SOUTH AMERICA – PART 2

On Day 9, our last day in Medellin, we booked a guided tour with a private tour company. The guide met us at the door to the hotel saying, “solo Español”. Since no one else on the bus spoke English, we had to figure things out for ourselves. Mostly, we just followed along. Fellow passengers were from other parts of Colombia, as well as Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, Honduras and El Salvador. The bus ride to Guatapé took about two hours with a couple of rest stops along the way. The whole tour cost $72 for the both of us, and included a sandwich stop and a hot lunch!

There isn’t a lot to do in Guatapé, a town of 5,000 or so, but a nearby attraction is well worth the trip: the climb up El Péñon de Guatapé. The bus dropped us off in the parking lot and the guide told us they’d be back in an hour, enough time to allow me to climb to the top. Elva wasn’t feeling it that day, so I climbed the 706 steps to the viewing platform by myself. Us old guys take comfort in small victories: I didn’t stop to rest, and no one passed me! I was lucky that the rain held off just enough for me to take in the views. I had a nice chat with a couple of guys from Ireland and headed back down to meet the rest of our group.

After a nice lunch in Guatapé, we drove back towards Medellin and took a 45-minute boat ride on the Peñol-Guatapé Reservoir. Along the way, we passed by the ruins of one of drug lord Pablo Escobar’s retreats, today a haunting and tacky tourist attraction.

The drive back to Medellin took an hour longer than expected due to a massive traffic jam. As is the case in so many other cities, infrastructure is not keeping up with population growth. People are pouring in from surrounding areas, squatting on land high in the surrounding hills and living in terrible conditions, homelessness is widespread, and sex tourism is on the rise. While Medellin is an interesting place to visit for a few days, it isn’t a place we’d come back to.

We rose bright and early on Day 10 for the short flight to Cartagena, population 900,000. The city lies on the Caribbean and has an interesting history. The presence of indigenous peoples dates to 4,000 BC, and the Spanish established the first European settlement here in 1533, making it one of the oldest in the Americas. As a former Spanish colony, it was the key port for the export of silver and gold from the interior and for the import of enslaved Africans. Today's Cartagena is a vibrant tourist destination, welcoming many cruise ships on Caribbean itineraries.

After checking into our hotel in the district of Getsemani, Santiago led us on a walking tour of the old city, a UNESCO World Heritage Site featuring a colonial walled city and fortress. Unlike other places we visited in Colombia, Cartagena is hot. Stinking hot! It had rained early in the day, some streets were flooded, it was 30 degrees C, and the humidity was at 86%. By the time we got back from our walk (10,000 steps or so), I was cooked!

Cartagena resonates with salsa—there’s no other way to describe it, as it’s one of the world’s capitals for dancing and enjoying this Caribbean-rooted musical genre. It’s impossible not to move your feet and hips to some of the classic salsa songs. We listened to live music at the Plaza de la Alduana inside the old city walls. Cartagena celebrated its Fiestas de Independencia the weekend we were there. We had dinner in a very nice restaurant, our last as a group, and Elva and I headed back to the hotel around 9:00 while the young folks went back for more salsa. At breakfast the next morning, we said our goodbyes. This was our fifth trip with Intrepid, and the best group we’ve travelled with so far.

We’d decided to spend two extra days in Cartagena before travelling to La Paz. Little did we realize that the Independencia celebration would continue, and this time in the Getsemani neighbourhood where our hotel was located. The cacophony began in the late afternoon – loud music and firecrackers – and continued until sunrise the next morning. The street party was like New Orleans’ Mardi Gras on steroids! Thank goodness for good earplugs.

On Day 3 in Cartagena, we walked to Bocagrande, the city’s modern quarter and took a long walk along the beautiful beach. Were we to return here for a visit, we’d stay there rather than in the old quarter. We set the alarm for 2:00 am to give us enough time to get to the airport for our 5:00 am flight. I woke just in time to learn that it had been cancelled.

A travel day can go well, and it can go south. Ours only got worse! Our travel agent, Brett Tabor of Maritime Travel, tried to book us a mid-afternoon flight from Cartagena to Bogota so that we’d be sure to get on the 9:30 pm flight to La Paz. The airline, Avianca, refused to help. So, we headed to the airport at noon and went to the Avianca “Special Services” desk to change our booking. No one spoke English. They finally booked us on a 5:13 flight. It left 90 minutes late. We had just enough time to get to our gate for the La Paz flight. Instead of arriving in La Paz at 2:30 pm on November 12, we arrived at 3:30 am the next day. Shit happens! Three lessons learned: patience, stamina, and NEVER fly with Avianca again. 

A few parting comments about Colombia. If you’re hesitating because of the country’s recent turbulent past, don’t. It’s beautiful, the people are friendly and accommodating, and everything is cheap; one-third to one-half less for hotels, meals, Uber, and everything else. We stayed in three of the bigger cities, Bogota, Medellin, and Cartagena, and never felt unsafe. Our Intrepid tour was first-rate. The only thing we’d recommend is to spend more time in the smaller cities, those with populations of 50,000 or less.

Birders keep lists and so do travellers. Bolivia will be country #100 for us. Growing up in Wellington, I’d never have imagined we’d visit even 10! To be fair, the sovereignty of two of the countries we’ve included on our list is disputed. Prince Edward Island could declare its independence, but it would mean nothing if that independence was not recognized by sovereign countries, which of course it wouldn't. As an example, Taiwan’s sovereignty is recognized by only 11 of the United Nation’s 193 member states. Palestine is recognized by 143 of the UN’s member states. Both Taiwan and Palestine are recognized by Vatican City as sovereign states although the Vatican is not a UN member. So, answering the question: “How many countries have you visited?” is not as simple as it may first seem.

To make things even more complicated, some “country list keepers” count sub-national entities or states that are self-governing. For example, Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, Guadeloupe, Polynésie française, and Saint-Martin, though technically French overseas territories, are counted by some as countries. Same goes for self-governing entities like the Cook Islands. Places like Gibraltar, Hong Kong, Puerto Rico, and American Samoa are counted by some, but I choose not to. So, bottom line, I count Taiwan and Palestine on our list, and that makes Bolivia country #100.

After a few hours of fitful sleep, we had breakfast at our hotel, Qantu. A night here costs $63 CDN, and the room is the nicest we’ve had on this trip. I went for a short walk and got my first taste of downtown La Paz, a chaotic sight reminiscent of the poorer Central American countries. In my first South America blog, I stated that Bogotà is the world’s highest capital city at 9,000 feet. That was a mistake; the title is held by La Paz at 12,000 feet. We experienced oxygen deprivation as soon as we got off the plane.

On our only day in La Paz, we took a guided tour of the city and surrounding area. The old part of the city lies in a valley; it has expanded high into the surrounding hills and continues to do so. Double-decker buses are not our style but, since we were tired and just wanted to get out of the hotel, we thought it would be a good option. And, at $24 CDN each for four hours, it looked like a deal. The tour turned out to be better than expected and we got to see more of La Paz than we ever would have on our own. The first photo is of us with La Paz in the background and the second is of a garden at the Valle de la Luna, just outside the city.

Later, we met our twelve-member Intrepid group for introductions and an evening meal. Tomorrow, we hit the road for the city of Uyuni where we’ll stay a night before heading to the nearby Salt Flats where we’ll spend a few days off-grid sleeping in dormitories. They told us to bring our own toilet paper!