The final stop on our South American vacation was Ecuador. We flew into Quito – the 2nd highest capital city in the world! – and while it’s at 3000m we didn’t have any problems acclimatizing to the altitude as we’d just come from Bogota which is also pretty high.
Fascinating Quito!
We arrived the day before New Year’s Eve and checked ourselves into a cool, chilled-out hostel in the tourist area of town. We met a few of the other backpackers in the hostel and the next evening went out to see how the Ecuadoreans celebrate the New Year. The answer? They start with a bang and end with a whimper! The celebrate in the evening with a parade of floats, lots of music etc., but come 10pm the streets were empty and they’d set alight their floats! Tradition apparently…
Gary lights a durrie.
On New Years Day we met up with our mountain guide and drove to Iliniza, a nearby dormant volcano, to do an acclimatization hike. It was a tough hike and we both felt the effects of altitude, ascending to the summit at 5200m. Unfortunately it was cloudy and we couldn’t see a thing from the top!
A chilly day up on Iliniza.
The next day we drove to our objective – Cotopaxi volcano! At 5895m high it is the second highest mountain in Ecuador, and a top and reasonably technical ascent on snow and ice. We drove with our guide in a 4WD up to the top car park at around 4000m (!) and then hiked up to the refuge at around 4800m. We stayed there that evening and tried to get some sleep, but nerves, noise and the altitude made it a tough endeavour.
Cotopaxi seen from Iliniza. A miserable day on the mountain.
Exhausted, frozen, altitude sickness… Love it!!
We got up at midnight and got our gear on while eating an early breakfast. We let some of the other teams break trail and started climbing at around 1am. We ascended through the night, first on rock and then onto the glacial ice, and we rested each hour for about five minutes. As we climbed higher the weather got worse and worse and it was easily the most miserable weather I’ve climbed in – it was windy and an icy cold sleet/rain fell and froze on our clothes. Throughout the morning we passed teams that had turned around because of the weather/altitude, and we were soon one of the few teams on the mountain. Eventually Andy made the decision to go down as he had a killer altitude headache. I continued up with the guide in white-out conditions and got to within 50m of the summit before deciding that there was nothing to see at the top anyway!
Our next destination was the town of Banos in south-western Ecuador. We’d heard this place was good fun for a few reasons: thermal baths, a downhill bike ride from the Andes to the Amazon, and the fact that it was directly below a smoking volcano! We teamed up with a group of three Aussie guys (Jamie, Dean and Lee), a filthy Irishman and a couple of Chilean girls (Fernanda and Valentina) and rented bikes for the day. We left Banos and spent the better part of the day riding down the valley along sealed and dirt roads. As we dropped lower and lower the temperature and humidity rose as we descended into the rainforest. We stopped off along the way to visit some great waterfalls and to cool off in a small stream.
Chilling out on the road. A refreshing dip.
Some waterfalls don’t impress but this one definitely did!
Andy and I rented four-wheelers for a half day and drove up the mountain on the opposite side of the valley from the town of Banos. The road kept on going up and up and we got some great views of the volcano along the way.
Me, my hog, and the volcano.
Great fun going down!!! The windy road with Banos down below.
Our final destination was the town of Riobamba, the starting point for the "Devil’s Nose" railway, where you can ride on the roof of the train (fun for the first five minutes, then the diesel fumes get to you!). The train slowly wound through the Ecuadorean countryside towards a small canyon that it then descended. Slowly is definitely the word – the tracks were in need of some serious maintenance (rotten sleepers) and we had not one but FOUR derailments during the day!
Love the hats! Umm, is that such a good idea Andy??
Only the Irish…
Yet another derailment (#3)! By this time we were sick of them, and didn’t even bother to get off the train.
We had one last night in Quito and went out with a group of backpackers that we’d got to know around the hostel. We partied hard as our flight left early the next morning.
A sight I like to see.
We flew back on the most indirect routing I’ve ever experienced. Our plane flew from Quito to Caracas via Bogota and Medellin (Or was it Cali? After the last night all-nighter I slept like a baby…). We then transferred to our flight back to Europe which was routed through the Canary Islands en route to Lisbon (where we were given the 3rd degree for having been in Colombia). We had some time to kill there so we caught up for lunch with our mate Luis, and finally got on our flight to Zurich and home.
Now I have to admit that my desire to backpack through Colombia was for a few different reasons:
- I felt like traveling somewhere considered “unsafe” (I had my reasons but you’re not allowed ask me why)
- I wanted to see what Colombia was all about ,and whether it deserved the bad wrap it usually gets in the media for drugs, crime, terrorism, civil unrest, kidnapping etc.
- I’d heard good things from other travelers
After spending a couple of weeks exploring parts of Colombia I can defintely speak for Andy and I and say that we LOVED it!! Admittedly it wasn’t always the safest place (but I’d consider Venezuela to have both more poverty and be more dangerous), but we had a fantastic time. There’s heaps to see and do, the local people are incredibly friendly and helpful, it’s cheap (cheaper than Venezuela), and there are no tourists to ruin the place.
Our arrival into Colombia was an adventure in itself and one of the passport stamps I’m most proud of. To get to the border we commandeered a taxi in Maracaibo that drove us there. We had to pass through 10 checkpoints (yes, we counted!) to even get to the border area. We had to bribe a few officials to expedite being stamped out of Venezuela (it was about a three hour wait), and we then walked through “no man’s land” to the Colombian border side. This area was like something out of “Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome” – guys walked around with pistols shoved in their belts, lots of shifty and shady characters, a few families scratching out a living by campfires etc. We had to wait a long time at the Colombian side as well, and had to resort to bribes to avoid the five hour plus wait to be stamped in to the country.
We hadn’t gone more than five metres into Colombia when we were offered cocaine, apparently a trap set by the local law enforcement officials. We got onto a bus and made our way to Santa Marta, our first destination. We initially wanted to visit the Ciudad Perdida (Lost City) in the nearby mountains, however we found that the govenment had sealed off that area of the national park since a group of backpackers had been kidnapped a few months beforehand. We tracked down a company that usually did helicopter trips up to the ruins, but they had stopped flights after concerns their helicopter might get shot down!
(L) Parrilla dinner in Santa Marta. (R) Tough guy facial hair to help get us over the border.
Next stop was Cartagena de Indias, which was a definite highlight of our entire trip! The old fortified town centre is one of the earliest Spanish settlements in the New World, and the architecture and setting of the town (it’s surrounded by walls, battlements and forts – the city has been sieged three times in its history, including an attack by the privateer Sir Francis Drake) are fantastic. We spent about a week in Cartagena and loved it. Our favourite haunt in the evenings was a bar called Cafe del Mar on the city walls facing the Caribbean – the cocktails and chill-out tunes were idyllic.
Colombia! Cartagena!
Where have all the tourists gone??? The streets decorated for Christmas.
(L) And this was one of the classy hotels! We christened her Kathleen after Kathleen Turner in “Romance in the Stone” – a story about trying to get to Cartagena (R) Exploring the depths of one of the old Spanish forts.
The fortifications. One GIANT flag!
After several days in the city we caught a speed boat out to an island chain off the coast. We’d arranged to stay on a dive school’s private island, and I even wangled a deal to get my open water certification in 2 days for $150 – a bargain! One of the coolest things we did was get the chance to snorkel with all sorts of sealife. A neighbouring island had an open water aquarium and through our dive school’s contacts we were allowed to snorkel in the enclosures after hours. It was great fun, and a little eerie, to be swimming in a cage with all sorts of fish (including some huge cod and wrasse), sea turtles, and even some decent sized sharks!
The views from our room on the island. Niiiiiiiiiiiiice……
The open and airy interior of the resort.
Back in Cartagena we took a day to go out to a local “mud volcano”. The fine mud in this “volcano” had the consistency of cream and was incredibly buoyant so that you’d float on its surface. We also took a boat ride through the nearby mangroves where we watched fishermen fish in the estuary.
We flew from Cartagena down to Bogota for several days, which was cold and wet after the sun along the Caribbean coast. We didn’t think much of Bogota, and it was definitely felt like an unsafe place for travelers to be at the time. We did what the tourists do – Gold Museum, cable car up to Monserrate, walked around the plazas etc. – but didn’t want to spend too much time there.
Plaza de Bolivar. A street in La Candelaria.
Our favourite Colombian beer… Monserrate on the mountain above.
We did take a great day trip out to the small town of Zipaquira which was home to some old salt mines. We took a tour through one of the mines (randomly, we were the only non-Colombian tourists there and could only find a tour guide who spoke German) and saw the world’s largest underground catherdral cut out of the rock – amazing!
The underground cathedral. The plaza in Zipaquira.
Andy Passmore and I flew down to South America for our Christmas vacation. We didn’t have a firm plan as such: we just bought a Lonely Planet guidebook and looked for a cheap fare to South America. And that’s how we ended up in Caracas.
We arrived in Caracas at night without a hotel reservation, which is apparently the worst thing you can do if you want to avoid being robbed by a taxi driver en route from the airport to the city (literally a guarantee). Luckily we had met two Dutch girls – Marguerite and Rose – on the plane who had a reservation at a hostel in town who let us tag along with them. The “hostel” turned out to be a brothel with a few rooms for travelers upstairs – classy! They were full but were happy enough to give Andy and I one of their rooms usually rented by the hour – yucko!
Playing cards at the hostel.
We hated Caracas and couldn’t wait to get out of there. It was dangerous and had pretty much nothing to offer the backpacker. While we were there were lots of protests and riots going on against Presidente Hugo Chavez, and behind the locked gates of our hostel at night we’d lie in bed and hear gunshots and bombs going off.
Our first stop was the small town of Choroni and the nearby fishing village Puerto Colombia along the coast a few hours bus west of Caracas. The journey itself was great – up and over the coastal mountain range, taking us through the lush tropical rainforest of Parque Nacional Henri Pittier. The town itself was nothing that spesh but we were there for just one thing – the beach! It had a great sandy beach that’s popular with Caracas vacationers, and we were just about the only true tourists in town.
Chilling oustide our hotel room. More chilling on the beach.
Great beach!
Maggie shows a lot of courage. Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh…………
At sunset one evening we walked up the hill that loomed above the town for some fantastic views of the mountainous coastline.
Looking west along the coast. The beach below.
The small port below.
We also took a couple of short day-trips out of town, by boat to a remote beach (clothing optional), and to a some rock pools along the river near Choroni (very cold mountain water!).
Dutch girls will be Dutch girls. Maggie with our tour guides.
Our second stop was the town of Coro, located in the middle of a desert – yes that’s right, a desert in Venezuela! The weather was definitely fitting for the desert: dry and extremely hot, and it apparently hadn’t rained there in about two years! It had a pretty town centre with some beautiful old colonial architecture, and the sand dunes on the outskirts of town were breathtaking at sunset.
Beautiful colours, beautiful contours…
Chilling out at the awesome Las Casas de los Pajaros. Easily the BEST breakfasts in Venezuela!
We were staying at a fantastic hotel – Las Casas de los Pajaros – which was run by a young couple (the breakfasts made to order were to die for!). We went with the owner on a day trip around the Peninsula de Paraguana isthmus to the north of Coro – a very dry and desolate but interesting landscape.
Lobsters all round!
Hours of fun at the sea cliffs! (L) Before. (R) After.