Rafting is for pussies!

OK, I'll be fair, the real serious stuff is full on, and San Gil has possibly Colombia's most fearsome ride on the Rio Suarez, a couple of hours crashing down grade 5+ rapids.  Unfortunately this was out of our budget, but for less than a third of the cost the Fonce offered us some grade 2-3 action.  But as I said, rafting is for pussies; we chose to do the same stretch on boogie boards...welcome to Hydrospeed!



Photo courtesty of Google Images.  We were too
cheapskate to pay for the real ones!

We'd been looking for something really fun to do for a while, after a couple of weeks feeling under the weather and a lot of travelling.  San Gil is a tiny town a few hours north of Bogota but is a popular weekend getaway for residents of the capital.  It also has a reputation as somewhat of an adrenalin centre and offers caving, paragliding, mountain biking, abseiling down waterfalls etc., along with a few sedate and pleasant places to hike and swim.  And of course the aforementioned river runs.  We'd been warned beforehand that most people come out of their Hydrospeed experience with a bump or two, but it just seemed like cruising down average sized rapids in a large raft just wouldn't do it for us.  Holding on to a foam board and kicking your way down with fins certainly gets you much closer to the action and seemingly amplifies the size of the rapids.  It was such fun, we mostly giggled our way down the 10km run and by the end had managed to surf a couple of eddies too.  Highly recommended.  If you don't mind picking up a bruise or two that is...

 

Bogota

We were told Bogota would take our breath away.  Maybe they meant the walk up to Cerro de Monserrate at 3200m to visit the church and see the view?  That's if we chanced it, one of the many negative stories we had heard was robberies seem to be an ongoing problem on the footpath.  I must admit to being slightly apprehensive during our first few hours in Bogota.  Reviews had been mixed and most of the negative press was related to personal safety or gun crime.  This was highlighted on our first inner city outing: I noticed a sign 'No Fire Arms' on the bus.  I let out a nervous chuckle; at home you'd be reminded to keep feet off the seats!

I did not expect to find such a stylish and modern city that oozed cool.  The colonial architecture, refined galleries and museums left us speechless and we were completley won over by the city with the bad reputation.  But Bogota's appeal isn't just the pretty buildings and well invested cultural scence.  It has amazing street life.  Art is again key but in the form of graffiti, bars are little quirky havens and the people are friendly and so polite.  We spent a great afternoon in a dusty square listening to music in the sunshine and enjoying a bank holiday with the locals.  We also spent hours and hours taking pictures in so many of the galleries and museums, they are truly world class.  The Botero collection of 'fat' paintings and sculptures was one highlight and the Museo del Oro gave us an incredible journey through the history of gold craft in Colombia and a spiritual education in the ways of the Shaman.  It was also fascinating to see so many intricate ancient pieces of metalwork and pottery, and of course a little amusing considering their obsession with male genitalia!   

The only thing I do regret about Bogota is not eating enough, actually when i think about it, any, cake!  They had coffee shops to rival any french patisserie and the cocoa was like drinking melted dark chocolate.  Even Paul was hooked.  Now we (meaning I of course) can't find cake anywhere and I have looked, believe me!  No cake.  It must be something to do with the weather.  All through our previous Andean adventures we had been amazed at the splendour of display cabinets in shop windows and salivated at supermarket counters.  Now we are further north and in warmer climes, in dark moments and when I've burnt myself in the sun, I find myself wishing for 14 degrees and a big slice of chocolate fudge cake or a lemon tart, even just a little cookie...

 

The San Agustin Gang

A few of our facebook friends will already know who some of the motley members of this crew comprise, but for those who don't, let us fill you in.  Around a thousand years ago lived a mysterious group of indigenous people in southern Colombia who honoured their dead by burying them in tombs marked with statues carved from volcanic rock.  Since their discovery in the 18th century, over 500 figures have been excavated and now pepper the hills around San Agustin, alongside canyons and waterfalls.  It is a fantastic setting to observe these curious figures, who range in size from a few centimetres to metres tall.  Many look like masked monsters, whilst some represent sacred animals such as eagle or frog.  Here's a small selection: perhaps they may remind you of people you know?

OK, we said no more bus related stories for a while but we had to share this one.

Anyone who's been to China, or perhaps India and other parts of Asia, will more than likely be familiar with the seemingly acceptable behaviour of spitting in public.  And not just a little saliva, but the whole works, hocking up every last little bit of phlegm and depositing it wherever is convenient - usually the street but the worst offenders I recall were decorating the aisle of an overnight train (note, however, that this was still the floor).

On our latest Ecuadorian bus, we were witness to the most disgusting public act either of us has seen.  The guy infront of us suffered a little sneezing fit and proceeded to spray the window about a dozen times.  And it wasn't like he didn't have use of his hands to cover his mouth, as between every two or three sneezes, he blew his nose into his fingers, and flicked them onto the seat next to him!

You can imagine how we felt when there was no time to warn the poor girl who sat next to him as the bus quickly filled...

Lucky for you this is one post without pictures!

Crossed the equator. Good to be back up north.

It was probably unfair on Ecuador to use it as a stepping stone to Colombia but we did stop for a few days on the way through, which is more generous than we were to Peru.  First stop was a little town called Baños, nestled in between mountains blanketed in lush green  cloud forest.  We'd planned to hike a little and enjoy the 60km descent by bike into the nearby rainforest.  However, due to some ongoing gastro problems we didn't make it very far; you'd possibly be forgiven for thinking Baños would be the ideal place for us given the circumstances, but the name refers to the natural spring baths and not the alternative translation!  We didn't even really feel like a dip but did try to push ourselves back to fitness a little by attempting a small climb to the mirador. To be fair it was pretty steep, but it nearly killed us and we couldn't believe we'd scampered up Ben Nevis only a couple of months ago; it was a sobering experience, even allowing for the
fact we were at twice the altitude of Britain's proudest peak.  Acknowledging we needed to take gradual steps back to health we enjoyed the view from the plaza (surrounded by brightly coloured inflatables, the thing to buy in Baños it seemed) and found the most delicious strawberry milkshake in a cool little cafe.  Despite not entirely making the most of Baños it was so good to be in fresh air and beautiful surroundings, shaking out the days and days of bus journeys.

After a couple of days' respite we hopped back on a bus, skirted round Quito, over the equator, and on to Otavalo.  Famous for its Saturday market, we arrived on Friday to find another town surrounded by mountain ridges and snow-capped volcanoes.  Next morning alas the view was hidden by clouds but no matter as all attention was taken by the vast expanse of market stalls, spilling, nay flooding out of the plaza way into the surrounding streets.  So off we set on a mission to buy some 'traditional artefacts'...and came back unburdoned by any 'ethnic tat' at all!  It was of course fascinating to see the array of goods on offer and the colour and vibrancy of the occasion; well worth the stop before we hopped over the border to Colombia.

Well we'll never fly Club Class!

We had to do it: fully reclining seats, airline style cabin area with personal DVD player and 3 course meals. 

OK, enough bus stories now.  Well at least until we get to Central America as I'm sure we'll have something to say about all the chicken buses!

24 hours in Lima!

We'd decided to cover the entire length of Peru on two overnight buses, and as it had taken us about 36 hours to get from La Paz to Peru in the first place (via Chile due to riots and blockades at the Bolivia/Peru border), a break in the capital half way was definitely in order.  With such a short time scale we didn't want to muck around.  Straight in a cab to Miraflores, the tourist district, to drop our bags at a rough and ready backpackers and off out to see what Peru's capital had to offer.  The Miraflores district is clean, pretty and full of cafés, pubs, restaurants and shops, not what I was expecting at all.  It's a great area to stroll around but we'd pretty much done it in an hour or two.  So where next?  Off to the centre of town on the "Urban Train", Lima's new metropolitan bus system. It covers vast distances, is fast, efficent, on time and is planned to be extended.  It was probably completed on time and budget too.  Anything like the new Edinburgh Tram system then?  That's a big no!

After a fair few days of long bus journeys it was great to be in a cosmopolitan city, just moseying along, stretching our legs and doing a bit of people watching.  Our day turned into one that we might possibly have in Edinburgh: a wander through the Parque de la Exposicion (Water of Leith), catch an exhibition at the MALI Gallery (Dean Gallery) and into town for some food.  It was refreshing to be in an activity so normal but with a South American twist.  The MALI Gallery, a beautiful white stone colonial building held a couple of spectacular exhibitions.  A collection by Peruvian artist and sculptor Jorge Piqueras, 'From structure to blast' is a stunning set of geometric abstract paintings.  I thought it was a pleasing display of colour and shape, it really made me smile.  Rather a simplistic view of one of the most important Peruvian artists of the twentieth century but maybe he'd like that.  We also watched a great piece of digital art from Melanie Smith and Rafael Ortega: a massive mysterious bright-pink parcel left in numerous different places in and around Lima, where helpful souls or unfortunate victims would be expected to look after or transport it.  My backpack possibly isn't quite as big as 'mysterious pink' but I definitely connected with the constantly travelling parcel and the bizarre situations it was seen in.

Our day finished in the central plaza, where we came upon what we thought was a state funeral procession or something similar.  At first we saw what looked like a huge coffin bedecked with flowers and insignia, carried by around 20 men in cloaks, with a procession of nuns walking backwards infront, incense burners smoking away.  As we got closer we decided it probably wasn't a coffin but before we could work out what it was (and no, we've still no idea what the whole thing was in aid of, so don't bother asking!), our attention was taken by a vibrant display of dancers in bright costumes and masks, carrying whips, with drummers beating out their rhythm.  It became apparent that they were leading the whole procession - it seemed so incongruent and to be honest, more than a little bizarre, but the whole thing was fantastic to witness and totally made our flying visit into the centre of Lima.  We could get back onto the bus for another mammoth journey feeling at least human again.