Week 31 - Cabo de la Vela, Punta Gallinas, Palomino, Taganga, Cartagena (Colombia)

Our first day in Cabo de la Vela, considered the treasure of the La Guajira peninsula, we woke and jumped in the sea in place of a shower since there was no running water.  With the aim of getting to Pilon de Azucar beach, about an hour or so north of the village, and back before the midday sun kicked in we started walking around 8am.  The walk was hot, winding along the sandy tracks surrounded by miles of scrubland and hundreds of cacti.  After stopping a local on a motorcycle to check we were heading in the right direction we tackled the last dune and made it to the beach.  It was beautiful, other than a couple who were staying at our hostel in town it was deserted.  Although not a tropical beach, the desolation and golden sands made it one of the nicest we’ve been to in South America.  After an hour or so of relaxing and swimming in the Caribbean me and Rhys walked up to the view point where there is a statue of the Virgin and marvelled at the views over the bay and for miles beyond.  As it got close to midday and all shade was disappearing we headed back to the hostel leaving Tim on the beach.  Tim spent the afternoon walking to the lighthouse (apparently not worth the walk) and met us back at the hostel a few hours later.  Me and Rhys spent the time chilling on the beach outside our room, drinking beer and snorkelling a few metres off shore – plenty of fish considering it was just a clump of sea weed, we saw a ray, a plaice (we think) and lots of brightly coloured tropical fish.  That night we ate at a restaurant a little further along the beach and had the most amazing red snapper – Rhys chose large and no joke it could have fed a small family.

The next day we were awoken by a knock on the door at 7am.  We’d been told we’d booked on to a day trip to Punta Gallinas leaving at 8am.  The 4WD was already outside waiting for us.  Then as we were about to leave, the hostel owner rocked up and asked us if we wanted to store our bags at the hostel as we wouldn’t be back until the morning – a bit of a surprise but we hurriedly packed up our bags and rolled with it.  Lonely Planet had advised us we’d have to drive to a nearby bay where we’d then take a boat to get to Punta Gallinas and the hostel owner had given us the same story.  In actuality there was no boat – as it’s the end of the dry season it’s possible to just drive the whole way.  It was a bumpy few hours and by the time we got to our first stopping point we were excited to be out of the land cruiser.  Along the way we had been impressed with the road blocks put up by the locals – a piece of string across the track that gets lowered once you’ve made payment of a bar of soap.   

The first stop was Playa Taroa.  The scrubland gives way to huge golden sand dunes that run straight down into the sea.  Of course the first thing Rhys and Tim did was run down the dunes and jump into the sea (well Rhys made it to the sea, Tim stacked beforehand).  After 2 hours of soaking up the views and enjoying the sun we were back in the car to drive to the lighthouse – the most northern point of South America.  You really think they could have made more of an effort, I’ve seen more complex bits of scaffolding.  Next we were back in the car to drive to a lagoon with hundreds of shell fossils, bright blue water and mangroves.  Another beach stop and we drove back to a hostel (well a roofed area with some toilets and running water!) on the cliff overlooking the lagoon.  The view was breath-taking, in the middle of the desert suddenly there’s  this beautiful lagoon with trees of every shade of green and as the sun started to sink the colours just made it all the more magical.  We ate lobster for dinner while watching the full moon before retiring to our chinchorros – large hammocks made by the local people with big floppy sides you wrap over you like a blanket.

The next day we ate breakfast at the hostel before jumping in a fisherman’s boat for a quick 20 minute jaunt across the lagoon to where our tour guide Michael was waiting with the land cruiser.  About 2.5 hours and one speedy tire change later and we were back in Cabo de la Vela.  We collected our bags from the hostel and Michael drove us to Uribia where we jumped in a collective to Riohacha and then a bus back to Palomino.  I spent at least 30 minutes of the bus journey reading English to a little Colombian boy who was super excited to play with my Kindle.  After a 10 minute walk from the main road towards the village and the beach we managed to check into the last 3 beds in the Dreamer hostel where everybody seems to stay.  Within 5 minutes of walking in we saw Monique (who we’d last seen in Banos) and a group of Irish people we’d met in Taganga.  As we didn’t get there until 4ish we had a quick swim and spent the evening playing pool, eating pizza and drinking at the hostel before heading out for a midnight bonfire on the beach.  All three of us loved Punta Gallinas and were really happy we’d made the decision to head up north rather than go to Tayrona National Park, not only was it incredibly beautiful but there’s a smug satisfaction in knowing you’ve got off the gringo trail a little and made the effort to get to a place few people actually get to.

The following day we joined a group to go tubing – supposedly a really relaxing experience with toucans and monkeys everywhere I think the sheer number of tourists has made it a bit more difficult to see anything more than a few locals fishing and cleaning clothes in the river.  Other than a fleeting glimpse of a toucan the most wildlife we saw was a herd of cows wading the river.  We really enjoyed it though, sun burn, lost sunglasses and all.  A 20 minute truck ride with Rhys and Tim holding on for dear life and a 40 minute walk through the forest was followed by an hour and a half floating down the river to the beach, being pushed along by two guides when the current wasn’t strong enough. 

Back at the hostel we packed up and headed back to the main road to catch a bus back to Santa Marta and a taxi to Taganga.  Back in Taganga the hostel we liked was fully booked so we checked into a cheap and cheerful option next door before meeting up with Benjamin and Mathieu, the two Belgium guys and heading to a restaurant called Pachamama where we had one of the most amazing meals we’ve had in South America, the biggest steak and the most delicious fish.  After dinner we headed to happy hour at a quiet bar on the beach before me, Rhys and Tim decided to go to a nightclub to see Tim off in style.

Needless to say we weren’t feeling on top form the next morning and after moving our bags over to the hostel where beds had freed up we spent the day dozing in front of the TV, swimming and playing pool.  That night we headed out for dinner at another restaurant that had been highly recommended but that didn’t have a scratch on Pachamama – Babaganoush.  We were all pretty tired so we headed back to the hostel and I went to bed while the others stayed up on the roof for a while to have one last goodbye drink. 

Yesterday we said goodbye to Tim, Benjamin and Mathieu.  It has been amazing to have Tim with us and we made an awesome threesome, Tim is very easy to travel with and can understand more Spanish than me so made my life easier.  After they’d left, me, Rhys and Monique packed our bags and headed to the bus station in Santa Marta for a bus to Cartagena.  By the time we arrived it was late afternoon and we just had time to organise a few bits ready for our trip on the Darien Gapster.  I’ve been feeling abit under the weather so had a very early night while Rhys and Monique went out for late night ice cream.

Today has been another sorting day and a recovery day for me.  We’ve been in to town a few times but just to pick up odds and ends and change money into USD ready for Panama.  Tomorrow we have an early start to meet the rest of our travel group to head by land and boat to La Miel.

Pilon de Azucar, Cabo de la Vela. 

Me on Playa Taroa sand dunes.

The lighthouse at the most northern point of South America.

The lagoon, Punta Gallinas.

View from our hostel and one of my favourite views in the whole of South America, Punta Gallinas.

The drive to Punta Gallinas from Cabo de la Vela.

Our chinchorros, Punta Gallinas. 

Gas station on the road to Punta Gallinas from Cabo de la Vela.

Rhys tubing, Palomino.

Week 30 - Ciudad del Perdida, Taganga, Cabo de la Vela (Colombia)

We rolled out of bed and out of the hostel at about 11am and headed to the bus station for a bus to Santa Marta.  Although we were told the bus was direct and would take 3-4 hours we ended up stopping in Barranquilla and arriving after 5 hours.  From Santa Marta we grabbed a taxi to Taganga, a small fishing village overrun with hippies and gringos a couple of kilometres from Santa Marta.  The hostel we checked into, La Masia, was more like a boutique hotel with rooms set around a pool area.  It was a shame we were so tired after the last night in Cartagena because two of the guys we’d met in Uruguay were at the hostel and a catch up was on the cards – instead we packed ready for the trek to Ciudad del Perdida and got an early night.

We were picked up from our hostel by Magic Tours in a 4WD for a 2 hour drive to Machete (EL Mamey), a village at the Lost City trail head.  There were 3 others in our group, a Chilean couple, Carolina and Juan and an Austrian guy, Max.  We were incredibly lucky since they all spoke fluent English and our guide couldn’t say a word so they had to act as out translators over the next 4 days.  It’s at times like that that you realise how much we miss out on by only having very limited Spanish skills.  We arrived at a restaurant in the village run by our guides family for a quick lunch before heading out to start the trek. 

The first day of the trek the tracks are mostly in agricultural land and you weave through pastures and banana plantations stopping at various points for watermelon and oranges.  We walked for about 3 hours or so and climbed the steepest and longest hill of the trail stopping for a swim at a natural pool and spending the night in hammocks at the Alfredo campsite.  The second day you start to weave through the luxuriant foothills of the Sierra Nevada and you start to feel more and more removed from civilisation despite the city only being 23.3km away from the starting point.  We walked for about 3 hours to the lunch point where we swam and chilled before walking a further 4 hours to camp, the last hour in torrential rain.  Day 3 we had a short walk along the river before arriving at the bottom of the stairs leading to the city where we spent a couple of hours walking around with the guide before heading back along the trail to the day 2 lunch point to camp.  The last day, day 4 was a mammoth walk but we were all in good spirits and made it back in double quick time for a swim at the natural pool before lunch in the village.  The walk isn’t so difficult and the distance is quite short but the hills are incredibly steep and slippery, there are river crossings to contend with and the heat and humidity means that even when it’s not raining (and we were incredibly lucky with very little rain) you’re still soaked through from the humidity and sweat, very attractive.

Ciudad del Perdida is the ‘lost city’ of the Tayronas.  Although the ruins themselves aren’t generally considered to be as spectacular as those found at Machu Picchu, thanks to its geographic isolation the city has maintained its natural allure and has a certain magic to it.  One of the greatest appeals was the small number of people making the hike, only 15 people set off on the day we started compared to 500 people on the Inca Trail and not only that but hiking the trail is the only way to reach the ruins so when you arrive it’s not overrun by busloads of tourists who have rocked up on a day trip.  We didn’t even see the other group when we were at the ruins are the only sound was of the howler monkeys and tropical birds.  The city was built sometime after 500AD and was discovered in 1975 when tomb raiders started looting and scavenging the site.  The first tour group travelled to the ruins in 1982.  The site consists of more than a thousand circular terraces that once served as the foundations for Tayrona homes and running through the city and down to the Buritaca river valley is a complex network of paved footpaths and steep stone steps (over 1,350 in total) purportedly added later to obstruct the advance of Spanish horsemen.

Other that walking through the forest and marvelling at the colourful birds, poisonous frogs (Rhys spotted two!) and butterflies one of the highlights is bumping into Kogi Indians on the path.  They’re not there to sell you bracelets and to have their photos taken for a fee but live there and are just going about their daily business drifting on and off the main path, in their white tunics and brightly coloured bead necklaces and welly boots.  The women are relatively shy and a friendly ‘hola’ usually only received a grunt in reply and the men would run past before you even realised they were coming carrying with them their ‘poporos’, a saliva coated gourd they are given at 18 when they wed that holds the lime to activate the coca they constantly chew.

We were all pretty tired and ready for a shower and clean cloths by the time the jeep arrived back in Taganga.  We checked back into La Masia and arranged to meet Juan, Carolina and Max for dinner in one of the restaurants on the beach road before buying a few beers to drink in the bay. 

The next day Tim was up early to scuba dive – he’s done hundreds of dives and although Taganga doesn’t offer the most spectacular diving it’s another box ticked and he saw turtles and barracuda and was almost sick from the hangover and boat rocking combinationn.  Me and Rhys spent the day in the hostel by the pool.  That night Juan, Carolina and Max stopped by at our hostel for a drink and we spent the night playing pool and drinking happy hour mojitos.

The next day we started our adventure to reach the most northern point on the South American continent.  After a cab from Taganga to Santa Marta we caught a bus to Riohacha.  Although Lonely Planet said it was 4 hours away we were there within 2.5 hours which was a bonus since we’d left the hostel an hour later than intended and had just realised that the trip ahead was a lot longer than we first thought.  Once in Riohacha one of the guys from the bus company called a collective to come and pick us up for the hour long drive to Uribia.  We waited for 20 minutes for a fourth person to join us in the car before deciding we had to get a move on and paid the extra fee for the driver to take just the three of us.  In Uribia our driver dropped us off at the point for the 4WD’s to Cabo de la Vela and we were piled in, Tim in the back with about 12 other people and me and Rhys in the front with a lady with a baby and the driver.  Thankfully most of the people had climbed out before Cabo and we had enough room to breathe.  The landscape was stunning, it became more and more arid and deserty with the most beautiful colours as the sun started to drop low in the sky.  We pulled up in Cabo and checked in to a basic hostel with air con but no running water right on the beach.  It felt pretty remote, like we’d actually made it off the gringo trail.  The journey was nowhere near as arduous as we’d been lead to believe and was worth the effort.

Tim hiking to Ciudad del Perdida.

Rhys and Tim at Tim Ciudad del Perdida.

Me and Rhys on the hike to Ciudad del Perdida.

Tim and Rhys on the way back from Ciudad del Perdida.

Carolina, Juan, Tim and Rhys cooling down in the natural pool.

The drive to Cabo de la Vela.

Week 29 - Hacienda Venecia, Medellin, Tolu, Cartagena (Colombia)

We woke and packed glad to be leaving the Hacienda and tried to get the Jeep to take us over to the hostel.  We ended up leaving our bags at the house (the jeep was picking people up from Manizales) and wading across the river again ready for that mornings coffee tour (that they’d forgotten we’d reserved to do).  The tour was actually really good.  The guide spoke perfect English and really knew his stuff.  He started by explaining with a world map where different types of coffee are grown and exported to – as Colombia doesn’t have much of a coffee culture they only drink the defect beans here and export all the premium beans to Europe.  After peeling and sorting some premium beans we roasted them and spent some time playing with an aroma kit, it’s amazing just how distinct different coffees can be depending on the origin of the bean, the blend and the roast.   A short walk through the plantation and we were back at the Hacienda to load our bags in to the jeep before a quick swim and a lift to the bus station in Manizales.

From Manizales we caught a bus to Medellin, a big, modern, extremely clean city (we’ve been shocked at how dirty Colombia is; the rubbish in the streets is on a whole new level and a hundred times worse than any of the other countries we’ve been to in South America).  Although it’s not the prettiest city, think lots of tower blocks and malls, in February 2013, it was announced as the most innovative city in the world due to its recent advances on politics, education and social development, in the poorest districts there are cable cars and even outdoor escalators to help the population move about and they built the new library in one of the poor districts to boost civic pride.  

On arriving we checked into a hostel in a residential district and headed out for food with a Welsh guy called Kerry.  We couldn’t find anywhere overly exciting and ate in a shopping mall near the financial district where we’d been told there were bars – imagine Canary Wharf on a Sunday night, dead and very modern. 

We ended up staying up in the hostel till gone 3am so were not raring to go the next day.  Tim however was keen to go parascending and having done the research and told us just how cheap it was we thought it would be silly to miss it.  We caught the metro to the northern bus terminal (so unlike the tube, you’re not even allowed to drink a bottle of water) and then a bus to San Felix.  The bus trip was cool, winding up the hills surrounding the city with views over the valley.  The parascending was great fun; we had 20 minute flights and soared around on the thermals before spiraling back down to the launch site, the landing doing nothing for our hangovers.  We stopped for lunch at a little restaurant on the hillside overlooking the city before heading back to our hostel to chill.  That night the boys went out for ‘boys night’ which as far as I can tell means doing shots and talking about boobs and rugby.

Tim spent the next day in the hostel recovering while Rhys dragged himself on the Escobar Tour with me – since he’d been looking forward to it for weeks he didn’t want to miss it.  The tour was ok, we learnt a couple of interesting facts but mainly we were driven around the city looking at various buildings Escobar used to own, stopping at the house where he was shot in 1993 and at his grave while our intense guide told us about how the drug trade is fueling the war and the bloodshed.  Pablo Escobar was the head of the Medellin cartel and was an extremely rich man with millions of people working for him and was briefly in politics.  At one point he offered to pay off the USD$13bn national debt in exchange for 3 districts forming a republic of which he would be head and where drugs would be legal – surprisingly the government didn’t accept the offer.  Back at the hostel we grabbed pizza before heading to the bus terminal for a night bus to Tolu.

Having not slept much on the night bus Rhys stayed at the hostel the next day to sleep and play on the computer.  After a nap though, me and Tim decided we would venture out to one of the nearby beaches for the afternoon, Lonely Planet informing us it was only a short bus ride and a moto-taxi away (liers!).  it was a mini adventure, first we caught a mini bus to Covenas where we changed for another smaller bus to San Antero.  From there we caught moto-taxis to Playa Blanca.  The moto taxi ride was worth the trip alone, after passing through the backstreets of a village we came out on the beach and rode along the sand track.  The beach was quiet with a number of small restaurants and bars.  We sat and enjoyed a beer, swam in the warm Caribbean Sea and walked along the beach before finding a really nice bar with swings for a few more drinks.  It was dark by the time we got back to Tolu. 

As the diving was expensive Tim joined me and Rhys for a day trip to Isla San Bernando, an archipelago that consists of 7 small islands that are promoted as a paradise of white beaches, mangroves and crystal clear waters, supposedly far superior to the more touristy Isla Rosario near Cartagena.  After a squashed but super fast boat ride we arrived at our first stop at Isla Las Palmas where for an additional charge you could go to an Aquarium – we sat on the pier watching the fish waiting for the boat ride to continue.  Next our boat did a fly by of Isla Santa Cruz de Islote, one of the world’s most populated islands where everyone lives squashed together with not ever a foot between buildings.  Our last stop was on Isla Múcura.  We had expected white sand beaches, we got a sandy area surrounded by little restaurants but no beach.  The sea was bright bright blue and warm as a bath.  We spent hours playing around in the shallows and hired snorkels to be taken out to a buoy with a guide and a boat to spend 45 mins snorkelling watching loads of small colourful fish and starfish.  Although not a massively successful day trip the snorkelling and the boat trip somewhat saved it– the spray on the boat on the way back to Tolu left us totally drenched.   We spent our last night in Tolu enjoying a bottle of rum on the hostel roof terrace.

From Tolu we caught a bus to Cartagena.  To get to the bus station we flagged a bike thing and Rhys had to join the driver to help peddle, in the baking heat with 4 people and 3 backpacks it was no mean task.   From the bus terminal in Cartagena to our hostel we had the most memorable taxi journey.  Not only did our driver not know where we were going (even though we showed him a map) and we had to stop numerous times to ask people, he got out to shout at another cab driver and the police came and moved him along and then a couple of metres further down the road we crashed into another cab and he paid off the cab with his meagre days takings.  By the time we got to the area our hostel was in we were just glad to be out of the cab.  Then as he dropped us just on a main road it took a couple of blocks walking in the wrong direction for us to get our bearings.  Thankfully the hostel was really nice, a great communal area that you could lounge around in and air con in the dorms – a must when the temperature gets up to the mid 30’s every day.  Although it was our biggest dorm yet with 10 people it was fine.  After check in we headed in to town to find food and to explore the old centre.  Cartagena is quite possibly one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen.  It’s really colonial and the buildings are either white with bright coloured decorations or are bright bright oranges and blues, it has a real Caribbean feel.  The buildings all have huge wooden doors often painted bright colours and there are wooded balconies and flowers everywhere. 

We ate out in a square near our hostel in San Diego that night for a bargain price then headed over to gringo-ville, Getsemaní which is a much dirtier and grittier area of the city than the Old Town or San Diego where our hostel was but it’s also the area for cheaper bars and food.  We popped into a couple of bars before heading back to our hostel.

The next morning we enjoyed a lay in and chilled at the hostel.  I popped out for a bit to get deliciously lost in the Old Town and to take some photos before heading back for lunch at the hostel.  The morning was livened up by an explosion outside the hostel window when a bird landed on the electric pylon scaring us all half to death.  At 1:30pm we headed back to Getsemani where we’d booked a tour to the El Totumo Mud Volcano about an hours drive out of the city.  It was bizarre, you pull up in the middle of nowhere to this 15m high mole hill.  You change into your bikini and ascend the staircase and climb in to the crater where you float about in the viscous mud and get massaged by local men.  Then, when you’ve had your fill you walk down to the lake where local women come out with bowls to wash you clean making you strip off so they can clean your swim shorts/bikini bottoms.  I’m not sure if it was a hundred per cent relaxing but made us laugh a lot.  That night we headed over to Getsemani again to meet up with some people from our tour for drinks and ended up in Media Luna, a popular hostel bar until 3am.

Coffee tour, Hacienda Venecia.

Coffee plantation, Hacienda Venecia.

Cartagena.

Islas San Bernando, Isla Mucura.

Isla Santa Cruz del Islote.

Tim snorkelling.

El Totumo Mud Volcano.

Week 28 - San Agustin, Salento, Hacienda Venecia (Colombia)

On our first day in San Agustin we walked the 3km out of town to explore the Archaeological Park, a UNESCO world heritage site full of pre-Hispanic stone monoliths.  Most of the statues were part of the funerary paraphernalia of the ancient inhabitants of the area and were related to funerary rites, the spiritual power of the dead, and the supernatural world.  We spent a peaceful couple of hours wandering around the park before heading back in to town and up to our hostel where we spent the afternoon reading in hammocks, drinking cheap rum and chatting to other travellers.

For our second day in San Agustin we had booked a jeep tour to take us to some outlying sculpture sites that we couldn’t reach on foot as well as some to some waterfalls including one of the highest waterfalls in Colombia at 400m.  It wasn’t the most amazing trip we’ve done but was nice to drive around the countryside watching the campesinos harvesting the sugar cane and the horses dragging cut cane through the country lanes. 

We left San Agustin early the following morning having bought some homemade wholemeal bread to enjoy with the marmite mum brought out for us.  We arrived back in Popayan early afternoon and were introduced to the wonderful world of Exito – a massive supermarket that would be at home anywhere in Europe or North America where we spent a small fortune on a tiny piece of cheddar cheese, mars bars and cake.  Rhys spent the afternoon playing on the computer while I headed in to town for a delicious coffee with orange liqueur.  Popayan is a pretty city, all the buildings are painted white and every couple of blocks you come to another ornate church.

Another early start and we were on a minibus at 8:30am headed to Armenia 6 hours further north.  Once in Armenia we caught another minibus an hour further to Salento and from there we took a Jeep Willy to our hostel, La Serrana.  We were in a separate building about 300m down the track from the main hostel so were a little bit ostracised but the house was amazing, three rooms around a communal area with huge windows looking out across the valley.  The first day we walked the 2km back in to town to get our bearings and had a short wander through the streets around the main plaza.  Salento is beautiful, lots of brightly coloured houses with boutique shops and little cafes.  That night we cooked at our house before watching a storm roll in over the valley and heading to bed.

We were woken the next morning by a knock on our bedroom door.  Tim had checked in (having arrived a couple of hours earlier and sat in a hammock at reception waiting for someone to show him to the room).  He was surprisingly perky considering he’d flown from London and then had a 7 hour bus journey to deal with.  After a coffee in our house and a quick breakfast at the hostel we walked back in to town and up to the swings at a view point on the opposite side of the valley.  We spent the afternoon back at our house catching up and playing croquet on the lawn with a few too many beers.

The next day we were in the main plaza for a 9:30 collecivo Jeep Willy to the Valle de Cocora where we hiked a popular 5 hour route.  The valley is part of the Los Nevados National Natural Park and is the principal location of the national tree and symbol of Colombia, the Quindío wax palm.  A couple of hours along the track you enter the Acaime Reserve where you can stop at the lodge for a hot chocolate and slice of cheese and to watch the hummingbirds at the feeders. 

Back in Salento that night we arranged to meet a few people in the Plaza and headed to the Tejo hall where it’s free to play but buying beer is mandatory.  Tejo is a traditional Colombian sport where you stand 25m from a square of clay and throw heavy metal pucks at the clay aiming to hit the little paper squares full of gun powder to make them explode.  We weren’t very good, as soon as we walked in the guy who owned it moved us to throw from halfway down and even then we had to create a Lucie line another metre or so forward.  We ended up making up our own game of Killer Tejo since with 9 people it was a little difficult to keep score playing the real game.   After Tejo we stopped in a billiard hall and tried to figure out the rules of a game they play there with 3 balls and no table pockets.

Yet another early start and we were on a bus leaving Salento and heading for Pereira an hour away.  From there we caught a bus to Manizales and asked to be dropped off at the San Pereguino bridge about 13km out of town.  The road to Manizales was beautiful, you wind through all these coffee plantations and can see crops growing in regimented lines as far as the eye can see.  Once at the bridge we stopped in a café to use a phone and call down to Hacienda Venecia to come and collect us.  10 minutes later we had driven down a dirt track and crossed a river and pulled up at the gates of the Hacienda.  It was stunning.  A one storey white house with all the wood work painted red and the walls lined with books and antique saddles and the like.  We were shown to a basement room where they put the overflow from the hostel (the house itself is a boutique hotel and out of our price range to stay there).  Then we were abandoned.

We had a walk around the grounds and discovered lots of peacocks and turkeys before running in to the owner who was incredibly unhelpful.  We finally worked out that the hostel was a km up the road back over the river and that we’d have to walk there for each meal or for any information.  We waded across the river for lunch and ended up staying at the hostel for a while although it was overrun with people travelling on a Dragoman truck so they were a lot older than us and all knew each other.  After a swim the boys went to watch TV inside and I headed back to the Hacienda to enjoy the sun by doing 2 hour walk that had been mapped out.  The walk was really nice, walking past the workers accommodation and through the plantations, both well developed and the nursery, knee deep in grass.  The views down the valley as you wind up the hill are amazing and all the workers I saw were so friendly.   

I met the boys back at the Hacienda for a swim before we waded the river again to the hostel for dinner.  After dinner we hung around at the hostel for a while to make the walk seem worthwhile and once Rhys had finished watching a film we headed out in the pitch black to traverse the river again.  Thank god Tim had his phone so we had some light otherwise we could still be out there now walking around.  Back at the Hacienda the gate was locked and we had to climb the 10 foot fence to get back to our room.  Despite how beautiful the place was we were staring to regret staying there and being made to feel like we were in the way all the time.

Sculptures in San Agustin Archeological Park.

Salento.

La Serrena, our little house in Salento.

Hiking in Valle de Cocora.

View from the top of the coffee plantation.

Coffee plantation - the nursery,

Hacienda Venecia - who ever said you couldn't backpack in luxury...!