lined up or on holiday): Colombia

What, the FARC?

Had to be done, sorry. After the disastrous weekend in Bogota (where we had narrowly missed being mugged at knifepoint outside our hostel - this honour had accrued to a canadian couple who were there a couple of hours earlier), we fled up to the carribean coast. First stop was the town of Santa Marta, and the heat hit us like a wall getting off the bus. Santa Marta was a stop-off point en route to the tiny but massively crowded bay of Taganga, where Colombians were enjoying another of their unending long weekends, and Laur was set to do her PADI open water diving certificate (this means you can dive anywhere in the world, become an instructor etc).

Laur just before hitting the water

This went smoothly, and I spent the days looking for work and applying for temp jobs back in the UK, while she swanned off onto the high seas to enjoy gawping at coloured fish and coral (not bitter, really!). All was fine and we were about to set off for Cartagena, when fate dealt us another blow - I collapsed with what was at first feared to be appendicitis! Luckily this was misdiagnosed initially by a cautious, friendly German medic called Billy - who accompanied me to the hospital and explained my symptoms to the doctor in the A&E, and it turned out to be a localised infection in my lower intestine (as I write this I am still taking antibiotics - just as well as it is keeping me off the beer/rum).

The upshot of it all was another two days in Taganga while I recuperated and Laura got increasingly bored - but had the patience of saint. Eventually we hopped a bus to Cartagena, where it was even hotter if possible than Taganga. This town is a fantastic remnant of Spanish rule, with gorgeous, historical streets and graceful buildings more redolent of Venice than anywhere in latin america, and surrounded by thick medieval walls looking out onto azure seas. We´re here now, sweltering in the heat of day and wandering through the streets in the cool evenings. Tomorrow we head out to the Playa Blanca for some more horizontal time...

Otovalo and back to Colombia

When you get some bad news like that, there´s only one thing for it - shopping. En route from Quito was the lovely market town of Otovalo, home to the friendliest ecuadorians and the cheapest handmade clothing this side of the equator (just). We spent a couple of days enjoying the chilled vibe and visiting a local Condor sanctuary with some brits we met, then continued on back to Ipiales and the historic town of Popayan, which had been levelled twice by earthquakes in the past century, but rebuilt to its 16th century glory.

Laur sips coconut water at Otovalo market

A local in Otovalo with the trademark hat and ponytail

Raptors!

American eagle

King of birds - the andean condor up close!

As a stinger to the Quito disappointment, we had been presented with a ludicrous 16-point list of things to present for a visa for Laura to enter Argentina to get her flight back (passed to us from behind a mirror while other furious victims of the system raged impotently in the corridor), so we had changed it to leave from Bogota. With this in mind we headed for the mystical region of San Augustin, where hundreds of pre-Colombian statues were scattered round a huge natural reserve.

central square in Popoyan, Colombia

The dome in Popoyan, faithfully rebuilt after two major earthquakes

Having endured a long, bumpy bus ride, again through bandit country as half of Colombia seems to be, we thought the best thing for our backsides would be 4 hours in the saddle; which made for a fantastic day in an evocative landscape (pics coming!). Reluctantly leaving the idyllic ecolodge which had been our base for the previous few days, we headed back to Bogota for a final big weekend. It turned out to be a bit too big, and cultural plans (other than a fleeting visit to the Museum of Gold) were marred by a massive hangover and the loss of Laura´s camera in a taxi the night before - our streak of bad luck was continuing.

Horse-cam in San Augustin

Pre-colombian statues in the rock

Coloured statues represent life and death

Contemplating the serenity, again

view from our teepee in the eco-lodge

amazing centipede

butterfly attacks in the statue park

San Augustin

Bogota and beyond...

After a couple of fun nights drinking arguardiente and listening to vallenato with our host Colombian family, it was time to strap on the formal clothes for our intensive Berlitz teacher training. We did this over 7 intense days, as people from the class were dropping out and being compulsorily dropped out, like getting voted off a reality tv show. To add to the pressure, I had an interview for my dream job back in the UK with Oxfam, so instead of resting over the weekend I had to frantically prepare. But we passed, and were offered contracts to work with Berlitz - the next challenge would be to take Laura´s dodgy emergency passport back, through FARC and bandit country, to the Ecuadorian border, from where we would head to Quito and the Colombian embassy for our work visas.

Our introduction to Colombian bureacracy didn´t bode well, as after a relaxing weekend away with Caro at the popular colombian retreat of Melgar ("over 1000 swimming pools in this (very small) village" as a proud local told me), we were presented with the documents to take to Ecuador. Lots of them, all which needed to come from government departments, be stamped in triplicate and then verified by a public notary. Helpfully, Berlitz HR told us that we would carry all the risk and expense of getting the visa, so after a couple of frantic days complying with the bizarre legal requirements for foreigners set forth by the franky opportunistic Colombian government, changing bus ticket times as new requirements were ordained on the spot, and doing the rounds of most of the departments that deal with extranjeros, we set off on a night bus to Ipiales on the border, already reminiscing about innocent days dipping cheese in hot chocolate and having lunch in our classmate´s home.

From here things started to take a turn for the forboding; as our bus had left so late, we were going through the "most dangerous part of Colombia" (there turned out to be a few of these!!) at night, something which every blogger and guide says not to do. We passed the border quickly and without incident however, and were soon sailing back into Quito, and the lovely Colonial House Hostel, our favourite home way from home in SA where we had spent happy, innocent days drinking wine and watching DVDs from their massive collection.

The San Blas neighbourhood of Quito

Church in the centro historico of Quito

The next day dealt the body blow - because Laur was on an emergency passport, and despite the protestations of Berlitz, and the promises of myriad government officials - she was denied a work visa. Weeks of stress, expense and worry since we had first flown to Bogota had come to their perhaps predictable conclusion, and we sadly saddled up again, determined to enjoy the rest of our remaining time in SA.

Taunting the guinea pig before eating it

The main course ("cuy")

Welcome to Bogota

It's 10 June, and we have now settled into life in Bogota, Colombia. After getting wind of potential work in an English-teaching school, we saddled up and flew out of Quito last Sunday, arriving in Bogota late in the evening. Fortunately we were met at the airport by the lovely Carolina, an old friend of Laura's from London who had returned home to Colombia and was ready and willing to look after a couple of weary travellers in her chi-chi flat in Bella Suiza - once again we had landed on our feet in an upmarket part of town.

After meeting the family, and a bit of sight-seeing, it was all hands to the pump as we prepared ourselves for our foray into the corporate world. Berlitz has a strict teaching method, and since my experience had been restricted to casually-prepared Amnesty training workshops, conversation swaps with spanish teachers in La Paz and talking to big conferences, I was a little taken aback at how much real work teachers actually have to do!

Colombia however seems like a country which is really revving up in the 21st century, having shrugged off the spectre of FARC and having reigned in the drug barons - still a hot topic of conversation for Bogotonians to this day - it is powering ahead due to abundant natural resources and an increasing openess to trade and foreign investment. However it's also quite evident that widespread poverty exists, not to mention some of the most persistent begging I've experienced anywhere on the continent. But Colombians are also renowned for friendliness and inclusiveness, something I've already seen ample evidence of too.

A low point.. and another relocation

Chile, thursday 19th May and disaster strikes - while we are innocently enjoying the nightlife in downtown Santiago, a bounder of indeterminate nationality is nicking Laur´s backpack out of our supposedly secure, locked hostel. By bye laptop, credit cards, camera leads, passport, cash and, most gallingly, a box of essential oils which were making our sometimes manky budget hostel beds smell tolerable.

We tried to put it all out of our minds with a short overnight trek to the amazing, UNESCO-rated port city of Valparaiso, some 150kms from Santiago. When we arrived, we´d been walking for a short time when our throats and eyes started to burn. We´d been warned by friends the night before (the lovely Peter and Tanya Pope and a Chilean friend) that there was some heavy, demonstration-type of stuff going down in Valpo that weekend; it is the seat of government and a target for street protests. Basically, the police had spent the day tear-gassing local teenagers, and we were still feeling the fall-out the next day!

Back in Santiago, we said our goodbyes to the city and tried to get over the feeling of being violated/losing our trust, as we had been done over by a very professional thief taking advantage of the easy-going environment of the traveller "community". We flew to Quito in Ecuador the next afternoon, on what turned out to be a 7-hour flight (I had mentally prepared myself for 3 hours), and arrived tired and spaced out at our hostel in the hectic Mariscal area of downtown Quito, sharing a taxi with a young american medical student.

Main square of Quito in the centro historico

Tumbling bouganvilleas in our side trip to Banyos

The next day we checked into another hostel, and started to repeat the process of finding a longer-term stay and a spanish school. Quito, like La Paz, is in an incredible location, with towering green Andean mountains to one side, and is huge colonial historical centre, where we wandered into the Mercado Central, dodging the frantic buses that hurtle down the middle of main roads oblivious to wandering school-children. Apart from another nasty shock as a delayed bank statement showed that our stolen debit card was used to take money from our account the day that Laur´s bag was stolen, it´s been a sunny and fascinating stay in Quito so far and we are looking forward to possibly settling in here for a while.

A museum in Banyos

Interior of the Compania de Jesus church in Quito

Paradise regained

After bussing through the somewhat less-than-inspiring desert in Chile's north - or maybe I am being unfair comparing the north of Chile to the south of Bolivia - we came to the pleasant port town of La Serena, which largely lived up to its name. We spent a couple of relaxed days in the town or on its beach nearby, and where we saw Chilean political protest in action - about a hundred students and families protesting about some environmental outrage or other. The next day we ventured out on a boat to see the Humbolt penguin reserve; no luck spotting dolphins or whales but we did see an otter having lunch, which was great.

Flee!

Humbolt penguins doing their thing

Sea otter almuerzo

Having exhausted the possibilities in La Serena we ran the gamut of colectivo drivers trying to turn a profit from some tourists on a slow day, and sped off through Vicuna, later to arrive in a veritable oasis, the fantastic Elqui Valley a few hundred miles north of Santiago. It's a geographic anomoly, with towering desert mountains on either side of a lush, permanently watered valley covered in pisco and malbec vineyards. We opted for the most remote village in the region to stay, and were so glad we did that we extended our stay at the wonderful Tresora de Elqui hotel by another two nights.

horsemen in the Elqui Valley

long view of Elqui Valley

the moon through a mamalluca telescope

The lifestyle here is more reminiscent of Italy, Spain or France - days involve lounging by the pool in the fierce sun, reading in Castellano, cycling to artisanal villages and pisco vineyards, and continuing our remote job search for Ecuador. At night we wander about town or visit the terrific Mamalluca Observatory - the biggest telescope in the world, through which I actually saw Saturn with my own eyes! Our companions continue to be a strange melange of europeans: german families, posh english gappers, tourists from other parts of Chile, and the pace of life is relaxed. It will be a struggle to pull ourselves away from this little idyll for the trip to Santiago, but all good things must come to an end...

Enjoying some local vino collapso after a long ride

A Chile reception...

Haha, sorry I couldn't resist. We've finally arrived in Chile, showered and checked into a fab little hostal in the desert town of San Pedro, near the border with both Bolivia and Argentina. We've had an amazing couple of days tripping round the psychedelic landscapes of the south-west of Bolivia; seen the world's largest salt flat which was covered in water, and which produced optical illusions such as cars and mountains floating hundreds of metres off the ground.

the train cemetery outside Uyuni

Laur playing in the salt flats

flamingos grazing in the amazing lake colorado

We've seen bright red lakes and martian landscapes of red soil and towering multi-coloured mountains, flocks of pink flamingos and andean foxes, and had a freezing, eerie early-morning start today where we visited huge craters spewing sulfur fumes, bubbling rock and steam into the air. The circuit is dominated by europeans with the odd Aussie thrown in, so we've been discussing european politics and dredging up our schoolboy/girl french and german - we're thinking once we've conquered spanish these are next on the list!

the stone tree in the surreal uyuni desert

relaxing in the hot springs

San Pedro is small, welcoming and very gringo-centred, much more so than anywhere we have been in Bolivia and Peru, so we are going to recuperate here for a few days before we head south to Santiago. More pics to come in future updates...

Leaving La Paz...

After 3 months of intense study and relative luxury in our penthouse suite in Sopocachi, we're finally hitting the road. We've had a fun farewell week, playing Wallyball and hitting the clubs in La Paz, but it's time to stuff everything into our suitcases and head for the (apparently amazing) Uyuni Salt Flats which border Bolivia and Chile. Paid work in South America continues to prove elusive, but there have been hopeful signs recently, and certainly our spanish is improving out of sight - que bueno!

dancers at the Oruro Carnival

Cholita wrestling!

Balcony view of the Yungas in Coroico

We've managed to make some friends here too, and had some valuable english/spanish conversation swaps with a range of people, been to jazz bars, house parties and exhibition openings, visited museums, cholita wrestling and folklorica penas, mini-breaked in tropical resorts in the Yungas and the Inca heartland - the Isla del Sol where the sun was apparently born, hiked in the mountains and all around the vertical streets of La Paz, seen Bolivia's biggest street carnival, made offerings to the earth god Pachamama, celebrated the day Bolivia lost the sea in a war with Chile, watched KKK-resembling easter processions and heard distant dynamite explosions as half the workforce of Bolivia marched out in protest at their low salaries.

Semana Santa procession

A car dressed up for Palm Sunday

However, the nights are starting to get nippy up on the altiplano, and we are keen to get some beach time before we fly on to Ecuador for the next major stage of our trip. We'll be off-line for a while in the Salar but back in touch when we get to Chile - stay tuned!

Laur´s favourite lagoon in Bolivia

A giant turtle in the southwest desert in Bolivia

Life in La Paz - 1 Mar 2011

It´s been a while since we have posted (2 weeks to be exact) and we are settling in comfortably into life in La Paz. We are living with a lovely family in Sopacachi, the swankiest part of town - our neighbours are embassies, language schools, western-style cinemas and galleries, although we´re only ever a few minutes away from poverty and pollution. San Pedro prison is about 10 minutes walk, almost close enough to hear the riots that have been happening there recently.

Our routine is to do classes during weekdays, studying at night and fitting in cultural stuff - concerts, films (en espagnole naturalamente) and museums. This weekend we are off to the carnaval in Oruro, the biggest cultural event/fiesta of the year for Bolivia. We´ve been quite lucky with our timing, as we also experienced Peru´s biggest festival last month purely by chance (Candeleria).

Our host family are a grandmother (Bertha), mother (Pamela - who runs the house) and daughter (Pamelita - "little Pamela") who are very chatty and welcoming. We have superb views of La Paz and the surrounding crater/mountains, and a good kitchen so we can recover from the inevitable problems we have with local food and water (not having built up resistance to bugs). We haven´t met many other gringos yet, but have our first house-party to go to soon, so we hope will be able to make a bit of a network of acquaintances.

Classes are going really well, and we are improving slowly but surely - especially being able to speak to the family when at home, and to people when out in the street. It´s a pleasant life and although we miss our friends and family, we feel quite at home here.

Settling into La Paz - 13th Feb 2011

Today we continued to get to know our new home, dealing with the effects of altitude (shallow breathing, high heart rate and bizarrely in my case, swollen lips) and researching accommodation and language school options. We visited a gigantic Sunday market, where stall after stall featured miniatures of everything you could imagine, from cars and money to shops, clothing, electrical goods etc. These were all made so that people could take them to be prayed over, in the hope that they would acquire them in the coming year, and it was quite a little industry in Bolivia.

A large part of the afternoon was spent sitting in a cafe with wi-fi trying to work out what our options would be, something which we are still not sure of exactly. In the evening we decided to try out La Paz’s art-house cinema, watching a documentary about SA politics over the past decade or so which was absolutely fascinating (although a challenge to our Spanish skills in parts). On the walk home we discovered the Japanese cultural centre, which had an excellent restaurant in it – two more reasons to be deeply enamoured of La Paz.

Copacabana to our new home - La Paz! - 12th Feb 2011

A pleasant morning lying on the beach waiting for our boat back to Copa this morning, and we had time to check out the Inca steps leading up to where we had stayed the previous evening. Our money was running out, and fuelled only by chips and salsa and an apple, my tummy was grumbling all morning and I was started to grumble myself. Once back on the mainland, Laura did a market run and soon we were happily eating cheese rolls and on the bus again to La Paz, our final destination for the time being.

me being unhappy with dinner last night

more reed boats in the Isla del Sol port

The bus trip across the straights was broken up by a short ferry crossing where we had to disembark and our bus went on its own ferry across the water while we went onto a passenger one, a very efficient operation as tens of buses would pass through this area each hour. We seem to be travelling with young germans now who are a suitably enthusiastic peer group, and also running into other gringos from different stages of the same circuit, in that way that you do.

Our bus catching the ferry across the straights

My holy footwear

The rest of the bus trip seemed to go quite slowly as the landscape changed around us – Bolivian mountains being more rounded with funny-shaped peaks, and the ever-present snow-capped peaks of the Cordillera Real mountain range in the distance, which we had admired from afar on Isla del Sol.

the Cordillera Real

And what an amazing sight greeted us when we finally rounded the corner from El Alto – the indigenous town above La Paz itself – and saw the dramatic location of the city. It is set into a huge crater, with green land on one side and houses steeply built into the rim of the crater on the other side spilling down into the main centre. It was huge and impossible and one of the most awesome city views I have ever seen – up there with Tokyo at night from on high, or London from the air.

We used our last Bolivianos getting a cab to a place we thought we had booked by email (it turned out the message had somehow not gotten through – the guy gave us a very suspicious explanation as to why this was), and experienced the madness and bustle of La Paz on a Saturday night, we seem to be really good at turning up in new places at their busiest times. There were people, and soldiers, everywhere, all happening on streets that banked sharply upwards and downwards in each direction, lined with a heady mix of colonial buildings, new and crumbling modern buildings and dotted throughout with distinctly Bolivian religious and public buildings.

Booking in a the Austria Hotel, a colonial stalwart of the backpacker scene, we were perfectly located in the centre, a block from the presidential palace and cathedral, and wandered out to experience La Paz without our luggage. A pleasingly cheap and high-quality dinner later and we were ready for bed, determined to start our research into language schools and homestays in the morning.

Isla del Sol - 11th Feb 2011

We packed up most of our stuff leaving it with the hostel, then headed off on another public boat to Isla del Sol, the legendary Inca birthplace of the Sun and a hot tip from many of our friends who had visited the area. It was raining heavily on the way over which didn’t seem appropriate and the engine of this boat kept stopping too, but we made it eventually and as if by magic the rain stopped and the sun came out for the entire duration of our stay.

Inca greets us on Isla del Sol

Cacti on Isla del Sol

The Island was gorgeous and situated in breath-taking turquoise waters, and we spent an enjoyable day navigating Inca ruins and being floored by the views in either direction as we walked along the spine of the mountain range which ran the length of it. Hardened by our recent trekking to Choquequirao we found this walking a lot easier despite the relentless sun, and made it to the south end of the island by late afternoon.

Midday heat on the Island

Wild flowers on the isle

ceremonial table in the Inca ruins

dung beetles in action

That evening from our hostel balcony we were treated to some of the most spectacular sunset views I have seen anywhere in the world – hopefully the many photos that Laura took will in some way do justice.

the sunset begins...

the sun dips

Laur checks out the colours

the sky is aflame

those colours again