Popayan

Salento

Salento is high up in the coffee region of Colombia. Although most of this coffee is for export, so afficianados of the black bean are regularly disappointed when they settle down for their morning brew.

We spent a lovely day, not walking through coffee fields, but among the majestic wax palms, pictured above, in a valley nearby. Almost 60 metres high, these dwarf the cattle who graze at their base.

Whilst enjoying lunch, trout and a superpatacon (massive plaintain crisp affair), it started raining. And boy did it rain. At one point the whole restaurant almost hid under the tables the thunder was so loud. Was a great excuse to continue sitting there drinking hot chocolate....

Medellin

Medellin does not have the most beautiful centre, and hasn´t got numerous historical sites, but it is a city where people enjoy to live. Its leafy, wide boulevards and organised nature make it a popular place to settle down.

Our experience here was again dictated by couchsurfing. Staying with another of Lucana's family, with her youngest sister Monica, we were thrown into a huge community, as she lives in a residencia. This is one of the most popular ways of living. The residencia is usually run by a live-in houselady (Monica in this case) who arranges the rooms, and often cooks and cleans. Everyone has their own room, but shared kitchens and bathrooms. This residence was a mixture of Colombian students, professionals and a number of internationals learning Spanish. It was a warm place which quickly felt like home.

But our best Couchsurfing connection was a young Colombian architect/photographer/yoga teacher who invited us along to a houseparty nearby. It was a lovely evening, chatting with young Colombians, listening to them sing and make music and eating delicious food. Again, we felt so enormously welcome it was overwhelming. And learned about how people of our age live in this city. It´s strange how people can be so similar all over the world. Looking in on this party, we could have easily been in London.

Puerto Escondido & The Finca

An animal paradise, where those with wings have more freedom of movement than the owner. The finca de Gabriel is his own private refuge from a world that is hard for those without the use of their legs. A place where birds roam in and out of the kitchen at will, and where dawn brings a chorus of chirping, squawking and the shouts of the casual labourers chopping fruit from the farm and chatting as they turn up for work. Where there are paths laid under the trees for easy wheelchair access and the whole set-up is constructed for Gabriel to be as mobile as the next man.

New buildings and view points are being constructed every year to give work to the local men, in an area where there is huge unemployment and most income comes from a fishing industry that is dying. Over population is a big problem in this predominantly Catholic country. One labourer, Chello, aged 71, has 33 children, the youngest just 20 days old. Needless to say, not all by the same mother. As is alcohol consumption. The chances were that the days wages would be spent in a local bar before reaching the hungry mouths at home.

We were welcomed with open arms. And very fast Spanish. With food, a bed and a wonderful setting on the Carribbean sea, where waves full of driftwood crash against the earthen cliffs. Tiago was given a new name ´Tigo´, also the name of one of the most popular cellphone networks, and I had to improve my vocabulary fast. The dictionary got a lot of use!

Gabriel even drove us to Medellin, our next stop, a mere 7 hours away into the mountains. It was a hair-raising trip with thick fog and switch-back roads with Gabriel laughing away in the front seat. And then a steep descent down into Medellin, nestling amongst the mountains.

Our next stop.....his sister´s!

Couchsurfing

What a wonderful world we stumbled upon.

Thanks to Sea´s suggestion that we check out couchsurfing we emailed username Vahine and timidly asked if we could come stay. A big open yes and we nervously entered her appartment in the ´miami´area of Cartagena to find out what this was all about. We walked into an atmosphere of big hearts and questioning minds. Sharing a floorspace initially with two Argentian girls and a French couple on their way to Guatemala. Our host was a lovely Tahitian/French girl who has made her home into a kind of open house for people passing by. She served us Tahitian ceviche, and a big baked fish as we sat round her kitchen table and talked and talked.

Then out came the acupuncture needles. I had been suffering from a fever and bad stomach since the trip to the Ciudad Perdida and one of the Argentian girls kindly offered to try and cure me. The ear is supposed to represent the foetus curled up in the womb upside down and so different parts of it correspond to different parts of the body. She pressed with a metal prong to find the most painful parts (which unsurprisingly corresponded to my liver and intestine) and then inserted needles at those points. It worked wonders. My stomach muscles relaxed and I was able to sleep a night without rushing to be sick in the toilet.

Days three and four swapped our lovely Argentinians (who we hope to stay with in Buenos Aires) for a remarkable Colombian woman travelling up through America in her 1960s mercedes. She has already travelled all the way round South America solo and is now on her way to the North to Alaska, if as a Colombian she can make it across the strict US border. In addition was a lovely American girl studying ways of settling peace and the value of story-telling in the justice system.

For the first time since our trip began we were able to find out more about this country that we are enjoying. As a resident of Medellin, Lucana lived through the mafia´s stronghold on her city, when people feared to leave their houses and mothers tried in vain to stop their sons being tempted by the huge wealth that was being offered to them as drug mules, pilots and bodyguards. This business devastated her family. Her brother, a small-time bodyguard, was killed in the big ´clean up´of the city by the police that finally defeated the drug lords. Another brother was shot, paralysed from the waist down. Heads stopped being sent in boxes and forced buyouts of longheld family properties that the mafia took a fancy to.

The drugs are still there but out of the cities. The dealers are now the paramilitaries and guerillas who still control much of the country. They have displaced millions, making Colombia the country with the second most displaced people after the Sudan. The drug trade keeps them from needing to do much kidnapping these days to get money. And now the drugs are not just for export, but internal consumption is growing too.

And now there is a process of victim compensation. Yet who are the victims?

Lucana, generous as the Colombians are, hooked us up with our next two informal couchsurfs. Staying with her brother on his finca on the coast and then with her sister in Medillin which is where I now write this from. A reformed city of eternal spring.

Couchsurfing has opened our eyes and we have hooked into a big international network. But having spent our last couple of weeks as guests, we are looking forward to a bit of time on our own!

Cartagena de Indias & Playa Blanca

Playa Blanca was our little bit of holiday heaven. Bright turquoise sea, white semi-deserted beaches, hammocks swaying lazily in the warm breeze, soft sun gently tanning our tired bodies, and a langoriously slow trip on a small fishing boat to get there with a local guide pointing out the coral archipelego and fishing for us on the way.

Well it might have been.

There certainly was bright blue sea. Too bad it was so rough on the way back that the roof of the big tourist boat started falling apart and we were worried whether it would make it at all.

There certainly were hammocks. Too bad that the warm breeze was a strong, chilling wind that meant we had to fight with our mosquito nets to get in and had to wrap ourselves in the hammock to stay warm and hide behind things to avoid the stinging sand.

There certainly were white-sanded beaches. Too bad that a pharmaceutical company decided to rent out our bit of sand for a corporate jolly for a host of doctors who arrived in 6 motor launches to spoil our tranquility.

And there certainly was sun. There was lots of sun. And I managed to get myself a little too much of it.

Yet despite all this.... when the sun set, and the wind dropped and we walked along amongst the drift wood on our own piece of deserted beach waiting for our fish to barbeque, it was lovely and we wouldn´t have been anywhere else.

Cartagena de Indias was the main Spanish trading port, where they expanded on the natural lagoon to create a well defended entrance to a large sheltered bay. It defended itself against attacks by many pirates (including the famed English pirate Francis Drake, although I´m not sure if we´d agree with that pirate label!). Its fortress stands proud today, never taken, although they had devised an amazing series of internal corridors with which to defend themselves if necessary. They could whisper down the walls and the sound would travel along to their comrades, whilst small nooks and clever lighting enabled the locals to hide in the corridors ready to attack without being seen.

Today the colonial architecture is proudly augmented by bright flowers and creepers falling from balconies. Tourists throng the streets and sit in cafes watching the locals go by, and stroll along the walls that did such a good job of defending the city watching the sun go down.

Then they hurry back to their timeshare appartments on the Miami-like peninsula and go eat cheap food in the warm evening.

We spent a lot of time doing the above, but mostly Cartagena to us was where we discovered the joy of couchsurfing. Find out more in the next post...