2017-C) March Bolivia, Columbia

Colombia

Officially the Republic of Colombia, is a transcontinental country largely situated in the northwest of South America, with territories in Central America. Colombia shares a border to the northwest with Panama, to the east with Venezuela and Brazil and to the south with Ecuador and Peru. Language spoken is Spanish, population is 48,000,000

Columbian Flag

We had not planned to go to Columbia but lots of travellers we met said we should go as it is a great place. So we thought we would spend a few day’s in each of the following places. Medellin, Cali, Bogota, and Cartagena. The only place we had nice weather was Cartagena otherwise we had a lot of rain, we still manage to see a lot.

Medellin

We stayed in the centre of the city but in hind sight we should have stayed in El Poblado , as this had lots of great restaurants bars, clubs, and shopping malls, and a reputation for being the nicest and safest area of the city. The city was okay but just a bit grubby and there are a lot of people living on the streets. While in Medellin we visited the Museum of Antioquia it is the most famous museums in Medellin, it is very impressive, it houses permanent and temporary art exhibitions plus leads educational projects and conference and academic forums.The majority of the museum art was donated by Fernando Botero, a world famous artistic figure who was born and grew up in Medellin. The Museum is in Plaza Botero it is a large outdoor space and park that exhibits 23 bronze sculptures created by Fernando Botero. Defiantly worth a visit.

We took a day trip to: The Rock of Guatapé also known as the Stone of El Peñol it is a monolith a geological feature consisting of a single massive stone or rock, there are 740 steps to the uppermost step atop the building at the summit. A viewing spot was built on top of the rock, It is possible to see the 500 km shore-perimeter dam. The view is great and from a distance the steps up to the top make for a good photo. Up close is not that impressive and if you do not get there early there are hundreds of tourists. On the same trip we took a cruise on the Guatape Reservoir, for me the most memorable sight that day was of Guatapé’s streets adorned in fluorescent shades. It is beautiful town, that has a lot of history. It has some very nice good quality souvenir and coffee shops, the best I seen in Columbia.

On another day we took the Sky rail to Parque Arvi which sits on the eastern edge of the city and can be accessed by both cable car and vehicles and buses alike. The countryside appeal of the lush green fauna is not only spectacular to experience, but forms an important watershed for the area as well as important biological nature reserve for plants and animals native to the area. We did a lovely bush walk and visited the markets that are located at the top.

We spent St Pats day in Medellin we did manage to find an Irish Bar, mind you not many Irish mostly Americans. We had a good day all the same.

We flew to Cali from Medellin, the food is good here it was so nice to find an Asian restaurant and a good one at that. It was called Fusion Wok, very good food. It is a very nice town with a very beautiful Catholic church.

Onwards to Bogota, my favourite part of Bogota was Monserrate it is a mountain that dominates the city centre of Bogota the capital city of Columbia. It rises to 3,152 metres above the sea level, where there is a church (built in the 17th century) with a shrine, devoted to (“The Fallen Lord”). We took a ride to the top on the telesferico which is beautiful as it rolls up the mountainside. I was pleasantly surprised to see one of the nicest stations of the cross that I have ever seen, they seemed so life-like and the walk around each one of them is very beautiful with very well maintained gardens . We could observe all of Bogota city and surrounding area’s. There is a beautiful coffee shop (Santa Clara restaurant) also here, that is definitely worth a stop.

Coffee shop

From here we walked to the city to visit the gold museum. The Gold Museum in Bogota, is one of the country’s most popular and important museums. The museum contains the world’s largest collection of pre-Columbian gold pieces. The gold museum also displays wood, pottery, textile and stone work produced in pre-Spanish conquest periods. An interesting place worth a visit.

Bogota Plaza: You can’t miss this large square as you wander around the city’s historic centre. Surrounded by colonial buildings and the Cathedral with a statue to Bolivar in the centre. There are lots of pigeons being feed in the square, so be careful, might be an idea to carry an umbrella.

We stayed outside the city, close to Park 93 it seems to be your typical yuppie area. With nice restaurants, parks for the kids to play in and lots of security. The Airbnb was one of the best we stayed in.

Our last stop in Colombia is Cartagena, finally it has stopped raining. The city of Cartagena is a port located on the northern coast of Colombia in the Caribbean Coast Region, it was so nice to be back at the ocean. We had lovely accommodation which was a 5min walk to the beach. We had 5 days just relaxing and enjoying the sunshine.

My favourite area in Cartagena was the old city (it is a walled city), we liked it so much we stayed an extra two nights there. It has a lot of History and a great vibe about it, the people are colourful friendly and easy going. With some wonderful restaurants. It is wonderful to walk around the cobble narrow streets and admire all the old buildings

We visited The Castillo San Felipe de Barajas is a fortress in the city of Cartagena not far from the old town. The castle is located on the Hill of San Lázaro in a strategic location, dominating approaches to the city by land or sea. It was built by the Spanish during the colonial era. Construction began in the year 1536, and it was originally known as the Castillo de San Lázaro, It was expanded in 1657.

Colombia has been a very unexpected and interesting place for us to visit, we are glad we took the journey.

Atacama Desert and Uyuni Salt Flats Bolivia

We did a 3 day 4-wheel drive trip across the Atacama Desert to Uyuni Salt flats in Bolivia. It was amazing.
We first went to the Hito Cajon the border of Chile/Bolivia, once the formalities were complete we were organised into our 4×4 there was 7 people in the 4×4 which included the driver. It was a great group of people, we all got on like a house on fire. Our first stop was to Laguna Blanca and Verde the water was emerald green and you could see the reflection of the Volcano in the Laguna. We continued onto the and had a lovely soak in the hot springs. Following this we went to Sol de Aguas Termales Mahana to witness the bubbling hot mud pools that shot steam many meters into the air. It was a great first day. We had basic accommodation that evening and this was our first time to stay in a six bed dorm. It all went very well.

It was an early start to day 2. Our first stop is Laguna Colorada a fascinating lake of red water that had the most flamingos I have ever seen feeding along the edge. We travelled to Siloli desert area that had surreal rock formations, this is where the rock tree lives. We continue to see volcano (still active) Ollagüe it is 5,900 meters above sea level. Yes back to the dreaded altitude again. They say that your body should remember the last time you were at altitude and you should acclimatise quicker than the last time, I am not sure I agree with this, as I had a pounding headache for most of the time I was at altitude. We stopped at a beautiful place for Lunch, just beside a stream. We stopped in a small ghost town to try the local bear, Cactus bear. The town use to have a train station were the local minerals were exported. The mining operation is now closed and there are only 10 families left in the town. It was a bit sad as I am sure at one time it was a thriving town. Martin reckoned the beer was pretty good. We continued on to our accommodation for the night hotel Tambo Loma, the rooms were nice and big, food was good and a hot shower was very nice.

Day 3: We are all very excited as it looks like we are going to be able to get out onto the salt flats. Even though there has been some rain it is still possible. We left the accommodation at 5.30am so we could see the sunrise over the salt flats and boy was it worth it. I had not realised that the salt flats were do big. We drove for 120 kilometres and on they went. They are 10,500 square kilometres and are 3,656 meters above sea level. It was amazing, we were so lucky, there was a small amount of water on the salt flats in some areas therefore the reflections in our photos were amazing.

When we got Uyuni Bolivia we went to the local markets. Uyuni is a nice little town, it seems to be a transit place as we met a lot of travellers. We went to have a look at the Train graveyard. We said goodbye to our travel partners and hoped we might meet them on the road again. Overall it was a wonderful trip.

Next day we took an overnight bus to La Paz which is the Capital of Bolivia. It was our first overnight bus to take, we paid a little extra for the bus fair so that we could have a seat that lay flat, this made the journey a lot more bearable. We checked into our Airbnb at 7am, the host was very nice and told us everything we needed to know about La Paz.
We went out to looking for breakfast, Martin was very happy with himself as we came across an English pub that did a big breakfast of Bacon, eggs, hash brown, tomatoes, mushroom, Tea and toast. That’s him sorted for the day.

We booked in to ride the world’s most dangerous road an exhilarating mountain bike tour of Bolivia’s Death Road. I really had to summons up the courage to do this as I have never been on a mountain bike before, let alone come down Death Road. It was snowing when we started the descent, we were at 4,800 meters above sea level. The views were amazing, were able to admire the dramatic changing landscapes, from snow-covered mountains to tropical jungle. As we decended the weather got much better. It was tough going, we had to ride through rivers, under water falls and carry our bikes over landslides. In the end I was glad I did it, but I am not sure if I will ever feel the need to do it again.

Lake Titicaca is the highest navigable fresh water lake in the world at 3,800 meters we had a wonderful day here, the town the bus dropped us off at was Copacabana, we had a really nice lunch here, if we had of known how nice this town was we would have stayed the night. We then took a boat out to Isla del sol which is on the lake, it is a beautiful island with a lovely small harbour, It reminded me of some of the small harbours in Dubrovnik.