Bogota

After another short indulgent flight we rolled out of the airport at
Bogota in search of a colectivo - sharedbus into the city centre. We
totally failed. We found ourselves in the taxi queue. A young driver
jumped out and asked 'Platypus?' This was in fact the very hostel we
had chosen from our ancient lonely planet, it obviously has a solid
reputation! It turns out that Playpus owns half the street!
Our first mission was to visit the gold museum - a history of gold
from all over the world, then focusing more on South America. It's a
really good museum, with loads of English info too ;)
Next we went up the cable car to escape the city. Bogota has the same
population as London! The tourist district is pretty small though,
phew. After the cable car we went for a stroll and were approached by
two policemen. They told us the area was not safe then walked us to a
main road to get a taxi! They don't want any problems on their watch!
Our taxi driver then ripped us off, literally a two minute journey to
where we were going. We paid him less then jumped out. We decided that
if he called the police on us, it would be the same two guys who had
put us in the taxi in the first place!
We tried to find a cinema, and failed! People kept sending us back
towards the danger zone, so we just went shopping instead! The central
streets had been pedestrianised for Christmas shopping, I think it was
the Saturday night before Christmas, everyone was out on the town.
Sunday morning we packed up and headed to the airport - we were
heading to Costa Rica! The hostel organised a mini-van taxi for us. I
don't know exactly what was wrong with it, but it was the bumpiest
little van in the world, and the driver seemed to be having difficulty
with the gear box. We were pretty relieved to arrive at the airport in
one piece, with plenty of time for our new favourite restaurant -
Crepes and Waffles :)
On the flight we decided to get into the spirit of it all - rum and
coke please! Oh boy, it was literally rum on the ricks with a dash of
coke in the top. Hmmmm. The guy next to us was chuckling as we sipped
away grimacing! We crumbled and got extra coke and all was well.
Colombia!! Best place ever! Will definitely be coming back to explore
more before all the other gringoes here about it!!!!
Next, Costa Rica!

p.s. I'm way behind on this!!! Trying to catch up!!!!!

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Nuqui, Pacific Coast, Colombia

Ciao coffee country, we're off to the beach...in a tiny wee plane!
Just before landing we realised that we were not by the coast, but
over a huge city! Where was the pacific jungle? This was concrete
jungle! As it turns out it wasn't a direct flight, but 2 connecting
flights: Pereira-Medellin-Nuqui. We finally landed in the tiny village
of Nuqui and walked out of the airport to find our hotel. From the
limited research that we had done, we were expecting a fairly
substantial tourist town, with good surf, and lots of boats heading
off to remote sandy beaches - the Eco-lodges in the area featured in
Colombia's 14 day whistlestop tours. We dumped our bags at the hotel
and headed off into town in search of an ATM and information about Eco-
lodges and tours. It soon became aparent as we wandered through the
streets that there was no bank, no ATM, no way of getting any form of
cash. Plastic visa cards were about as useful as a box of matches
under the sea :( the sleezy police told us we would have to fly to a
different town to get cash!! We found Internet and decided to call up
one of the Eco-lodges to see if they could accept visa or help us!
Within 10 minutes a lodge manager was knocking on the glass door of
our phone booth- obviously we were pretty easy to find 'have you seen
2 gringoes? That's right, the ones with no money...' He had been on a
shopping trip to the big city, and was heading back to his lodge, the
boat was waiting. A quick chat with John led to a very useful chat
with the lodge owner, who lives in Medellin city, he kindly agreed to
let us pay for the lodge and flights on arrival back in Medellin!
Phew! Crisis evaded. We thought we might need to sell all the digital
gadgets, wash dishes or worse to get back to civilisation. We grabbed
our bags from the hotel, paid the owner a few bucks by means of
apology for not staying, and ran to the boat.
As the boat headed out into the ocean, we were able to see the full
extent of the 'beautiful fishing village', it was actually more like a
slum built on stilts on a stinky swamp. We felt rescued!

We landed on the beach and were welcomed by a group of about 5
children! We were introduced to one of the girls by John 'this is my
wife'. She looked very young, but this is rural Colombia! We walked
along the beach towards the huts as the rain began to pelt down. We
arrived, drenched, and were introduced by John to another girl 'this
is my wife'. Right, two wives, both very young! There was no mistake
about it, over the following days we witnessed behavior that would
indicate he did have at least 2 wives, and possibly additional
girlfriends!
The boys at the lodge showed us around the area, the other lodges, how
to get coconuts down from the trees, beautiful waterfalls. We were the
only people there, the food was amazing, the ocean was rough and
beautiful. We visited some natural hot springs on the tiny village of
Termales.
Our first night, I was upstairs getting my torch and something caught
my eye. On closer inspection I realised it was a huge rat! That night
before bed we checked for it, no sign. In the middle of the night I
hear rustling! I turn on my torch and spot the thing jumping off my
bed-side table! It had been chewing my earplugs!!! We told John about
it in the morning - 'don't worry, the boa contrictor will find it!'
We had an amazing couple of days, very chilled out. Much needed after
all the buses we'd been on over the past week!
We left the lodge and went back to Nuqui on the boat, then flew to
Medellin where we met the owner, found an ATM, paid him, while Kirsty
got his contact details - he looked like Keanu Reaves! He had also
bailed us out of a potentially holiday destroying situation! He gave
us a mini tour of the city before we flew to Bogota, capital city of
Colombia.

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Villa Martha - Colombian Coffee Farm

We breezed into Pereira on the freezy bus and went straight to the
airport to see when we could get a flight to the Pacific coast, Nuqui.
We managed to get flights for tomorrow morning. This left us the rest
of the day in Pereira -not a spectacular town, but the surrounding
hills are brimming with coffee farms - Finca. Kirsty managed to find
Ville Martha - owned by Martha and her husband Raphael. www.fincavillamartha.com
We jumped in a cab and headed 10 k out of town into the hills. A
friendly policeman along the way helped out with directions. We
arrived in paradise. Fresh juice on arrival, then off to chill out by
the pool, then a tour of the whole coffee making process. Martha and
Raphael's friends were visiting for the day, one of whom spoke some
English - always useful! So we picked the red coffee berries, saw how
they get shelled, washed, dried. Then how the little pods get shelled
again, then fed into the toaster machine, 20 minutes later = the best
coffee in the whole world. I can't sleep tonight. We explored the
whole property, which had all been expertly built by Raphael. Martha's
hobby is collecting old things; the house is full of ancient
typewriters, clocks, irons, masks, coins, telephones, pencil
sharpeners! Such a great family atmosphere after hostels and buses.
They have 3 boisterous alsatian dogs, cunning creatures, playing games
by the pool all evening -hot jaccuzzi after dinner...soothing jaccuzzi
bubbles :) we learnt a lot of Spanish today - amazing how when you
have to communicate, it speeds up the process! Today was the best day
of our trip so far. This little place is so special and unique.
Colombia is amazing, so unspoilt - I wonder how long it can stay like
this!
Tomorrow early start - 7am flight to the coast. At least the day will
start with a grand cup of coffee.

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San Agustin to Pereira

We were hungry at the bus station. We rolled out of the VIP salon to
the fullest restaurant and requested to see the menu. Uh oh - no menu.
Just a cute girl in hot-pants reeling off all the specials to two
tired hungry girls who speak only poccito espanol. We tried our best,
gestures galore... I ended up in the kitchen peering into all the pots
on the cooker, we ended up with two gourmet plates, one of the best
meals yet.
We jumped on the bus -a big nomal sized nice bus, with air-con...a
little too much a/c. We froze!!!! 9 hours became 12, but the scenery
was amazing. The Japanese are very good at building tunnels through
mountains, quick, efficient, straight roads...here they go over, then
down, then over again, then down again. The air in my inflatable
pillow keeps changing volume - it'll start perfect, then as we climb
the mountain I'll have to let air out because it's too full, then as
we go down it'll crumple up and I put more air in it.. Then the whole
process repeats!!

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Colombian coffee

San Agustin

Statues at San Agustin