Postlogue

I have really grown fond of writing, and I wish to get better at it.  I know my past posts might be filled with grammar and word errors because I have been writing on my phone, but I will go back and fix it.  However, here is the conclusion to our trip to Machu Picchu and Colombia.  It was a pretty dope trip, and it was tiring and rewarding at the same time.

First of all, while Colombia was fantastic, going through the Salkantay Trek to Machu Picchu definitely takes the cake for the highlight of the trip.  I had a lot of fun and had to really challenge myself on the climbs.  As time passes by, I begin to forget how much the climbing had tired me through the 5 days of continuous trekking, but I still remember the heart pounding and head-aching sensations of my body struggling to get more oxygen.  Maybe it was just the ridiculous amount of coca leaves I chewed to get through it, but I find myself longing for that same sensation when I hiked in Colombia.  We also made many cool friends during the trek.  I believe you really get to know people when everyone works toward the same goal through time.  The more difficult the task, the better the bond.  I believe that held true in this case.  I will definitely visit them when my trips take me to their neighborhoods.

Second, I want to talk Medellin.  Place has really turned a corner.  Everything is very cheap, the metro is pleasure to ride, and the city is extremely beautiful.  People are extremely nice there too.  If I have enough money, I wouldn’t mind buying a piece of property there and watch as the value grow.  Medellin definitely wins the best city I have visited in this trip.

MVP:

Now I want to talk about the MVP of this trip.  The MVP goes to my shoes.  The Puma Suede Classic.  This shoe is stylish and most importantly durable.  I trekked through Salkantay and various hikes in that pair of shoes.  I walked through mud, rivers, and rocks through that pair of shoes.  Went to Salsa bars and danced in that pair of shoes.  Played basketball and soccer in that pair of shoes. Did so much with that pair of shoes, and yet the shoes took on the abuse and shined.  Despite being a bit dirty, not a single lace of material has came off.

LVP:

Spirit Airline.  Not really that much cheaper than others, and I have never been so uncomfortable in my life.

Favorite food.

While Devin’s favorite food is probably the Bandeja Paisa, a plate of ground pork, chicharon, sausage, rice, egg, avocado, beans and salad, my favorite food is the Lachona.  Lachona is a whole grilled pig filled with corn, rice, and other stuff.  A plate of Lachona is served with a piece of the pig skin.  I love that stuff.  We even bought some from a dude selling straight out of the back of his car.

Least favorite food.

Arepas.  The flour arepas at least, the corn ones are quite tasty.  Don’t know why the Colombians include those in everyone of their meals, and why they keep giving them to us, but they are terrible.  Probably the most bland tasting thing I have ever had.  A good amount of our arepas went toward the homeless, doing some good and not waste food.

Favorite Drink.

My favorite drink is the Canelazo, because I had it while I was freezing to death the first night in Bogota.  The drink happens to be a hot drink made with Aguardiente and sugar cane juice.  It was hot and pretty good, especially when the rum has low alcohol percentage, and Aguardiente tastes like licorice/anise.

Least Favorite Drink.

Anything that happens to have too much sugar in it, which is pretty much all the juices you try to buy there.  Really have to tell them to make without sugar.  Even some of the coffee is filled with sugar, that all you taste is the sweet.

What would I have done differently.

I would liked to explore more of Peru, such as the Santa Cruz trek, and Cordillera Blanca, but I was pretty out of shape coming out of finishing school, didn’t think it would be realistic.  Also, wished I had traveled through Ecuador and skipped Cartagena.  Cartagena was extremely touristy, and hot.  The vibe is quite lazy during the day because of the Caribbean temperature.  I feel there is more adventures in Ecuador.

Ok, this is my last post for a while, until my next adventure at least.

July 31, 2015 by Di Leave a comment

Zipaquirá/Chía/Last Day in Colombia

On our very last day in Colombia, we headed out to visit the salt cathedral in old town Zipaquira, which is about 2 hours away from Bogota by bus.  The salt cathedral is located in an abandoned salt mine.  It is quite a grandiose site with prayer sites every couple meters of the hallway leading to the main cathedral.  The town is quite beautiful too, but we didn’t get to see a lot of it because it was raining that day.  We walked around the salt mine and admired the depth of the salt mine and the many of the salt stone carvings.  There are also many shops and more emerald sellers.  We also watched a LED show in an underground gallery.

After visiting the salt cathedral, we made way to our friend Lauren’s house in a nearby town Chía.  Chia is a very agricultural town and a very good neighborhood too.  There we ate some really good food prepared by Lauren’s housemaid and Devin learned to front flip on a trampoline.

That night we went barhopping in the La Candeleria area to spend all our pesos.  Our flight was at 7AM, but I didn’t sleep much because I suspect there was bedbug on my hostel bed.  There were an Argentinian and a Peruvian who have been living in that dorm forever and they were pretty dirty.  I found many bites on my back and ankle the night before even thou it was 10 deg Celsius at night in Bogota.

We successfully got on our flight, and we arrived in Houston for our switch flight.  In the airport, we bought sandwiches that cost 9 dollars each.  That is when it hit me that 18 dollars is 50000 pesos in Colombia, which can feed us for 5 nights.

July 31, 2015 by Di Leave a comment

Bogotá continued

While Bogotá turned out to be better than I heard, some people in Bogotá are bigger scumbags than other cities in Colombia.  For example, we went to a game at Estadio El Campín to watch the Bogota Millionarios play in Liga Aguila.  Both teams have below MLS talent, but the fans go absolutely crazy just like in Medellin.  However, the person sold us the tickets gave us tickets in the away section.  It wasn’t expensive, but we got rolled and we were told by the police to leave 10 minutes early because the other fans might attack this section.  So we were robbed 10 mins of a game that ends in 00 and amounted to pretty boring. 
Then on the way back in the taxi, the taxi driver tried to charge us more.  The taxi meter shows you the price after the driver pushes a button and you have chart that shows the amount in the back seat.  The sheet says 7700, but the driver tried to charge us 10000.  I told him but he just keeps bullshitting, lucky for him, I only had a 10000 bill or else I just leave 8 and leave.  There was also a cheapskate trying to sell us a tiny shwarma for 7500.  Also after I walked the Monserrate this morning and the same store that sold me a bottle of water for 3000 yesterday try to sell me the same water for 3500.  Normally i don’t mind the money part, because in the end of the day some of these people are struggling to make ends meet, but I hate when people try to deceive me. I hate that shit.

Now back to the more exciting stuff.  We went to the tallest building in Bogota yesterday, called Torre Colpatria.  It is a bank building on a street of bank buildings.  It reminds me of the credit unions in the movie Fight Club.  I can imagine Tyler Durden just blow all that shit up except Colombians don’t really use credits, they carry cash around.  It wouldn’t have reset anything, but that’s what the tall bank buildings reminded me off.

The tower overlooking the bullfight arena that was closed.
The tower was talked but it doesn’t give you the same view as the Monserrate.  A church where the locals go on Sunday located in the highest part of Bogota.  Devin didn’t make the climb because he went on a date the night before and just didn’t want to do it, so I went alone.  I heard from many the trek up is more deserted and people would rob you there, so I went on Sunday when there is a stream of people going up.  The plus is that you don’t get robbed, the minus is that you have to wade through all the slow walkers.  Some of these people like to walk as a group and struggle to go up, I tried to go up as fast as possible at German speed because we got a lot of stuff to do.  The intro stated the walk up from bottom to top is 2000 meters, and the stairs are made of large rocks, thou not as difficult as Machu Picchu.  The walk took me 35-40 mins, pretty easy with no rest stop.  Could have got up faster if I didn’t get stuck behind slow groups of people, so I’m not sure it is actually 2km as advertised. 
Along the way where there are flats, there are many jewelry and food vendors.  One of the popular items is cheese dessert and cheese drinks.  I mean, what the fuck, why would anyone drink a shit ton of cheese when they are going up a mountain? 
Anyways, the Monserrate is a church and people go in there on Sunday for the service.  There were a lot of people going to church and a lot people like me admiring the view.  The view was pretty cool, the church was pretty cool.  Some kids interviewed for their school project and some others wanted to get a pic.  Not really sure why, probably because I’m the best looking person on that mountain. 

Tomorrow will be our very last day Colombia before a 7AM flight on Tuesday.  Not sure what to do tomorrow yet, but it will be fun.  Always to try to live the next day better than today.

July 27, 2015July 27, 2015 by Di Leave a comment

Bogotá- first impression

I was told or suggested that Bogotá isn’t a very attractive city, that it is too big, that it is too polluted, that there isn’t enough to see.  Damn they were wrong and I was a dumbass for believing in it.  It is our second day in Bogota, the city is quite fun.  Bogotá shares a close resemblance to Los Angeles at night while during the day time the La Candeleria/Centro/Chapinero closely resemble São Paulo, specifically Paulista and Republic. 

Contrary to São Paulo, the streets in Bogota are filled with street vendors, which is cool.  There is also an area where you can buy all kinds of book very cheap. 
We went to the emerald market, which I thought is a flea market area that displays and sells emeralds.  It was not so, it is a building that has stores that sell emerald jewelries, but old people walking outside holding paper bags trying to sell and trade the stones they have or found.  It is quite like the new York stock exchange for emeralds.
We also went to another gold museum stating the history of the metalsmiths in South America.  The museum has quite a large collection. 
We also trailed to the bull fighting arena which wasn’t open and the highest skyscraper which opens for viewing during the weekend. 
We ate lunch at a getsumani, where they have a whole fried pig stuffed with two kinds of rice and corn.  It was quite a good find and delicious lunch.

After lunch we wondered around more and drank some beer at Bogota beer company.  Beer was quite good by Colombian standards and it started to rain really hard and we had to get back.  This place is really similar to São Paulo.

The night before our friend Lauren who we met in Medellin and lives in Bogota took us to a restaurant in the hills overlooking the city called Mirador La Paloma.  Upon entrance they gave us wine, then pop corn and then free bottle of aguardiente.  Quite a fancy place and then the menu came and we realized its out of our budget, but we already ate the popcorn and drank the wine, so fuck it we need to do a non budget dinner at least once anyways.  The food was the best we had in Colombia, and I also had this drink called canelazo, which is aguardiente in sugar cane juice, heated up.  It was quite cold in Bogota, and especially windy at night.  As people can recall, I Inca donated my jacket, so I was cold and the drink helped.  Anyways it was a great dinner and now I bought a sweatshirt because I might not make it through without…
Still got a couple more days before the journey has to end, it will be fun.

July 24, 2015July 24, 2015 by Di Leave a comment

Top Songs of South America

These are the songs I hear every night, in the taxi, in the bar, in the club, whenever.  To be honest, they aren’t bad, and some of them brings great memories.  As I moved from north to south, I hear these songs less often, but all four on the list will be played at least once when you go out at night.  So the count down begins.

#4 El Perdon — Nicky Jam ft Enrique Iglesias

Enrique has two songs in here.  The music lowkey sounds like the first one, and this song is always on the radio in the taxi.

#3.  Cancioncitas de Amor — Romeo Santos

Romeo Santos’ take on bachata.  It is actually a good song if not for the high alto voice he likes to sing in.  Other honorable mentions by Romeo onnthe same album are Eres Mia, and Inocent, which get played a lot too, but not as much as this one.

#2.  El Taxi– Osmani ft. Pitbull

Choo choo choo choo taxi.  A song about taxi and getting hard in the taxi.  Super catchy, reminds of me of my time getting Inca drunk on the Salkantay trek.  Pitbull finally featured in a song I can listen to.
#1.  Bailando–Enrique Iglesias

The number one, also super catchy song.  Heard this song at least a thousand times.  Pretty good song, wouldn’t mind hearing it another thousand.  Also reminds me of getting Inca drunk on the Salkantay trek and our guide Jorgito dancing to it on the bus.  Good times, will be bumping it in the states in my car.

July 24, 2015August 3, 2015 by Di Leave a comment

Salento

Salento, the center of the Colombian coffee triangle/Eje Cafetero, is the city in the middle of Manizales, Pereira, and Armenia.  Salento is also extremely small and touristy.  The town is quite colorful and beautiful, also very quiet and not any party going on at all.  The most famous good here is the trout, which is caught in the Quindio River, I’m guessing.  Salento represents the picturesque Colombian country side.
We took a bus from Cali to Armenia and from there took another bus to Salento.  We arrived there early enough in the afternoon and decided to get our caffeine level up to the local standard.  The best coffee spot in town is called Cafe Jesus Martin.  The coffee is quite good and we tried different coffee from black to whisky latte.  They also have chess boards there and we played a couple games too. 

The next morning we woke up early because we were going to Valle de Cocora, a beautiful hike that passes by cow farms and the 60m wax palms the area is known for.  The hike took us 3 hours to complete and we were the first to finish.  We rode in the back of a jeep in the open air to arrive at the trail head.  The trek is quite muddy so renting boots is a must. Maybe we are finally up to German speed, we finished a 5 hour trek in less than 3.  The hike consists any river crossing through suspension bridges, jungle, a medium high difficult ascend, farms, and the palm tree valley. 

After the hike, we went to get some this brownie everyone was talking about.  It was peanut butter filled.  It was good, but people made it seem that it was huge, but it wasn’t.
That afternoon we went to coffee plantation.  The plantation was more like an information tour than a real I’m walking in the middle of coffee plants and cherries while people are harvesting.  However the tour was good and we sampled some coffee even thou Jesus Martin is still better.

We learned that plantains are grown next to coffee for sunlight control and coffee takes 3 years to become harvestable and 5 years the cherries turn black.  There were a lot of good info.
Salento is definitely a place worthy of visiting and I liked the country side vibe a lot.  There are also many other stuffs we didn’t do, for example, the entrance to the Los Nevados park is there which we didn’t have enough time to do.
Bogotá is our last stop and we will definitely enjoy one of the largest cities in South America.

July 24, 2015July 24, 2015 by Di Leave a comment

Cali

The other Cali, or the Cali in the other continent.  We spent our last night in Medellin partying till 5AM and just were able to make our flight at 6AM.  Upon landing in Cali, once again, the airport is far out of town and we had to take a long bus ride.  On the bus, through my very sleepy state, I saw many trees and farms and thought to myself there will be a lot of good food. 
We arrived at the bus terminal and Devin bought a piece of sausage for breakfast, the good food prediction was proved wrong very quickly.  Don’t eat the sausage. 
The city of Cali is a huge contrast versus Medellin.  There is no longer that metropolitan feel, the streets are large, but the buildings are less organized.  We arrived at our first hostel because all the couchsurfing requests were denied since that following Monday is a national holiday and the inhabitants of Cali are traveling to Medellin for the long weekend. 
We decided to stay the first two nights near Avenida Sexta, a popular street for bars and restaurants and clubs.  It didn’t look exciting during the day, but it turns on at night.  Lights, music, party buses, and hatchbacks loaded with speakers going down the street blasting music.  However, we wanted to go to salsa bars here, and we went out of the way.  We went to the district of Manga the second night, which is filled with salsa clubs and music doesn’t stop till 6AM. 
Cali is pretty life draining for me because we didn’t sleep a lot since there are a lot of night activities, but we didn’t want to just sleep during the day. 
One of my favorite place in Cali is the zoo.  It has an aquarium, kangaroos, poisonous frogs, and crazy amount of other animals.  Going to the zoo makes me sad sometimes because the animals are locked up, but the Cali zoo is rather impressive. 
After two nights living by Avenida Sexta where my bed seemed to be ravaged by mosquitoes every night.  I resorted to sleep fully clothed and still had bites on my back.  I have no idea how that happened in the short two hours I managed to sleep.  So we changed to a hostel in San Antonio district. 
The area is better.  The street is small and narrow, but the buildings are impressive.  There is a park nearby that old looks the city that resembles Dolores park in SF. 

There is also this pretty cool tree cradled by vines. 
We went to the Cristo Rey, which is the fake and ugly version of Cristo Redentor.  Didn’t really care much for the fake myself, but the place has a gorgeous view of the city. 

Now, some interesting things finally start to happen.  There wasn’t a taxi available to go down the mountain, but very fortunately for us, there was a family of 6, 3 adults and 3 kids who offered to take us to the soccer stadium.  These are the kind and helpful people that made me love South America.  We had fun talking with the 7 and 8 year olds in the van and had a great time going down the mountain. 
After getting to the stadium, I got two fried plantains and we noticed that there is some event going on at the stadium despite not having a soccer match that day. 
Turns out the world youth track and field championship was happening that day and it was the last day of events.  It was quite a pleasant surprise as we watched US won long jump and and ladies Sprint, and 4×4.  The pole vault event was quite exciting too.

We were supposed to go to San Cipriano today, but Devin was doing his I don’t want to ride a bus thing so we are not anymore.  That’s why I finally have time to write this.  Tomorrow, we will go to Salento, a lot more nature, coffee and less city. 
*update:  went to the water park in Cali because all other stuffs were closed on holiday.  I hate water parks, its full of people and dirty water.  Don’t go to the water park.

July 21, 2015July 21, 2015 by Di Leave a comment

Medellín the Neighborhoods

After spending the first three days here doing the ultra tourist things: Parque Arví, Guatapé etc.  We explored most of the neighborhoods of the city of Medellin. 
First, we moved from the Conquistador neighborhood to Laureles.  Our new couchsurfing host Mauricio was cool and provided us beds to sleep on compare to a shared mattress.  His upstair neighbor Catherine was very cool too.  We lived very close to the soccer stadium where there are indoor and outdoor gyms hosting a variety of sports from outdoor lifting to taekwondo.  Very unfortunately it’s all registered team sports.  We tried to play basketball at a gym and got turned away by a shitty door security.  The street nearby called Carerra 70 is lined with restaurants and bars, however, during the workdays, you have to go to specific places at night. 
We also explored the Parque berrio and San Antonio neighborhood.  Lined with parks and vendors every where, San Antonio is the center of the metro system.  We walked around and saw many cool buildings.  The botanical garden is also near that area.  The cool thing about the garden is that it boosts a butterfly park where all types of butterflies fly freely.  I have taken close up photos of every type of butterfly there, and will post them eventually. 

Above pic shows the Botero statues.

Pillars that light up at night outside of library.
We also ventured into the industriales area to check out some brewery.  Their craft beers aren’t as good as in the states, but its a start.

Then we went bit further away from.the center of the city to check out Pablo Escobar’s grave at the Montesacro cemetery.  There a ground keeper told us about Pablo and his family graves and the cocaine queen Griselda and how she killed her husband and they got buried together bunch of years later.

After couple failed attempts to get in the basketball gym near the stadium, we went to Belen park to play.  There we found bunch of people playing and destroyed the locals.  Kind of shitty that 3 local kids twisted their ankles playing with us.  There are a lot of outdoor work out and sport areas here and it’s pretty refreshing.
Also went out to the ghetto version of Parque Lleras called Parque Periodista where a salsa bar boosts live music and dancing on Tuesdays.  I got a bit sick during these days, tired, sore and head aching, but I managed to push through it like I pushed through altitude sickness.
We then moved to the El Poblado neighborhood in a hostel.  After that we went out to a local soccer game, the local team Atletico Nacional vs Junior Barranquilla.  The fans here are crazy, at the least the section that we went.  A friend we met the first night saw us and took us to the crazy fan section where young people keep singing, jumping and fist the pumping the entire game.  There are a lot of cops body searching you for drugs and alcohol, but they sneak them through their rear ends and use them to keep their energy.  They said soccer is their second religion and it shows.  The atmosphere is crazy and we enjoyed it.  When Nacional scored everyone pushed forward down the bleachers, leaving people all over the place, trampled and on top of another.  The nacionals won, and on our way back on the metro, their fans almost fought with the cross town rival team, Medellin independent. 

Our last day we went to the supposedly ghetto neighborhood, San Javier.  There people have built escalators in the area comunal 13.  After we got there, we were wrongly informed, kids were returning home from school, people working as usual.  Everything seemed normal.  We checked out the neighborhood and escalators.  The area used to be more shitty before, but city have fixed some of the houses there, built the escalators, and also had painters to paint the roofs and walls of the houses.  People there were nice and funny, not the imagery of wife beater wearing people with pistols stashed in their belt just standing around. 
Devin got a hair cut there for very cheap and we met some kids and the barbers where we talked about soccer, basketball and music.  The barber was pretty damn good too, and it was a pretty good day. 

Overall Medellin is a pretty dope city and definitely deserve a visit.  Tomorrow we will move on to Cali the city of Salsa and fake Cristo Redentor.

July 16, 2015July 16, 2015 by Di Leave a comment

Pueblo Guatapé/La Piedra

Pueblo Guatape is a small town in the El Peñol reservoir area. Or in Spanish Embalse del Peñol, or sometimes it’s called Peñon. The town resembles a cleaner and more beautiful version of lake Havasu in Arizona. There are boat rides, tires, blobs and other water activities.
The Peñol area used to be owned by Pablo Escobar and his family. It served as their hideouts as well as communication center. His brother/accountant Roberto and his daughter Manuela has multiple houses along the vast lake area. Before his demise, the Peñol area is off to the public, but now its a great spot to day trip from Medellin.
The lakes now serve as a reservoir because during rain season the water would go extremely high as one very enthusiastic museum staff had told us during our boat ride. In essence, this area is another hydroelectric.
So, enough intro, we took the 2 hour bus off the Caribe metro station early in the morning. We paid the Guatape fair but decided to stop at La Piedra first, which is also called The Rock. It is a very fitting name since it is a natural forming hill/rock overlooking the Peñol area. Stair ways were built like a zipper to the top of the rock, a beautiful place. We rode some horses to the entrance of the stair because it was cheap. There are 730 total stairs to reach the overlook tower on top of the rock. It was pretty easy after you climbed Salkantay and Machu Picchu. Took about less than 10 minutes well you pass by panting and resting people. Kind of make me thing I can achieve German pace after all.
As every postcard attraction, there are beer and food vendors, we chilled on top of La Piedra and enjoyed the view with some beer.

After La Piedra, we went to Guatape in hopes of doing some wake boarding. The town was very beautiful and boats lined up the shores. However, there was no wake boarding service. We ended up doing a boat ride. Our driver was very cool and showed us all the Pablo Escobar spots. Also went to a tiny museum where a really enthusiastic staff told us stories about water rising over churches and family first going on top of La Piedra.

After the boat ride, we went and did the blob. I was wanted to flip off the blob. It was fan and Devin became a local favorite because of his weigh. He can launch people higher because he weigh the most on the dock.
After the blob, we went around town and ate food, it was a pretty good day.

July 13, 2015July 13, 2015 by Di Leave a comment

Medellín

I wasn’t going to write anything until my week here is up, but now I’m sitting here waiting for slow ass Devin to hike down Parque Arvi, I have a lot of time on my hand.  To be honest, he could be lost, I don’t know. 
I said I wasn’t going to hike anymore, but ended up doing some kind of walking up every week now.  Parque Arvi has a pretty good view, but the routes are kind of confusing, only did the most basic hike here.  The path has tree roots all over it, and couple types of dragonflies, butterflies and hybrids are everywhere. 
It is a beautiful park, the temperature is perfect with the right amount of breeze.  I have seen pictures of river crossing in here, but I did wore my jean here because its laundry day, so I’ll skip that.

I’ll start talking about Medellin.  We have only been here for a day and half and we love here.  It is a lot less touristy and the people are very nice.  We Couchsurf with Ivan, a pretty cool local.  His apartment is really nice and he shares it with two other people.  It is a nice change from all the hostels we have been staying.  We stay in the Conquistador neighborhood of Medellin, right by a mall called Unicentro, where we get food everyday.  The food here, especially their local well known, Bandeja Paisa, is really good.  Things here are cheaper too. 
Compare to the Cartagena, this place is so much more progressive.  It has the urban vibe, I wouldn’t mind living here. 
First stop we made in Medellin was the Pueblito Paisa, a small hill over looking the city where people go up to enjoy the view and take photos.  It was a pretty cool place with a huge Colombian flag flaying. 
After the Pueblito, we met up with our friends in El Poblado, the party district where more well to do people live.  There lies the famous Parque Lleras where young people just sit around hang out and drink.  Bars and clubs line up the streets, the scene is crazy. 

We had a pretty good night in Medellin, and the next morning we went on the famous gondolas to see Parque Arvi.  The gondolas should be a must have for all the cities.  It is like a relaxing roller coaster, thoroughly enjoyed my ride.  We also took the above ground metro in Medellin, the metro is purely electric powered.  There were a lot of people, but I’m a big fan of metro systems.  You are never late. 

That’s it for the first day and half, we still have a lot of places to cover, including pueblo guatape which I really want to go.

July 11, 2015July 11, 2015 by Di Leave a comment