Welcome to the CARRIBEAAAN MAAAAN! SHMOKING THE 'ERRRB MAAAAN

We arrived in Cartagena and planned on taking a bus up the coast to Taganga. Surprise surprise we were ripped off yet again twice within this small journey. Jumping in a cab from the airport to go to the bus station, the cabby drives no more than 1 minute and stops behind an Express Van. First the cabby asks us for 10,000 pesos (remember for one minute not exaggerating …$7AUD) then the “Express Van” promises several times they drive direct to Taganga. It was not direct, stopping in a town half way there, dropping people at their houses, then, he tells us to change cars…??? Trying to explain that this is not direct and that we want our money back the original driver doesn’t listen, jumps back in his car and leaves. Breathing deeply we just accept this and leave for Taganga.



Finally arriving to this small paradise all our worries disappear. Finding a hostel which is literally on the beach, we only had to walk 2 meters and we were in the water.



Feeling like a little adventure we hired some snorkeling gear and went exploring around the reefs, we spent the afternoon finding fish and treasure hunting. At night we would go buy some drinks and sit in the main part of town and drink and chat with other travelers and the locals. Being so hot and muggy it was a relief to sit here in the cool night winds.


There is so much to do in this small town we could have spent weeks here, several companies offer diving courses which are so cheap compared to Aus, also close by is a national park. Due to great time and money restrictions it was not possible to stay and do these things. Too soon it was time to move on again, heading back down to Cartagena.




Cartagena is a beautiful town with a deep history, we spent our days walking around exploring the cobble stone streets and the enormous wall that surrounds the town. In the 16th century it was the main port for the Spainards, shipping back treasure acquired off the indigenous people. Consequently they suffered from several sieges and pirate attacks. In response to this the Spainards built a wall around the city to protect them, taking over 200 years to complete due to repeated storm damage and pirate attacks. The wall still stands strong today, although times have changed with public roaming around taking photos, there were no pirates around …although if it was Captain Sparrow that would have been pretty cool!





Time to head back to Bogota to pick up our visas, our excitement levels were rising as we were getting closer and closer to our boat ride down the Amazon! We were to fly into a town called Leticia which sits at the borderline for Colombia, Brazil and Peru. Having booked our flight back in April we were all prepared. Although it was not to be, not this day anyhow, the airline lady looks at us with a funny look on her face. Unsure of what was happening she informs us that our flight has been over booked, Boos Boos had a seat but Doodles was on standby. Hoping that someone would not show up for their flight so Doodles could have a seat, everyone was one time and accounted for. Needless to say we were pretty pissed off, the airlines compensation was to put us up in a hotel, all meals paid for. It turned out to be not so bad; it was the fanciest place we had stayed in, in the whole of SA!

The next day we jumped on our half full flight and were in the Amazon!!!

See you on the river!

Peace and Love

Doodles and Boos Boos

Learning about Pablo in Medellin

We were planning on making Bogota our last stop in Colombia before leaving for Brazil, but in order to get into Brazil we needed a visa. All other countries in SA allow aussies to just come and go without any real formalities, just getting a stamp at borders. So after changing our plans we found the Embassy of Brazil and put our applications in, this meant leaving our passports there, although this was an Embassy we still did not like the idea of parting with them.

The next day we flew to Medellin, what used to be the drug capital of Colombia or even the world. It is an amazing city, showing true socio-economic diversity, from ritzy suburbs with lush green lawns and immaculate houses to dodgy, dirty and very poor slums. We were staying in quite a nice area so we were paying the high prices but felt safe at all times. After giving up on the cabby being able to find the hostel, we said we would just walk from here but when he asked us for money to pay him his price now was very different to the one he said when we got into the cab – 20,000 pesos difference (about $13, which is a lot when u are on a budget). After arguing for while in the cab, and the driver calling someone who apparently spoke some English to try and sort it out we threw the money at him got our bags and walked away. We understand that generally people here have less money than us, and so the motivation to drastically increase the price for us gringos, but this had been happening to us so much that it was just wearing thin.


Finally finding our hostel we sat down and had a good stiff drink to let the anger settle a little. We ended up having some drinks with a group, a pommy girl and 4 Irish guys, heading out and seeing the nightlife of the city. We went to a rock club called Blue, to Doodles delight as we walk in, Rage Against the Machine comes on, the club went crazy everyone head banging (even Boos Boos), it was a great atmosphere, dancing till the wee hours of the morning.

For those of you that don’t know in the 60's, 70’s and 80’s the biggest drug lord, Pablo Escobar, lived here in Medellin until his death in December 1993. There are two guys with a small van that do a Pablo Escobar tour around the city, taking you to buildings that he owned (you can still see bullet holes from attacks) which are all white to represent cocaine, with his favourite palm trees on site and to his grave site. This was an amazing experience, although mostly we were just looking at buildings that are now used for other reasons (such as a drug rehabilitation centre and U.S Government anti drug department, a little ironic don’t you think?) just to be there and learning of this past was a powerful feeling.





Back in the day it was a pretty horrible place to live, with Pablo and the Police constantly at war setting off countless number of bombs all over the city. It is unsettling to learn how many people died due to Pablo’s dealings, a significant number of them being policemen. We were also showed the planes that he used to smuggle cocaine into the US, each plane could take 500 kgs and they would do the trip 6-7 times a week – that is a shitload of drugs!


Many authorities were after him in the end including the US. There was a picture taken of Pablo on holidays outside the Whitehouse, while they were actually looking for him back in Colombia! The strangest yet most powerful site was where he was finally taken down.


He was hiding out at his Aunty’s house when he was tracked down, there are several stories about who actually killed him as so many authorities were after him, of course the US say it was them, but it is also said that in the very end he actually shot himself. Although he was a horrible person it was so great to learn the history of Colombia’s biggest drug lord in such a way. We now have a little obsession with him, purchasing a book written about him to learn more. If anyone else is interested it is called "Killing Pablo" by Mark Bowden.



We were told of a water park nearby and thought we would go check it out. We took the metro to the end of the line, we were like little kids getting so excited hoping for this type of slide or for a whirlpool. We were then meant to catch a bus the rest of the way, but no bus would take us they all just shook their head and said no. We were very confused, until a man waiting for a bus finally told us that it was closed that day so no bus was going there. Like a young child being told Santa is not real we were absolutely devastated! So we got back onto the metro to go home. To deal with the pain Boos Boos did some serious shopping!

Over the weekend that we were in Medellin there was a public holiday, making flights more expensive. Waiting for the prices to come down we spent more time than planned here so we were keen to move on. Next we were heading to the Caribbean coast, to two towns, Taganga and Cartagena.

Beach here we come!

Peace and Love

Doodles and Boos Boos

Experience of a Lifetime!

Cali is a town that is famous for Salsa, there are party buses that drive around the city with music blaring, lights flashing, filled with people drinking and doing the salsa. That is on the weekends, during the week it is a pretty quiet normal city. At the hostel we were staying a small trip was being organized to go to a small town called San Cipriano, which is west towards the coast but in the depths of the jungle. Both mums and dad close your eyes…this trip was the most life threatening adventure, where Boos Boos sustained the most serious of injuries thus far (although not that bad) yet it has been the most enjoyable and the highlight of this whole trip. It was Amazing!

A group of us gringos set off to find this small town. Only one person had been there before and it was 8 months prior and could remember the details. We found the bus and got on for a 3 ½ hour drive to a town called Buenaventura. This is a small town on the side of the road full of the biggest, muscliest, dark skinned people we have ever seen, they were picture perfect gods and goddesses. Here we had to cross a bridge but this wasn’t just any bridge. This was a bridge true SA style – not even a meter wide this rackety, unstable and bouncy bridge held up by thin steel wires. With people crossing both ways, at one point Boos Boos was faced with a man carrying a heavy looking hessian bag on his shoulder, he had to pass but at this point of the bridge there was no wire on the side to hold on to, it was just open and looking down all that could be seen was rapid gushing water. Squealing like a little white girl we slowly passed each other – Boos Boos has never felt more like a gringo than at that moment.

There is a train track that runs through the jungle, some people say it not in used anymore others say just by a cargo train – we don’t know which to believe. The native people have built these contraptions in order to use the rail way line. It is a wooden platform with bearings on the insides and a motorbike with it front wheel on the platform and the other on the train track.




With the locals they can squeeze up to 20 people onto them, lucky with us gringos they only put 10 on each. Doodles and Boos Boos were lucky enough to be sitting at the very front. We hit speeds of about 40km/hr which in a car is pretty slow but on this we felt like we were on the tower of terror at Dreamworld. It was one track used 2 ways so anytime you encountered someone coming the other we would stop get off and the big muscular man would literally lift it off the track. Except one time…we were approaching a double platform cart carrying plastic barrels of fuel and our driver didn’t seem to be slowing down. We thought that maybe they knew each other and were just playing around. But no, it the time between our last stop and now the breaks broke. We ended up running head on into the oncoming cart with Boos Boos not lifting her legs in time getting one caught and scraped by the fuel barrel.



We fixed the breaks, let the fuel carriers pass then continued on with Doodles and Boos Boos now in the middle of the cart – protected. After a 50 minute ride further into the jungle it was getting hotter and more humid as time passed. We finally arrived in San Cipriano, which is the smallest town we have ever visited, being one street about 800m long. Although this doesn’t stop the kids getting on facebook…how far technology reaches is amazing!





There is a river that passes by the town, big rubber tire tubes are available for hire to take down the river. It is about a 2 hour walk to reach a waterfall then float back down taking hours. With all the humidity it started to rain which was a nice relief, but on our walk up some locals warned us that the further you walk the rougher the water gets so not to go too far. We went to the third entrance (only about ½ hour walk) and checked the river. It looked calm enough so we jumped it. The water was a perfect temperature and crystal clear. We were having lots of fun until we approached a corner where a tree had fallen and all of the water was being taken under it. With no time to warn others all five of us got taken under this tree one at a time, all thinking that we were about to drown. The boys got some scratches on their backs and this is where Boos Boos broke her toe. Feeling very silly afterwards, Boos Boos realised that whilst trapped under the tree apart from thoughts of death, she ensured to hold onto the waterproof camera tight...wouldn't want to loose it!



After this we were a little shaken but that was the worst of it, the rest of the river was so so much fun, finding some whirl pools and trying to stay in them for as long as possible.


The town was very quite at night, not much to do so being the only gringos in town we made our own fun. Things gor real messy real quick, drinking games always seem like a good idea but they never actually are! By the end of the night one of the others had his shirt on his head making animal noises ???


It was not fun the next day getting back on the train cart bike thingos and the ride back to Cali. We took what is called an Expresso (An express van non stop instead of a bus that will stop anywhere picking people up) but it took us about 4 hours until we got back to our hostal. This man was the worst driver in the whole of SA, almost having head on crashes 3 time, overtaking a truck filled with gas bottles on a blind corner. We asked him to slow down and he just laughed and went faster. It was this man that led us to fly the rest of the way, we just did not want to risk our lives any more.

So we jumped on an Aires (equivalent of Jetstar) plane and flew from Cali to Bogota, Colombia’s capital, turning a hectic 13hour bus trip into a smooth 45 min plane ride!

See you in Bogota.

Peace and Love

Doodles and Boos Boos

Camping out in Colombia

Every border crossing we have done thus far we have been on a tour or on a bus where the company guides you through the process. Between Ecuador and Colombia was the first time all on our lonesome. We are truly grownups now. It was the same feelings, although we had nothing to hide it is still an intimidating process. The impressions that we had in our heads were that Colombian Police were going to be real hard asses and horrible to us. Standing in the line on the Colombian side we asked a policemen a question and then he started chatting to us…they seem nice so far! The town on the border is called Ipiales, we crashed the night here as we were pretty tired from the 20 hours on the bus.

The next day we headed to Pasto, we had read that the place had an interesting history, suffering several eruptions from the nearby now dormant volcano. It was a lovely town with beautiful landscapes and lovely people. It was here that we had our first spring rolls since we were in Japan! For lovers of spring rolls that is a long time – we may have gone a little overboard.



In the next small town there is a serene place called Laguna del la Cocha. There are special taxis that do the trip back and forth, it was a little hard to find the depot but once we were there we waited for a taxi until there were enough people to fill it. The journey takes you up and over a windy mountain road, to say the least we were shitting ourselves. South Americans reckless driving has never ceased to amaze us, taking on corners at high speeds and with wet roads at the top of the mountain, hearing the car scrape as we turned. Luckily we arrived in one piece and were greeted by the sweetest little man asking us to go in his boat and he would take us to a camping ground. There was a little confusion of the price of this boat trip, but were pretty used to getting ripped off by now. Just our luck it started to rain while cruising on the lake. Luckily the spot he brought us to had an abandoned shell of a house, up on the second floor we set up tent. It was amazingly peaceful and we had our own little house by the lake. We arranged with the man for him to come and pick us up in 2 days time. We were stranded here completely relying on him to remember to pick us up, but it was so relaxing!





Next run of bad luck – the bottle of gas we bought didn’t fit the camping stove that we had. We attempted to build a fire but with the rain everything was wet, so cold dinner for us! The next morning we tried all sorts of ways to attach the two together, getting out the first aid kit in a MacGyver style effort to make it work. After taping and tying it together it WORKED! As we started to get comfortable and the oil heating up, BOOM, a big burst of flame leaped from the modified contraption at our unaware faces, barely getting away with our lives. Maybe not so dramatic, but the fix didn’t work so cold breakfast for us.


We just could not go another meal cold so after some investigative wanderings, found a bed and breakfast place on a nearby hill. It must have been low season as the place was empty, and we asked in terrible Spanish if we could use their kitchen. They were kind enough to allow us in, it was quite the funny sight our small camping cookware on their massive industrial sized stove. So in the end, we had some incredible and hot pasta for dinner. We spent our days lazing around and reading our books while the rain continued to pour down on the tin roof. We were super happy we had our hut, as we could still walk around outside the tent in comfort - so good.
The sweet old man returned right on time two days later and took us back to main land.




We went back to Pasto with an even crazier driver than the first and returned to the hostel for some comfy mattress goodness. The next day we took a windy (most main road/highways in Colombia are windy) 8 hour bus trip north to the third largest city in Colombia, Cali.

See you there!

Peace and Love

Doodles and Boos Boos

Canyons, Condors, Cities and the Coast

From Cuzco we took yet another bus to a town south-east called Arequipa, this area is famous for the volcanoes and canyons that surround the area. There are three volcanoes that can be seen from the Plaza de Armas, Chachani (6075m), Pichu Pichu (5571m) and El Misti (5822m). If El Misti were to erupt the town would not have enough time to evacuate it is that close. Also the city is nicknamed ‘The White City’ due to the very white volcanic stone that is found in the area.




Nearby is the famous Cañón del Colca which is one of the world’s deepest canyons at 3191m. We opted to do a 2 day one night tour to go and see the canyon…this was kind of a mistake. This was one of the most structured tours we have been on and it wasn’t the greatest. Stuck on a bus for a majority of the time with a man at the front almost constantly speaking at us, but it was all well worth it once we actually got there.



On the second day we awoke around 5am as we had a further 2 hours on the bus, to arrive in time to see the condors awaken and begin their gliding for the day in search of food. This was an amazing experience to be sitting near the edge of the canyon with a couple of hundred others waiting, and waiting. At the first sight of these gigantic yet majestic birds it almost takes your breath away. A member of the vulture family the Andean Condors wing span can be up to 3.2m wide. Slowly as the morning progressed more and more came out from their nests, at one point a condor glided right over the top of us only a few meters above. Of course our camera was not fast enough to capture a close up. Due to their bone structure they do not flap their wings very often instead they use the earth’s thermals to glide higher. We spent about 2 hours just sitting watching them glide around before they left to find food, we are no bird watchers but this was amazing!





Once again realising how little time we had left until we were due to be Colombia, we high tailed it out of there and set out for Lima, the capital of Peru. A long and arduous 18 hours were made easier by full cama seats and the whole bottom section of the bus to ourselves. Lima is a big city, and as we were feeling a little anxious for time, we only planned to stopover and get a bus out the next day north. We weren’t feeling the vibe of Lima and we were so excited to get to our next destination – THE BEACH! At this point we had been in the mountains for so long it felt like a life time since we saw sand. So we headed north on yet another 18 hour bus ride to Mancora.



Mancora is quite a unique little town, very South American but with a hint of Thailand, with tuk tuk’s filling the streets and stalls on the side of the road selling clothes and jewellery – yes a little dangerous for Boos Boos to be near! We got off the bus into a hot and humid town and were instantly told of deals and hostal prices, we picked one guy and hoped for the best. In Boos Boos’ opinion it was the worst – the windows didn’t open, there was no fan, and the room was filled with mozzies! Meanwhile Doodles had paid the man for 2 nights’ accommodation, so we were in for a bitetastic time. Just a side note: there were barely any mozzies in the rest of the town, this place just didn’t look after the gardens and there was a tap constantly leaking creating a nice little nesting area for them. So Boos Boos isn’t as big a princess as you may think!



We absolutely loved this town, being right next to the ocean and Doodles had a sweet little reef break to ride every day - some guys on the beach had a little rental setup and so the board of choice was a nice big 10‘2“ mal for some cruisy waves. We found another café with amazing food, owned by a retired American couple, called Green Eggs and Ham. The lady became like a mum to us, we visited her everyday and she fed us (although we had to pay, not like when we visit our real mums).



Another example of differing standards between SA and home, just next to our hostal there was a construction site where they were building an esplanade type area. Every day we just wondered through in our thongs and nobody cared, no one would have a clue what OH&S would stand for (despite it being in English). After the two horrible nights with crazy mozzies we moved hostels. We just popped over the road to a hostal that was right on the beach and had beautiful sea breezes flowing through. It was awesome to stop for 5 days and get to know the place, but soon enough it was time to leave and get on with the journey.


As the border between Peru and Colombia is still a bit dangerous with drug trafficking and guerillas we decided to go up to Colombia through Ecuador. We literally just passed through Ecuador, briefly stoping in Quito, before heading north on the next bus and being a small country we were not even there for 24 hours. And finally we were in Colombia, a day before we had planned. We were so excited about what was ahead…

See you in Pasto!

Peace and Love

Doodles and Boos Boos