Underground tunnels and old town charm - more adventures in and around Cartagena, Colombia

We arrived in Cartagena, Colombia this past Tuesday. A new country and a new continent. A huge country...bigger than all of Central America. We had to sort of ignore this fact when we decided to come to Colombia. If we´d given it more than a quick thought... well, we would probably still be in Nicaragua. Luckily we threw reason out the door (Helen and Gary would definitely agree) and took the leap!

Every review of Colombia by every traveler we met coming up from South America was a positive, ¨You have to go!¨ and with Gabriel Garcia Marquez´ world only a short plane ride away, we simply couldn´t miss it.

Old town Cartagena

What do you imagine when you think of Colombia? Ok, ok, beyond the drugs, guerrillas, and violence! Maybe it isn´t somewhere you are too familiar with. Before planning our trip, we certainly weren´t. A couple of things that we have come to look forward to in Colombia are the colourful Carribean culture, Cartagena`s old town,  the very friendly highland cultures, historical cobblestoned pueblos, snow capped Andes, amazing coffee, cathedrals built into salt mines...The general consensus is that this amazing country is trying to remake itself - to get away from its violent history - and that it has become much safer over the past ten years. 

A hot, beautiful, hot city

Our first impressions of Colombia were also overwhelmingly positive. Cartagena`s old town is one of the oldest places in the Americas, full of brightly painted houses boasting huge wooden doors and balconies, plazas on every corner, fruit stands and coffee sellers, cathedrals, narrow streets bursting with people and little local comedors (where the locals eat) tucked in back alleys. There are also the original fortified walls that you can walk around on, and all this is bordered by the Carribean.. Pretty hard to get a bad first impression.

A typical skinny street

We stayed in Getsemani, part of the old town outside of the fortified walls that originally housed the poorer Costenos and still today is a much cheaper part of the original Cartagena. Good for us budgety folk. Aside from mucking around in the mud volcano, we walked the old town aimlessly and then we discovered that there was actually a castle (in view of our hostel, it turns out....it didn`t really look like a castle) with underground tunnels that apparently fill part way up when the tide comes in. This, according to Tor, could not be missed.

Crumbling and colourful

Getsemani`s streets are less manicured than in the center, but  more down-to-earth

I finally convinced Lisa to head up to the castle - we had enough money to do one expensive thing that day, and she was of the contention that it should be Indian food for dinner! Good grief. The castle was REALLY cool, all kinds of secret chambers and war contraptions and other castle-ey stuff. The coolest part by far though were the tunnels: huge underground mazes than you could easily get lost in as light ranged from limited to non-existent. It was especially spooky for me because I had to explore much of the tunnel system solo - Lisa the scaredy-cat hardly made it passed the entrances.

Tor and the castle - Castillo San Felipe

Wet, dark, creepy, hot...claustrophobic??

I found this one offshoot that really didn´t seem to have an end, it just dissapeared off under the city. No end! Unfortunately, just as it got really dark (drippy, and cave-like), there was a really creepy broken shopping cart blocking the way, and I didn´t have the nerve to climb around it and continue into the unknown on my own. At this point Lisa was cowering in a pool of her own anxiety at least 60 meters above me. My cousin Jordan (my childhood semi-dangerous adventure partner) would be dissapointed in me. Never ending tunnels Jordan!

Aforementioned scary shopping cart.

Impressed, (with the city´s colour and history, and with the amount of sweat that can come out of a human body in Cartagena), we decided to continue on down the coast, and on with our adventure here in Colombia. We highly recommend Cartagena - especially if you fancy taking 4 showers a day, which is a necessity.

Thats all for now, thanks for reading!

Love Lisa and Tor

ps. We did end up having Indian food that night. I am only telling you this because the Indian food restaurant is only an Indian food restaurant at night. During the day it is your typical semi-questionable comedor serving up Colombian fare. But at night, oh at night, a nice man from Bangledesh tapes his sign `Indian Restaurant` over the permanent spanish one and cooks the BEST Indian food! Yum!
Love Lisa

´´Playin´in the dut´´: a mini-post from Cartagena

When I was a kid, my friend Kenny loved ´´playin in the dut´´. No matter where we´d be (backyard in the turtle sand box, campsite at MacGregor Point, just about anywhere else with a lack of pavement) you could turn around and sure enough Kenny would be playin´ in the dut.

Today, Torrance and I also did our fair share of playing around in the dirt, or to be more specific, in the mud. 

Covered in mud!

Volcan Totumo, where we are pictured above, is a small volcano just north of the glorious colonial town of Cartagena. It is one of the few active volcanoes whose craters you can climb right into, and, in this case, go for a dip. Luckily for us its not spewing lava!

So you are probably wondering how we ended up in the condition we´re in in the photo above. Let me explain...

The volcanic crater is actually only 15m high. Its been reinforced with stone walls and its a steep stair climb to the top where you end up with this:

Do we really want to get in there???

After handing over our camera to an employee there, we climb in and quickly realize that we are completely bouyant...and stuck...lying face down... in warm, chocolate pudding mud. Even though they are each holding about 17 camera´s, the photographers somehow manage to keep track of everyone and luckily we end up with pictures of us and not one of the other 30 people (men, women and children - in various degrees of swimwear - this is Latin america afterall) floating around in the mud bath with us!

The other people are still in the picture (which is fitting, given how intertwined everyone´s limbs were), but in the background.

We had to ask ourselves...wouldn´t this be totally inappropriate if this were a jacuzzi tub?

The answer was clearly, ´´Yes!´´

....some people did not love the mud bath (e.g. lady in the bottom left of this shot)....

And we skipped the massage...

This picture looks a lot more inappropriate than it actually is. But still, we skipped the massage.

It was probably the most hilarious thing that I have ever done. Period.

Mud = fun.

 

 

  (ps. Tor wants to know if that is that a muddy makeout behind us!?! I bet Kenny didn`t know that playing in the dirt could be this fun!)

Last 2 Weeks in Nicaragua, and a Quick Visit to Costa Rica

Hello again everyone,

We started this post from laid back Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica. As a Carribean beach town, Puerto Viejo oozes with the laid-back Rasta vibe we became accustomed to in Belize. With the hand-made bracelets and painted feathers, Lisa is once again in craft-heaven.


For this blog, we'll recap our final 2 weeks in Nicaragua, update you on our brief stint here in Costa Rica, and then, the moment you've all been waiting for, The Big Announcement (because the readership of this blog in comprised primarily of our parents, who already know The Big Announcement, it may not be that exciting).


Picking up where we left off: the glorious Laguna de Apoyo. Our friends Maddy and Emily told us that this was the best place in Nicaragua, a hidden gem a bit off the main tourist beat and easily the best swim in the country... or maybe even the world? We loved it there, without doubt, and stayed four nights sleeping in the open air on mattresses that we were free to put anywhere. Its too bad that our options were limited by the rainy season's persistent appearance in the middle of each and every night. Seeing that we didn´t want to be drowned in a downpour, our dreams to sleep out on the floating dock were squandered.

A view of the Laguna from our hostel. On a sunny day the water is blue, blue, blue but on those days we were too busy to take any photos. 

We absolutely loved Apoyo, and our original 2 nights stretched to 4 pretty easily. It was by far the most relaxing 4 days of our trip; our activities consisted of lying on docks, floating in tubes, cooking, and, sometimes, going for a kayak. We had one hiking day planned but it was cancelled to stomach issues on my part - sunstroke, my nemesis! Luckily, it passed within a day, and Tor was more than content for another day of lake activities. He's quite fond of floating docks afterall.

Sunrise over the laguna.

Even luckier was a member of the local furniture company that threw its staff party on the hostel's property that day. The party involved heavy drinking on the part of all the company members, including a guy who decided to mix his rum with kayaking instead of coke. While I was sleeping away in my hammock,Tor and our friends Jimmy and Melanie were lazing on the floating dock when all of a sudden a bunch of Don Juans (I don´t really know what that term means, so if it is offensive I apologize!) started making a commotion on shore and then diving into the water. Tor realized that these guys were swimming to rescue their friend who'd abandoned his kayak in favour of sinking about 50m beyond the floating dock (Jimmy is basically blind without his glasses so he is excused for not noticing). Tor got to play the hero that day, reaching the man first, and holding him above water until Jimmy arrived to help swim him in to shore.

The man was fine (having a beer about 6 minutes later), and the party-goers felt they needed to thank Tor individually. This was all fine and well, but they weren't really happy until him and the man he'd saved had hugged. As he was receiving his heroes treatment, a few of his friends in their "bathing suits" (underpants) still felt that is was appropriate to blow me kisses and extend a few "What's up baby?"'s my way. That's Central America for you!

Relaxed, well rested, and feeling good (Mystery sickness/sunstroke had passed, and Apoyo's crystal clear, mineral infused water had healed all mosquitos bites - good news for Lisa the Itch Queen) we headed south for Isla de Ometepe on the humongous Lago de Cocobolca/Nicaragua. The island is pretty much two huge volcanoes that jut right out of the lake, one of them, as lonely planet describes, in epic Lord of the Rings fashion. Concepcion (the epic one) has such a forboding presence that you might feel like Frodo and Sam marching through Mordor to Mt. Doom - except that it's so damn sunny and beautiful all day everyday (plus, no orcs)!

Tor and I on Volcan Maderas with Concepcion (hiding behind clouds) behind us.

With some friends, we decided to tackle Volcan Maderas instead of Concepcion. After our relaxing days at Laguna de Apoyo, climbing a steep, dry, open, buggy volcanic slope (of a still active volcano) seemed a little bit too ambitious. Maderas is less high, but still a gruelling hike. It is extremely beautiful, moving from avocado fields to cloud forests bursting with monkeys, to rainforest and finally to a serene crater lake at the top. Our guide, Hector was great (though a bit of a quiet talker) and spending 8 hours in the jungle was a great experience.

Although it is one of Nicaragua´s most visited places, Isla de Ometepe feels like you have stepped out of the ordinary world and into a safer, greener, simpler one. Throughout the country´s violent periods of history, this island, a tropicalS altspring Island, has remained isolated from that violence. There are lots of hotels, restaurants and foreigners, but the hotels/hostals and restaurants are all small and low key and it is just as easy to either climb into the jungle to a remote little property to camp or to find a locally owned hospedaje with friendly owners. Back in Leon we met Nacho and his wife Roberta, aS panish and Italian film-crazy couple (Roberta films for survivor which pays for her to make documentaries) who have a small property on Volcan Maderas and they invited us to set up our tent on their jungly lot. It worked out great, especially seeing that we got to play with Chulo their German shepard puppy for the four days that we stayed! In case you are wondering, the direct translation of Chulo to English is ¨Pimp¨, but I think it must mean something more endearing when applied to a dog...

From Isla de Ometepe we went to San Juan del Sur on Nicaragua´s south Pacific shore. It is a cute little town with a nice feeling. We´d  planned to stay on a nearby beach, but because of the hockey finals we stayed in San Juan which turned out to be a wonderful decision, even though the hockey turned out to be disappointing. While I may be called a bandwagon fan and would have probably been subject to mean name calling back in Canada, Tor is an actual fan and because of that, structuring a week of our trip around hockey games actually made sense.S an Juan was a lot less built up than we expected (no McDonald´s or anything like that) and was full of friendly people (and funnily enough, a lot of Canadians), good and cheap local food, great body surfing and the most beautiful sunsets you can imagine. We did end up camping at one of the northern beaches, Playa Maderas, for a night, but we were drawn back to San Juan for a couple more days.

Playa Maderas.

At this point we were making decisions...with only 5 weeks left before I had to return home we (unfortunately) had to decide what we wanted to do...stay in Central America? Go back to Guatemala? Go to Cuba? Go back to Guatemala? Go to South America?

Eventually, after booking plane tickets and then changing them (relationships are all about compromise, right?), we ate a final plate of gallo pinto, swam one last time, watched one last Pacific sunset,  and then said farewell to San Juan and Nicaragua.

An amazing sunset at San Juan del Sur. 

In all we spent just over four weeks in Nicaragua. It is, like every Central American country we have visited, completely unique from all the rest. Even within Nicaragua, the north and highlands were distinctly different from the south, but both areas had highlights for us. There are large portions of the country that we didn´t see, but I´m sure that these too are regionally distinct. Although Nicaragua doesn´t have the same something that Guatemala had to us, Nicaragua has something different. The people are highly political and to have a people for whom an election campaign of pink signs, flowers, peace signs and messages about family may prove highly effective shows that people´s perspectives, expectations and values (which are maybe not so different from your average Canadian´s) make political platforms and will hopefully continue to be listened too. There is no denying that the job market is currently very bad in Nicaragua, that land is too highly priced, and that many, many Nicaraguan´s leave to work in Costa Rica and the US, but you still get a feeling that despite this, people are very loyal to their country and, for the most part, happy.

Amazing. 

So we left Nicaragua, and two days later -and two looooooooong bus rides later- we were in Puerto Viejo, a rasta-version of San Juan del Sur on the Carribean coast of Costa Rica (this is where compromising comes in). I had my heart set on going to at least one place in Costa Rica! And, in particular, my heart was set on Cahuita, a small national park and town, just north of Puerto Viejo. We´d been told by some travellers way back in Guatemala that if you go just one place in Costa Rica, go here, and that if we did we would, absolutely guarunteed, see a sloth. And even though we´d already fufilled that in Nicaragua, I couldn´t let it go. And we did see sloths, three of them (two a mom and a baby). We also saw, in a short 5 km of trail, about 25 capuchin monkeys only 2m away, a poisonous, bright yellow pit viper, a coati also very close, tons of birds and your average backyard racoon (but here they are crab-eating variety). We spent the remainder of our time in Costa Rica swimming in lagoons, cruising on bikes, and watching Vancouver destroy itself (first the team, then the city).

The beach at Cahuita National Park. 

Look closely. The sloth slothing in the tree has a teddy bear-like baby sitting in her lap!

Mono Capuchino - a whole troup of these guys passed us on the trail, no more that 2m away.

Punta Uva, south of Puerto Viejo. 

So Lisa had talked me into a few days in Costa Rica, and it turned out to be great (expensive, but great). After 3 days in Puerto Viejo we crossed our second border in a week, crossing into Panama. After a few days on the bus we found ourselves in Panama City - the cosmopolitan capital of Central America. Picture Vancouver with less mountains, more skyscrapers, and humidity like a punch in the sternum - and you´ve got Panama City. Beautiful waterfront, diverse, modern - I´ve got to say, for a city, it´s not half bad here. Today we went and saw the Panama Canal, the pride of the country and possibly mankind´s greatest feat of engineering (so they say). It was really cool. The huge ships, machinery, timing, and the general history of the place really appeals to the nerdy grandfather in all of us. We had a lot of fun. Then we swung down to Casco Viejo, the colonial city, than to the harbour for lunch in the fish market, then back to the hostal. And you think we´re not city people?

A view of (part of) the Panama Canal Miraflores Locks.

Culture shock.

We´re getting ready for bed early tonight, as we´ve got a big journey again tomorrow. We´re moving off, heading to my last country of the trip (Tor will stay longer). Where did we decide?


Get ready for it, The Big Announcement!


Drumroll............


Tomorrow we fly to Colombia!


Yes, Colombia. Parents, we will be careful. Lisa and I are really excited, we´ve met tons of people along the way who have loved Colombia above all else, and we can´t wait to get there. Our flight lands in the seaside city of Cartagena, and we´ll explore from there.



Thanks for reading! With love,


Lisa and Torrance

THE RETURN OF PHOTOS!!!!!!!

Patient Followers,

A long awaited moment has arrived, we have been reunited with the means to upload pictures. We know that you follow this blog less for the witty dialogue and more for the pictures of Lisa and I (especially Lisa!). Now, thanks in large part to the San Juan Del Sur Post Office and Mrs. Wendy Coste (who managed to send us some photo-transfer gadgets before those cry-babies at Canada Post went on strike - just kidding to Lisa´s Uncle Charles!), we are able to give you the visuals, which, let´s be serious, is the meat and potatoes of any blog.

Without further adieu, it is time for a photo re-cap of our last blog (which covered pretty much our whole time in Nicaragua) that Lisa wrote in Masaya, while I was on my death bed with mystery Central American stomach explosions.

Picture Catch-Up:

Lisa in front of the Leon Cathedral (the largest in Central America). By the way, you would not believe how often Lis is mistaken for a nurse down here... I guess that will teach her to make a dress the exact same colour as scrubs!

Leon Cathedral rooftop.

Again from the rooftop, this time towards the belltower. Sitting at the feet of those statues offers some fantastic people watching in the Parque Central below (mostly young men cat-calling any female life form within a 50 metre radius)

Leon´s rooftops, from the Cathedral again.

Lis and I on the rooftop one last time (it´s magical, got it?)

 Me with Leo the Lion in Leon.

Next we were up into the coffee highlands, near San Ramon. Lisa got way into the jungle life, swinging around like flippin Tarzan (that´s an actual vine!).

But it wasn´t all hard work, this is the view from our campsite. 

 This is the view at sunset. Made even more enjoyable by the bone-rattling Howler monkey calls that shake the forest.

Also at the Finca, we saw a sloth! Dubbed Slothman, this glorious specimen is performing some serious sloth business (sitting in a tree, doing absolutely nothing).

Next it was off to Parque Nationale Tisey, where I am seen here, mucking up the view of the gorgeous 30 meter waterfall.  

 The highlight of Tisey is the work of Albierto, a half-baked (half?) mountain man/artist who has spent 40 years carving his artistic cultural visions into the side of a mountain. Unfortunately we forgot our camera for the visit to Albierto, so here is a picture of Lisa acting like a mental chipmunk as consolation.

Next was a brief jaunt north, to visit the infamous Canyon de Somoto, one of the great natural wonders of Nicaragua. Here is a shot of the entrance to the 3 kilometre canyon.

The 3 hour tour involved leaping from rocks and swimming through the rapids, in true Central American fashion - safety completely out the window.

Here I am with our guide, Olvid, bracing for a spine-chilling 15 meter leap!

After this action packed tour of northern Nicaragua, we scooted up to Jiquillilo (bonus points if you can pronounce that properly) to recharge our batteries on the beach. A good number of books were demolished in the beachside hammocks, one of our favourite haunts.

Heading south, we bypassed Managua for the much more mellow Masaya, and took a loooong daytrip to the mighty volcan Masaya. One of the most accessible volcanic sites on Earth, you can actually drive right up to the viewpoint where this picture was taken, and peek over the edge of the smoking crater. Park officials make motorists park their cars facing out, just in case...

Lisa smiling away through the sulfur fumes at the summit.

Another view of the active crater. We mainly just like the sky in this one.

Just as impressive is the humongous dormant crater, complete with lush jungle at the bottom and practically begging to be hiked around.

We took this hike, here I am peeking into the dormant crater, with smoke from the active one in the background.

Old Man Buzzard, scattering the buzzards.

 

 

 

 

 

Lis and I with Lago de Masaya and the city of Masaya in the background.

Lisa with the jungle crater.

I do not believe this one needs a description. Sorry Mr. and Mrs Dumoulin.

 

This brings us up to date to our last post. We are sorting through pictures and deciding what to write about our most recent adventures, which include Laguna de Apoyo, Isla de Ometepe, and the south-west coast of Nicaragua. This will come in our next post, along with an exciting announcement.... DUN DUN DUN!

As always, many thanks to all of you for your patience with our inconsistent blog, and more recently, for the lack of pictures.

We hope everything at home is going great!

Love, Torrance and Lisa