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Archive for September, 2009

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last days in Colombia/South America

Monday, September 7th, 2009

Back in Medellin, we took a day trip to Guatapé.  2 hours there on the bus, through the mountains and by lots of farms.  The area around Guatapé was controlled by rebels until 2006 and the govt still has security checkpoints on the roads in and out of the area.  3 soldiers searched the bus (for weapons) and most of the people on it along with their bags, strangely not me though.  After that 15 minute formality we arrived at the piedra de penol, a massive monolithic rock with a 360 degree view of the lake (reservoir) near the town.  649 steps to the lookout point for the view.

view from la piedra

la piedra

After climbing up, and down again, we walked the 3km along the non existent shoulder on the highway to the town (described in my guidebook as a pleasant lake side pathway).  The town itself was charming, small and full of colorful buildings and a nice laid back central plaza.  Every building in town seemed to have the Colombia vs Ecuador football game on, with everyone in town watching it.  A nice laid back atmosphere strangely, with the most subdued celebrations of the 2-0 win later on that night in Medellin.  Very un-latin American.

church on the main plaza

the town of guatape

Last day in Medellin, meant the last day before my return to America.  Low key day, bought a bunch of weird tropical fruit and ate it all, stuff I’m gonna miss soon enough and had a few beers at the local beer house that’s become our local hangout. That and the formality of figuring out how to pack for the next couple weeks.

Almost one year now since I flew from San Francisco to Japan to begin the intercontinental part of my trip.  I’ll be back in SF one year to the day I was there last year.  Tomorrow morning, early, I’m flying to Miami where I’ll be on my own again (my Uncle’s going home) for my last few weeks of the trip.  Miami, Chicago, San Francisco, San Diego, Los Angeles.  My travel pace will be picking up a bit once I hit US soil.

I’m not too sad to re enter the US at this point, though I wish I could’ve explored Colombia a bit more and not be running out of cash.  Just have to make sure it’s not that long before I’m crossing international borders again.  I’ve already got ideas for my next trip(s).  It’s just really strange to think that in a couple days I’ll be in Chicago in totally familiar places.  Though after that it’s on to California to scout it out some more.

Signing off from the rest of the world, this year has been great beyond belief.  I’ll be back out here as soon as I can.

Posted in Colombia, In-RTW, Travel | 7 Comments »

Zona Café

Thursday, September 3rd, 2009

Last day in Manizales I took a day trip to a nearby coffee farm, since this is the centre of the “zona café” in Colombia.  The 1/2 an hour buses to get to the farm had great views of the coffee and banana plants covering the mountains in this area.  After the bus let me off on the side of the road I walked up the gravel track up to the farm, surrounded by coffee fields and lined with palm trees.

coffee fields

road to the farm

I joined the tour (en espanol) that had just started and was taken all over the farm, seeing the plants close up and the beans at every stage of production right up to the cup of coffee freshly ground and made in front of me at the end of the tour.  Since I’m not a coffee maniac, I usually only occasionally drink a coffee beverage (normally cappuccino) I didn’t know too much about it.  I learned a lot about coffee production which pleased me doubly since it meant I’ve progressed in my spanish comprehension in the last couple months.

coffee plant

rip coffee beans

ripe coffee beancoffee beans in a agave sack

A really cool thing about the farm, is that it’s not just coffee plants.  Sure they dominate the land use %, but there’s bamboo groves, lots of plátano and banana trees (including purple ones that are apparently hallucinogenic…), various other tropical fruit trees and even the odd cacao or macadamia tree.  Most of which I’d never seen the plants of before.

coffee and bamboo

red bananasplatano

Also a fair few cool, large, jungle flowers.

jungle flowerIMG_6262

After the tour of the fields and processing machines we walked up to a lookout viewing the whole area.  Even saw a snake climbing bamboo on the way…

coffee farm

snake in the bamboo

Once I’d had the cup of coffee and the complementary fresh fruit salad it was back to the bus stop and a bus to Manizales where I finished the day off with a dinner of Patacon.  Keeping with my one-a-day regiment of those I have prescribed myself.  Tomorrow it’s back to Medellin, where I’ll spend my last 3 days in Colombia.

Posted in Colombia, Travel | 246 Comments »

Manizales

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009

The area the hostel is located in Manizales does not resemble South America in the slightest, modern housing right near the main restaurant and nightlife zone on the main street lined with modern apt and office buildings.  Clean (except for the street level air pollution), orderly and modern all over.  When you walk to the neighboring hill a couple km away where to the city centre however, this changes quite a bit with much older buildings resembling other cities in South America I’ve been in.  A lot of the buildings in the centre remind me of the ones in the old town section of Montevideo, except less run down here.

central city

city centre

looking towards the mountains

The market here has more fruits than I think I’ve ever seen in one place.

marketplace

marketplace

We ventured in to one of the small jungle reserves just outside the city in the hills here, didn’t see anything in the way of the advertised bird life but still plenty of weird jungle plants.  We also did the 180meter zipline through part of the reserve, cool stuff.

me on zipline

jungle flowers

jungle flowers

jungle flowers

I think between taxi drivers, the people at the reserve and restaurants, plus most of the hostel staff (not English speaking) I’ve been conversing in more spanish the last couple days than at any time on the trip.  More work but I haven’t had any major problems trying to do or get anything I’ve wanted so far, pretty pleased about that, I’m also using a lot less hand signals to converse than I was when I arrived on this continent.

For dinner we tried patacóns, a plátano base with cheese, mushrooms and chicken.  Absolutely delicious, despite the strange thought of bananas being the base for a ‘pizza’ of sorts.  I’m going to eat as many of these as I can the rest of my time here.  For lunch the next day we had one of the almuerzos (set menu lunchs), one kind of meat dish,(pork tenderloin in this case) several sides and a great starter of the ajiaco soup.  The food here is miles ahead of Peruvian cuisine, with the lone exception of Ceviche.

Our 2nd day in Manizales we attempted to go to the large jungle park near town, home to hundreds of bird and butterfly species, but after taking a taxi across town to the office where we needed a permission slip to enter the park the (very friendly) guy told us that the park was inaccessible for several days due to some kind of work being carried out.  Bummer, especially since it was already afternoon and there wasn’t much else we could do for the rest of the day other than walk around town, not too interesting.  We did visit a great juice bar near the hostel for some mid afternoon refreshments, I’m going to miss fresh tropical juice for less than a dollar when I leave here.

Posted in Colombia, Travel | No Comments »

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