Hey ho,
How be thee smee?
I´m actually quite chuffed with myself just now; i am writing yet another blog only days (ok, maybe weeks, but who´s counting), since my last blether. We have been quite busy actually, infact we´ve been in four countries in the past four days, but that somewhat glamourises the whole adventure as all we´ve really expereinced is the stale air of airports and aeroplanes.
Since the last post from San Gil, we have actually been pretty busy making up for the lazy days spent on the beach over christmas and new year. In San Gil alone we went absailing down a massive waterfall, rafting down some massive rapids and i had a massive game of football with some not so massive columbian locals whichr esulted in me getting two wacking great massive blisters and me wee dainty tootsies. And that was all just in two days ç. Not bad going i´m sure you´ll all gracefully agree.
The rafting was really cool. We spent three hours battling a crazy river much to our enjoyment. Or at least I think me maya enjoyed herself. She promises that she did, but all i could her on way merry way down stream was her incessant cries of óh shit´, óh fuck´etc etc. There were indeed some pretty big waves but quite frankly i do find such language dispicably crude and rude. Feckin tart that she is.
Our next stop after San Gil was an uniquely beautiful wee town called Villa de Leyva. Basically this is wee town in the hills just north of Columbia´s capital Bogota. It has been ´preserved´so to speak, meaning that no new buildings have been built 300 years or so. (i have no idea how many years it is to be honest. I´m not a guide book. All i know is that what was there was old.) The streets were proper great big cobbles and the houses were small and white washed. It was just such an addictive place that i quite frankly could have spent a very long time there (sorry mum). At least i could have but i think Maya would have undoubtedly put a stop to that with her shopping tendancies. fair do´s to the lass she´s been well restrained over the past five months, but you know what, as soon as i loosen the reighns on the old girl a wee bit she goes shoppy hoppy. Spent a bloody forune she did. But it made her smile again after the new year blues so i guess i have to admit it was worthwhile.
The first night in Villa de Leyva was probably the most notable for us as we got very drunk, and for once, i have to admit, that it was maybe myself that was the worse for wear. In my defence i was only being socialable. The drinking started early as myself and the maz shared a half bottle of wine for an early tea. We then bumped into some friends from the coast who persuaded us that more wine was a good idea. So more we had and then a wee bit more and then red wine became aguila, the local beer. It was about this point we headed to a really cool wee bar which was blasting out the clash and other such musical masterminds. It was here that the trouble started for me as i somehow got talking with a group of columbian students from Bogota. I don´t know if you all know this, but i actually speak fluent spanish when i´m drunk, so much so that after 10 minutes of converstaion with the aforementioned students, they all smiled at me sypathetically at my valient efforts to cuçommunicate in their local tongue, and in unison they all promptly began conversing in incredible english. Bloody smug buggers!! Anyhow, i shouldn´t complain as the whole point to all of this ( i´ll get there soon enough, don´t worry) was that they had a bottle of the local brew, agua deliente (i think). Anyhoo this stuff is strong, and i mean blow your bloody mouth off with a hydrant type of strong. And them being Columbians, the friendliest people on earth, they saw it as their honour, no duty, to bestwo and maintain a steady flow of rocket fuel upon me. I was holding my own watching the bottle slowly empty, thinking to myself just a couple more and that will be that. Hopw wrong i was. The buggers went and bought another bottle!! Needless to say i was utterly pished. Apparently, so says maya although i´m sceptical, it came to leaving time and my new best friends were going to sit on a bench with yet another bottle of the devils mouthwash and wile away the night and into sunset with drinks and banter and the likes. They invited me and thought this was the best idea i have ever heard. Maya did not. In her state of rational thought she asked me a tricky question, how and why was i going to get home? In my drunken wisdom i promptly replied, ´i might just not come home!´ Maya was not amused and her face said all the words she needed to say. Needless to say i quickly pulled myslef together. So much so that i did my best to ingratiate myself back into maya´s good books by letting her carry me home. Aren´t i just the best boyfriend?!
The next day wasn´t so pretty, but in our stubborn determination to make every day count we managed to scale the nearest big hill in order to see yet another waterfall and an overview over the town. It was nice, no more tho.
Time was ticking fast and the days were wizzing by leaving our departure flight looming ever closer. In total we only managed to have two days in Bogota, which is a shame because it looksas though its a really really cool city. It has the most amazing array of bars and cafes that are packed full of columbian character and intrigue. We did our best to see as many as possible but unfortunately there just wasn´t time for them all. And so it was that on wednesday morning we left Columbia to head back down south, hence how i am writing to you now from Santiago in Chile. It was a truly memorable experience in Columbia and i´m so glad we´ve seen the country now before it gets too touristy and all the friendly people get fed up of the gringo´s trampling all over the goodwill. The ountry itself it just a beautiful, diverse landscape, while the cities all have a unique intrigue to their history and an appeal that is so addictive. I realise that i´ve pretty much always declared the last country we´ve been to as my favourite, but i honestly think Columbia will remain longer in my memory than anywhere else. If anybody told me that they had the time and money tovisit only one country in south america and would immediately encourage them to forget the hysteria and hype and visit Columbia. Yes there are problems still. There are areas that gringos and locals must stay well clear of, but the areas that are accesible more than make up for the forbidden zones. I loved it there and would happily spent much longer exploring its mystery if it wasn´t for the deadline of a flight cutting our trip short.
As i said we are now in Chile heading towards Patagonia, something i´m very much looking forward to. It will be a very different climate as we trek through glaciers and thermal springs but one that promises to be nothing but spectacular.
Hope all is well back there for you all. We too will be in freezing cold conditions from now on!
I will write again soon
Rob
Friday, January 18, 2008
Sunday, January 6, 2008
an alternative christmas and new year
Ay up,
I trust everybody is full of new year optimism and determination after excessively gorging yourselves over the festive period.
We have finally left the coast and arrived this morning at a laid back wee town in the mountains called San Gil. The town itself is ok but the main attraction to come here are the range of activities available. Over the next few days we shall hopefully experience some more paragliding, rafting, trekking and maybe rapelling down a 180m waterfall. That is the plan anyhoo.
Columbia is pretty chaotic just now as the locals here make the most of the festive period and use it as their main vacation time of the year. It seems they make the celebrations a month long and everything will be pretty much packed with Colombian tourists until roughly the middle of January. Christmas seemed to follow much the same path as back home. New Year was slightly twisted in that most people seemed to remain fairly sober new years eve and then drink themsleves into a wobbly stupor on new years day. A novel and perfectly reasonable way of bringing in a new year i suppose. For us, new year was pretty cool. We just got drunk with some pals at our hostel early doors, then headed down to the beach for the bells, where we sang [old langsyne (sp)] much to the puzzled amusment of the locals. After the beach we headed back to the hostel for a few more cheap and cheerful rum and cokes before hitting the towns' one and only late night drinking den, El Garaje. A name which seems to be quite popular here. I think we lasted until day break before stumbling home and nervously awaiting the hangover to welcome us into 2008. Which by the way is a bloody scary thought. Its 2008!! I'm going to have to start believing these old people when they tell me how much time flies. Its incredible. My decade of carefree debauchery is nearly at an end.
New Years day was spent in the usual fashion of lightly mumbling forced conversation but it was decided the second day of 2008 was to be productive. So in our aforementioned new year optimism and determination to make every day count we headed off to the nearby national park, Tayrona. This place is incredible and is exactly what i expected of the carribean coast. It reminded me of seeing old pirate films with whoever was the fancy don of the day washing up on some deserted island of paradise complete with hula girls and fresh rum. This was where they must have landed. The park is basically a stretch of light jungle hiding the most picturesque beaches i have ever seen. Skegness has its nice spots i know, but this place was fresh from disneys imagination. We spent two nights there, the first was spent with maya and myself in rather cramped fashion as we had to share a one man tent. The second however was much more exotic as we were rocked to sleep by the wind safely tucked inside our stripey hammocks. There wasnt a great deal to do there other than admire the scenery and play in some of the most enormous and powerful waves imaginable. Some said it was a bit dangerous but i looked on the ocean as a challenge and duly conquered it. Well that maybe something of a lie as the sea totally flattened me in humerous ways on several occasions but it was quite a hoot and finally washed away any remaining rustiness from the new year celebrations.
Two nights was enough there so we headed back to our old haunt of Taganga for one more night before braving another night bus to wind up here in San Gil. Hopefully our time here will be pretty action packed. Spending Christmas and New Year up on the coast was a really good idea, we both really enjoyed ourselves up there. But i'm not much of a sunbather and it soon seemed as though we were wasting money and days needlessly. Consequently the next ten days in Columbia should be pretty busy as we've got a lot to see and not a great deal of time, but thats cool with me. After here we are heading to a wee town called Villa de Leyva for a couple of nights then onto to Bogota to see what this amazing countires capital has to offer. After that its off to Patagonia and i can't wait.
Hope all is well and the January blues don't hit anyone too hard.
Rob
I trust everybody is full of new year optimism and determination after excessively gorging yourselves over the festive period.
We have finally left the coast and arrived this morning at a laid back wee town in the mountains called San Gil. The town itself is ok but the main attraction to come here are the range of activities available. Over the next few days we shall hopefully experience some more paragliding, rafting, trekking and maybe rapelling down a 180m waterfall. That is the plan anyhoo.
Columbia is pretty chaotic just now as the locals here make the most of the festive period and use it as their main vacation time of the year. It seems they make the celebrations a month long and everything will be pretty much packed with Colombian tourists until roughly the middle of January. Christmas seemed to follow much the same path as back home. New Year was slightly twisted in that most people seemed to remain fairly sober new years eve and then drink themsleves into a wobbly stupor on new years day. A novel and perfectly reasonable way of bringing in a new year i suppose. For us, new year was pretty cool. We just got drunk with some pals at our hostel early doors, then headed down to the beach for the bells, where we sang [old langsyne (sp)] much to the puzzled amusment of the locals. After the beach we headed back to the hostel for a few more cheap and cheerful rum and cokes before hitting the towns' one and only late night drinking den, El Garaje. A name which seems to be quite popular here. I think we lasted until day break before stumbling home and nervously awaiting the hangover to welcome us into 2008. Which by the way is a bloody scary thought. Its 2008!! I'm going to have to start believing these old people when they tell me how much time flies. Its incredible. My decade of carefree debauchery is nearly at an end.
New Years day was spent in the usual fashion of lightly mumbling forced conversation but it was decided the second day of 2008 was to be productive. So in our aforementioned new year optimism and determination to make every day count we headed off to the nearby national park, Tayrona. This place is incredible and is exactly what i expected of the carribean coast. It reminded me of seeing old pirate films with whoever was the fancy don of the day washing up on some deserted island of paradise complete with hula girls and fresh rum. This was where they must have landed. The park is basically a stretch of light jungle hiding the most picturesque beaches i have ever seen. Skegness has its nice spots i know, but this place was fresh from disneys imagination. We spent two nights there, the first was spent with maya and myself in rather cramped fashion as we had to share a one man tent. The second however was much more exotic as we were rocked to sleep by the wind safely tucked inside our stripey hammocks. There wasnt a great deal to do there other than admire the scenery and play in some of the most enormous and powerful waves imaginable. Some said it was a bit dangerous but i looked on the ocean as a challenge and duly conquered it. Well that maybe something of a lie as the sea totally flattened me in humerous ways on several occasions but it was quite a hoot and finally washed away any remaining rustiness from the new year celebrations.
Two nights was enough there so we headed back to our old haunt of Taganga for one more night before braving another night bus to wind up here in San Gil. Hopefully our time here will be pretty action packed. Spending Christmas and New Year up on the coast was a really good idea, we both really enjoyed ourselves up there. But i'm not much of a sunbather and it soon seemed as though we were wasting money and days needlessly. Consequently the next ten days in Columbia should be pretty busy as we've got a lot to see and not a great deal of time, but thats cool with me. After here we are heading to a wee town called Villa de Leyva for a couple of nights then onto to Bogota to see what this amazing countires capital has to offer. After that its off to Patagonia and i can't wait.
Hope all is well and the January blues don't hit anyone too hard.
Rob
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)