Category: Colombia 2014

Cartagena: South American Exit

Cartagena: South American Exit

Cartagena: South American Exit. August 12. For days Marc and I have been talking about how we do not get hungover from Club Colombia beer because it is not very strong.  Today was a different day.  We had plans to go to Playa Blanca today, but I was too hungover and tired to be able to get out of bed at 8:30am.  When I opened my eyes again it was 11am.  Club Colombia cervesa finally got me. We had a...

Cartagena – One Last Ripper.

Cartagena – One Last Ripper

Cartagena – One Last Ripper. August 11. Riding a boat from Cartagena to Panama though the San Blas Islands sounds like a great time.  But, when you go to the meeting in the morning to find out about the crossing and there are two Aussie dudes, one old and one young, and an Aussie chick who is the girlfriend of the young one, and an older Japanese man who does not speak English at all and a gay man in...

Santa Marta to Cartagena: Back to a Dirty, Expensive, Lousy City

Santa Marta to Cartagena: Back to a Dirty, Expensive, Lousy City

Santa Marta to Cartagena: Back to a Dirty, Expensive, Lousy City. August 10.  The times they are a changing.  Marc and I said goodbye to Knut today as we headed from Santa Marta to Cartagena.  I liked hanging out with him. It took five and a half hours by local but to get from Santa Marta to Cartagena and then we had a tough time trying to find a hostel as the town seemed to be booked up.  We lucked out...

Cabo de la Vela to Santa Marta: Surprise Fiesta

Cabo de la Vela to Santa Marta: Surprise Fiesta

Cabo de la Vela to Santa Marta: Surprise Fiesta. August 9. Girls in Colombia have a huge party for their 15th birthday.  It is their biggest birthday of their lives and they dress as nicely as possible to be exceptionally pretty for that special night.  In Colombia, they say that an ugly woman is a woman who has never turned 15. Am I tired of Colombia or am I just tired of t fight for a fair price for everything...

Riohacha to Cabo de la Vela: Northernmost South America, Almost

Riohacha to Cabo de la Vela: Northernmost South America, Almost

Riohacha to Cabo de la Vela: Northernmost South America, Almost. August 8. The postal service in Colombia has been a pain in my ass.  I have had postcards I wanted to send out since I was in Bogota about three weeks ago.  A girl who worked in a hostel there told me where the post office was and drew it on a map for me.  I walked across town.  It was not there.  I asked someone else.  They send me...

Palomino to Riohacha – Breaking the Group

Palomino to Riohacha – Breaking the Group

Palomino to Riohacha – Breaking the Group. August 7. The Italian women said goodbye to us this morning with our American friend Julia.  I think Rosie was ready to leave us but Chiara did not really want to leave.  Those are two really awesome women that we had a great time with.  I will miss those girls. Marc, Knut and I caught a bus from Palomino to Riohacha at about 11am.  We found a crumbling hotel and got our own rooms...

Palomino: Pondering Relationships and Flings

Palomino: Pondering Relationships and Flings

Palomino: Pondering Relationships and Flings. August 6. It is crazy how far behind four days without internet can put me.  So I spent a lot of today laying in a hammock looking at the beach and catching up on life. Women are interesting creatures.  One day I think that quiet and shy ones like me because they like to have a leader, and then I meet a really outgoing woman and it turns out that she likes me because she...

Palomino

Parque Nacional Natural Tayrona to Palomino – Sandy Spots

Parque Nacional Natural Tayrona to Palomino – Sandy Spots Aug 5 Waking up in a hammock for two mornings in a row will give you sore shoulders.  It sure saves money to sleep that way though.  And saving money is necessary right now…  I ended up in this park with about $15 to my name because we were in such a hurry to catch our boat a couple of days ago that my hung over mind lost the ATM thoughts...

Parque Nacional Natural Tayrona: Bicycling

Parque Nacional Natural Tayrona: Bicycling

Parque Nacional Natural Tayrona: Bicycling. August 4. Life was a dandy of a beach all day.  That meant beer, sand and swimming.  Things can get worse, but I hope they never do. We met a couple from Portugal today.  They are Pedro and Sarah and they have been bicycling  south for 15 months.  They started in Boston in May of last year.  That must feel pretty good to tell people.  They have 9 months left until they need to make it...

Taganga to Tayrona National Park: A-holes

Taganga to Tayrona National Park: A-holes

Taganga to Tayrona National Park: A-holes. August 3.   I am turning into a mean person because of the pure alcoholism that has taken over my life since Marc arrived.  I told off a German girl who kept on slamming the dorm-room door while we were sleeping.  Then I challenged the massive Scottish guy who ran our hostel because I wanted a better price from him for the dorm for him not having internet for us for the two days...

Taganga Hookers, Transvestites, and Friends.

Taganga Hookers, Transvestites, and Friends

Taganga Hookers, Transvestites, and Friends. August 2. Hookers are funny.  That is a fact. We spent the day at Playa Grande, about a 20 minute hike from our hostel in Taganga.  Knut and I drank beer and swam while Marc went on a dive with the Dutch girls we were with last night.  In the evening the Italian girls joined us in the same club as we had been the night before.  I need to get better at picking up...

Barranquilla to Taganga: Pressured

Barranquilla to Taganga: Pressured

Barranquilla to Taganga: Pressured. Aug 1. Girls drive me crazy…  It is because they are nuts.  I just feel like they are totally irrational…all of the time. Marc, Knut and I went for lunch in a place in Barranquilla where there were chickens walking running though our legs.  I like a fun restaurant like that.  I caught a chicken and hypnotized it for them.  That entertains people. We wanted to get from Barranquilla to Taganga, so we packed up at...

Cartagena to Barranquilla: Murderers vs Killers

Cartagena to Barranquilla: Murderers vs Killers

Cartagena to Barranquilla: Murderers vs Killers. July 31. Sometimes one meets really sketchy dudes when drinking in front of a pharmacy at 3am.  Tonight was no exception… Marc and I caught a bus from Cartagena to Barranquilla.  I was fascinated to see what was in Barranquilla.  Shakira is from here so I assumed there was a lot of talent in town.  Marc and I were the only two gringos on the bus to get here.  I liked that and knew...

Cartagena: Life is a Beach

Cartagena: Life is a Beach

Cartagena: Life is a Beach. July 30. I met a very pretty girl in our hostel dorm room today.  She looked at me and asked me in Spanish which bed I was sleeping in.  I pointed to the one beside hers.  She laughed.  It had been dark last night when I returned to the dorm and I found a girl on her phone and asked her to be my light while I tried to put sheets on my bed.  She...

Popayán to Cartagena: Beating an Airline

Popayán to Cartagena: Beating an Airline

Popayán to Cartagena: Beating an Airline. July 29. This morning as Lucia went to have a shower before work, I was awakened by a couple moving into the dorm at about 8am.  The pretty girl was apologetic in English rather than Spanish.  A conversation between us took place.  She was from Minnesota and asked me if I was an American.  I told her I was from Big Beaver, Saskatchewan.  She made a funny face and said, “I think I have...

Popayán: The Closest I Have Been to Home on the Road

Popayán: The Closest I Have Been to Home on the Road

Popayán: The Closest I Have Been to Home on the Road. July 28. I woke up next to Lucia and decided to get ready for the day.  I feel at home on the road here.  She took me for breakfast at Ex!to where one of her food stalls sells to patrons entering the store.  She had a bathing suit delivered and we took a bus into the mountain to a volcanic area where hot springs are.  We spent the day...

San Agustín to Popayán – The Best of Tricky Scenarios

San Agustín to Popayán – The Best of Tricky Scenarios

San Agustín to Popayán: The Best of Tricky Scenarios. July 27. I woke up this morning and had a decision to make.  I could either stay another night in the hostel of the cocaine maker and see how that went, or I could go back to Popayán where three girls are not very happy with me.  I decided on the later.  I felt like there was less chance of being murdered there, and more chance of charm getting me out...

Inside of a Cocaine Lab – San Agustín, Colombia

Inside of a Cocaine Lab – San Agustín, Colombia

I wish I could say that we were inside of a pristine shiny and sterile cocaine lab that I had pictured in my mind with people wearing baby-blue uniforms similar to what a nurse would have on with dust masks over their faces while machines made noises in the background. But it was nothing like that. It was way dirtier. We were taken to someone’s house.

Popayán to San Agustín – The Worst Road in Colombia, So Far

Popayán to San Agustín – The Worst Road in Colombia, So Far

Popayán to San Agustín – The Worst Road in Colombia, So Far. July 25. Colombia is the type of country where a man in the center of a town square has a scale at his feet, and he will charge you C$1000 to find out your weight.  Opportunistic.  Colombia also calls people who want to sell you crap, ‘Snake Charmers.’  I like that.  Colombia also has traffic rules but is also a ‘make your own rules’ kind of country.  Many...

Medellin to Popayán: Medellin City Tour.

Medellin to Popayán: Medellin City Tour

Medellin to Popayán: Medellin City Tour. July 24. Getting out of bed with a gorgeous naked woman at 7am when you are on vacation to go on a Medellin City Tour is difficult.  I had been recommended the free Medellin City Tour by three different people, so I put my immediate thoughts of interest aside and headed for the shower.  A cold water shower because there is no hot available will certainly extinguish any lingering ulterior thoughts. Our guide was a...

Medellin: The Cost of a Regular Gig

Medellin: The Cost of a Regular Gig

Medellin: The Cost of a Regular Gig. July 23. Last night as I got back to the hostel I checked my messages.  There were seven of them, one of them from Lucia who told me she was in Medellin.  Whoa!  Shocker.  I was not prepared for that!  Is it dangerous that a beautiful Colombian woman stalked me to Medellin?  I am not sure.  She told me she had business here but I have yet to see any transactions take place. ...

Pablo Escobar Tour, Meeting Roberto Ecsobar – Medellin

Pablo Escobar Tour – 22 July 2014, The tour bus picked me up from my hostel.  I was on the afternoon Pablo Escobar Tour because the morning tour was full, but there were only three of us this morning.  That would allow me a lot of room to ask a lot of questions!  I am a tour guide’s dream for a while.  But then he tires of having to answer so many questions, many of which he has never had to...

Bogota to Medellin

Bogota to Medellin – Lesbians with No English Trump English Speaking Gringos

July 21.  Bogota to Medellin. Beer is the same price as water in Colombia.  Surely that and the hot weather is one contributing factor to why it is a third world country.  It is always warm enough so that if you do not work to make enough money to cover your rent, you will not freeze to death.  With no pressing need to make sure you survive the winter, you might as well drink beer instead. I decided to pull...

Learning Tejo

Bogota – Learning Tejo

Learning Tejo. July 20 I found some really awesome traditional Colombian-ism today.  It is a game called Tejo.  It was perfect.  It was throwing peices of metal, gunpowder, and beer.  Perfect. I woke up in Nathali’s bed.  I was still alone so I can only presume she did not get cold in the night.  Smart woman.  She must have had more blankets than I wished she had! Nathali cooked me breakfast.  Duck eggs taste like chicken eggs.  Nathali, her brother...

How to Get Your Phone Stolen in Bogota.

How to Get Your Phone Stolen in Bogota

July 19 How to Get Your Phone Stolen in Bogota. In nine years and 62 countries of travel, I have never had anything stolen.  That changed today.  Bogota is not being very nice… Today was a terrible hang over day.  I will not drink aguardiente again.  We are through.  It makes me grumpy and irrational.  Then I was sick the entire day. A German girl in my dorm and I went to Museo del Oro, the Gold Museum in Bogota....

Bogota Whores

Bogota Whores and More

Bogota Whores and More July 18 I asked him, “Where are we going?  To a bar?”  He replied, “With whores.  A whores bar!”  It would be an adventure in Bogota… I climbed Cerro de Monserrate in the afternoon to have a cool overview of the city.  Well now that is a lie.  I took the cable car up, which did the climbing.  That was kind of a misleading sentence.  I had to autograph a mob of kid’s arms with a...

Cold Bogota – The Coldest Place in Colombia, the Capital

Cold Bogota – The Coldest Place in Colombia, the Capital

Cold Bogota – The Coldest Place in Colombia, the Capital. July 17.  The shelf life of Colombian women does not seem to be very good.  It seems like a difficult task to find a woman under 25 in this country is not attractive.  It seems to be as equally difficult to find a woman over 35 who is.  It takes the edge off their knife of the future. I am also concerned about how far I am away from women...

San Cipraino to Bogota: Jungle Waterfalls and the Appalling French

San Cipraino to Bogota: Jungle Waterfalls and the Appalling French

San Cipraino to Bogota: Jungle Waterfalls and the Appalling French. July 16. I made friends with an American named Eric who was raised in Switzerland from the time he was 4 until he was 12.  Swiss-German was his first language that he was fluent in and he attended a Swiss-German school during that time. His family went back to the U.S. when he was 12 where he enrolled in an English speaking school.  Three years later when he was 15...

San Cipriano

Cali to San Cipriano – Motorcycle Rail Trolleys

Cali to San Cipriano – Motorcycle Rail Trolleys 15 July I found a note that my Japanese friends from my room had left my sitting on top of my bag with their email addresses when I woke up. Apparently marijuana made me entertaining last night and they did not want to leave without giving me a way to contact them someday. Japanese are nice. Except in war… I hung out with a Chinese girl for a couple of hours after...

Popayán to Cali: Hanging Out With a Stoner

Popayán to Cali: Hanging Out With a Stoner

Popayán to Cali: Hanging Out With a Stoner. July 14. Maartje! I just want you to know that I am pretty high right now. I am in Cali. I am not sure the last time I smoked pot. Maybe in November. I was bored and I needed a weird adventure. Now I am stuck with ‘high me’ who is never very smart. That is why I hardly ever smoke pot. I am not sure why people would ever constantly want...