pura carribbean

has been some time since i´ve done the whole bloggy blog thing so here we go!
From Bogota towards the north coast is a long trip, about 15 hours by bus, but first stop was Medellin, once home (and why not still) to the infamous Pablo Escobar cartel. It used to be one of the most dangerous cities in the world, but in the past ten years has become one of the safest and modern in Colombia. It has a completely different feel from Bogota, a lot less soul and a more metropolitan feel. The pride of most Colombians anywhere in the country is the metro of Medellin. That and the women. In fact the first things i heard when i crossed the border was, ¨wow the women and the metro.¨I must have heard that a million times before actually getting to the city. But, the metro is in fact nice, fast, cheap, and gets you from point A to B, and the women there are incredibly attractive. It is shocking actually the ratio of super good looking women to non. But there is somewhat of a fad there to have fake boobies and buttocks. People say it stems back to the Escobar days and has never slowed. There is an absurd amount of silicone walking the streets of Medellin. Who ever heard of a fake ass?
My favorite part of Medellin was the Botero sculpture park. Fernando Botero is probably the pride of Colombian art. He´s known for doing everything in a fat way. People, animals, fruit, everything. I first saw his work at the Botero gallery in Bogota, but there is mainly his paintings. His sculptures are incredible! Huge bronze pieces dot the park with lots of people basking in sunshine and milling around. He has this way of making fat very fun and the giant sculptures really come to life. The city all in all didnt really do it for me, so off to the beach we went.

First stop Cartagena. This is a city that i first started hearing about in Nicaragua. It is famous for its beautiful colonial walled in zone of the city, and for being the port where many travellers from central america enter the south. Zach and I found a relatively cheap and clean place to stay just outside the walled in heart. Everybody and there mother must have been travelling through Cartagena, it is that touristy. Bus loads of old tourists file through the narrow streets and lush fountain filled parks following guides like good sheep. Sheep with video cameras. It was an odd sight to see so many tourists and a little unerving.
I get this selfish sence of entitlement often that demands entire cities be for only my enjoyment. I cringe at the sight of other backpackers walking in hordes, their packs big on the back, beers in hand, sun tinted skin no longer so pasty white. The gringo trail is always growing, im not making it any shorter, and i loath it. I make it a point often to avoid as much as possible the backpacker born places down here, but im finding it somewhat hard to do, especially here on the carribbean side. There are ass loads of travellers here, really.
Cartagena was a little to boutiquey for me, very expensive, and too tourist, so we took off after only two nights. Santa Marta was our next stop, another ocean front city known for its laid back atmosphere. It is a good place to relax and and catch a breath for a while. We found a hotel where we could camp on the roof for about the equivalent of a dollar and 80 cents. It was ocean breezes and booming music all night.
We took a trip out to a small town called Aracataca which really doesnt have that much to offer. We went because we found a guy on couchsurfing with a house there. The description he gave was of a farm with large garden, a pond stocked with fish, and horses. To stay for free all we had to do was help out in the garden a little. We got there and this ¨farm¨was a pretty shabby house with a large overgrown yard, a mud pit pond which served as a mosquito breeding place to the extreme, and not much else. For farm work they gave us a machete and a kitchen knife and told us to go mow the lawn. It was pretty rediculous and we gave ourselves some good blisters before boycotting the stupidity of the situation. Aracataca is famous as being the birthplace of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who writes about Macondo (his code name for the town) in most of his books. The best part of the two days at the ¨farm¨was the rope swing into the Aracataca River. We were happy to leave.

One of the highights of the past 9 weeks of travel was Tayrona National Park. Unreal beaches with huge boulder fields and pure jungle, sun, wind, and more coconuts than anyone can count. Amazing, amazing. We easily could have stayed longer than the four days we did. We camped with some great new friends from Brazil, Spain, Argentina, and Chile and cooked our meals family style over open fires under incredible stars and bright moon. It felt amazing to be camping out of a city! Up until that point I was feeling a real lack of nature and a huge overload of city life.
From Tayrona, me, Zach, and Lucia our friend from Spain decided to make to journey farther east to La Guajira which is colombia´s desert region near the border of Venezuela. All we knew was that it was desert and that there is a large Wayuu Indian population there. Not knowing more than that we began the long trip by bus out that way.

The sun and the wind got together and decided that they were going to kidnap the three of us and hold us hostage on the beach for a couple days. They tested us to see how much we could take before crying mercy. It only took two days of the brutal weather to do us in and we made the trip back to Santa Marta sunburned and mentally fried. It is mind boggling to think that people can live their whole lives in the extremes of weather. The energy in that place was not for us, we felt unwelcome by both the weather and the people in the region. The best part though was the super cheap lobster! I bought a lobster from a Wayuu man and cooked it over a fire on the beach, super good.

Side note from this trip. Lucia, Zach, and I were very low on water so we thought we should try cooking with sea water. We had some rice and some cans of tuna so we figured a little extra salt wouldnt hurt. MISTAKE!!!! Dont cook with sea water if you want your food to taste like anything other than salt.

Now i sit here in Taganga which is a small tranquil place just in the next bay from Santa Marta. This is the backpackers haven of Colombia, a bit over the top with travellers and artisans. It is the artisan, beach bum, hippy, crusty punk, and sorority girl capital. A bizarre mix of dreadlocks and platinum blond. But it makes sense why everyone comes here: tranquility, beach, cheap weed, plenty of hostels and beach front bars with hammocks taboot, and fish right off the boat.

It is Carnavale time! Things are starting to pick up now and the whole coast is starting to quake with the anticipation of the ruckus to come. Barranquilla is where the main party takes place; four days of insanity in the streets. I could go... but i have made the decision to start my journey south starting tomorrow. I dont feel like i need huge crowds and a few hangovers right now, what i want is mountains baby! MOUNTAINS!!! So im going to the heart of the Sierra Nevada to do some trekking for a few days up at 14,000 feet. I will need to come across some supplementary gear to ensure i dont die up there, but ill take care of that when i come to it.

I have been in colombia for 5 weeks and the total trip around 9 weeks. The rest of the days will pass by super quick im sure and before long ill be gettin down to Trey´s face melting guitar solos down at the phish shows in Virginia. It has been a great trip so far and i think that my remaining days will be a highlight. I am very excited to start the next leg of the journey though; three months in the middle east. Thinking about it, i have really been travelling since last august. It all started with the canadian border patrol...

It´s a treadmill this whole travelling thing. But i have these little electrodes taped to my nipples and as soon as i stop running im going to get shocked. The belt is spinning faster than ever, but my legs know what to do. Im in great shape for it.

This is Me, signing off.









The pictures are in no order but they include: Tayrona Nat´l Park, La Guajira, Medellin, me cooking a lobster on a stick, etc.

Getting to know you

Bogota and its surroundings have been home now for almost two weeks. It is a fantastic city, probably my favorite in Latin America. Our host has been a young guy named Jeisson who is a physics teacher and traveller. He has spent the last four years travelling in south america and when we met him he was just coming back to Colombia for the first time. His hospitality has been outstanding; we have our own set of keys and come and go as we please. Our neighborhood, called Chapiñero, is quiet, tranquil and located in the middle of Bogota. It is a short bus ride into the downtown area of the city.

Many of the days are spent wandering different barrios of the city, exploring all sides of the city. My favorite part of the city is by far La Candelaria which is Bogota´s colonial heart. Small cobblestone streets with candlelit cafes, and a very bohemian feel. There are several universities in the area and the streets are filled with youth. On weekends the place is full of steet music and revelry. Zach and I have found ourselves sitting in El Gato Gris, a very tranquil spot where we can sit for hours and sip Colombia´s finest coffee, read, and write.

Other parts of the city, quite the opposite of La Candelaria, include La Zona de Tolerancia (the zone of tolerance). Just go off of the name to get a greater idea of the place. It was Jeisson´s idea to take us there because as he says, ¨It is good to know both sides of the peso.¨ Talk about shady. I went to my first nude bar! It was terrible, absolutely terrible. But we were being hosted and didn´t want to be rude. The streets are lined with prostitutes and brothels. Popular in the zone of tolerance are public ¨swimming pools;¨ we didn´t even want to know. The walk back was not pleasant and it was through a very shady part of the city, but it felt good to know that this place existed. Other favorites of Bogota are the incredible grafiti that is prevalent on any possible open surface, and a multitude of parks. From small stealh art spots to massive murals, the city has very talented street artists. In the center of the city the national park offers great hiking in the mountains and a relaxing break from the chaos of downtown. My favorite park though is Simon Bolivar Municipal park. On weekends the place is packed with soccer matches and families having picnics. There are lots of running trails around a lake, and the coolest playground I have ever seen. Ultimate is quite popular in Colombia and there are a few games hidden among the hundreds of soccer games.

Outside of Bogota the best spot has definitely been Villa de Leyva, an unbelievably beautiful colonial city filled with cobblestone plazas, hidden streets and some of the best Spanish colonial architecture i have ever seen. It is a bit on the touristy side, with many foreignors and colombian tourists too. The hills around the town are some of the most scenic and tranquil agricultural lands i´ve seen on this trip. Unfortunately there is a serious development boom, as wealthy Colombians are flocking there to build second homes. We took a day trip with two friends we met while camping in town to a series of seven waterfalls knows as La Periquera. Talk about amazing! The seven falls are huge and the mountain vally deep. An amazing way to cool off and a great place to relax in a super beautiful place.

Tonight I finally leave Bogota and start the journey north towards the Carribean side of the country. Zach and I are still travelling together and we plan to until I leave for the US in just over three weeks. It is great having a travel buddy like Zach, we have become good friends and travel really well together. I´ll try to write more in a couple of weeks.

One of my favorites

¨Without boss, without client¨

¨Free¨

a change, a loooooong trip, and Bogota

I dont even know where to begin really. The trip has changed dramatically in a way that i had not anticipated, but it has proven to be an amazing one. In David, Panama I realized that there was no reason for me to be riding on a road like an interstate in the US with no shoulder and whizzing traffic. It is not fun, and with 500km left to Panama City, I shuddered at the thought of spending three more days on the road. So i loaded my bike onto a bus for the trip into the city.

I ended up in a backpackers hostel in a pretty decent part of the city, it was one of the last beds in any of the inexpensive hostels in the entire city. It was amazing to see the insane number of backpackers in the city, I dont think I have ever seen anything like it. At the hostel I ended up at, I met and had a meal with an American guy named Aaron who was about to end a 14 month around the world by biking home to San Fran from Panama. A very ambitious trip, especially for someone who was already travel weary and who has never done a bike trip in his life. But, Aaron is super commited and is raising money for Plan USA, an organization that helps impoverished children throughout the world.

Over the next two days and many beers we came to an arrangement that I would sell,rent,loan parts of my bike to him for his journey. It made sense. I was tired of biking alone after a month coming down from Nicaragua, he was about to buy a bike, racks, bags, and gear in Panama. So he gave me his backpack and I gave him the bike! Just like that we each got what we wanted and were happy with the way that it happened. I decided not to sell him the bike at all, but make it my donation to his cause. At the end of the trip, he will box up the bike and gear and ship it back to me, hopefully all in working shape! I believe in his sincerity to make this journey happen and I wish him the best of luck. He has a blog as well, where you can see his progress and also contribute to Plan USA.

http://lasthillbeforehome.blogspot.com/

There are only a few choices on how to get from Panama to Colombia. In between the two countries is one of the largest unknown jungle regions in the world. There are no roads, hardly any people at all, minus the reported guerilla groups active in the area, and endless jungle so dense it oozes green sludge out into the ocean because there is no more room in the forest. For the traveller there are basically four sane choices: you can fly--BORING--, take a charter sail boat through the carribean, or figure out random connections on cargo ships and small boats through the carribean or the pacific. The easiest things to set up are flights and trips on sailboats. The sailboat is more of a luxury vacation: five days in turquoise waters with a two day stop at tropical isolated islands. I inquired into a trip and actually for some insane reason booked a trip that cost almost as much as all of my airfare for this trip. I figured that it was so easy and that i wasnt going to have to spend any time waiting or looking for other options. Sometimes travellers that opt to hunt for cargo ships wait weeks to find a boat that will take them and then have complete shit shows out at sea making the voyage.

Then as things began to fall into place, as they always do, i completely changed my plan, as i always do. The same day that i handed over my bicycle to Aaron i met another American at the same hostel who was trying to get on a cargo ship to Colombia. Zach is from Austin, Texas and Great Barrington, Mass and right away we hit it off. It was decided that with my new backpack in tow, we were making this journey together. And then theres Dave from Vermont. He rode his motorcycle down from Colorado and is going to Argentina. Also a really fun guy, he completed the trifecta.

Zach and Dave had already found a ship leaving Panama City the next day headed south along the Pacific coast. We had to convince the captain to let another passenger on, but it went smoothly, and before long we were waiting at the docks to board the Victoria C.

This boat was packed to the brim with cargo and passengers alike. We boarded at night in such a chaotic scene as to actually make us nervous. We were about to begin a journey that would take anywhere from four days to who knows how many. The Victoria was to take us 14 hours to the Panamanian frontier town of Jaque, then a small two hour ride to the Colombian frontier town of Jurado, and then the final 30 hour cargo ship ride to Buenaventura. This route is rarely taken by gringo travellers, so we had very little information going into it, but the three of us were commited to the adventure and whatever was going to happen would anyway. That first ride along the Victoria was a blast. We motored away to the midnight lights of Panama City, past the shoulder to shoulder luxury highrises out into the darkness of the Darien. We slept on the deck under the stars, and woke in the morning to dolphins jumping and playing alongside the boat. The sun fried us but we cared little becuase we we out on the open seas, laughing with the rest of the passengers on the boat.

Getting off in Jaque is another story. There is no dock so all of the passengers and cargo has to be unloaded from the main ship into little tiny boats that flock to the sides of the Victoria waiting for the passengers litteraly to jump from one ship to the other. We did this in a storm with huge swells that rocked us hard. Trying to jump into a small boat that is getting airborn is not easy. Needless to say we were very grateful to be on land again. Jaque is a sleepy town, no roads, no cars, and really fresh fish. We had to wait until the next day until we could hire someone with a boat to take us farther down the coast into Colombia. That trip was also done in a storm but this time we were speeding like mad alongside the jungle, grins blazing. The three of us would shoot glimpes at eachother with expressions of holy shit did you see that.

Little did we know that Jurado would be our home for a week because we had just missed the boat that would take us to Buenaventura, on the central coast of Colombia. Jurado is a trip. We were greeted by a huge crowd of police and military that took as back to the compound to register as foriegn visitors and to offer us a campsite on the beach right behind the station. The police there are young kids who basically resent the fact that they were posted in the middle of nowhere while their friends were working in cities throughout the country. It was common to see officers arguing over whether or not Jurado is the shittiest place in all of Colombia. We loved it however. There are no road, no cars, lots of beach, great people, and cheap beer. We had a great campsite with free 24 hour security and plenty of time to do nothing. It didnt take long before everyone in the town knew exactly who we were and where we were from. The police hounded us constantly wanting to talk to anyone other than the other people in Jurado. They love to party even while working and they were fun to hang out with. Every day we ate the same massive plate of food at the same restaurant and loved it.

After a week of it though we were bored as shit and counted the seconds until the boat came. The only problem is though that nobody knew when it would come. It does when it does is basically the only correct answer. It came, we left, gladly.

30 hours later we departed the Correo Del Pacifico in the massive port town of Buenaventura. The city has been notorious in the past as being one of the most dangerous cities in the world, but we loved it! The street food was plentiful and cheap and the people friendly. We had a day to kill before catching the overnight bus to Bogota.

Unfortunatley the cheap food caught up with me on the bus and it made the 12 hours terrible for me. Riding through the Andes in the bathroom of a coach bus is a horrible experience, one i dont recommend to anyone. We pulled into Bogota in the early morning elated to have finally arrived at our destination after 10 days of travel. A friend from one of the boat rides offered to put us up once we arrived, and that is where we are staying right now.

Bogota is a great city. We have only been here for a day, but it is proving itself to be a great place. Zach and I will travel together for a while it seems. The two of us have become close and we make great travel mates.

I plan on staying the rest of my trip in Colombia. Already i love it and have not seen any of it. After a month longer here i hope to really get a sense of the place.

Coastal CR and Panama

Where to begin? Last i left off the road ran south towards the ocean. The road from La Tigre towards San Ramon was very hard, about 30km uphill. The weather though was nice and cool, the perfect conditions for riding. On the road i met a cyclist named Roberto who invited me back to his house in San Ramon for the night. A really great guy with a great family, he spoke english really well and is very well travelled. In his house i noticed that the sceen saver for his computer was the album cover to the Dead's 'Live' album. Turns out that not only is he a huge deadhead, but also of really great music in general. We spent the night drinking red wine and listening to Neil Young and spanish flamenco music. His family treated me to great meals and a really nice time. They had the biggest dog i've ever seen in my entire life, a sheepdog named Pesita.

I took off in the morning with the goal of swimming in the pacific by nightfall. The road was really hard, and i tackled the hardest hills ive ever seen. Not in length, but in grades so steep you can barely peddal even using the granny gear. The weather was nice, but as i approached the coast and bombed down some massive hills out of the mountains, i quickly learned of the heat that the coastal zone holds. I did make the beach and found a nice camp spot right on the sand. The sunset was epic, but the souds of the road and the waves made sleep hard that night.

The road on the coast is mainly flat which makes cruising pretty easy, but the heat is almost unbearable. I passed through the tourist mecca of Jaco which is a pretty grim scene full of highrise hotels, atv rentals, prostitutes, and smog. From Jaco i passed the legendary surf beach of Hermosa which hosts an international surf competition every year. With no goal in mind other than to find a beach for the night and to move forward i pushed on in the blazing sun towards Quepos. The road south of there is not paved and it a giant washboard of a road, so in an attempt to save my body and bike the misery i hitched a ride. Within 5 minutes my bike was on the roof of a car driven by two gringos who own land down here. Nice guys i guess, they bought me lunch, but after a couple hours with them i realized that to costa ricans, most americans must look like complete assholes. On the ride to Dominical, where the pavement picks up again, they told me all about the escapades of buying up land here and building luxury houses and how they find themselves being robbed all the time... no shit i thought. There are parts of the coast here that have far more FOR SALE signs than there are people. The whole coast of this country is for sale.

I decided to stay in Dominical for a couple of days. It is definitely a tourist spot for both gringos and ticos (costa ricans) alike. The camping on the beach is free and i paid a small sum to a bar to hold my bags and bike for me. I was the only gringo camped on the beach, and i joined a really nice family for my first night there. We enjoyed dinner together and lots of good laughs. The surf at Dominical is huge and there are lots of really good surfers to watch from the beach. I swam constantly and enjoyed cold beer.

My new years was broken into two parts. The first involved beer and a redneck from north florida. You know you are in for a hell of a time when a shirtless sunburnt redneck throws his arm around you and in slurred speech full of spittle yells into your ear, "itth gonna be a longg night ma man, right!" He's a local down there actually and not a tourist. I ditched him as soon as possible and made a new friend somewhere at sometime. Andrew was an older guy, maybe 45, an artist who is living in San Jose, but is a world traveller. We spent the remainder of the night watching shooting stars on the beach using our bottle of rum as a micophone as we spat philosophy into the morning. It was a great night, and it made my departure the next morning a little slow.

I did make it out of Dominical alive though and i peddaled along a gorgeous stretch of coast line full of amazing ceviche stands and tropical beaches. I rode about 65km into the town of Palmares where i found a great spot to sleep at the house of a bike mechanic and his family. I have become really good at showing up at peoples door and using the line, "Hi, I'm travelling on my bicycle and it is getting late. Do you know of any good camp spots around here?" The gate opens up and there is usually a plate of food in front of me within ten minutes. This family was great, and I had a great time talking bikes, travels, the US, and a lot more and watching horror movies. I left that morning with about 100km to go until the border of Panama.

Border crossings can either be really easy or really hard. This one was a pain in the ass. It is in a large duty free zone so people from both sides of the border flock there to shop. It it hot, crowded and the lines to get through customs can be long. I made it through to Panama though and was surprised to find a four lane highway with huge smooth shoulders. The traffic however is heavier and faster and drivers seem to be less courteous. In fact, as soon as i crossed the border i felt imediately a different vibe from costa rica. The people seemed much less friendly. I tried to find a place to camp but the roadsides were basically all massive cattle farms. It was getting dark, i had already ridden about 120km, and nobody would let me camp at there place. I was getting a little desperate until finally, right before dark i met two people on the street and pulled my usual line, this time with a little more desperation. 10 seconds later one of the men named Edgar says oh i have a big house with an extra room you can come stay with me. Putting aside any worry that this guy was about the kill we walked down the dark dirt roads until we reached his concrete shack where he did infact have an extra room for me with a US army issue cot included! We had giant plates of rice and garlic and some tea with sugar cane for desert. He is a dairy farmer who owns three houses but lives in complete poverty. His hospitality was incredible and it came at the most crucial moment.

I rode the last 30km to the Panama's second largest city, David, through a really crazy stretch of road with no shoulder, lots of traffic, and just when i could not get any more flustered, my ipod flew off my bike t(sometimes in situations like that i need some pumping music to keep a raging pace, necessary in traffic like that). It landed in the middle of the lane and i saw the traffic coming. It was one of those -- oh no oh no oh no-- moments but i knew better than to run into traffic to get it. The big SUV just nicked it, only a little bit on the corner, and it still works! I couldnt believe it. Panama has me a little stressed out... Im staying now at a hostel in the suburbs of the city and tomorrow im going to leave my bike here and head north into the highlands to get away from traffic and the heat.

I have heard that the road to Panama City, about 500km from here, is more of the same which has me a little peeved. There's a possibilty that i might take my bike onto a bus and just get to the city. I plan on staying there for about a week, pending on finding a free place to stay, and finding a boat down to columbia. I am having a great time, better than i was, and am looking forward to the next legs of the journey, specifically Colombia. I'll be there before long and the trip should take on a different feel.