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So the Galapagos was amazing! We’ve seen a lot of cool things and animals on this trip but it’s just so different on the Galapagos, the animals here have no fear of humans what so ever, you step centimetres away for tiny little birds and they don’t even flinch let alone fly off, they also just sit about your table when you’re eating and perch next to you on benches, the same with all the animals here, I feel like a Disney Princess! The golden rule is to always stay 2 meters/6 foot away from the animals at all times, the problem is no-one tells the animals this, you basically have to watch not to trip over sea lions or get hit by a low flying pelican. The islands themselves are absolutely beautiful especially on a good day. We went out of season so it was slightly overcast for a lot of it but on the plus side this made it a bit cheaper, when they say paradise comes with a price tag they mean it! Food here was so expensive we were eating one meal a day and living of Oreo biscuits the rest of the time. In the first day getting there we spent; £270 on flights, £20 on a permit, £100 on entry to the island, £5 on a 5 minute compulsory bus and another £5 on a 3 minute boat ride across a gap between islands so small you were over half way across when you’d walked to the front of the boat, then another £25 on a taxi to our hostel, £20 for the hostel and £30 for a small dinner £470 in the fist afternoon! After that we decided to stop counting money, that way bankcrupting ourselves would be a slightly more enjoyable experience.

On the first day we stayed on Santa Cruz island and decided to do a taxi tour of the island. Our first stop was the twin craters, two giant caterers in the ground formed when the magma chambers under the island emptied leaving vast holes and the roof of the chambers fell in, now it’s covered in vegetation and wildlife including Darwin finches, we had a walk around and a watch of the birds and then moved onto the next spot, there’s only so long you can stair at a hole in the ground no matter how pretty it is.

Next stop was a giant tortoise ranch, they were everywhere and huge! We thought there would be one or two but there were so many you had to watch not to trip over them, apparently as it’s now the cold season here the lowlands are much greener so they migrate down from the hills and the ranch is one of their favourite spots. It used to be a farm but the farmer was overrun with tortoises and couldn’t keep them off his crop so he decided to just let them be and open the ranch up as a tourist attraction. The tortoise migration seems to case havoc here as they’re not exactly fast and you’re not allowed to touch or move them even if they have decided to take a nap in the middle of the highway, but it made even the most boring journey feel like an off-road safari.

After we had our fill of giant tortoises we visited some volcanic tunnels, again created by lava flows when the outside rocks solidified but the inner lava kept moving, leaving tunnels. They started off huge but at one point they reduce to a tiny point you can just about crawl under, I hadn’t planned to start a trip of a life time with my face in the mud but there you go, after that we were dropped at our hostel in the main town on Santa Cruz, where we booked our activities for the next day and went on the search for dinner, we found a street of people selling freshly caught fish and lobster and decided if we were spending £30 for dinner anyway we might as well take advantage of the cheap local seafood and go fancy with lobster!

The next day we both went on trips, Grace went scuba diving and I went on a trip to Santa Fe island, only a few of the islands here you are allowed to visit alone the rest you need to book trips which range from $100-$150 a day. Our boat consisted of me, a English/German couple and a family of 5 Argentinians and a guide in her 20’s on the way to the island she was chatting to us about growing up here, how you are only allowed to be a permanent resident of the islands after marrying in or having a required job and living here for 10 years, to try and avoid over population, she was also pointing out large groups of fish and different species of rays swimming alongside the boat and even jumping out of the water. Once we got to the island we had an hour of bird watching and learning about them and which ones are unique to the Galapagos, it wasn’t hard to spot the birds as they were absolutely everywhere and were even diving into the water catching fish in front of us, I felt like I was in a documentary, we even saw the famous blue footed boobies.

Next we got to snorkel in two spots off of the island, it was incredible! The best snorkeling I have ever done in my life, the water was so thick with life, I was scared to swim incase I hit something, the water was just so packed and all of the fish were beautiful colours and in big schools. We saw a billion different types of fish, eels, crabs and several different types of star fish. We also got to see marine iguanas, iguanas that have adapted to fish and can hold their breath and fish underwater for 30 minutes! My favourite part of the day was the sea lions, they are just so friendly here, you’re not allowed to approach them but as soon as they see you in the water they come over and swim all around you doing loops and jumping in and out of the water, our guide showed us that they love it when you blow bubbles and at one point I blew I bunch of bubbles to find my self nose to nose with a sea lion once they’d cleared only for it to speed off again, for such clumsy animals above land they sure are speedy and agile in the water!

After several hours hours of snorkeling we were all knackered especially our guide, as it turned out none of the five Argentinians who had signed up for a snorkeling trip spotted the potential floor in the fact none of them could swim. So our pour guide had to pull them all along in floats while trying to point out all the different species of fish. She thankfully got a sit down as the captain of the boat took us fishing and explained how they fish here only with lines in attempt to reduce the impact on the environment. We then had some lovely barbequed fish and rice for lunch.

Next we headed on to a tiny nearby uninhabited island, where our guide showed us all of the different plants and animals, and I felt the softest sand I’ve ever sat on, apparently the product of a lot of parrot fish poo! They grind down and eat rocks, dead coral and sand to try and absorb algae, giving out a fine dust as their waste products, so not only are they amazingly colourful beautiful fish but they also create lovely beaches! We also saw a lot of lava lizards and some baby rays in the water, our guide was hoping we’d see turtles as the beach is one they come to to be cleaned by other fish but unfortunately there were none about. We headed back to Santa Cruz and what do you know in the harbour there were turtles! So we got to see them after all, we also got to see lot of tiny black tip sharks. In the evening we went to visit the only brewery on the Galapagos with the couple I had met on the boat trip, and they also sent me some photos they had taken on the trip as Grace had my waterproof camera on her trip, so that’s why the photo look a lot nicer than my normal ‘point and hope for the best’ blog photos!

The next day we headed to the Darwin research center, here they research the species on the island and their genetic make up, they also do a lot to combat and educate people on the ecological problems on the island such as invasive species. People bring cats and dogs which often eat animals, blackberry bushes aren’t native to the area and are much more aggressive than indigenous plants and have already killed 99% of the Scalesia forests on the islands, there are also fly’s that lay their eggs in nests to each hatchlings, even barreling against eruptions, which on some islands nearly wiped out certain species. They spend a lot of the breading native species or collecting eggs and rearing them until they are big enough to have a good chance at survival when released into the wild. So we spent the day reading about the work they do and cooing over baby tortoises! In the afternoon we got the ferry to Isla Isabella where we would spend our last few days and booked a trip for the next day.

The next day we decided to go on another snorkeling trip as Grace was a bit gutted she’d missed the last one. This the we would be snorkeling through some small open top volcanic tunnels, this trip was $95 but not as good as the last one, we only snorkeled in one place, most of the trip was getting there. The water in the Galapagos is also very cold, hence why it has so much life in it, so to snorkel you need a thick wetsuit, (don’t worry there are no photos of me in a wetsuit in case you’re reading this while eating!) But the ones they gave us on this trip were really thin for the temperature, only 2mm, so poor Grace, who doesn’t have the extra bit of insulation I do, had to get out after 15 minutes as she was too cold. But I made sure to take lots of photos for her! We saw a lot more large scale stuff this time, there were turtles everywhere, several rays, a large sea horse and even sharks! Okay they were only about the length of your arm but when the guide said not to move to much incase we woke them I followed that instruction to the tee! After that we headed onto some tunnels where the bridges/roofs were still intact to have a look at the nesting sites of some blue footed boobies, it was really surreal scenery like the set of a different planet on doctor who or something. We saw a few chicks, one of which took a liking to Grace and came up right close to inspect her.

On our final day we couldn’t book a trip as we needed to get a ferry back to the island closest to the airport and the last one left at 3pm, so we decided as it was a nice day to just sit on the beautiful beach by the ferry terminal and have a swim. But this actually turned out to be my favourite day, not only was it free, always a big plus for me! But we ended up spending the day swimming with some super playful sea lion pups, they came over to investigate as soon as we sat down on the beach, and were then excitedly speeding about in the water as soon as we went for a swim, it was so much fun playing with them, we were no where near as fast as them in the water and they swam circles around us, literally! We also saw some more tiny sharks in the shallows although I didn’t follow them too closely! It was an absolutly beautiful day and a great end to our short trip!

Keep you updated on what we get up to next.

Lots of love,

Alice x

We awoke in Baños to a horrible hangover and a lot of noise, there was a huge festival in the town (of course there was on the day we were hung over!). We decided to go explore, we weren’t sure what exactly they were celebrating, but boy were they enthusiastic about it! People were dancing traditional dances in traditional dress which was really entertaining to watch and the crowd were shouting and banging along to the loud music, which was a lot less fun for our headaches! But we soldiered on and actually had a really fun time, the locals seemed to enjoy us joining in, especially our friend Scott who is a really tall, very blond Australian who is so pale he’s almost translucent, the locals were fascinated by him wherever he went there were stares and eyes following and being the nice supportive friends we are, we obviously bullied him about it relentlessly, trying to charge people for photos with him.

We joined in the festivities and met a few local people through our friend Scott, he’s a musician (although he refuses to play wonder wall…) and has been playing guitar in local venues, where we get dragged along to meet everyone afterwards, normally getting evil stares from what ever group of girls happen to be swooning over him that particular day and afterwards we spend a lot of time taking the piss out of him until his ego returns to a normal size. We went out with some Ecuadorians he knew and had a fun night drinking and partying with them, me and Grace brought out our amazing beer pong skills out of retirement, along with our not so amazing salsa/dancing skills. Again we went to bed far to late and drank far to much, which has started to become a theme this week, I blame hanging around with musicians!

After a morning nursing our hang overs we made the assent to a high point overlooking Baños called the end of the world, there they have these huge swings the swing out over the edge of the mountain, they were absolutely terrifying! I played it cool and got in the swing and almost fooled myself I wasn’t scared until I went out at speed and let out a huge scream! A rookie mistake as Grace and Scott smelt my fear and kept pushing me higher and higher! We also had a race on some zip lines which was super fun until we hit the end of the line and nearly got thrown off.

We spent the next day organising our trip to the Galapagos Islands, as all we had so far were our flights, when our accomodation was sorted we booked a bus to Montañita on the coast where we planed to relax for the three days before our flights. The hostel we’re staying in here is right on the beach and has two donkeys and a horse that wander around like dogs, they come over for a fuss and you have to be careful they don’t eat your lunch or in one guys case, your box of cigarettes. The weather hasn’t been so great here, quite overcast and the sea has been really choppy but luckily Scott knows how to surf and offered to teach us while the waves were big, I was dubious after my last attempt, which consisted mainly of me being beaten up by the board and waves, but he was actually a really good teacher and I got more out of the first 10 minutes with him that the whole three hours we had before, and this time only cost me a few beers! (And a lot of being laughed at) but I managed to stand up this time, and didn’t have half as many bruises afterwards!

The next day was our last by the coast and as we were leaving that evening and everyone was going to miss us so much, they decided to throw a pool party for us. Someone mentioned they do that every week but we know it was for us really! It was a lot of fun and they had a surf competition in the pool which consisted of one representative of each nation jumping on a surf board and whoever went the furthest without falling in won. I was going to volunteer for the UK as I had now stood on a board once and was pretty much a professional, but apparently some guy had lived in Australia for two years and nipped me to be representative, he did not win which I think says it all really.

The party finished around four and we packed and headed via bus to a home stay near the airport, which is where I’m writing this now, although ‘home stay’ is overstating the niceness to be honest, I’ve seen better conditions in prisons! But it’s only for one night and tomorrow we fly to the Galapagos Islands!

I’ll keep you updated on what we get up to there!!!!

Lots of love,

Alice x

After an uneventful night in Quito, we headed to Cotapaxi a beautiful national reserve around Cotopaxi volcano in the Andes, a minivan took us across the country side and up some windy paths onto the foot of the volcano. It’s very pretty and picturesque here, surrounded by lush green volcanoes in the distance and greenery all around us, with horses, cows, lamas and some super cute hostel dogs wandering about.

On the first day we arrived we went on a waterfall hike, it was only two hours and to be honest after our amazing waterfall hike in Mindo the waterfalls here were a bit underwhelming, but it was still a fun walk and we had to do a bit of rock climbing to get across deeper parts of the river which was fun if not a little terrifying.

On Thursday we decided to go horse riding, it was a bit costly at $35US per person but the scenery is amazing here (I feel like I’m in a Windows desktop!) and it was a fun way to explore the national park. We arrived at the horse riding place about 9:30am and we were all put on horses, of course I was given the grumpy old horse of the group, as soon as I got on he cranked his neck round to look at me and I’d never realised until then it was possible for a horse to look disapproving, he immediately began to wander off and ignored all of my attempts to control or lead him with the reins, he would just yank them out of my hands and continue doing whatever he wanted. I soon discovered it was futile to resist and I was actually a passive participant in this journey, we would go whichever way the horse wanted, which normally involved a much harder route, a gentle meandering path down a steep hill? Nope straight down the middle, with me clinging on for dear life, hoping we didn’t hit other horses on the way down, a concern my horse didn’t share. My horse didn’t like the other horses, he insisted on being up the front, despite being the slowest horse, and when another horse tried to overtake? It would barge into them and try and bite them, I felt like I was in the horse version of dodgems! At one point my horse decided, on a thin path on the side of a very steep hill with a river and a drop on one side, that he had had enough of the horse infront and would overtake at speed, with little regard for both of our lives. Although that was one of the few times my horse actually went fast, it would normally just plod along miles behind the other horses and refuse any command to go faster, at one point there was an open grass plain where all the other horses ran full speed across, but despite my best efforts my horse went so slow we almost stoped and the others had to wait 10 minutes for us. Although on the plus side the slow ride did mean I got to appreciate the national park we were riding in, it was absolutely stunning, I felt like I was in a painting surrounded by mountains and cristal clear rivers (that my horse would stop refuse to cross), the ride was 3 hours and we went across valleys, beautiful yellow and green grasslands, rocky cliffs it was amazing, I tried to get photos but I could only manage it on the open plains where the other horses where far enough away that I didn’t have to worry about my horse attacking them or it deciding to head down a steep cliff suddenly. At the end of the ride my horse finally decided to run, when he realised he was close to home (just when I started to take a video the little shit), although ‘run’ is a generous term, it was barely faster than walking, but somehow much more uncomfortable. Instead of normal stirrups it had these cloggs that my feet barely fit in so I had to stand on tiptoes everytime the horse ‘ran’, I couldn’t hold the rhythm in tiptoes and kept bashing into the horse, I now have a very bruised bum! Although Grace faired a bit worse and actually slid of her horse, luckily her horse wasn’t a dick and when it felt her start to slide it slowed down so she was fine. Despite the grumpy horse and tiny stirrups I still had an amazing time horse riding and we thoroughly enjoyed the three hours, Grace slightly more as she got a lot of enjoyment laughing at me trying to control my horse and being dragged about, and we both had a good laugh at eachother when we got of the horses but still walked around bow legged as if the horse were still under us for half an hour.

On Friday we decided to do the walk up thePasochoa volcano, it takes about 7 hours and you get up to a height of aroind 4200m. I was really nervous about it as for some reason I have really bad anxiety about hiking in groups, before we even set off I was shaking, when we measured my stress level on an app I had a resting heart rate of 110bpm, only 85% oxygen blood levels as I was shallow breathing and a extremely high stress level, I don’t know why I get so anxious but it really screwed me! 40 minutes into the walk I was breathing heavily and my lips started turning blue from lack of oxygen which was ridiculous because the start of the walk was the exact same route we had taken on Wednesday to see the waterfalls and then I wasn’t even puffed, we’ve also done much harder hikes on our own and I’ve been fine. I find it really frustrating that I wanted to do the hike and physically I was able to, but mentally I had made my body so anxious that I couldn’t cope. I couldn’t breathe properly but I was anxious that if I slowed down the whole group would notice and be waiting on me which was stupid because I was at the front of the group and there were people much slower than me, but I stressed out about it so much I started to have a panic attack, I felt so stupid shaking and crying out of nowhere, I just wanted to leave but felt too pathetic to explain I got anxious about being in a group. Grace bless her came up with the idea to say I had asthma, which worked great until the guide mentioned she carried and emergency asthma pump, which really threw a spanner in the works! We tried to bluff that I can only have one really rare specific type of asthma pump, which I couldn’t describe and for some reason didn’t carry it with me, for some reason this didn’t give her the impression that we were lying and just wanted to leave and she suggested we could just slow down as we were going faster than groups normally did anyway, and we could stop every 30 minutes instead of every hour, which was super nice of her and didn’t sound such a bad idea but then people started to ask why we had slowed down which started my anxiety off all over again so we decided to just tell the truth like mature adults and then run the hell away from there… We ended up having a really lovely relaxing day reading our books in the beautiful surroundings, but it worries me how I’m going to get over this anxiety as me and Grace both really enjoy hiking on our own and want to do the rainbow mountain hikes in Peru but I’m not sure how I’ll fair as they’re all done in guided groups, I guess time will tell.

We left Cotapaxi at 3pm on Friday for a ‘two hour’ journey to our next destination, Baños. An hour into the journey our driver droped us off on a motorway and told us it was just a bit further on a bus, after several creepy offers from lorry drivers to hitch hike with them (no thanks I like not being murdered), we finally flagged down a bus and hoped it was heading in the right direction. Two hours later we again got dropped on the side of a motorway and luckily some nice locals noticed we were white and guessed we would be heading to Baños and pointed us onto another bus as it slowed up along the motorway. We got our bags onto the bus and then it sped up and we had to run after it and jump on and this time we finally made it to Baños around 8pm. We were ready for an early night but we ended up seeing a kiwi guy we had met a few hostels back and he invited us for dinner with everyone we knew from the previous hostel so we had some lovely pizza and to much alcohol! I’m writing this now as Grace has yet muster the energy to move this afternoon and after she put up with me terribly hung over after her birthday I think it’s only fair I let her spend the day in bed without judgement!

Hopefully tomorrow we’ll get up to something fun.

I’ll keep you updated,

Lots of love,

Alice x

Ps. We here’s were we ate last night, it made us chuckle more than two adults should!

In the past few days we have been in Mindo a small town about 2 hours northwest of Quito. The main attraction here is the cloud forest, as the name probably gives away it’s a tropical forest surrounded by low level clouds. Our hostel here is tucked away in the forest and pretty quiet, there was hardly anyone else in the hostel, which was great as we got a dorm to ourselves and also our poor livers got a break for once. Weirdly, although it’s on the edge of a forest outside of a rural little town, the hostel had the best shower we’ve had in a while, it has both hot water and nice pressure! We are normally blasted by cold water or have warm water that dribbles out of what can at best be described as a modified hose pipe (and that’s still a luxury to be honest). The other attraction of the hostel, second only to the shower, is the beautiful surroundings, were right next to a river and the edge of the forest and just sitting eating breakfast we’re surrounded by hummingbirds, butterflies, capybaras and other nature things I don’t know the names for!

It was quite rainy on the afternoon we arrived so we watched a bit of Netflix and had an early night. On Monday we got up early ready to head into the cloud forest, we had read about a trek around waterfalls in the forest that was meant to be beautiful, it was supposed to take about 6 hours in total so we stocked up on snacks and headed the cable car you have to take to get into the trek starting point.

The cable car was a tiny cart that fit 4 people in, connected to a peak in the forest by a thin cable dangling above a vast forest. I was quite terrified to get in, as anyone who knows me will know I have a fear of heights, well specifically being high on things that feel unstable, which I would say is quite a fair and rational fear! But as the cable car cost us $10US(!! A fortune in Ecuador, the 2h30 bus to Mindo only cost $3US) I told myself at least some of that would be put into maintaining a good cable car I got in, we were also joined by a super cute dog, who obviously regularly made the journey as she knew when we were arriving and got up.

The dog (the guides had named her Poco – which means small) decided to come on our trek with us, the trek consisted of 7 waterfalls of various sizes and it was actually really useful having poco with us as she was obviously a seasoned pro and knew the way, even if she did make us feel a bit inadequate as she ran up the steep bits and then came back down trying to round us up when we were to slow for her! The forest was beautiful we saw lots or orchids, cool bugs and hummingbirds and the trek itself was really enjoyable, we were mostly up and down trails in the forest, although a bit of rock climbing and crossing rivers was involved. I got to use my Dora the explorer walking boots, after weeks of ridicule for bringing them, they showed their worth when they stopped me skidding on slippery paths and at one point when a misplaced foot ended up in the river I discovered they were also waterproof! Which was really useful until the next time when my whole foot went in up to my shin, turns out water can still get in the top when you fully submerge them! Luckily they also dry quickly….

Safe to say the hike was knackering, we walked back to our hostel covered in sweat and headed straight for some food, a traditional Ecuadorian plate of rice, beans and meat and then had an embarrassingly early night!

The next morning after a solid 11 hours sleep we booked onto a chocolate tour, it was a bit overpriced at $10US per person but I really enjoyed it, they took us through the history of chocolate and the whole process of manufacturing it, which they did on site. Showing us the Cacao tree and fruit that chocolate comes from, the cocoa seeds that chocolate is made from are surrounded by a fleshy pulp inside the fruit, which was news to me! We even got the try the fruit, you put the seeds in your mouth and suck the pulp off, it has the texture of pumpkin but tastes like passion fruit and lychee.

They told us that traditionally the seeds and pulp are fermented with bananas, this kills the stem inside of the seed which is what gives dark chocolate it’s bitter taste, modern chocolate companies don’t do this as it takes too much time. After fermentation the pulp is separated (the company here uses it to make BBQ sauce!) And the seeds dried out in the sun, once dried the seeds are crushed up, and the inside is melted down to make a concentrated Coco paste, (the company uses the shells to make Coco tea). We got to try the paste, it smells delicious but doesn’t taste so good, at this point the paste is either crushed to sperate out the liquid and dry parts to Coco butter and Coco Powder or sugar is added to kill the acidity and make chocolate. We then got to try lots of samples of dark chocolate, they consider milk chocolate or indeed anything less than 77% concentrated to not be real chocolate but a western butchering of it. I’m not a fan of dark chocolate but the samples we tried were a lot nicer than dark chocolate I’ve had before and you could really taste the difference the fermentation made, it was hardly bitter at all! But most of all I enjoyed the brownies they made with the chocolate, some of the best I’ve ever had!

After filling up on chocolate we made a run for the bus and just caught it, getting back to Quito in the afternoon, we’re staying here the night before heading to Cotopaxi in the morning.

I’ll keep you updated on what we get up to there.

Lots of love,

Alice x

Our flight from Santa Marta took us to Bogota where we stayed one night before our flight to Ecuador the next afternoon. In the afternoon we headed up on the escalators to Mont Montserrat viewing point, we’d already been when we first got to Bogota but the girls hadn’t so we took the trip again, although it was so cloudy at the top we hardly saw anything. That evening was our last night in Colombia and also our last night with Alexa and Laura so we decided to out for an early birthday meal for Grace’s birthday. We also met up with one of our friends from the Spanish school who was in Bogota and after the meal decided to go for drinks and then ended up in a club where they had a ‘Gringo Tuesday’ night which meant the music wasn’t reggaeton for once, which was a nice change. We ended up having a really fun night and even bumped into some people we met in Mexico. The best part was after a great night out we were still tucked up in bed by midnight as the club opened so early.

We flew to Quito the next afternoon, it’s cheaper to cross by land but we had heard the the boarder was chaos due to a huge influx of Venezuelan refugees fleeing from the civil war, so we forked out a bit more and got a flight. Quito is the world’s highest capital at 2850m and we really feel it here, it’s always worse when you fly in as your body has less time to adjust, so we spent the first afternoon just adjusting and meeting people in our hostel. On Thursday it was Grace’s official birthday I had decorated her bed with banners and she started off the day with a beer and a cake for breakfast which she enjoyed and a chorus of happy birthday which she didn’t!

We decided to join some people we met at the hostel and take the cable car ride up to a viewing point on Pichincha Volcano, the cable car ride is about 10 minutes and rises 2237m, it’s actually one of the highest cable cars in the world and at the top reaches just under 4000m high. We saw some stunning views of Quito at the top, we hadn’t realised how big the city was until it was laid out Infront of us, we also really felt the altitude there, I ran up some steps to quickly and got light headed and dizzy and after walking around for an hour all of our hands started to get pins and needles from the lack of oxygen, so after a few more photos we headed down.

On the lift down we noticed a fairground not to far away and decided to check it out, we had a great afternoon going on the dodgems and rides, although it was a little more stomach churning at altitude!

In the evening we decided to go out partying and fortunately the hostel had a night out already planned with a party bus that took a large group of us to a club, we had a lot of fun although we all learnt the hard way that altitude makes you get drunk more easily due to the lack of oxygen (or at least this is the excuse we’re all sticking too!) and as I write this I am suffering from the worst hang over I think I’ve ever had. (Sorry if the blog is sub par because of this, but honestly it’s a miracle I haven’t killed of the brain cells containing these memories!)

But so far we’ve had a great time here and Grace has had a fun birthday (I think) apart from having to look after one slightly too drunk cousin…

Keep you updated on what we get up to next here.

Lots of love,

Alice x

The last four days we’ve spent chilling by the sea, mostly because it’s hard to do anything in this heat and humidity but also because it’s the last few days in Colombia for the two girls we’ve been traveling with for the last month and they wanted to work on their tans before they head back to England.

So most of our days have been spent spent sunbathing and our evenings dancing on the beach and drinking too many cocktails. Now it’s September were starting to notice that it’s the rainy season a bit more, every other evening there is a downpour that lasts for an hour or two, unfortunately the hostel dog doesn’t like the storms so if you forget to put your mosquito net down you sometimes end up with a bed smelling of wet dog. Although on the positive side if you’re not caught in the storms and are tucked up inside dry and warm they’re really fun to watch, the other night we go to see a really cool thunder storm out to sea, it was lighting up the sky as if it was daylight.

We also got to see some really cool bioluminescent phytoplankton in the evenings if you splashed around in the wet sand it would all light up, which was especially entertaining on the drunken walk back to the hostel after parties on the beach.

This afternoon we headed back to Santa Marta as we have to catch our flights to Bogota here soon, we got a bus from the coast to Cartagena and I ended up sat next to a woman and a super cute toddler who was fascinated by me, he kept was staring and giggling every time I smiled at him, he kept stroking my skin and trying to play with my hair, probably not used to gringos yet.

When we were about 20 minutes from our hostel the bus got stuck in traffic and we saw two police motorbikes pass us, we waited for about 10 minutes and then saw people running past the bus shouting. Suddenly the lorry in the lane next to us reversed backwards at about 50mph and slammed into the taxi behind it crushing it into another lorry. People started screaming and we heard gun shots, we all threw ourselves down on the bus floor as the noise got closer. It was horrible, I was trying to help the woman get her toddler underneath us to protect him, he was still smiling at me it was so heart breaking. There was a bang on the side of the bus and the driver of the bus decided to get the hell out of there, he sped us down the side of the road into a steep gutter to try and get around the other cars infront of us, the windshields were smashed and we didn’t look to see the fate of the drivers. The bus started to tip so me and Grace shouted to everyone to crawl on the floor to the other side of the bus to balance it, we managed to keep it stable and get passed the unmoving cars and then sped off. Were still not sure why it happened or what it was about, were just glad to be back to relative safety. It’s really weird knowing all of these things are regular occurrences here but we’ve just been so sheltered in our travelers bubble that you start to feel distant and unattached from it, it was a scary reminder of the reality here, we could have easily have been in the taxi that was crushed or have gotten off the bus and had a very different outcome.

Its a shame to have such a shocking end to a wonderful trip here.

I’ll keep you updated on out next movements,

Lots of love,

Alice x

Sorry it’s been a while since the last post we’ve been in some more rural areas recently and have had either no internet or its been very patchy.

So we arrived in Taganga, a small little fishing village, on Wednesday the 29th. It was pretty and had hardly any non-Colombian tourists, we spent the day walking around the small village as we waited for Grace to do her scuba dive, apparently Taganga can be quite dangerous and that’s why there are so few tourists but we found everyone friendly and helpful and even followed some suggestions to visit a nicer beach a 20min coastal walk away. After Grace finished her dive she spoke to her instructor who suggested she get her advanced diving certificate before she dives in the Galapagos Islands as she would be able to do much more interesting dives there, after asking if it was okay with us she agreed to another 2 days diving and training for her advanced open water license. The rest of us (me and the two girls we’ve been traveling Colombia with, Alexa and Laura) spent the two days on the beach snorkeling and going for walks.

Alexa and Laura had heard about a really cool hostel on the middle of nowhere that was supposed to be amazing to stay at and stunningly beautiful so we decided to head there as they were also having a big party over the weekend. It was a bit of a trek to the hostel (El Rio hostel) but once we got there it was amazing, it was beautiful and set right next to a river, there were lots of communal areas and everyone’s meals were served on communal benches and there was no internet so it was super social and we met lots of people.

On Saturday night they had a party with djs flown in from Europe, although it was mostly techno music which I’m not a fan of it was still lots of fun and ended up going on until 9am the next morning. We spent most of Tuesday hung over with a big group of us sat in the shade, although it was beautiful at El Rio, like most of the North West coast it’s so humid! Which was not appreciated while hungover. On Sunday evening we just had a chilled night sat around chatting.

Monday we went on a lazy river tour, it was so cool we spent an hour or so trekking up the side of the river, it was actually a really nice walk except for the fact we did it barefoot and holding a massive rubber ring. We then sat in the rings and floated back downstream, stopping at various points along the way to jump off rocks and swing in on rope swings. The experience was also made 10x more fun as the hostel dogs decided to follow us on the trekk and then swim down with us. I don’t have any photos of this as I’m not rich enough to own a waterproof phone and someone (looking at you Grace) broke my waterproof camera, but here’s a photo of the dogs on my pillow, which I was not amused by but everyone else was! Update – here are some photos someone with a GoPro took.

On Tuesday we went to Tyrona National park and I got to feel like a wilderness explorer. We decided to stay overnight at the campsite furthest from the entrance, which meant a 3 hour hike across several types of terrain, It felt like a training montage from a film, except we did it in 38°C heat, so we looked a lot sweatier than they tend to in the movies. We went through tropical forests, dirt trails, rocky outcrops, beaches and mangroves. It was hard work but a very enjoyable walk, we saw two types of monkeys, a capybara and several huge trails of red ants. We spent the rest of the day on a beautiful beach, after 8pm the electric goes out and we were so knackered that we went straight to bed. Well to hammock, the only sleeping options there are tents or hammocks on the beach and we couldn’t bare the thought of being in a tent in this humidity. We opted for hammocks, doused ourselves in bug spray and wore long trousers and long sleeve tops and went to bed, safe to say it’s not the most comfortable nights sleep I’ve had and I still managed to wake up with lots of bites but it wasn’t awful, l a dip in the sea the that morning made it worth it.

About 10am we made our way back, on a not so great night sleep it seemed a lot harder, by the time we reached the entrance we were completely soaked through with sweat and looking thoroughly knackered, the poor people entering the park seemed to reconsider their hiking plans a bit when they saw the state of us. But we made it in good time and moved on to a hostel by the sea. I think we’re going to spend our last few free days in Colombia here before we make our way to Bogota to catch our flights out of here.

As always I’ll keep you updated (internet permitting).

Lots of love,

Alice x

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!