Colombia: Proof that the world is awesome

Colombia

“Ike, wake up. People keep jogging by and looking into the car.” And with that, my short few hours of sleep was over, and I groggily pulled myself out of the car. The sun was out and it was already getting warm. Looking around, it was clear we were the only ones up from our ferry cadre. Bethany and I packed up and hoped to see some of them again soon, but set off for the Bella Vista hotel. We had heard Colombia drivers were a bit crazy, but the drive across town confirmed this. To be fair, I think a bit of preemptive crazy was coming out of myself, and we had a few close calls, but found ourselves outside of the hotel. A man working there slid the large gate open and we pulled in. We quickly realized that the parking lot was already pretty full, and it would be difficult for more than one or two of the other guys to make it in. We sent off a quick e-mail to the rest of the guys letting them know, and then set off towards the old city for some sightseeing and errands.

First and foremost on the list was grabbing some breakfast near the middle of the old city. We immediately learned that getting the offered beverage of hot chocolate with meals is always a good idea in Colombia. Next was picking up a cell phone, which ended up being super easy after we found a little Claro kiosk in the old city. Continuing our meandering, we found a grocery store to pick up some groceries and made another great decision to buy some fresh squeezed lime juice from a street vendor. We made a quick visit to the Cathedral and the City History museum, where we learned that Cartagena thinks very highly of itself.

Not too shabby!

How difficult to get these in our home?

Pretty neat grafitti outside the church

Eventually making our way back to Bella Vista, we entered the lobby and were shocked to see Jurgen and Katarina. “They had room for your vehicle?!” we asked with a bit of the incredulity in our voices coming through. “Yeah, no problem!” came the happy reply. Walking out to our car, we saw everyone had been able to cram in! [minus Tim's LandCruiser, the smallest of the vehicles besides our own]

Inspiration for our future house?

Madison should consider walling itself.

'My heart has more rooms than a whorehouse'  I...wait wut?

That afternoon we paid a visit to the free museum near the hotel, Rafael Nunez's home. We learned he served 4 terms as President of Colombia, had many illegitimate children he referred to as “godchildren,” and his wife's family ran a famous soda company called Cola Roman. We thoroughly enjoyed the guided tour from our tour-guide-in-training, and couldn't keep track of how many times he said “Rafael Nunez” during the tour.

We spent the evening drinking, enjoying the food from the hotel's restaurant and chatting. Leaving the following morning was a bit like one of those puzzles where you can only move one piece at a time. We luckily only had to have one car and Jurgen's huge truck back out onto the busy road, but the French couple in a LandCruiser next to us backed up and Willy pulled forward to let us squeeze on out. We had a full day of driving ahead of us, as we wanted to make our way towards El Cocuy national park in the east central part of the country. There was a single major highway that led down through that part of the country. After some gravel roads up through mountains, we found ourselves on the nice road heading southbound. The road along the way had found us in small towns every ten or twenty kilometers. On the outskirts of one of them, we were behind a tractor pulling a tanker. As we were about to pass it, we saw the trailer shake and come unhitched from the tractor, the hitch slamming into the pavement and skidding off the side of the road. #southamerica

As the afternoon waned, we found the restaurant that had a guesthouse and an area for camping. It also had a menagerie, the highlight of which was the peacock that roamed around, eventually jumping up into tree and making sure everyone knew it was boss. When we first arrived we sat down and asked for a beer and a glass of fresh juice. She offered a fruit called mora, which we'd never heard of. We opted for it, and found ourselves with an awesome fruit we loved. In essence, it's a tarter version of a blackberry. We then inquired about camping and began setting up, before we made our way over to the restaurant for dinner.

“Uh, Bethany? The fridge isn't working.” Over the next ten minutes troubleshooting, we realized that the new 12v dual cigarette lighter receiver we'd purchased in Panama City wasn't working. Additional fiddling showed us that it was kinda working, and some power was getting through, but not enough to run anything. We were flabbergasted, but were able to take apart the male end of the fridge cord and wire it into the charge controller directly to keep our food cold. Seriously, this trip should count towards our Journeyman's license!

Before doing any electrical work, it's important to first ask yourself: "Do I have a mojito handy?"

The next morning I started blowing up my brother Pete's phone via Messenger asking some questions as we continued to try and figure out the 12v. I quickly realized that it was 7am back in Central Time Zone, and Sunday to boot. Classic overlanding mistake. Pete kindly hopped on skype and we talked through issues with him, and with his guidance figured out it was the fuse in the 12v. Bethany had opened it up to look at it at one point and accidentally touched ends and toasted it. We resolved to pick up some extra fuses in the next town we got to that would have them.

A full day of driving later found us up in the mountains at the Canyon de Chicamocha. The view was stunning, but we were a little surprised as we pulled into parking lot. Down the mountainside on the other side of the road was a large water park full of people, and the parking lot for the canyon was also nearly packed. When reading about the spot ahead of time, we'd read that most people had the parking lot to themselves. It was a Sunday evening, and with Monday being the Tres Reyes [Three Kings] holiday, so people were out in force. We assumed it would clear up as evening arrived, and set up camp with an occasional passerby giving us a curious glance.

I was awoken in the middle of the night by the sound of water pounding into plants and concrete. I bolted awake as I assumed it was pouring out and all of our windows were open, but nope, it was just a man watering all of the bushes at 3 in the morning. [no hyperbole] Voices woke us again, as tourists began streaming in. “What time is it?!” I asked Bethany groggily. “6:02” she replied. Well, there was light on the horizon, so I guess it makes sense to see the gorge! We also couldn't understand how the group had gotten there, as the gorge is an hour from the nearest sizable city. After shouting to friends and yelling for pics to be taken, the group disappeared as quickly as it had shown up, and by 6:10 they were gone. Bethany and I decided to cut our losses and got on the road.

We drove down out of the mountains into the town of San Gil, where we made our way to a large food market to stock up on goods before we headed to the National Park. Every vendor greeted us with “Siga, a la orden,” which we assume translates to something like “As you wish.” After grabbing our goods [including freshly butchered chicken], we began the drive up towards the park. Our physical map showed a low quality road between San Gil and the town of El Cocuy. We began the trek, not realizing quite what was in store.

This was in store

“Is this the right way?” I asked for what had to be the tenth time already. “Pull over, lets look.” Bethany replied. We were about two hours in, and at the base of a town that we hoped was called Onzaga. An old man sauntered on up to us. Rolling down the window, we explained that we were trying to get to Soata, and while our map showed a road to it, our GPS didn't. The man told us this was indeed Onzaga and effusively thanked us for visiting his little town, because it got so few tourists. [At least, that's what we think he said, as he spoke with a heavy accent and without a few teeth] The drive was incredible as we continued to make our way along narrow gravel roads that wound along the spines of the mountains. There were rows and rows of mountains in this area, with little villages nestled down between them in the valleys. We stopped a few times and asked for directions, but most of the answers were along the lines of one we received from a young woman, “To tell you the truth, I have no idea.” Soata was only ten kilometers away as the crow flies, but was a state and mountain range away, so while in theory a road existed that linked the two, no one knew where it was or used it. We stopped by the local police station and asked for directions. “Oh yes, there is a road to Soata. Go three blocks and turn left, and then you will pass a house. Stop and ask them for directions, because you won't find it by yourself!”

We followed a car for a couple of miles along a particularly bumpy patch just to learn he was only picking up some people. He told us the road did not go to Soata. The difficulties were increased by the complete lack of signage. Finally we found ourselves at a junction of two roads. One went North, towards Capitaneja. The other went East, towards Soata, but looked less traveled. It looked like we could get to Cocuy from Capitaneja, so we decided to bolt towards Capitaneja, as it was pretty clear that we wouldn't be making it to Cocuy national park that day. A short time later we turned the corner and could see all the way down to the bottom of the valley. From the peak we had just come over, our altitude read over three thousand meters, and it looked like we'd be going down almost all of it to make it to the town of Capitaneja. Learning from our hot brakes back in Guatemala, we popped it into 4Lo and began the long drive down.

While we followed the car, this dog spent 2 kilometers following us

The views throughout the day made the fact we'd been on the road for eight hours and had only driven ninety miles palpable. Our hearts began to beat faster when we passed a couple of rocks spray-painted with 'FARC,' though. FARC is, depending on your point of view, either a valiant group of vigilantes who try and restore justice and peace where the national police can't or won't, or a right-wing narco paramilitary terrorist group who aren't above kidnapping and extortion. [Bonus points if you can name this reference!] As we neared the bottom of the gorge, we pulled to a stop behind a bus that was blocking the road. Several people milled around outside of it while two guys attempted to change one of the rear tires. The road didn't really leave any room for them to pull over, so we turned the car off and enjoyed watching the guys work on the bus. A bit later it was done, and we finished making our way into Capitanejo. Pulling up to the gas station, we asked the attendant if there was anywhere we could spend the night. “Sure, the Palerma Hotel down by the bridge.” Thanking him, we made our way over there. On the one hand, it looked like a hotel, but....it also looked like a mechanics shop. We pulled in, looked around, tried to find the owner, but to no avail. Another car pulled in, and we asked them if the hotel was open. “No...” was the reply as they drove off. Out of options with the sun getting close to setting, we backed Sweetcakes into a corner of the lot as far from prying eyes as possible and started making camp.

We like Sweetcakes to get glamor shots in too

Layers and layers of mountains

This was coming up a private path that was nicer than the road.  I like to think we'd accidentely ended up on a drug-lord's plantation.

As an Iowan, views like this just make me giddy

Couldn't be bothered to move......

Even the little villages have churches like this!

Whelp, guess we'll wait.

See those lines running zig-zag on the mountain? That's our road.

Have you any wool?

Twenty minutes later a car pulls in with three guys and a girl. They park, and all four heads are turned to see the [rather large] vehicle tucked into the side of the lot. They get out, and we walk over, asking if one of them owns the place. A man identifies himself as the owner and we proceed to proffer apologies for just dropping into his place, but the man at the gas station told it was ok, and can we please stay?!?! The guy took it in stride, said he's had people stay before, and walked behind Sweetcakes to open up his shop for a minute to get some items for the other guys there. After passing them off, everyone else left, but the guy stuck around in his shop. Peeking in, we realized there was a mattress in the room and the guy was spending the night. He turned on a soccer game and plopped down.

“Ike, why don't you give him a beer.” Bethany whispered entirely too loudly to me. It made sense, considering we weren't being charged to stay the night. “Ok, but what do I say?” I asked, still pretty tentative with my spanish skills. “Just say 'para usted. Cerveza de Panama.' He'll get it.” So I did just that, and a big grin broke out on the guys face. “Ahhh...cerveza Balboa!” Came the reply. “How long did he wait to open it?” Bethany replied upon my return. “Not even 10 seconds.” Now that friendship had been established, he wasted no time in coming out and opening up the doors in the room next to the shop. “I often have travelers stay here, and you can stay in here too if you like.” He said. Walking into the room, he walked up to the wall and pushed a mattress and boxspring that were leaning up against the wall and onto the floor. 1^st class accommodations indeed!

Packing up the following morning, the man made us coffee and we spent time making small talk. Then we went back into town to pick up some spare fuses for the 12v [everything worked!] and then hopped on the gravel road with the handpainted sign saying “El Cocuy” I guess we'd been missing the experience of being on gnarly gravel roads, because the next 3 hours took us up an over some fun trails, eventually getting us to El Espino [the spine], where nice paved roads took us to El Cocuy town. We checked in, paid our entrance fees, and looked at the map. “Is it possible to drive to this 'Sisuma' hotel? We asked, as that was where Stella and Antoine would be going, because they were leaving their RV down in a town called Tunja several hours away. “Sure, no problem!” was the reply. Making our way into the park, we spent another hour and a half driving up and back into the reserve. We reached a checkpoint, showed our receipt, and again asked if it was possible to drive to the hotel. “Yep!” was the cheery reply. “But it's about another hour or so.” Woof. Continuing on, we passed a place called “Hermanos Herrerras – Guias” We waved, an another 5 minutes later passed several parked cars. “Must be hiking.” was our assumption. Passing the cars, we continued down the trail, as it became even rougher.

A few meters we pulled up short, staring at a large boulder that was obstructing over a third of the roadway. “Uh...can we pass this?” I asked Bethany hesitantly. “I'll get out and look.” she said. Hopping out, she walked up to the rock, and coaxed me forward. Looking at the space between the rock and Sweetcakes, she kept jerking her thumb to her right. I shook my head. “Not really an option!” I yelled out the window, looking down the steep slope that dropped several hundred feet. “I mean, we could probably make it, but the left side would be just a smidge off the road.” Bethany yelled back. We decided it wasn't worth the risk, but given how narrow the road was, we couldn't just turn around, instead having to backtrack the entirety in reverse. Frustrated, we stopped by the Hermanos Herrerras and asked them if it was possible to drive back to the hotel. “Drive? No! You park and hike an hour back.” was the reply. Well crap. “But you can camp here!” came the enthusiastic follow-up. Deciding this was better than nothing, we pulled in and started making camp.

Does it count as 'off-roading' if there's still a trail?  Note the rock further ahead that we contemplated going by.

Or at least, we tried to, but immediately realized that we were no longer down at 500 meters. Simply walking around the campsite left us breathless and light headed. Welcome to 4200 meters! [12,800 ft!] We weren't the only ones feeling the altitude though; we were quick to say ok to stopping at the campsite as we'd begun to smell something new from Sweetcakes and were worried. Our hunch though [which was verified by a mechanic later in Bogota], was that the lack of oxygen in the air at the high altitude made it more difficult for the fuel to mix prior to combustion, and some of the fuel vapor was being expelled in the exhaust.

Walking around and soaking up the atmosphere of the site [literally and figuratively], I turned around as I heard the sound of water running. Looking over my shoulder, I saw one of the brothers holding out a bucket and lots of water was flowing into it. Except it was red. And he was holding it beneath the neck of a sheep that they had held on what appeared to be an inca sacrificial slab of rock. “Colombia, here we are.” I thought as I turned back to the tent. Bethany made her way over to the guys and they explained that after numerous attempts, the sheep hadn't been able to become pregnant so they were butchering her. [Later, I explained to Bethany that we would have the same arrangement.] Since Bethany was over there taking pictures, they put her to work, helping hold a leg while they proceeded to skin and gut it. Later that evening we got to try some deep fried intestine, surprisingly delicious!

Dear Reddit: the trick to pulling off a fedora is: 1) be a total badass 2) refer to #1

The food containers didn't do so well with the change in altitude...

Sleep that evening was an exercise in patience. We knew it would be cold, but we hadn't experienced cold like this since Yellowstone. We went to bed wearing our under-armor long underwear, face masks, pajama pants and sweatshirts over the long underwear, and two pairs of socks. Even then, we found that sleeping in the fetal position was best because it helped conserve heat and keep the aches out of your legs and feet. We awoke to our tent coated in a white sheen of frost on the outside and ice on the inside; remnants of our frozen breath.

The following morning, made off for hotel Sisuma after not seeing Stella and Antoine roll in on one of the vehicles that made its way into the park. The hike was beautiful, as we turned a corner and saw the hotel nestled on the side of the valley facing the glacier on the other side. Making our way up to the hotel, we went inside hoping to find Stella and Antoine. Instead, we met Janet and Gunther [Actually we can't remember his name.] from Leipzig (Germany). “Oh, you know it?” was their surprised response. “Really Ike? You know it?” Bethany said with clear disbelief in her voice. “Where is it then?” “The northeast, right?” I asked, a touch of doubt in my voice. “Yes!” came their emphatic reply. I felt like I'd just won Final Jeopardy.

We explained that we were looking for a short chinese woman and a very tall Frenchman. “Oh, we saw them at breakfast!” they exclaimed. Telling them that if they showed up, to let them know we had continued on, we bid farewell.

We made our way out along the tres lagunas hike after leaving Sisuma, and enjoyed the gradual inclines instead of the steep murder that was the glacier hike. We figured we could use this as a way to continue our acclimatization. As we made our way back down we ran into Stella and Antoine who tried very hard to convince us to attempt the glacier hike the following day. The most we could commit to was that if they saw us at 6:30 (AM!) at the hotel, we were going along. Upon arriving back at the campsite, we immediately realized we should have told them that it wasn't going to happen. We felt kinda bad, but made dinner and spent the evening chatting with the family and Miles. The next morning, feeling bad but hoping the hike went well for them, we saw Antoine come hiking up.  "I can't handle anything above four thousand meters." He said breathlessly.  "Stella didn't sleep well either, so we didn't even try."  We made hot cocoa with the rest of our specialty chocolate from Oaxaca, snapped a picture, and took off for Villa de Leyva. 

"Ike, please stand like this more often." -Bethany

The drive to Villa de Leyva would take two days because of the rough roads leading out of El Cocuy, so we spent that night at a mirador recommended on ioverlander.  Arriving there, we pulled in, and walked out to the viewpoint and instantly fell in love:

The view at 6am

10,000 feet.

After some initial difficulty finding the place, we settled in and began writing our Panama blog. Sitting on the couch in the lounge room, I heard a knock on the window and looked up to see Aurelie. A huge grin split my face and I ran out to say hello. Catching up, that evening we walked into town to grab some food from a place Colin had read about online: Mi Cocina, a local restaurant run by cooking school students. The food was pricey [for our budget] but absolutely exquisite. The following morning we made our way to the local food market, overloading our arms with plums, mangoes, mora [blackberry], bread, and happiness.

The woman at the hostel told us to check out the dinosaur museuem nearby, so we did just that. Who boy – what a trip! The first place we walked into had a single pleiseosaur skeleton that they'd build the building around. The second spot was quite a bit better though: a woman gave us a tour in English, but refused to make eye-contact with us, which was a little unnerving. I wondered if I had forgotten to put on deoderant or something. We then made our way to a winery. We learned that the founder had studied in southern California and felt that the landscape was perfect for a winery: the best location in all of Colombia! When you think wine, you don't think Colombia though, right? Well, there's a reason for that: the wine was pretty darn lackluster.

That evening Tim from on.the.panamericana swung by. We decided to caravan down to Bogota the following day. We made a detour to a Laguna we'd heard good things about, but after seeing the line and the price, we decided the view from the car was good enough.

After paying several more $3 and $4 tolls (Have we mentioned how expensive the tolls are here? But Colombia has excellent roads!), we made our way into the madness that is the city of Bogota. Something 7+ million people call this city home. We, thankfully, were cashing in more of Ike's Marriott points and had a very luxurious room, access to the executive lounge, and free parking. Ike hammed it up with the man at the front desk, and he recommended several places for us to check out in Colombia and very thoroughly helped us figure out public transportation to downtown for the next morning. We settled in to the hotel room and Ike found the Packer's game on TV. Soon we had a knock on the door and a hotel employee delivered our complimentary cheese tray and an entire bottle of wine. Yes, I think I will enjoy this. When 6:00 rolled around, we moseyed upstairs to the executive lounge, where they served “appetizers” (aka our dinner) and we got 2 complimentary cocktails. Ike made friends with the other guys watching football in the lounge (Seahawk fans), and we felt like we were back in America.

THINGS STILL SEEMED SO PROMISING!!

The next morning we were up fairly early (considering the comfy bed at our disposal) to pig out on the breakfast buffet in the executive lounge, then ventured off towards downtown via the TransMillenial, Bogota's bus system. The man at the front desk had given us very thorough instructions for how to get downtown, but I guess we have forgotten how to take good notes since being on this trip. That, or we incorrectly assumed the maps would be intelligible to complete noobs like us. Nope! We bought our bus card and paid for the fares, then hopped on the first bus. A few stops in we realized that we forgot which station we were supposed to transfer buses at. Oops! We eventually got off at one, and tried to make sense of the bus maps, to no avail. We must have looked pretty helpless, because eventually a middle-aged business man asked us if we needed help (in English) and told us to get on one of the buses heading to the same neighborhood where we were going. We went one stop, then were told by another woman that this was the last stop. Miraculously we were in the area where we intended to go.

And this is why we took the bus...

We mulled around for a bit, and eventually met up with Christian, who leads the Bogota Graffiti Tour. You can check out the amazing artwork we saw in our last blog post. After the tour we got some delicious schwarma and hummus, poked around the Boleto museum, and then decided to head back to our comfortable hotel room. We weren't entirely sure of which buses we needed to take, but figured we could attempt to retrace our route from the morning. We walk back to the bus station where we had disembarked that morning, and stood in the line to put more money on our card. When we finally got up to the ticket window, I handed over the bus card that we had to purchase that morning and enough money to cover our new fares. “Nope, you can't use that card here. You need a red one.” We still have no idea why, but the green card we had to purchase on the way into town would not work here. Luckily the young couple ahead of us let us put money on their card and then use that to get through the turnstile, saving us a few bucks. We told you Colombians are nice! That evening we lived it up in the executive lounge again, followed by breakfast there first thing the next morning, and bummed around our room using the internet like it was going out of style, until check out time at 1pm. That's right, 1 pm! We like to take full advantage of our hotel stays.

We made our way across the city to Iguana 4x4, a mechanic shop specializing in offroading, highly recommended by other overlanders. We went in for what we thought would be a pretty quick trip: alignment and oil change, but ended up spending 2 nights camped out in the shop. Just us and the rigs! The work took longer than expected, so we ended up spending the whole next day sitting around waiting for news.

Like a pet that sleeps next to its sick owner....

The following morning we paid our bill once the secretary showed up and headed off towards the Tatacoa Desert. We drove through lush mountains and quite a bit of rain, both of us wondering how it could be that soon we would be in a desert. We turned off the main highway and onto a bumpy gravel road that looked more like a driveway. “Is this the way to the desert?” I asked a few teenage boys hanging around. “Yup!” Onwards! We drove through beautiful scenery and a few dusty little towns, earning a handful of what-are-those-gringos-doing-here looks from the locals as Sweetcakes roared by. A couple hours later we found ourselves in the desert. We had planned to camp at the observatory that night, but the sky was fairly cloudy, so we headed deeper into the desert. After driving around for a bit, I insisted that Ike turn off onto a dirt track that lead off into the desert. We planned to wild camp that night and I wanted to be away from the main road for privacy. We eventually found a nice spot nestled up against some bushes, just off the dirt track, and with a beautiful view of the desert. We backed Sweetcakes into the spot, and as Ike killed the engine we both heard a strange rattling noise. Uh oh, no bueno. He started the engine and we heard the rattling again. Somehow Ike realized that it could be something with the muffler, and sure enough, when he walked around back and gently kicked the tailpipe, we saw that it was no longer connected to the muffler. Typical: we fix one problem and something else goes wrong right away! We were both relieved that it was something relatively trivial, given that we were several hours away from any sizable town.

Look! I'm doing car work! My neck literally hurt for 3 days after this. LESSON LEARNED

I quickly found out that the prickly cactus spines poked right through my flip flops, and we found a relatively cactus-free zone to pitch our tent. We watched the sun set over the desert landscape and saw lightening surround us on 3 sides in the mountains, but we stayed dry. The desert reportedly gets less than 1 millimeter of precipitation per year. We risked it and slept with the rain guard off that night. As the sun set the clouds cleared and we had an amazing view of the starry night sky. We busted out google sky maps on our phone to try to identify new constellations that were not visible from the US, but the maps were somehow off by a good 15 degrees. We gave up on the constellations and just marveled at the quantity of stars we could see.

beautiful, when they're not piercing your feet

Do I miss having an income...sure. But this is worth it.

The next morning we woke up and went for a short hike through the desert, sneaking up on the cows and goats that had free range of the place. It didn't take long for us to work up a sweat as the sun grew in intensity. We retreated to our campsite and set up our sun shade, which we hadn't had to use to block the sun in who knows how long (we usually use it as a rain shelter). We made pancakes, because why not? After Ike wired our tailpipe into place, we sat in the shade reading all afternoon. Finally around 2pm I couldn't take the heat anymore and we packed up our campsite and drove back to one of the hostels that offered camping. We pulled in, met the neighbors, and enjoyed a nice, cold shower. That evening we swapped travel stories with several backpackers staying at the same place: Lindsay from Seattle, Stacey from Dublin, Michael & Valentine from France, and Judith from Budapest. A motley crew!

the cows we tried to sneak up on.

The cap reads: Welcome to the 1%

We said goodbye to our new friends and the squawking parrot (it woke us up in the morning because it sounded like people screaming and fighting), and made our way further south towards the ruins at Tierradentro. The ruins are located up in the mountains, and we had read reports from other travelers that FARC sometimes had a presence in the area. Our friends Stella & Antoine had visited the ruins a few days prior and reported that the region was safe, but we were still a little nervous. Thankfully we encountered absolutely no problems (well, except a strange noise when we put Sweetcakes in 4WD), and enjoyed the beautiful mountain scenery en route to the ruins.

We had heard that there was parking for overlanders next to a guesthouse run by a cute, elderly couple. We creeped along past the ruins and found their sign right next door to the museum. A young man was out front drying coffee beans in the sun. We asked him if we could camp there and he said of course! And went inside to fetch the elderly man. Once we parked Sweetcakes, the man proceeded to give us the most thorough tour ever: here's the bathroom, and here's the light switch, and here's the toilet paper, here's where you can hand wash clothes if you want, there is a restaurant up the road, and the place across the street has very good fresh juice, and on and on he went. So cute. We walked next door to the museum and purchased our tickets. It was just after 2pm and the sites closed at 4pm, but the entrance tickets are good for 2 days. We checked out the museums and then at 3:15 we headed up the hill to the nearest ruins site. It was a 20 minute walk straight uphill. Winded, we finally arrived at the site, only to see that most of the tombs were already locked for the evening! Waaahhh! The maintenance man showed us one that was still open, then told us to run up to the top of the site where the tour guide was and he would show us some of the most important tombs. So we did just that.

So I mean...I guess this is an option...

We had learned in the museums that the Spanish called this land Tierradentro because of how remote it is, surrounded by sheer mountains. The burial tradition was to bury the dead first in individual tombs, then after a period (a couple years?) they would collect the bones, place them in an urn, and place the urn in a communal tomb. Rich families had their own communal tomb. These communal tombs had a very steep stairway entrance, usually in a spiral, and then opened into a large room below the earth. The rooms were sometimes decorated with stone carved faces on the walls and pilars, and red and black geometric painting on the walls and ceilings. It was truly stunning to be able to see inside these tombs. We visited a couple of the tombs and headed back down the mountain to our campsite.

Our legs were already tired from the short, yet steep hike, so we decided to check out the fresh juice place across the street to re-energize. There we met Urun & Pauline from Holland, David from England, and John from no other than Madison! It's a small world, friends. They were all traveling through South America and/or Colombia via bus and backpack. We swapped stories and got some recommendations for the rest of this amazing continent. That night we feasted on Ike's famous french fries and hamburgers, with some steamed broccoli for good measure, and went to bed on full bellies. The next morning we set off with our new friends to hike to more of the ruins. We stared off at the same tomb site, this time getting to see several more of the tombs. The stairs are several feet tall each, which means that climbing down and up out of the tombs is a real workout for the quads. We hiked up to the next ruins site, a couple of larger tombs, and finally to the last site on this loop of the hike: El Tablon, which has stone statues that come from a different culture than the tombs. I don't fully understand it, but they were also cool. Actually, we totally missed the tablet site and arrived in the next town, were told it was 1km back up the path, and so we went backtracked to see the statues. Then we were due for a nice, big lunch in the town of St. Andrews. We went to the only restaurant open on the Sunday and ordered the menu of the day. Five minutes later a large, geriatric group of French tourists walked into the same restaurant. So the restaurant was nearly bursting at the seams, but the food was decent and satisfying. We walked back to our campsite, bid adieu to David (Pauline & Urun set off on the other half of the hike, a 5 hour climb to the highest ruins site), packed up our tent, and set off through the mountains.

We checked with another local, and were assured that there were no safety problems on the mountain road we planned to take back to the main highway. Great! We were still a bit nervous, of course. Again we had no problems, just stunning views of the mountains and valleys below, and 4 hours later we arrived in the bustling city of Popayan. We had heard that you could camp at the fire station for free, so we went to check it out. As it turned out, the circus was in town, so the neighborhood with the fire station was bustling with people. And we saw huge thunderheads rolling in to town. Not looking forward to spending the night in our car with tons of people around and it pouring down rain, we headed to a nearby hostel and splurged on a private room. Bed, hot shower, internet? Check. It was no Marriott, but it was certainly nice. We walked over to a Chinese restaurant (Ike's fav) that we had passed on our drive in and ordered the menu for 2. I don't know why people say Americans have the biggest portions, because the spread of food we received would have fed a family of 6. We did our best to eat it, but left with 2 bags of leftovers.

We look like we belong here....

The next day was a long day of driving to Colombia's border with Ecuador. The scenery was absolutely stunning. Pauline had mentioned that she found the drive from the border to Popayan to be some of the most beautiful scenery they had seen their entire time in South America. We passed through gigantic mountain ranges, all covered with lush greenery. Beauty at every turn in the road (and there were many). We finally arrived at our destination that night, a beautiful church in the town of Las Lajas.

Pauline said the drive to Popayan was the best on the entire trip for her so far....inclined to agree

The church is built on the side of a steep gorge. Legend has it that in the 1500s a woman was climbing over boulders to a cave with her daughter, when her daughter suddenly exclaimed, “Mom, the mestizo is talking to me.” And somehow they realized it was the Virgin Mary. The woman told her story to the local church officials, and they built a shrine. The church that now stands is the 3^rd installation of the church. We were struck by the serenity of the setting and the sheer size and beauty of the church. Along the stairway that leads to the church, the walls are lined with stone plaques from families thanking the Virgin for their blessings (good health, family, new home, etc.).

That night we camped in the overflow parking lot, set high up on a hill overlooking the town and the valley. We pulled up the steep driveway and turned the corner to see our pals Nikki & Jakob from Sprinter Van Diaries. It was great to catch up with them and swap stories about how wonderful Colombia is. We chipped away at the Chinese leftovers and went to bed at Overlander's midnight (aka 9pm).

The next morning it was a short 15 minute drive to the border. We had heard great things from other travelers about the South Ameican border crossings (at least in comparison to the ones in Central America), so we had high hopes. We pulled into the parking lot on the Colombian side of the border, waited in line at immigration for a mere 5 minutes before having our passports stamped out of the country. We walked around the corner to the customs building and turned in our car permit. They told us they would inform the officials at the port in Cartagena that we were leaving the country. Easy peasy.

We hopped in the car and drove the short distance to the Ecuador side of the border. We filled out some paperwork and waited about 15 minutes in line to have our passports stamped in, again easy. We asked where the customs building was and was told it was around the corner. We walked over to a different building and were told that wasn't customs. We found the customs building and waited at the little windows. And waited. And waited. There was a man inside, but he was at the computer facing the opposite wall and doing his best to ignore us. After a half an hour of waiting, I set off to rattle some cages. I walked around to the back of the building and poked my head in the first door. There was a man sitting at a large table playing solitare. “Is this customs?” I asked. He told me to go in the next door. “But it says Authorized Personnel Only.” “Just go on in!” Ok.... I tentatively stepped through the next door and saw 5 or 6 military personnel. “Is this customs?” I repeated? A man kindly told me to wait outside by the little windows. “But there's no one there!” This surprised him, so he stuck his head around the half wall and saw the man that was doing his best to ignore the line of people waiting outside to be processed. He yelled at him to get to work, and I made my way back around to the window outside the building. Immediately the man came to the window and said “Just wait a little minute, please.” One minute later 4 more staff came out of some imaginary room and started helping us. The woman asked for copies of our documents and I handed them over. She informed me that black and white copies were not acceptable, and she needed colored copies of all our docs. REALLY? Yes, really, that is the law. We made our way around to the copyshop and the lady did a great job of squeezing all our documents on to 2 pages. Professional! We got our vehicle import permit in a couple of minutes. I asked whether it was necessary to purchase insurance since we had heard from other travelers that there was a 6 month period where Ecuador was overhauling it's auto insurance system, and during this period no one needed to purchase insurance and everyone was covered. She said yes, that is true, but we still recommend getting it because the police can hassle you if you don't have it. Screw the police! We decided to roll the dice. Ecuador, here we come!

And we leave you with this gem of a cultural note: Colombian car alarms do not mess around!

Colombia budget recap:

We ate and explored our way through Colombia for a mere $50 per day. Yet another reason YOU SHOULD VISIT this amazing country!

Expected days in country: 21
Actual days spent in country: 19 

Daily budget: $51
Actual expenses: $50
Difference: -$1 (-1%)

We came in right on budget for Colombia. Note this exclude the ferry costs (from Panama to Colombia), and our car repairs, which we track against a separate budget. Food and lodging were cheaper than budgeted, but we spent more on fuel than expected.

Average price for gas: $3.29/gallon (7,900 pesos per gallon... yes, they use gallons here!).

Expected miles driven: 1,000
Actual miles driven: 1,531
Difference: +53%

Colombia is a BIG country! We veered off the main highway and explored some hard to reach places, which racked up some extra miles. On balance, gas was cheaper than we had budgeted, a pleasant surprise!

Average gas mileage: 18

Which is great, considering how many rough gravel roads we drove on. Plus all the mountains!

Average miles driven per day: 81

Biggest daily expenses ($/day):
#1: Food ($16.20) – We ate out a lot more in Colombia than we have previously on our trip. The food here is fairly cheap and super delicious.
#2: Gas ($14.59) – We covered a lot of ground in our 3 weeks, with several big driving days. Fortunately gas was cheaper than we had budgeted, which offset the extra miles covered.

#3: Entrance Fees ($6.14) – Possibly the first time this has made the top 3? We visited several national parks, all well worth the cost.

What's missing from the top 3? Lodging! We averaged a whopping $4.85/day on camping and hostals. We lucked out and found some great free camping opportunities and stayed at some really cheap (yet still wonderful) places. We were caught by surprise by Colombia's highway tolls, which are frequent and costly. We spent $80 on highway taxes ($4.21/day or about $5.20 for every 100 miles we drove). Although expensive, to us it was well worth it. We were able to cover large distances in relatively short times due to the excellent road conditions, and our spines were also thankful. :)

Our entire time in Colombia left us with huge grins on our faces.  Like Mexico, it was a country that gave us some initial trepidation.  America's desire for narcotics and its rough history of dealing with that desire gives the Colombian people every right to detest us.  Instead, we found a country full of amazing people who went out of their way to make us feel welcome, a country breathtaking in its beauty, and a country that made us realize, yet again, that the world is an incredible place and our inhibitions and fears prevent us from seeing just how great it really is. Please, please consider visiting this remarkable place. We promise you won't regret it.

Until next time friends!