Month: August 2018

On Saturday we headed back to Cartagena via boat, it was a lot more choppy on the return journey and we were thrown all over the place and soaked by the end, we all found it hilarious until a local informed us boats were routinely smashed apart in that crossing when the weather is bad, I’m glad we didn’t know that while we were crossing!

We had planned to have a night out in Cartagena but unfortunately due to a vote happening there was an alcohol ban the whole weekend which put a stop to our plans, until we met some German guys in our hostel who knew about a pool party, we went along and it was actually about 6 people in a tiny pool, but they were serving alcohol and we had nothing better to do so we stayed. Grace also bet £50 that none of us would jump into the pool in our undies shouting ‘save me!’ and start a conga. I am now £50 richer so I count that as a successful evening.

On Sunday we headed to Santa Marta and we spent the night in a party hostel there, we had a fun evening playing volleyball in the pool and watching boys we met play football with some local kids.

Early Monday morning we headed to Minca to stay in a beautiful hostel up in the mountains, we got a collectivo to Minca and then had the option of a motorbike taxi or a jeep to get up the steep hill to the hostel. It was an hour ride and as there are four of us the cost of the jeep only worked out slightly more expensive so we went for comfort and took the jeep. Thank God we did, 20 minutes into the journey the heavens opened and we were struggling to get up the hill, at one point the jeep started sliding backwards and the engine smoking, I don’t think the squeel I made was entirely human. We eventually made it up to the hostel and a few hours later when the skies cleared it was worth it, the views were beautiful. The hostel had these huge net hammocks over the jungle, some of which also were swings, I’m quite afraid of heights so I was feeling pleased with myself that I’d made it on the swing, that was until a local guy saw how scared I was and decided to jump on and swing us really high. I would like to say I overcame my fear, but I actually layed down and hung on for dear life! We met a really nice Dutch fraternity and spent the evening playing cards and drinking with them (and forgetting their very Dutch names which they didn’t appreciate).

The next morning we had to check out at 11am but as it was raining the previous day we didn’t get to do many hikes so we decided to check out and hike to some nearby waterfalls and then just walk the rest of the way down. The waterfall was really pretty and the cool water was a welcome break from the heat after the hour it took to get there.

We’ve now just arrived in Taganga. I’ll keep you updated on what we get up to next!

Lots of love,

Alice x

We decided to fly to Cartagena as it worked out the same price as a bus but should only take an hour instead of the 8 hours the bus takes, all well in theory until our flight was delayed for 5 hours! (On the plus side I discovered I have a hidden talent for napping in places you wouldn’t think comfortable to sleep in). But we got here in one piece, one very sweaty piece, Cartagena is by the coast and very warm and humid. We often sit in our hostel feeling too hot and uncomfortable only to leave and realise we were sat in air-conditioning and outside was 10x worse.

Lucky Cartagena is beautiful so this makes it somewhat worth the unpleasant humidity, it was the place the Spanish stored their treasure from all over central and south America ready to be shipped back to Spain. After several pirate attacks the city built a huge wall that incases the city, and everything within the wall is part of a world heritage sight so retains its original exterior, making the city beautiful and interesting to walk around.

On Tuesday we went for a walking tour around the town and learnt a bit about the history of the place and also about the culture of the people still living here, many of whom are descendents of slaves brought to Cartagena to build the city’s wall, there is a different and much more colorful vibe to Cartagena and we enjoyed just walking about and sitting on the wall people watching. In the evening we bought some beers, sat on the wall and watched the sunset over the sea.

On Wednesday we visited a museum about the Spanish inquisition in their old headquarters here, it was really interesting although very sad, over 800 people were put to death there, as the Spanish tried to root out the various non Catholic beliefs that entered the port along with the travelers from far off destinations. We also got to practice our Spanish, as only the main information was in English, we learnt some new words, although I’m not sure when vocabulary about torture is going to be useful! Although a lot of the displays on the torture had been removed before the pope’s visit to Cartagena in 2015…

On Thursday the heat got too much for us and we decided if we were this hot and humid we would rather be by the sea than enclosed in the city’s walls, so we splashed out and headed to Isla Baru, which is actually a peninsula, its about 45 minutes away by boat. We’re staying in a hostel with its own private secluded beach, it’s so quiet here! We’re traveling with two girls we met via the Spanish school and managed to get a 4 bed door so it even feels as if we have our own private rooms, I slept so soundly! Although the facilities are very basic, the shower involves pulling a bit of rope and our cabana is open to the elements, which is nice and cool but unfortunately means a lot of flying bugs that are so big I’m sure they’re on steroids. One of the girls tried to kill one in the night and it took about 10 rounds of hitting it with increasingly heavy objects, not a nice way to go out! But honestly it was so big I’m surprised it didn’t punch her back! The food here is also awful, every day we get the same options for every meal: pork that several people have gotten food poisoning from, undercooked stinky fish or spaghetti with what they claim is a cheese sauce but tastes of nothing and has lumps of butter in. Lucky we brought snacks to the island so have been living off nibbles of meals and lots of snacks! But on the plus side I did see fireflies for the first time ever here and heard the sound geckos make which is quite cool.

We haven’t really got up to much while on the island, mostly relaxing, or trying to if you’re me! I haven’t had much luck, on the way here I fell asleep on the boat and got sunburned and then on the walk from the boat the the shore I got coral in my foot and then at dinner I got stung by a wasp! But apart from that it’s been very relaxing… I also tried my hand at volleyball, it took a bit of working out what was going on as both my teammates and opponents only spoke Spanish but I eventually got quite good and everyone was cheering me on….well on cheering ‘Alex’ as I have become in South America as noone can pronounce Alice, much to the amusement of Grace and the other girls.

Tomorrow we head back to Cartagena for one more night and then we’re going to move on to Santa Marta a bit further along the coast.

Keep you updated as always.

Lots of love,

Alice x

So over the last two weekends we finally got to do some touristy bits in Medellin and now I’ve finished school I finally have time to write about them!

Last weekend we went to the final parade of the festival of flowers, the festival is held every year in Medellin to celebrate the flower industry here, (fun fact Colombia is actually the world’s second largest exporter of flowers after Holland) the parade represents the path of the flowers from the agricultural land surrounding Medellin to the city. Hundreds of people, men, women and children with large flower displays on their backs walk around the city with music, dancing and acrobatics. We got to the parade an hour early, but still found it difficult to find a place, there were people selling stools and ladders in the street and everyone was trying to get higher than the person in front so we couldn’t see to much, but we got to enjoy the atmosphere and the dancing to the side of the parade, there was a police band that were particularly good and we had a quick salsa. They also had helicopters circling the event that had sirens like a police car, which was weird as I’m not sure who they were trying to make move out of the way?

During the week we didn’t get up to much touristy stuff, we mostly hung out with people we met at the school, we made friends with two nice girls form Bath and became affectionately known as the Brexit crew by the Americas, Swiss and Germans we also met. We had several nice lunches, nights out and even a pedicure and an unfortunate hair cut – there was a miscommunication somewhere along the line and I ended up with a fringe! (It was a lot of fun, especially the part with a swimming pool sized ball pit!)

On Thursday we decided to take a ride on the cable cars they have here, they’re cheap forms of public transport to the very top of the mountain parts of the city, but it makes a cheap afternoon with good views! It was also funny as local children were sat on a rocky outcrop cheering every time a cable car went past and they could get the people in it to wave, we thought we’d be nice a wave, which resulted in cheering and then a chant of ‘heelllooo gringos!’

On Saturday we went on a graffiti tour of a district of Medellin called comuna 13, it was once considered one of the most dangerous places in the world. On the tour we learnt about the history of the comuna and why it was so dangerous. It started as a shantie town in to 80s when people from rural areas wanted to move to Medellin for better work, because Medellin is built in a basin the only free land was up the steep mountains surrounding it, unfortunately this makes it hard to get water and electricity to the town, the authorities didn’t want the cost so declined to establish the comuna as part of Medellin. This meant the area was also not policed, it soon became a breeding ground for local gangs, drug manufacturers, right wing paramilitary and left wing gorilla groups who were all fighting for territory and ownership of the comuna. Eventually the government decided to try and address the problem in 2002, it did this by attacking the comuna with the brute force of the police, military and weaponised helicopters, unfortunately hundreds of innocents were wounded and several killed, including children, the operation only ended when the locals took to the street with white flags. The people involved in the criminal activity also knew the tiny streets and back roads much better than the government forces so kept escaping. The government’s solution to this was to work with right wing paramilitary groups who knew the area better, they paid them for every member of left wing guerilla groups they killed, unfortunately this then led to hundreds of innocent people being kidnapped, dressed in guerilla uniforms and murdered. After more extreme and violent raids the guerilla groups and the paramilitary groups were pushed out of the city, unfortunately this then lead to a power struggle between local gangs which, you guessed it, lead to more violence. In the end the thing that brought a better state of piece to the area was not brute force, but better transport links. To make up for the violence the comuna had suffered due to government actions, the government invested several million in improving roads, building schools and most importantly installing 384m of outdoor escalators and cable cars. This enabled people from these poorer communities to reach the main city in minutes instead of hours, meaning they were able to commute and get jobs rather than turn to crime. The comuna still has its issues but today is much safer. The tour was amazing! We were lead by a local guy in his 20’s called ‘crazy face’, who was young when the raids happened and remembers how the comuna has changed with time, he showed us lots of amazing graffiti by local artists and explained the political and cultural statements behind them, we also tried local ice-cream, saw dancers and singers preforming in the streets and tried empanadas, a popular snack in south America that’s like a cross between a pastie and a hash brown, it’s flavoured onion and potato in a deep-fried coating, it looked uninviting but tasted delicious! The tour was so interesting and I probably haven’t done the complicated history of the town the justice it deserves so if you’re interested there is a more detailed article here.

Our local guides

We’ve really enjoyed our time in Medellin, especially out time at the school and the people we’ve met. Next stop is Cartagena on the coast!

I’ll keep you updated,

Lots of love,

Alice x

Ps. shout out to Gerardo, for making the girl so bad at languages in school that her teacher thought she was special needs, able to speak basic Spanish in 10 mornings! Ahora hablo tres idiomas; inglés, un poco de español y mierda!

Hey everyone! Its been a while since my last blog post, we’ve been in Medillin just under a week now, last weekend we just had a walk around to get our bearings and on Monday we started Spanish school at Nueva Lengua language school.

We initally decided to stay for a weeks course, but we’ve really enjoyed our lessons and feel like we’ve made so much progress, so we decided to stay for another week of lessons. Unfortunatly that’s not very interesting blog wise, as we spend 9am-1pm in school and then 2pm-4pm doing self study and homework and then just chill with a few beers in the evening.

We have met some really nice people on our course and el Poblado, the area of Medillin were staying in is super lively and fun and were out most evenings.

The spanish itself is going well, although it was frustraiting at first to have to re-learn a lot of words for things, the spanish is here is different to the spanish (used in spain) which we learnt before we came away. So words are different for things, telling the time is different and even the way you pronounce words. Words with ‘ll’ go from a y sound to a j sound here (Medellin is Med-e-jin). But once we got used to that it beacame a bit easier and were finally starting to put sentances together! It’s actually a lot harder than it sounds! As in spanish as well as having I/you/he/she/we/they you also have to change the ending of each verb, this is not so bad if it is a regular verb but for some verbs there is no pattern, so for each verb you learn you have to memorise 5 versions of it and thats just for the present tense! Theres another lot for past and future tenses and you also have to watch your pronunciation or you end up accidently saying something rude. But we’re finally starting to get it, so even though the course is very intense it’s worth it.

I appreciate this post isnt the most exciting so I’ll let you in on some interesting mistakes we’ve made/learnt so far in spanish….turns out spanish speakers are obsessed with all things rude…

Cuantos años tienes- how old are you? / Cuantos anos tienes- how many anuses do you have?

Estoy – I am, caliente -hot / Estoy caliente – im horny

Me caigo – I fall / me cago – I shit myself

Estoy – I am, buenos – good / estoy buenos – im sexy

Necesita una paja – I need a straw or I need a wank

Getting to Colombia was a stressful mess, our flight was just before ten so we arrived at the airport around 6:45 am and joined a queue, as soon as we were in the queue an immigration officer started handing out forms, I asked her if we needed one and she said they were for Mexican citizens only and we didn’t need to do anything immigration wise (spoiler alert – she lied). So we waited in this queue for 2 hours and honestly it made Gatwick queues look light speed, the staff had no sense of urgency what so ever.

An hour before our flight we asked one of the staff if we could join the designated queue for people whose flight was leaving in the next hour only for him to ignore us, then when we persisted, said no. Eventually with 30 minutes before take off our flight was called to join the queue, after a further 15 minutes of queuing we got to the front only to be told we hadn’t completed our immigration checks, even though several hours ago we were told we didn’t need to do anything. So we had to run to the immigration office 2 floors below and queue there to pay an exit fee. We didn’t have enough Mexican money for both of us, and after frantic scrambling we found some American dollars we had for emergencies, and they agreed to take those. Once we had our stamp we ran back to the front of the queue, got our boarding passes, rushed through security, ran to our gate and just made the bus to the plane.

I’d finally started to relax when Grace pointed out we didn’t have an exit stamp in our passport like we did last time we left Mexico and as has been routine for every country we’ve been to so far. We were unsure whether to keep quiet until Colombia and hope for the best, or to ask now and probably miss our flight. We figured it best to ask now rather than risk being denied entry and having to pay for a flight back to Mexico and then another one back to Colombia. So we asked a flight attendant if we needed an exit stamp and he told us Mexico didn’t do them (even though we had one previously). We decided not to argue and just hope for the best! Whether he was right or Colombia didn’t bother to check I don’t know, but we made it here.

Colombia airport is the only place I’ve ever flown to that you have security and bag checks when you enter; our bags were re-scanned and swabbed and we had to go through security gates and be patted down, and then had to walk past drug dogs – you can tell they’re really trying to crack down on the drug trade that’s done so much harm to the country.

We tried to order an Uber to our hostel which would cost us about $19000 COP (£5) but our internet was patchy. Being a tourist in Latin America gets you a certain amount of attention, but being a blond tourist is like wearing a sign saying that your not from here and people start to come over. In Mexico this was great, as everyone was super helpful, but in this airport it just meant people harassing us to buy things. We ended up agreeing to get a taxi to our hostel for $30000 COP (£8). When we got to the taxi people started grabbing our bags to put into the taxi and then demanded tips. When we got into the taxi the driver told us it would be metered, but only turned the meter on 2 minutes before we reached our hostel and tried to charge us $42000 COP (£11.00). When we tried to argue he locked the door and turned the engine off – we tried to explain to him in Spanish we knew this was far to much and he was just saying he would sit here until we paid. He underestimated how stubborn we are, if you want to wait mate we can wait, were in holiday it’s you that’s now not working and losing money! After a little while we said that we would go up to maximum price that a taxi should cost to get to the hostel – $35000 COP (£9.20) and he agreed in a heartbeat.

The hostel we’re in is really lovely and the staff couldn’t be more friendly, the city itself can be quite dangerous when it’s dark so they advised us to not go to certain areas and to only carry small amounts of cash and no cards with us.

The next day we decided to head to the Gold museum and have a look around, it was full of various different gold artefacts from around the country and was really interesting (I particularly enjoyed the face masks that looked like bad Dr Who villains). It explained how early indigenous people got the gold, the process they used to work with it, the significance of the things they made and the archaeological techniques used to uncover them. We really enjoyed the museum apart from one weird bit where we were locked in a dark room and then the displays were lit with changing flashing lights and a soundtrack of wailing people was pumped out through speakers, we’re still not sure what the aim/significance was and I had to check with Grace that someone hadn’t spiked our water!

We were planning on a bike tour around the city in the afternoon but Grace had been feeling awful all day. She had a headache, felt sick and her heart was beating really fast – we later found out it was altitude sickness as we’re at 2640 metres above sea here. So we came back and she slept for a while and in the evening we went and sat by a fire outside in search of a bit of warmth and met some nice guys from England and Germany and just spent the night chatting away with them.

On Thursday we headed out to climb to a view point of the city, but we decided against climbing it by foot when we saw the size of it, the sides were almost vertical! You also really notice the altitude here when ever you do anything energetic, the low levels of oxygen mean even walking up a steep hill to get to the base left us a bit puffed! So we got a cable car up, there was an option to get a train up but again the track was almost vertical at points and I didn’t fancy it’s chances of carrying my fat bottom up there!

The top of the view point was 3200 m high and gave beautiful views over the city, although it was very cold and raining, we got some very flattering photos in our anoraks. After that, we decided to have a walk to the nicer parts of town and finally the sun came out! At some points we even took our jumpers off!

The city was really pretty to walk around, with huge impressive buildings. We decided to go to a police museum where we heard you are shown around by young police recruits and they explain about Colombia’s issues and how they have started to turn the tide on the drug wars there. Unfortunately it was the day the old Colombian president hands over to the new one and even getting to the museum was a struggle, many roads were blocked off and on others the military were redirecting us away from, we ended up getting to the museum 30 minutes before it closed and everyone in the station/museum was rushing about like headless chickens, we decided they had enough on their plates and didn’t need us asking for tours so we just took a scenic walk home.

All in all we had a bit of a mismatch time in Bogota, but we still enjoyed it despite not feeling great due to the altitude. We’re off to Medellin now (I’m writing this on hour 12 of our supposedly ’10 hour’ coach journey) and planning to do a week Spanish course there as the Spanish in Colombia is spoken a lot slower and clearer than in Mexico, so we thought it would be a good place to try and improve and practice.

As always I’ll keep you updated.

Lots of love,

Alice x

On Sunday we didn’t get up to much, we were recovering from a late night out with Antonio. We were going to go on a walking tour from our lonely planet guide but we did a bit, stopped for lunch and couldn’t be bothered to continue. So we headed back to the hostel to have a bit of a chill out. At 4 pm we headed over to Arena Mexico as we had heard there was Lucha Libre on.

Lucha Libre is a type of freestyle wrestling in Mexico, but watching it it feels more like a cross between wrestling and pantomime. Wrestlers wear masks and there is little effort to disguise the fake punches and kicks, there is an obvious split of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ guys that you don’t need to speak the language to spot and the crowds go wild cheering and booing on queue. Even though it’s all faker than the ring girls boobs, it’s still a lot of fun! Yes the jumps of the ring and opponent throws are fake, but you still have to admire the gymnastics that go into them! They’re leaping onto each other and being thrown across the ring, they play in teams of three so there’s so much happening, it’s very exciting and at times comical to watch! Although it’s obvious they’re not really fighting, for me that makes it more enjoyable as no-one is getting hurt, well except one guy who had to be taken off in a stretcher after he fell awkwardly. Even then we were unsure if it was part of the show as the medical team were all ridiculously overdressed in lab coats. Apart from the injury we really enjoyed the evening, we even got a bit to into it and bought a mask!

The wrestling finished at about 7 pm and on our walk home we saw lots of people in the park and went to investigate. The park was full of people dancing – on Sunday afternoons people take music to the park to dance and people join them. There were groups of people dancing to salsa, waltz and pop music, the groups were a mix of ages from 16 to 80, old and young dancing together and teaching each other moves, it was so nice to see! We even had a join in of a few.

On Monday we met up with Antonio again and went to visit the pyramids at Teotihuacan, you’re probably sick of hearing about how we climbed another set of ruins, but it seemed only fitting for our last day in Mexico to visit the largest ones here. Boy was it big! People looked like ants on the ground and I felt like I should have legs like Arnold Schwarzenegger after climbing not one but two of them! As always the view from the top was incredible and you got a real sense of how huge the city must have been in its prime, even if half of it still hasn’t been excavated yet!

On our way around the pyramids we were chatting to Antonio about all the traditional food we had tried, tacos, mole, tamales, tortas, etc. and he mentioned barbacoa, a lamb dish where the lamb is cooked underground for 8 hours in cactus leaves. The region we were currently was apparently known for its barbacoa, so we headed out in search of it for lunch. The slow cooked lamb was served with a delicious lamb soup made from the juices, rice, cactus leaves and some thick corn tortillas. It was a big meal but I wasn’t a huge fan of cactus, it tastes a bit like a huge watery gherkin and I was sick of tacos so I just made my way through the lamb, rice and soup.

In the evening we met up with another friend, Anatolio, a Spanish doctor we had met in Bacalar who worked in Mexico city. We went for a wander about the city and a few drinks before heading home to bed and setting an early alarm for our flight to Columbia!

We’re excited for country number four of the trip, hopefully it will be fun, we’ve heard great things.

As always I’ll keep you updated,

Lots of love,

Alice x

We decided to take an overnight bus to Mexico city as it saves us a nights accommodation costs and normally you can sleep through the long journey and arrive around 7-8 am. However it didn’t quite go to plan for this trip. We booked late and got the seats right next to the toilet so spent the night kept being woken up by people going to the loo. The trip itself was shorter than we thought and we ended up getting into Mexico city bus terminal at 5 am, while it was still dark. Due to the high altitude here, when it is not sunny the temperature really drops, so we sat in several jumpers trying to keep warm (I even had my towel wrapped around me) until around 8 am when the sun came up and we could travel around the city in the light, it’s always better to travel around somewhere unknown in daylight.

We used the metro to get to our hostel – it is a bargain at $5 MX (20p) per journey – but ended up trying to get a train at rush hour. It was absolutely packed, there were queues for each train door, a woman passing us saw we looked a little phased and said to follow her to the women only section, here the queues were a little shorter and we managed to get (be shoved) into a train and again some local women helped us work out our stop and indicated to the other people we needed to get off – really helpful given how packed it was.

Mexico City is absolutely huge and a lot nicer than I was expecting it to be, although it is packed with people. Trying to cross the road feels like a giant game of bulldog. But we managed to get through the crowds and reach our hostel, which is very nice and spotlessly clean, a lovely surprise after the ones in Oaxaca that looked like they needed a bit of a scrub in places. We decided to spend the day doing boring domestic tasks as we were too tired for sight seeing. We went shopping to replace various broken/used bits (shower bag, earphones, soap, etc.) and we also bought some new clothes, I’ve lost weight (Woo! Who knew exercise was good for you?) so needed some new shorts and tops and we both needed to get some jumpers for South America as it’s in the southern hemisphere and the middle of winter there. We didn’t do much in the evening, we went to a bar for dinner and then headed home. Grace wishes me to note here she wanted to dance to David Bowie but I was to tired and stingy to pay the entrance fee and alcohol to get us drunk enough to dance. I wish to note her dancing sucks anyway, so there.

On Saturday we decided to do a day of museums, we first looked around the national anthropology museum, it was free to get into and huge. The ground floor covered the past of different indigenous tribes in Mexico and their ways of life and artefacts and the floor above showed how they live now. It was really interesting, especially as this one was in English and we could actually read about what we were seeing. There were so many impressive artefacts from tiny clay models and obsidian tools to huge stone statues. After the anthropology museum we went to see Templo Mayor, today it is an archaeological sight being excavated, it once was a large temple where the Aztecs are believed to have seen the symbolic eagle perched on a cactus with a snake in its beak, which can still be seen in the Mexican flag. The Spanish settlers had demolished the temple and built over it and it was only in 1978 when electric workers unearthed an eight tonne stone carving of a Aztec goddess that the sight was rediscovered and the decision was made to demolish the colonial buildings and unearth the temple. After Templo Mayor we had a walk around Mexico city watched some ‘traditional dances’ which felt more like tourist traps than tradition and looked around a few pretty churches that were enormous, sectioned off into smaller sections for worshipping different saints. The church also had a gift shop/convince store which is a first, but I guess they’ve got to fund new gold ceilings somehow.

In the evening we met up with Antonio, a friend of mine from university who is from Mexico City. He showed us a nice restaurant in a beautiful old building and we asked him 101 questions we had stored up over the last 6 weeks about Mexico (and complained a lot about tacos and sweet bread). We had a really nice evening chatting about all the differences between food and culture in Mexico and in the UK, and funny stories of misunderstandings and culture shock in each others counties among other things. We also went to a nice rooftop bar, and we finally got to ask about bar snacks, in bars they always give you free popcorn which is great, but why do Mexicans insist on putting hot salsa on it? Salsa goes on literally everything here. We managed not to insult Antonio’s culture too much and will hopefully be seeing him later this week.

I’ll keep you updated,

Lots of love,

Alice x