we've had a great couple of weeks, once again :) colombia was awesome and further reaffirmed our thought that it has been the safest country to travel in as of yet. getting stopped by a military blockade while on a bus ride just didn't seem to bother us at all. if anything, it makes you feel even safer! so...we finished our stay in medellin and then headed south, for some time on the farm. once again, our pictures shall tell the story...
a new addition to our travel tracking: buses/boats traveled. gives you an idea just how much we rely on public transportation!
steps/miles/buses traveled this leg: 229,000 steps / 740 miles / 18 buses/boats
steps/miles/buses traveled in total: 1.42 million steps / 11,300 miles / 115 buses/boats
our last day in medellin consisted of ...
taking the metro cable up to the top to get a good city view. like we said in the last post, medellin has an awesome public transportation system. included in this is the metro cable which goes up to the hills into the lower income areas so people have an easy way of getting downtown. along with good views and funny conversations with little colombian girls trying to speak english to us :)
... and trying the guanabana fruit that we've been staring at for quite awhile now. very strange looking and strange tasting. gooey white fruit surrounds big black seeds. good flavor but we couldn't quite get over the interesting texture
to the cute little town of salento, colombia, in the zona cafetera. so that means good coffee every day :)
on our walk to our great hostel, we were given an amazing sunset over the hills
dig this sunset
enjoying time on the farm in salento
dig this awesome orchid
a trip to salento would not be complete without going to a local coffee farm. this farm was owned by grandfather, don elias. all of the work is done by him and his grandson, jose. it was a beautiful farm and had amazing fresh brewed coffee at the end - best part by far
jose showing us the platform where the beans are dryed. once again, by hand, all by jose and don elias.
one of the reasons we decided to come to this specific hostel set outside of salento. one of the guests, joseph, was an amazing chef, and was cooking up 8-10 course meals nightly for all the guests. for 14,000 pesos (about $7) we got a 8 course meal.
our menu
our food! a big step from our normal dinner of pasta and veggies :)
another of salento's claims to fame: the valle de cocora. you begin the chilly, misty walk amongst beautiful green hills. once you turn a corner, you are reminded that you are just a few degrees from the equator when you see rows of these ridiculous looking wax palm trees. surreal and incredibly beautiful.
a couple hiking buddies on our walk up to the top of the trail. we crossed this river 6 different times on very similar, log bridges
view of the valley on our descent
one of the many roaming horses along the trail / road
interesting, eh?
view from our hostel of the snow-covered mountain off in the distance. the guy here said that he hadn't seen the mountain for 7 months. here's to a nice, clear day!
just some more evidence of the beauty of salento
our last morning in salento. off to another big city ... cali!
first stop in cali...the zoo! yay!
monkeys checking us out
it's a butterfly
follow your nose!
evidence of just how huge avocados are. pictured left: tiny hass avocados; pictured right: ginormous south american avocados
we're suckers for good graffiti.
more cali graffiti
our cali crew. we were lucky enough to stay with another friend of a friend in cali - stetson! we lived like kings for a few days in his apartment. the saturday we were there we did a little city tour with stetson and christine, his other friend visiting. cool, colonial church which we have forgotten the name of, pictured here.
best part of the day... salsa festival! it's always great to find out that there's a festival going on the exact weekend you plan to visit.
some of the sweet salsa'ing. check out the video below for a little clip of some awesome group-style salsa. let's hope this works. we've been a little unlucky with video. don't be surprised if you don't actually see salsa dancing
what can we say? something about the salsa festival brings out the best of the best in latin american hair-styles... wow...
chontaduro - a new fruit to try! it is peeled and soaked in honey or salt - tastes a little like pumpkin or sweet potato - interesting texture...
the next day we took the hike up to the hill covered with 3 crosses that overlooks the city, along with hundreds of other colombians getting in their weekly hike.
tres cruces
el gato del rio. a famous symbol of cali
onto la ciudad blanco (the white city) - popayan, colombia. seriously, every building was white! kind of boring
the bridge wasn't white! yay!
the bustling center of la ciudad
off white?
view from top of the city
overlooking popayan, about 20 seconds before the rain started pouring down and we basically slid down the now muddy hill
our last stop in colombia, el santuario de las lajas, near the border town of ipiales. this church was built across a gorge and is one of the best we've seen set. hundreds of people flock here daily as a pilgrimage to the spot where someone supposedly spotted the virgin mary in the 1700's.
el santuario propped in between the gorge
the most interesting part of el santuario - the enormous amount of plaques covering the rock wall thanking the virgin mary for some sort of miracle performed. none of the plaques get to specific though...most just say "un accion de gracias por favores recibidos" (google translates this directly as: "a thanksgiving for favors received" - you get the point)
llamas on display!
our favorite llama. so classy with that crown
chicha differs in about every country you get it in. here, although made in colombia, we had corn chicha, a fermented drink of different varieties of ground corn. usually, though, chicha in colombia is rice based. in peru we shall encounter chica made from fermenting the spit of chewed yucca, a potato like vegetable. cant wait!
joe enjoying his morning chicha. lauren didnt enjoy her morning chicha as much
smell ya later, colombia - we're onto ecuador! first stop, otavalo, home of the largest artisan market in south america (more on that later). a great walking city, with friendly people and really cute kids...
took a hike up a long, windy mountain road toward 'parque condor', a small park where they take care of rescued birds of prey - the scenery in the andes is amazing
on our way, we encountered several fields of these purple flowers, covering the hillsides. they smelled sweet!
lago san pablo, set in the mountains. there is one road that runs all the way around the lake, and through several small communities.
cow and calf hanging out - 10 seconds after this picture was taken, one of the farmers in the background started yelling at us to stop taking his picture - sorry duder, we didn't mean to take your pic, you just happened to be in our cow and calf photo...
spatula was, understandably, a bit tired after our uphill hike. here he is relaxing, soaking up the sun, and taking in the view of otavalo from 'parque condor'. you can see in his handle just how excited he is for the live bird of prey flight demonstration that he was about to experience...
saw some cool birds at the park, including a bald eagle and a few condors (they're huge). then we sat back and watched this bad-ass play with some birds. he would literally throw them off of the cliff behind him, they would fly around for a bit, then return and swoop in, landing on his arm for a little bit of food - pretty rad stuff
'el lechero' - a tree in the mountains near otavalo, known for it's milkyness as well as it's magical healing powers. lauren getting some healing...
the milkyness...
gorgeous otavalo sunset, from the balcony of our hostel
each saturday, otavalo is overrun by merchants, who take over the streets, selling beautiful hand-made clothing, art, and just about anything else you can think of. one of the more interesting aspects of the market was the 'animal market', full of folks buying and selling various types of animals - cows, sheep, goats, rabbits, chickens, ducks, puppies and...
guinea pigs! look at these cute little guys - sold by the sack-ful. but these ones aren't being bought by good little boys and girls to care for as cute, cuddly pets. nope - their future includes being impaled on a stick and grilled over hot coals! cuy, as it is known in Ecuador, is a very popular dish. in the next post, we'll let you know how yummy these adorable creatures can be...
- a woman, walking away from the animal market, very happy with her purchase.
- a turkey, glad to be away from the craziness, enjoying a very comfortable 'last ride'
soon after this, a memorable quote, and one i will always remember when thinking of the animal market, lauren says, 'there's definitely some puppies in that sack'...
so many woven wool, llama, and alpaca goods - blankets, scarves, hats, and weird masks...
after otavalo, we packed up and headed to Quito. just north of the city is the 'mitad del mundo' that's right, latitude 0, the equator! this monument was built on the equator in 1979. however, with the invention of GPS, in the 90's, it was discovered that the actual point of 0 degrees latitude is 240 meters north of this monument... whoops!
at the 'new and improved' site of the equator, there is a new museum - first, they teach you a little bit about a couple of the native cultures in the ecuadorian rain forest - here is a shrunken sloth head, next to the shrunken head of a 12-year old boy.
...and here's a handy (and quite graphic) diagram of the shrinking-head process, in case you ever wanted to know.
here we are, at the 'true' equator, latitude 0... until some new technology arrives and one-ups GPS...
at this 'museum', they show you several 'scientific' examples of the effect of 0 latitude. in this one, they show you how water drains in a different direction north and south of the equator, but drains straight down directly at the line. of course, this 'proof' was a hoax, but there is some validity to it in nature (not in household plumbing). they also claim that it is easier to balance an egg on the head of a nail at 0 latitude - not true (but i did get a certificate for being able to balance the egg!). a fun place, comparable to a slightly interesting magic show...
well, we've made it to our new home for the next couple months . . . the beautiful ecuadorian andes. we're loving mountain living and plan on continuing this trend for awhile...
"We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.” –Jawaharial Nehru
tallyho!
-lauren and joe
