Keeping up with the Colombians

Colombia has become an increasingly popular travel destination…spoiler, it’s gorgeous.  While there, I made a bilingual pun that isn’t good but I will immortalize in writing: Colobienbienbien.This post is long and intends to impart some travel knowledge to help you (or future me) plan a trip to Colombia.

I visited in October, AKA the rainy season.  This is the very first country that I have ever been to where not having all of my vaccinations restricted where I could go. The very.first.one.  That blew my mind because here is a link to a list of all of the countries that I’ve been to  (at the time of this writing there were over 50). And would you believe that not a single one required proof of vaccinations??!  So I was a bit surprised when, because I didn’t have my yellow fever vaccine, I wasn’t allowed to travel to certain regions in Colombia.  This ended up being (I have to say this) for the best, since, as I mentioned, it was rainy season and I  wasn’t taking malaria medication.

 

Tip numero uno…

1. Get your yellow fever vaccination.

I got mine within DAYS of returning home from this Colombia trip at the Allegheny Health Department (sick shout out! Not, like, literally sick though) and learned that the yellow fever vaccination is good for a lifetime.  I repeat, A LIFETIME.

I turned to my nurse and said “Whhhaaaat!  That’s so cool!  What other vaccinations do you guys do over here?!”  She said, “Hep A, Hep B, Tdap, Typhoid”  I said “I’LL TAKE THEM ALL, PLEASE!” If you know me, you know I’m not kidding. So, look out for updates on that.  As of now though, I have received the yellow fever vaccination which, is worth repeating, is good for a lifetime.

 

Without that vaccination, in Colombia, I wasn’t allowed to visit:

• Crystal Canyon
• Minca
• Southern region of the Amazon

Those places are saved for the next time.  Below are  places I was able to visit in this gorgeous, Spanish speaking country:

• Bogota
• Pereira
• Filandia
• Salento
• Cartagena
• Medellin

A full itinerary that included three different in-country flights. 

So, with gratitude in mind, I bought a $40 plane ticket (for a one hour flight) and not a $10 bus ride (for ten hours on a bus).  The flights themselves weren’t full (it being rainy season and locals not being able to afford them).

Tip numero dos….

2.   Exchange your money at the airport.

We found it really complicated to exchange our money in Colombia, and credit cards are virtually not accepted.  That being said, I highly recommend exchanging your USD to Colombian pesos at the airport.  I found that to be the best deal.

Now, you’re probably like “Who is this we you’ve started throwing in?”  Let me introduce Dom, a French speaking Canadian.  The two of us met on CouchSurfing in Pittsburgh during PRIDE (see this post where his photo first appears).  We had gotten along well in June, kept in touch, and decided to travel together in October.  I picked the country.  Dom has an interesting travel style: He’s not a planner, he literally buys his international plane tickets the night before a trip (and yeah, that makes the price more expensive).  He prefers to go with the flow (which way is the flow going though?) and if it weren’t for me we wouldn’t have known where we were staying the first night we landed. I’ve never traveled with someone like this spontaneous before, and I was excited for a new experience.

 

Tip numero tres….

3. Eat on the streets.

Our money went a long way, especially when it came to street food.  There was a bunch of stuff– meats on sticks, liver, drinks called “aromatic”, fruits (ginips– YUM), and grilled food.  Though I’ll be honest — everything we ate on that first night was just okay.   So this tip is strictly due to cost efficiency.  We weren’t really wowed. We ate rice-milk type things, homemade popsicles, along with everything and anything we wanted.  If someone was cooking it, I wanted to try it. For dessert, Dom wanted to keep to his travel tradition (which he does in every country and I never do) and go to McDonald’s. We got a McFlurry, which, in Colombia, was just ice cream with m&m’s on top — still good, but not a McFlurry. Maybe the “machine is broken,” is actually an international excuse that transcends borders. Our dessert from McDonald’s was one of the most expensive meals we ate the entire time in Colombia at a whopping $8-13. No gracias. 

 

It was Sunday, so by 8pm everything was closing up quickly.  We noticed a lot of people–men, women, and children– sleeping on the streets, wrapping themselves and the stuff they were selling in blankets. As it got later (8:30pm), an alarming military and police presence was growing in the streets.  This scared me so we headed back to our Airbnb. Later on in the trip, during various encounters we had with people, I asked what could’ve been going on that night. None of the students (they are so good at english) or locals we talked to knew, but the general consensus was that it was smart that we got away from them. We’ll call this tip number 3.5: Use caution and go with your gut.
The next day, we woke up early and went to “climb”  the best view in Bogota (it was less of a hike and more of just stairs).  This staircase was hard. It was 2,350 meters up– great exercise, no doubt, but we rode the funicular down. After our “hike”, we had breakfast — eggs (yum), freshly squeezed orange juice, and something wrapped in a banana leaf that felt like I was opening up a present — and headed out on a graffiti tour.

 

The graffiti tour would’ve been improved if either Dom or I appreciated art or if we spoke better Spanish. We dipped out early to go to Claro and get a SIM card.  If you’ve never bought a SIM card in another country sometimes it is an absolute pleasure (I’m looking at you, Asia) and sometimes it is medium hard (Colombia) and sometimes it is darn near impossible (Isreal).  Luckily, Colombia wasn’t as bad as Israel, but it was still a process.  Claro is a huge store with long lines and computers; they don’t take credit cards, and their cash-only payment system is very confusing and located on the opposite side of the store. But because I am an experienced traveler, I knew this might take some time had allotted half a day to do this one chore. We were determined to succeed and got our SIM cards pretty painlessly.  Then, just like that, we had translators on our phones! Muy bien!!

Having a translator helped immensely but the I was also really inspired… if I ever come back here – and I hope I do — settle in one city for a couple months and  take a language classes. NOTE TO SELF: Medallion would be a great place to learn.

After getting the SIM cards, we went back to our airbnb and booked a ticket Dom-style (i.e., the day of) to Pereira. To be honest, it was pretty exciting to purchase a plane ticket the exact day I was going to use it.  Good idea to try out this novel travel style in a country where the domestic flights aren’t very expensive. Dom consolidated his bags and gave our host some actual maple syrup he brought from Canada as a gift (Canadians are SO nice), and we were off.

 

You can see from the photo above that I kept the mangosteen, precious fruit, on my lap. I choose favorites hard.

After exploring for a bit, at the bus terminal, we bought a ticket to Filandia for lunch.  The best value is “the executive lunch’ and comes with soup, a starch, a bit of “salad”, and a protein.

More food talk.
At some point, Dom was craving some Western-style food and I was craving vegetables so we headed to a “Western” restaurant.  I got this crepe, which wasn’t  good but at least I got a leaf of lettuce. Yay, health.

After Filandia, we continued on to Salento, which ended up being my favorite town of the trip. It was rainy (probably because it was rainy season), and we stopped to get a view from the top of the town. Meanwhile, I ordered this delicious hot drink (that cost $1USD) to keep me warm (ok, fine, I got it for the nutella).

We stayed in a private room at a hostel and got great instructions from the owner as to how to go on a 6 hour, 12km hike the next day.  I was really excited to get an early start but woke up to the sound of rain literally POUNDING down on the zinc roof. We decided to get a few more hours of sleep until it sounded like the rain had lightened up.  Is there better anything better than knowing it’s raining outside and you don’t have to wake up?! A few hours later, we headed to a Willy (jeep) which drove us into the rain clouds to the beginning of the challenging 12km hike. Was I still sleeping because what.a.dream. See photos below 🙂

Once we were dropped off, our host had instructed us to look for a “puerto azul” (blue door) which was really a fence (note to self: “valla azul” not “puerto”) and after a 15 minute false start in the wrong direction Dom and I were on our way!

We paid the small park entrance fee and crossed 9 wooden bridges one person at a time because a few did seem…precarious.

 

We hiked for several hours before finally reaching Acaime, a hummingbird refuge.  We paid another small entrance fee —  7.5 — but the fee was worth the entrance! We received a cup of hot coco (sans nutella) and saw a kuatis. It was my first time! They are neat looking. 

 

 

 

 

The whole hike took us about 5.5 hours, and as you can imagine, when we finally got back to a Willy and into Salento, we. were. famished. So, seeing as though Salento is known for their trout, I rewarded myself with a trout dinner that only cost $7.25.

 

9. Eat Trout in Salento. 

When we got to Armenia — the one in Colombia — we got on a bus and then on another bus, and then a Willy, to some hot springs, where the scenery was STUNNING. We got to the natural hot springs (there were two options, but we sprung [hehe, get it?] to go to the farther one in San Vincente, which was incredible

 

10. Go to the hot springs in San Vincente.  

 

Along with the aforementioned hot springs, there’s also waterfalls, and a literal hot river.  

I was at the hot springs for four hours which was not enough time. Future me, stay longer! But, alas, we had another plane to catch. This time, we were off to Cartagena!

 

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When we got to Cartagena, we (you guessed it) explored, making our way to the Old City, the Walled City, San Francisco, and beyond.

 

 

 

The center of Cartagena was beautiful, and it was nice variety from the center of the country, where we’d just been.  It was less rainy, more humid and much, much warmer, which made exploring the streets muggy. We soaked in all of the bright colors of the buildings and, as we were walking, we found a tiny local bar, which I loved because it was somewhere the locals actually went and liked. They had wifi and cold drinks — I ordered a CosteNita, which is a super tiny beer. So, yeah, I ordered another.

 

We walked all the way to the beach part of town and admired fisherman bringing in their hauls for the day.  Watching people buy fish directly from the fisherman not only made my stomach rumble but also inspired me to eat some fish.

 

 

 

 

While we hung around the beach area during lunch, we made friends with a group of students who were selling popsicles. We asked them why, and they told us that they were trying to raise enough money to travel around Colombia by bus. We OBVIOUSLY donated to the cause, excited to see young, adventurous travelers trying to find a way. Dom and I hung out with them for a while and took pictures at sunset.  

 

 

 

Maybe it was the fact that it was getting hotter outside, or the spontaneous nature of Doms personality….. but as we passed a barbershop Dom decided it was a good time get his beard trimmed. I couldn’t have agreed more. In fact, that’s tip numero 12…

 

12.  Get your beard trimmed in Colombia.

It was a great experience! They did a really fabulous job, and I got to chill with a fresh beer during the process.

Dom and I stayed in Cartagena for a few nights. If we had gotten to stay longer, we probably would have gone to an island (cough, future me, cough).  Or, if I had my yellow fever vaccine, Minca. Oh Minca, so sad to have missed you. Since we didn’t though, Dom and I chose Medellin as our final Colombian city. Another flight!

 

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During our stay in Medellin, we stayed with a local host family who was incredibly kind and didn’t speak any English. Cerro. Which was great for my Spanish, and, as I said before, this was the city I want to spend time immersing myself in a language class.

Tip numero 14…

14.  Sammi, if you have the time or are able stay for a month or two, take a Spanish class!

Anyway, we settled in at our hosts’ house, and for lunch, we found a modern, but traditional dish right across the street from our homestay.

 

 

We found ourselves in the fancy (read: touristic) part of Medallian. It’s one of those places where it’s touristy for good reason because it was CHARMING!  

Dom and I picked a restaurant that had local vibes so as not to be too touristy, but still hang in the area, drink some ClubColombia El Dorada, and appreciate the good vibes.

 

It was around Halloween and I decided to buy a shirt, dressing myself up as a Colombian futbal player.  

 

Other people were dressed up too, and my favorite costumes were the life-sized uno cards, callback to Baltimore and my glimpses.

We enjoyed Medellin, seeing this city transform from day to night.  Dom had to leave first thing in the morning, but I had more days on my own (finally!), I spent my time practicing (communicating) in Spanish with my lovely hosts.

I took my new friend, Jose Luis, out to lunch. I told him to pick anywhere— his favorite place! He asked, “Anywhere?” And I was like, in Spanish, “Yup, your favorite restaurant.” So we started walking, and something must have gotten lost in translation because I was expecting a local place with some really great, traditional, fresh cuisine, but we ended up here:

 

After lunch, Jose’s mother joined us. We walked around the city, went to some botanical gardens, and happened upon a small festival (not to be confused with a carnival) along the way.  Muy divertido!

I enjoyed the days with them and had a predictably great time practicing Spanish in *our apartment. One night, I put my Halloween costume to good use and went to a futbol game– Medellin vs. Bucaramanga. I met up with a group of gringos outside the game waiting for it to start. There was no drinking inside the stadium (smart), but we had hours before the game to hang out, paint our faces, and talk. It was a beautiful night.

When it was game time, we went in and took our seats in the stadium — I sat next to a sign that (in Spanish) said “Always home field advantage!”  There was SO much energy in the stadium throughout the entire game, the spectators would randomly clap at different rhythms (and as someone with no rhythm, I really got into it).

 

 

 

We had such a great time!!  As the game went on, there was an escalation of celebration — we were jumping, screaming, clapping — SO MUCH EXERCISE, we maybe got as much cardio in as the futbol players. I LOVED IT.  The whole stadium was shaking.  The game went into overtime!!!! Insanity!!!!  Luckily, Medellin ended up winning. It was DEFINITELY an experience of a lifetime to be at that game and by far the best sports game I have ever, ever EVER experienced. 

What a FANTASTIC last night in Medellin. I reflected on my time in Colombia as I headed back “home” in a (super cheap) Uber. At night, Medellin was so lit up, it looked like a twinkling night sky. Breathtaking. The next day, I went to the airport with dreams of coming back.

 

At the airport, I took inventory of my funds. I’d spent about $33USD a day including the Airbnbs, food, and domestic flights.  

16. JUST GO ALREADY!!!

Colombia is waiting.

Besos,
‘mi