July 8th – ...how ironic…
After some discussion we decided to have a “do nothing
day”. A day where we don’t travel we
just relax, get caught up on some TV shows and do those small tasks around the
van that we sometimes neglect i.e., cleaning or organizing.
We had another reason to stay in one place; it has been our experience
in the last month that as soon as we fix one problem we encounter another. If something is fixed something else will
break. We thought if we relax around the
campsite that we will have one day where nothing breaks. We will have one day where we aren’t thinking
about how to fix something. Well today
turned into a very ironic day as Paul broke his glasses when he was trying to
tighten them against his face, then the camping stove once again broke…
July 9th – Pueblito
Last night we had spoken to our hosts about our camp stove
once again breaking and they, out of the kindness of their hearts, said they
would try to fix it for us. True to
their word we spent the morning in the workshop taking apart the camp stove and
cleaning each valve while blowing compressed air through the propane
lines. It was obvious based on the issue
that there was some sort of restriction in the propane lines, maybe dust or old
grease, and after blowing lots of air it appeared the restriction was gone and
the camp stove was once again working again.
We can only hope it will continue to work for the next few months.
While Paul was working on the camp stove Kendra found the
crazy glue and glued Paul’s glasses back together. Maybe, just maybe, everything is fixed once
again.
We had originally planned to leave the Armenia area, but it
was Sunday, the day the Colombians typically take part in Pueblito. Pueblito is the practice of leaving your
community and going to smaller communities to take part in their local
traditions, eat local foods or just see the sites. We always knew that small towns and tourist
locations were extremely busy every weekend, especially Sunday, but didn’t
realize it was a cultural norm in Colombia to go to these sites on a specific
day. Our camp site hosts mentioned that
they would be visiting a few small towns and invited us to go with them; well
how could we say no. We also wouldn’t be driving, so hopefully nothing breaks
today.
The kindness of the people in Colombia can not be
overstated, they refused to let us use our gas or pay for anything as we traveled
for coffee at a beautiful mirador overlooking the community of Buenavista. After taking in the sites, we jumped back in
their vehicle and traveled to the small community of Calarca known for
Sancocho, a traditional food of the area.
Normally Sancocho is a soup with pork ribs, potatoes (and/or
yuca), corn among many, many other ingredients.
The biggest difference between normal Sancocho and the one we got was
its size and its taste. We were informed
that the restaurant we were in was famous for its Sancocho and that it was a
local favourite. We can see why; we
ordered one meal between Kendra and I and barely finished it, but not for lack
of trying. It was delicious!!!
Even though we were stuffed the Pueblito tour had to
continue so we traveled to the next small town called Cordoba which was famous
for Kumis, a fermented dairy product.
Although that quick description does not sound appealing, it was
delicious. It tasked like a yogurt
drink with the consistency of a milkshake.
It was also delicious, especially with some cinnamon on top and a
molasses based cookie to accompany it.
By this point we were waddling back to the vehicle, but our
hosts had one more stop. They felt we
had to try Forcha which is a water-based fermented foam that tasted a bit
sweeter than beer foam but had a nice tang to it. We liked it, but we were so full! I think given the option between the two of the
regional drinks we would choose Kumis but were so happy for the opportunity to
try both.
It was a great day and we were so happy to have joined our
new Colombian friends on their Pueblito.
July 10th – Trying our hand at coffee picking
We decided to spend one last day in the Armenia area, mostly
after more discussions with our campground hosts. Armenia is the capital of the Café region (as
well as the Quindio department) and we had learned that not only was there tons
of great coffee plantations that offered tours in the area but that once we
head south we would be out of the coffee belt for the remainder of our
trip. We had tried to go to coffee
plantations in central America but it never worked out, so we felt like today
was one of our last opportunities to tour one.
The coffee plantation was only 20 kilometers from the
campground but due to the roads it took forever. This trip was made worse by our back tire; it
was leaking air, audibly leaking air…sssshhhhhhh. Again, it seems that as soon as one problem
is solved (camp stove/ glasses, etc.) another one presents itself. Our plan was to fix it, but because we had a
reservation for our tour we could only fix the tire once the tour was done
meaning our best option was to just pull off to road periodically and fill the
tire. Thank God we had an air
compressor!! (And thank goodness it wasn’t as tucked away in our “garage” as it
had been a few days ago).
The tour was great!
We started the tour with a small history of coffee production in
Colombia (and to a lesser extent the world) before they handed us some
traditional coffee picking baskets. Once
we were told what to look for and how we would know the coffee cherry was ready
to be picked we were sent into the plantation to find a dozen or so coffee
cherries. Did you know that coffee beans come from coffee cherries, which turn
red when they are ripe.
We did very well, mostly because we left the main path and within a few minutes had the requested amount of coffee cherries. After that our guide inspected them and let us know which ones would be garbage, grade B or grade A (Paul won this competition with the guide pointing to a few in Paul’s basket claiming he did a good job, while looking at Kendra’s saying some were overripe or not ripe enough). We then de-husked the cherries, tasted the sweetness of a fresh coffee bean, showing the coffee beans, and went through the drying, cleaning and roasting processes before getting some coffee for our hard work. Kendra even put her Bachelor of Arts degree to good use and got to be a barista, learning how to properly pour the hot water over the freshly ground coffee in a “grandmother’s sock”. All in all, it was a great tour and we were happy to have finally got the coffee tour we had been trying to get since Mexico.
When we returned to the van the back tire was almost flat so
we spent a few minutes putting air back into it before travelling to a tire
repair place. As we have learned,
getting a hole in your tire in Latin America is not a big deal and a quick and
cheap fix. To repair our tire (and fix
our rim which was bent from our initial crater hit in Alaska, somewhat in Edmonton,
and then slowly flattening out from the many potholes between Canada and
Colombia) it cost roughly $5 CAD!!
By the time we returned to the campsite we were exhausted
from a full day of touring and the stress of having another issue to resolve.
One thing we are learning about living in our van is like living in a house,
there are always problems to be resolved and issues to be fixed, but when your
house is your vehicle things can’t wait to be fixed.
July 11th – Leaving our familiar area
We had become so familiar with our camping spot, our hosts Angela
and Jorge at Mi Casita Camping Spot (they are on Instagram and Airbnb if you
are nearby) and the Armenia area. Even
though we were only here for 6 days, it has been the longest we have been in
one general area for some time. It was
actually a little hard to leave this familiar area.
It was a long day of driving from Armenia to our next
destination, the Tatacoa desert.
There weren’t too many things of interest on the drive
expect for when we stopped for lunch at a roadside tienda. We had hoped to buy
some sandwiches, but the owner was out, so we decided to purchase two “things”
of grilled cheese. We learned these
“things” were blocks of cheese that were grilled. They tasted great but the cheese was so rich
we barely ate a third of one block as our “meal”.
The other neat thing we encountered enroute was a ferry,
which we were told was “big” as it could hold 3 or 4 vehicles. The quickest way from Armenia to the desert
was to cross a river and to cross a bridge over the river would result in an
extra 50 kilometres and an extra hour or so of driving, so we drove onto some
rough roads to find a random old “sketchy” ferry that charged us $6 CAD to
ferry us, and the vehicle across the river.
It was quite an experience. We had flashbacks to the Dawson City ferry
with vehicles getting hung up, as our first attempt to load was un successful,
but after a quick readjustment we were loaded and ready to sail. Paul left the
vehicle and was introduced to the boss who gave him a lifejacket (Kendra and
Rupert would have to swim without a floatation device if the ferry didn’t make
it across). Luckily we made it across in just enough time for one of the employees
to finish his beer (it was the last sailing across towards the desert so it was
almost the end of his shift).
Unbeknownst to us the area was also known for its night
sky. It was beautiful with many
stars. We ended up spending a couple
hours enjoying the stars and trying our best to capture their beauty. It is
moments like this where we sit and ponder about how we ended up here and we
realize how lucky we are to experience these places. It’s also nights like
these where we reflect on other places that have given us similar views back
home and we start talking about all the people reading this and hoping these
posts are finding them happy and healthy and appreciating the little things in
life, like looking at the stars.
Our original plan was to start hiking around the Tatacoa
desert before 8am, as it was set to get to 39 degrees Celsius today. Well, we got lazy and didn’t get on the trail
until 9am, meaning we spent 2 hours in the desert in temperatures within the
mid 30s. It was hot but we had lots of
water and it was beautiful. It reminded
us a lot of our hikes in Utah where the biggest issue (other than the heat) was
deciding what we didn’t want to take pictures of. The whole area was so photographic!
However, by the time our walk was just about done we were
out of water and ready for air conditioning.
We jumped in the van, cranked the A/C and drove to another viewpoint a
little further down the road. It was
fine, but nothing like the red rock formations of the Tatacoa desert.
We thought an appropriate way to celebrate our adventure in
the desert with some craft beer in Neiva the capital city of the department we
were in. We looked for 2 hours, driving
around the city to different addresses and locations that Facebook, Google and
Waze (another navigation app) had, but in the end we never found any
breweries. We did get a sticker from a
random motorcyclist who passed us the sticker while we were both driving. It was quite the experience that we wish we
had a video documenting it.
Our plan is to drive to the community of Popayan in western
Colombia but it is a couple days drive from Tatacoa desert so we drove until we
were sick of driving and stopped for the night at an eco campground known for its
waterfall; however, we decided to relax instead of hiking to the waterfall
tonight.
July 13th – A choice we would never have to make
in Canada
The area where we camped was known for various waterfalls,
each requiring separate payment to see and swim in. Because a couple waterfalls were on the property
of the campground we had stayed at we could access them for free. Unfortunately, they were nothing special compared
to other waterfalls we have seen, but offered a nice morning walk before
driving towards Popayan.
We had an odd decision to make, as there are two “main”
roads between our campground and Popayan, the better more northerly road has
issues with the FARC, or those saying they represent them, robbing international
travellers. The road to the south is in horrible
condition. Now obviously not everyone
who takes the northern road gets robbed, but in general the police recommend
people do not take it at this time and two months ago other travellers had
asked the police if the road was safe and the police said no, that two days
prior travellers had been robbed, YIKES!
We had a choice to make, take a terrible road that will take a couple
days to drive or risk our safety and take the good road and possibly encounter
some robbers in the north. Obviously, we
decided to take the road in bad condition.
This road did have one additional benefit, it would bring us through the
northern section of Purace National Park, known for its dynamic landscapes and Colombia’s
version of Yellowstone National Park.
After grabbing some groceries, we started the drive. The road went from good to bad to worse
pretty quickly and before we knew it we were tempting fate by going any more
than 15 km/h. We couldn’t see how high
clearance or 4x4 would allow people to go faster, the road was narrow and full
of massive potholes, but it was beautiful. It felt like an uphill climb the
whole drive, but the views of the valley were breathtaking.
After what felt like an eternity, we finally arrived at the National Park and we’re excited to stretch our legs and camp in the parking lot of the mini Yellowstone (as previous overlanders had done). Unfortunately, because it took us so long to drive to the National Park we were told the trails were closed for the night (at 3 pm) and that we would have to come back tomorrow. Our day was made worse as we were also told we were not allowed to camp in the parking lot, but they did recommend a spot at a hot spring 15 kms up the road. It took us an hour to reach these hot springs due to the road conditions…
The hot springs were a nice way to relax after a long day of driving, it almost made up for the long drive and could have changed our opinion on the day as a whole, except dinner was disgusting. We had picked up some mystery meat in the market. It looked like marinated and we were told it was pork. It may have been pork, but I don’t know what part of the pig it was. Kendra hardly ate it; Paul chewed it as best he could while Rupert lost his mind wanting to try it for himself. It must have smelt way better to him than it tasted for us.
July 14th – Not passing the vibe check
Where we had camped was a staggering 3450 meters above sea
level. We had never camped this high
before, nor had we spent over 24 hours at this height previously in our lives. Unfortunately, this was the morning Paul
learned he suffers from Altitude Sickness.
He looked white, was nauseas and could hardly eat anything. We did discuss skipping Termales de San Juan
(Colombia’s version of Yellowstone National Park), but Paul persevered.
Sadly, all good things come to an end and it was time to
drive the remaining 1/3 of Ruta 24 to Popayan.
The road was a bit better than the preceding 2/3rds but not by much.
Popayan is known for is white buildings throughout the central
area, but most of these buildings were full of graffiti and in general the
community didn’t feel “right”. Its hard
to truly explain but it didn’t pass our vibe check. It did photograph well though!
We arrived just after sunset after what felt like a very stressful day of Paul being sick, feeling uncomfortable in a community, feeling frustrated by disappearance of out gas money and exhausted from decisions not working out. Although the day started strong, we couldn’t wait until the day ended.
By some stroke of luck, the campground near Popayan was amazing
with another incredibly welcoming Colombian couple and other overlanders from
Argentina who would could socialize with.
It was hard to even think about leaving the next day, so we didn’t.
We spent the day hanging around, swapping stories (and
practicing our Spanish since the Argentinians didn’t speak much English while
they wanted to practice their English) and getting some answers to questions we
had about future borders and future locations, since they are also travelling
with a dog.
The campground (which doubles as a hostel) started to fill up by the evening meaning meaning then owner asked if we, along with the other visitors, wanted to go on a farm tour. Well of course we did!
After the tour many people seemed
interested in playing board games namely Settlers of Catan. It was such a nice way to end the day playing
Catan while drinking a few beers!!
If there is one thing we have learned on this trip it is, if
someone offers to take you somewhere, take them up on it. Obviously this is not something you should do
at all time, but when it is a fellow traveler or a campground host, we have
gotten in the habit of saying YES!
Our campground host had mentioned that if we wanted to stay
today that he and the others staying at the hostel would be doing a hike to a
waterfall near by. It didn’t take much
to convince us.
The hike itself was through a pine forest managed by a local
pulp mill in Cali. We could not believe
how much it felt like hiking back in Canada except the trees are planted in
perfect rows. The waterfall was better then the other waterfalls we had seen in
the last few days. Paul even braved the
cold water for a quick dip.
The evening seamed to slip by similar to the previous night
and before we knew it the day was over, but we were feeling far more rested and
ready to get back on the road and ready for entering a new country.
July 17th – Another long day of driving
We had plans to drive from the Popayan area to the northern
section of the community of Pasto, a roughly 200 kilometer drive. We had been
warned that due to road construction the drive could take anywhere from 6 to 8
hours so we thought it best to get an early start. We packed up the van said goodbye to our new Argentinean
friends and started our drive.
Our camping spot for the night was a plant nursery where we
met two other overlander groups from Europe heading north to Cartagena for the
completion of their trip. We talked a
bit about our experience in Colombia and theirs in the rest of South America,
but in the end they went to bed relatively early as they had crossed the Ecuador/Colombia
border that day and had plans to drive to Popayan the next day and were worried
they’d be stuck in traffic for 8 hours just like us.
July 18th – Border Preparations
We had a small list of tasks to complete in the last big
city before the Ecuador border, the city of Pasto. We weren’t sure how long these tasks would
take to complete but we knew we could always spend a night in the area if we
had to.
The second task was getting Rupert a health certificate for Ecuador. We had heard from other travelers that Ecuador land borders do not care about dogs and won’t request any paperwork, but we always feel it is better to have something and not need it than to need something and not have it. 30 minutes and $15 CAD later we had a health certificate.
The third, forth and fifth task all consisted of things we
needed for future countries that we heard are cheapest in Colombia. We needed new wiper blades, ours were
terrible; a reflective vest, a requirement for driving in Peru; and a jerrycan
which is highly recommended for Bolivia due to foreigners having difficulties
getting their vehicle gas tanks filled for 2,3 or 4 times the posted price. The getting wiper blades and a reflective
vest were easy and relatively cheap, but the jerry can turned out to be a fool’s
errands. We went into countless stores
and after a few hours eventually gave up.
We are almost convinced there are no jerry cans in Colombia, at least
not in the automotive area of Pasto.
As it was still the early afternoon we decided to drive to our final thing we wanted to see in Colombia, the Basilica of our Lady of Las Lajas.
This church is famous within Colombia as the site of many miracles, the first being in 1754 when Rosita, a deaf-mute girl, announced “Mommy…the mestiza calls me!” which led to a cave with the Virgin Mary painted on the stone that became a pilgrimage site for people from the nearby town of Ipiales. The church now built in this looks like it is straight out of a storybook.
The church was everything we thought it would be and our
timing couldn’t have been better with very few people at the church and a
rainbow in the background. We were
surprised how long we spent going from viewpoint to viewpoint looking at this
church, but the views were quite spectacular.
We got one of the last gondolas back to where we parked and decided to camping the parking lot of the gondola as the security guard had no problems with overlanders camping there.
We went to bed feeling quite conflicted on one hand we were so happy about our experience in Colombia and glad we got to experience this country the way we did, but were still sad to go. We have enjoyed the places and people we experienced in Colombia and are sad we weren’t able to see the entire country and had to leave some things off of our must see list. On the other hand, we were so excited to see what Ecuador would be like and that tomorrow we would be crossing the border.
