We arrived in Taganga this afternoon. It was about a four hour bus trip. And by bus I mean a 10 passenger van with 15 passengers in it. The seats were about half as wide as the crappy seats in the back of an airplane with about a third of the legroom. A couple of hours into the trip, some people got off and I was able to move to a spot where I could actually sit with my knees in front of me.
The town itself seems pretty cool so far. It´s just a little fishing village tucked away in a bay on the Caribbean coast. There isn´t much here besides some good seafood restaurants, some hippies, some street dogs (that don´t appear to be doing so good), no ATM´s and a lot of dive shops. That´s why we are here. Tayrona National Park is not too far away and you can get good deals to go dive there and spend a few nights sleeping in hammocks on the beach and just hanging out. We haven´t made definite plans yet, but I think we are going to do a three day two night trip to the park that will include seven dives (one of which is a night dive and one of which is a cave dive). It should be pretty sweet. Unfortunately, I left my underwater housing at home and can´t take any pics on the dives, so you´ll just have to believe us when we write about it afterwards.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Monday, July 7, 2008
Photo Dramarama
We continue to battle with our photos page on supertrippin, so for now, please just click on this link and this link to see some Colombia photos.
We booked our flight to Miami so we leave on the 16th. It's very sad and final that we're leaving South America. It will be good to go back, but time has really gone by quickly and I don't feel like I've been gone for over 5 months.
So far, we have people to stay with in Miami, Georgia, DC, and New York so we'll be fine with that.
People seem a little worried that we're in Colombia but it has improved greatly over the past few years. Venezuela is the real crap hole so if you're looking to avoid one, I've been told not to visit.
I survived my mud bath in the volcano today. It was pretty disgusting, you can see the photos on one of the links above, but my skin is lovely and soft now.
Anyway, this is just a bunch of random sentences. Look at the photos! There's some mud!
We booked our flight to Miami so we leave on the 16th. It's very sad and final that we're leaving South America. It will be good to go back, but time has really gone by quickly and I don't feel like I've been gone for over 5 months.
So far, we have people to stay with in Miami, Georgia, DC, and New York so we'll be fine with that.
People seem a little worried that we're in Colombia but it has improved greatly over the past few years. Venezuela is the real crap hole so if you're looking to avoid one, I've been told not to visit.
I survived my mud bath in the volcano today. It was pretty disgusting, you can see the photos on one of the links above, but my skin is lovely and soft now.
Anyway, this is just a bunch of random sentences. Look at the photos! There's some mud!
The Muddy Banks of the Caribbean
Stefani went with Ant and Lisa to some volcanic mudbaths today. My understanding is that you basically wallow around in some hot mud like a farm animal. I decided to skip this one and hang back in Cartagena.
Tomorrow we will head up the coast a little ways to Santa Marta and Taganga. There are supposed to be some nice beaches up that way and some good, cheap SCUBA diving. The beaches here in Cartagena kind of suck, so we are looking forward to some new ones.
In other news...We have flights scheduled out of Rio on July 29th to return to the USA. Unfortunately it costs around $900 to get from Cartagena to Rio. It only costs $300 to fly to Miami from here. So it looks like we will fly to Miami and then rent a car for a mini North American Tour. Basically it will be a trip from Miami to Atlanta and then start a loop that goes up to NYC along the East Coast and then over to Chicago. From Chicago, I'll continue back to Atlanta through Indianapolis. The whole trip will take about three weeks starting around July 17th. It sounds like a lot of driving, but after several bus trips over 30 hours long, I really don't think it will be a big deal.
Tomorrow we will head up the coast a little ways to Santa Marta and Taganga. There are supposed to be some nice beaches up that way and some good, cheap SCUBA diving. The beaches here in Cartagena kind of suck, so we are looking forward to some new ones.
In other news...We have flights scheduled out of Rio on July 29th to return to the USA. Unfortunately it costs around $900 to get from Cartagena to Rio. It only costs $300 to fly to Miami from here. So it looks like we will fly to Miami and then rent a car for a mini North American Tour. Basically it will be a trip from Miami to Atlanta and then start a loop that goes up to NYC along the East Coast and then over to Chicago. From Chicago, I'll continue back to Atlanta through Indianapolis. The whole trip will take about three weeks starting around July 17th. It sounds like a lot of driving, but after several bus trips over 30 hours long, I really don't think it will be a big deal.
Friday, July 4, 2008
Happy 4th of July!
I am writing this blog from Cartagena, Colombia where Chris and I are spending the holiday with two Brits. Chris told them they should be excited to celebrate the American holiday where we celebrate being free of their tyranny. They didn’t seem that excited and claimed they would sit on the balcony drinking tea all day long in protest. We are currently planning a mini Boston Tea Party for their bathtub in retaliation. Just kidding.
We are staying in an apartment with Antony and Lisa from Leeds, England. We met them in Ushuaia, Argentina at the beginning of our trip and have managed to meet up in Lake Titicaca, Cusco, and Quito. They are at the end of their year long around the world trip and booked this apartment in Cartagena for two weeks before they fly home. Chris and I are tagging along.
We survived the jungle. Chris promised he would write a blog but he never finished it and now he will be mad that I’m pointing this out on the blog. The jungle was fine. The best part was Pancho the monkey. Pancho is a nine month old Wooly Monkey and her mother was killed by poachers when Pancho was very young. One of the rangers found her and brought her to the lodge where we were staying. So now they have a naughty, but very cute, baby monkey causing all sorts of trouble and amusement. Monkeys are great entertainment, kind of like having a small stupid child that can climb and dangle and hop onto the table and steal your food in about 2 seconds.
We saw a big anaconda, lots of wild monkeys, birds, big scary spiders and bugs, and I managed to walk around with a tick under my arm for about 2 days. When we got back, and I could finally take a hot shower that wasn’t river water, I discovered it and had to pull it off. Yuck. Chris escaped parasite free.
I uploaded the remaining photos from the Galapagos and the jungle, but I am having trouble with our photos page on the website. The photos are posted on my public photo page so if you click here and here, you can see them. Or you can just click on the My Public Gallery tab at the top of the page and see all of the pictures.
When we returned to Quito we visited the site of the equator with two other girls from the jungle trip. In the 1700’s the French came and determined the exact spot where the equator was and they built a monument. It turns out they were about 150 meters off and the local people had already found the spot about 900 years earlier. Fast forward to GPS days and they built another museum on that equator spot… although they may be a bit off as well. But we went to both monuments and had fun in the museum and then traveled back to Quito. Click here to see those pictures.
On Tuesday we flew to Colombia. Cartagena is the top tourist destination and so far, we’re not sure why. We need to get into the old city and see some of the beaches farther out of town because the ones close to us are pretty dirty and polluted. Cartagena was the main export point for all of the gold to return to Europe. It was built in the 1500’s and the colonial city is supposed to be very cool. We are also on the Caribbean so we want to get to the better beaches to see the white sand and blue water.
So for now, Chris and I are in Cartagena for one week, maybe two, and then we are off to somewhere else in Colombia or Brazil, depending on flights. We leave at the end of the month so time is running out. Happy 4th!
We are staying in an apartment with Antony and Lisa from Leeds, England. We met them in Ushuaia, Argentina at the beginning of our trip and have managed to meet up in Lake Titicaca, Cusco, and Quito. They are at the end of their year long around the world trip and booked this apartment in Cartagena for two weeks before they fly home. Chris and I are tagging along.
We survived the jungle. Chris promised he would write a blog but he never finished it and now he will be mad that I’m pointing this out on the blog. The jungle was fine. The best part was Pancho the monkey. Pancho is a nine month old Wooly Monkey and her mother was killed by poachers when Pancho was very young. One of the rangers found her and brought her to the lodge where we were staying. So now they have a naughty, but very cute, baby monkey causing all sorts of trouble and amusement. Monkeys are great entertainment, kind of like having a small stupid child that can climb and dangle and hop onto the table and steal your food in about 2 seconds.
We saw a big anaconda, lots of wild monkeys, birds, big scary spiders and bugs, and I managed to walk around with a tick under my arm for about 2 days. When we got back, and I could finally take a hot shower that wasn’t river water, I discovered it and had to pull it off. Yuck. Chris escaped parasite free.
I uploaded the remaining photos from the Galapagos and the jungle, but I am having trouble with our photos page on the website. The photos are posted on my public photo page so if you click here and here, you can see them. Or you can just click on the My Public Gallery tab at the top of the page and see all of the pictures.
When we returned to Quito we visited the site of the equator with two other girls from the jungle trip. In the 1700’s the French came and determined the exact spot where the equator was and they built a monument. It turns out they were about 150 meters off and the local people had already found the spot about 900 years earlier. Fast forward to GPS days and they built another museum on that equator spot… although they may be a bit off as well. But we went to both monuments and had fun in the museum and then traveled back to Quito. Click here to see those pictures.
On Tuesday we flew to Colombia. Cartagena is the top tourist destination and so far, we’re not sure why. We need to get into the old city and see some of the beaches farther out of town because the ones close to us are pretty dirty and polluted. Cartagena was the main export point for all of the gold to return to Europe. It was built in the 1500’s and the colonial city is supposed to be very cool. We are also on the Caribbean so we want to get to the better beaches to see the white sand and blue water.
So for now, Chris and I are in Cartagena for one week, maybe two, and then we are off to somewhere else in Colombia or Brazil, depending on flights. We leave at the end of the month so time is running out. Happy 4th!
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