Week 17 Salento, Popayan and Otavalo

Week 17

Wednesday and Thursday. Wednesday we left Medellin and said goodbye to Maddy and Adam who were flying back to Australia. With numerous people saying that we should go to Salento next, we decided that this should be our next stop. 

It took a little longer than expected to get there and when we where dropped off in the middle of nowhere in the pouring rain to catch a passing Collective bus, I was relieved that we made it to our Hostel just before dark. Total journey time was just over 7 hours! We thought it would be less than 4!

Roland in charge of opening and closing the door - much to his delight!

Salento is a really lovely sleepy village all geared up for foreign and local tourists - without loosing its charm.  There were lots of lovely boutiques selling gorgeous artisan handicrafts and cute little restaurants dotted about the main tourist street.

One of the main activities while staying in Salento is to hike around the Valle Del Cocora  national park. It is characterised by beautiful scenery which has very high palm trees scattered on the mountain sides which are also the Colombian national symbol. To get here we had to take a 'Willey' which is an old 1950's American army vehicle, from the main square. Amazingly 1 vehicle can carry 12 people (3 hanging off the back!)! Roland and I squashed ourselves in the back for the 20 minute ride to the start of the 5 hour circular trek.

This was a really lovely walk, taking you through farmland, forests and mountain tops. We were both pleased to have made the effort to come here.

For dinner, both evenings, we found a really good cheap restaurant. Trout seemed to be a popular dish and we both sampled trout soup and steamed trout for less than £6 each!

We stayed at Posada Martha Tolima during our time here and would holey recommend the B&B if you were to come here (130,000 COPs for 2 nights). Good breakfast, very clean rooms and friendly host made our stay an enjoyable one.

Friday and Saturday. We had another long 9 hour bus ride to take us to Popayan - our last stop in Colombia. We really didn't do much here except wonder around the town and prepare ourselves to leave to go to Ecuador. 

Our hostel was right next door to this Cathedral

Roland ate tripe soup! I had chicken - thank god!

Sunday. Border Crossing, the easiest one so far!  We got up at 6:00am to catch the 7:00am bus to Ipiales - the Colombian border town.  Reading several blogs we decided that this was the latest we should leave Popayan to make our way to Otavalo in Ecuador.

The bus dropped us at Ipiales at 4pm, where we caught a 5 minute taxi to the Colombian border to get our exit stamp. We then walked over a bridge to Ecuador to get our entry stamp and then jumped in a taxi for a 10 minute journey to Tulcan. Here we caught the bus to Otalavo. This journey took us 14 hours in total and by the time we had reached our hostel, we were both knackered! 

Main square in Otavalo

Monday. After sitting on our bums for most of Sunday we both decided that we needed some exercise. Researching for places to visit, we decided that  Lago Cuicocha would be the best place to go for a day trip.  

By 8:30am we had left the hostel and made our way to the local food market to get some breakfast. We scoffed what seemed to be the locals' favourite - cheese empanadas, deep fried tortillas, omelet and a hot blackcurrant juice drink. All for $2! Bargain!

Pig head for breakfast?

We then caught the bus (25 cents - its cheap in Ecuador!!) to Quiroga and caught a taxi to the starting point of our hike which was around volcano crater, now occupied by a beautiful lake. The highest point was 3,450m.

Loved going down, hated climbing up!!

Its advertised that this should take about 5 hours to complete. Knowing that we had to finish before this time to make it to our next destination, we both zoomed round it in 3 hours!

After a quick hot chocolate break, we caught a taxi to Cotocacchi, a small town famed for leather goods. I was hoping to buy a nice bag here but didn't find one! I bought a lovely poncho instead!

We were absolutely knackered from our adventures today, and after scoffing our faces at Chimichangas, we went straight to bed!

Week 16 El Cocuy, Medellin and Bogotá

Tuesday to Friday.  With our new found Auzzie friends, we all decided that we should make the 18 hour journey to El Cocuy. The first part of this trip involved catching a very comfortable bus for 5 hours (42,000 COPs, Copetran) to the former capital Tunja.  

We were all not prepared for the crisp cold air when we stepped off the bus and were instantly shivering in our t-shirts and shorts (the locals were looking at us in amusement).  After we found the ticket office, we booked our bus tickets to El Cocuy (35,000COPs) and changed into warmer clothes in the corner of the very small office - Roland acted as a screen to protect my modesty! We then wondered around Tunja for almost 5 hours before getting on bus number 2 for the 10 hour ride to El Cocuy.

Enjoying a nice hot chocolate, tea and beer

Main plaza

Fun on the bus!

The sleeping pills worked a treat and when we arrived in El Cocuy at 5:30am I felt relatively normal! We needed to organise one last ride to the cabin in the mountains where we would base ourselves for our adventures. There were 2 options hitch a ride on a milk truck or hire a Jeep. The decision was an easy one - hire a Jeep. 

We were very lucky to find Oscar who owned a Jeep and helped us with absolutely everything we asked of him before leaving to Cabaña Sisuma - we negotiated a price of 60,000COPs to take us there.

Much warmer!

El Cocuy plaza

A tip for other travellers, you need to register and pay fees in the town before leaving for the park - you can not do it at the entrance to the park. Make sure you have an itinerary for your stay in the park as you will be questioned before you receive your admission slip.

After 1 hour bumping along dirt tracks, we were dropped off in what seemed to be in the middle of nowhere - the cabin was nowhere in sight! Oscar simply pointed us in the right direction and sad it would take about 40 minutes to walk there. Now normally this would not be an issue but we were all carrying our heavy backpacks and food supplies, plus we were now at 4000m. The effects of the altitude were already making an impact on the boys and this little hike took almost an hour!

Where Oscar dropped us off - start of our trek to Cabaña Sisuma

The boys could not walk any further!

El Cocuy is beautiful! And luckily for us, it is relatively unknown to tourists, with most visitors (relatively small amount too) coming from Colombia. We dumped our bags in the 4 bed dorm, ate a small lunch and then headed out for our first hike to visit the lagoons. Roland and Adam were really finding this walk quite hard due to the altitude and decided to stop after a few hours. 

Maddy and I decided to walk on with a Colombian and his guide to the 4400m lookout point. This was really tough and I had forgotten how hard trekking at altitude is (previously trekked to Everest base camp, 5200m in 2008).

Where´s  Wally?

After trekking 4 hours we were knackered, and instantly jumped into bed - it was too cold to be anywhere else!! The boys were really unwell and only moved from the bed to be sick or go to the loo.  

Luckily the following day the boys were feeling a lot better but it was Maddy's turn to feel ill. However Maddy was quite comfortable to use large rocks as loo stops so we all headed out to catch some gorgeous early morning photos.

 We then climbed up to Pulpito del Diablo - about 4800m above sea level! This was a really hard climb and we were all feeling the effects of the altitude. There were quite a lot of rest stops, loo breaks, panting and sweating before reaching our destination. The return journey took just under 6 hours and as you can see from the photos below, it was all worth it!

On the way to Pulpito Del Diablo

Made it!!!!

First snow experienced on our trip!

The gang

Topping up our water bottles - straight from the mountain water supply

We all decided that 2 nights was enough due to the altitude and on Friday morning we made our way back to El Cocuy .  During the trip we befriended a American guy, Jeff, who spoke really great Spanish (no one spoke English). He acted as our translator for most of the trip and was able to organise a place where we could have a much needed warm shower before our 10 hour bus ride to Bogota (35,000COPs).

Back in El Cocuy town

I have seen some funny things on our little adventure which simply wouldn't happen back at home.  While we were travelling to Bogota the bus would stop frequently to pick up or drop people off. On one occasion when the bus was completely full with passengers and luggage, I saw the driver stuff a massive box and a huge bag into the on board toilet (looked as if someone was moving house!!) - no toilet for us for 10 hours!!

Saturday. 4:00am we arrived in Bogota and caught a taxi to TipTop hostel. Luckily there was some dorm beds available so we all managed to get a few more hours of much needed sleep.

First of many ´band´ photos ...

We were staying in the old area of the city which is called La Candelaria and has a cool grungy vibe to it and lots of graffiti walls.

We did manage to visit the Botero art museum and purchased a few prints ready to hang up on the walls back home.

We then headed out to grab something to eat and chilled out back at the hostel before heading out in the evening to meet Jeff at the  Bogota Beer Company - we wanted some pints!!

Nice hat!

We were all hoping to have a good Saturday night in Bogotá but it seemed to be quite difficult on a travellers budget! We ended up eating pizza slices in the street and riding round in taxi's for a lot of the evening. The pints of beer were very good though (the first pints in over 3 months!!)!

Sunday to Wednesday.  Strangely some flight tickets are cheaper than bus tickets here in Colombia. The thought of another night bus didn't really fill us with joy so we all arranged to fly from Bogotá to Medellin. This was possibly the shortest plane ride I have ever been on and it was all over in less than 1 hour (saving over 10 hours on a bus!!!) - in fact the taxi from Medellin airport to our hostel took more time!

As this was Maddy's and Adam last few days in Colombia before they flew home we decided to stay at the very lovely Urban Buddha hostel. This was a great hostel and we all enjoyed our stay here - I think the 'pour your own' draft beer had something to do with it! And finally it was warm again!!!

Funky art in the hostel

Hostel garden

During the trek we had been dreaming of eating decent food - there is only so many tortilla bean wraps you can eat! On the first night we found a great Mexican (weirdly had a shrine in it) and on Monday we found the only Indian restaurant in Medellin.

Decisions, decisions ... 

A shrine in the restaurant!!!

Yummy curry!!

We did mange to do a !little bit of sight seeing while in Medellin.  We explored downtown, took the gondolas to the national park and visited the Botanical gardens.

A Botero cat

Orchids in the Botanical garden

Car outside our hostel selling fruit to the locals

Another band pose ... 

View from the gondola

For Maddy and Adam's last night we went to a salsa bar (the first one we have been to after almost  4 months of travelling in Latin America!!) as recommended by the hostel. We had a great evening and the night was spent dancing with the locals drinking copious amounts of booze. A good farewell for sure!!

Pre evening drinkies - Roland trying to cheat!