Bogota Blogger

Lots of Americans have heard of Medellin, and it’s almost invariably because that is where Pablo Escobar lived, developed his drug empire, kidnapped and killed, and eventually died. But it is also Colombia’s second largest city, and has about the best year-round weather you can imagine.

In Colombia and the rest of the tropics weather is dependent on elevation, not distance from the equator. Medellin is still in the mountains, but has a much lower elevation than Bogota, so the weather is basically low-to-mid-seventies year round. Humidity is also reasonable, so it’s kind of like south Florida in winter–just about perfect.

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Last weekend I went to Pereira, one of the three department capitals in the coffee region, and in the mountains and a valleys outside of town is where the palma de cera (wax palm) is found. This is the Colombian national tree, not because it’s common in the country, but because it’s so UNCOMMON in the world. 

There’s a town called Salento that is about an hour outside of Pereira, and from the mirador at the top of the town you can look down over a valley that the River Quindio flows through.  This valley and the slopes above it is where the wax palm flourishes. It’s protected now, of course, since it’s the national tree, but for years was exploited, and now is a fairly rare tree.

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About a 1.5 hour hike straight up the mountain from Cabo San Juan is an old Indian town known as Pueblito.  There’s a more famous and probably more interesting town called Ciudad Perdida (Lost City) nearby also, but it’s a six-day expedition (three day hike up, two day hike down), so we weren’t able to take that in on this trip.

The hike up has some challenging spots, over rocks, through cave-like spaces created by huge  boulders, a few streams to cross. But still, lots of people do it wearing flip-flops, and you see the occasional barefoot hiker.  At a few points there are great views of Cabo San Juan, but the trail is mostly jungle-like, so these views are just occasional.

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The main reason we went to the Coast near Santa Marta in Semana Santa was to go to Cabo San Juan in Parque Natural Tayrona.  Cabo means Cape, so I guess the name translates as Cape of Saint John the Guide.  San Juan is a sort of remote beach in the national park that takes a little effort to get to, so is in much better shape and more natural than most of the public beaches.  It’s also located in a national park.

To get to San Juan, we took a “taxi” from the Market (Mercado) in Santa Marta to the entrance of the Parque Tayrona (about 45 minutes).  This is assuming that any vehicle that hires out to drive people places can be called a taxi.  Then we rode in the back of a truck for about 20 minutes to the beginning of the trail to the beaches.  Here you see a photo of both the taxi that dripped us off and the truck waiting to take us to the next point.  At this point we could have hired a burro to carry our things, but we had left some of our luggage at La Casa de Felipe in Taganga, so we each had just our backpacks.  The walk/hike to the beach is just under two hours, and is beautiful, through palm forests, and not too difficult. 

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On the road up the hill from the beach towards Casa de Felipe is an inconspicuous-looking (like most in Taganga) looking building on the left.  It’s Los Baguettes de Maria.  Maria is a Bogotano who moved to Taganga because she had a friend who suggested that she could start a restaurant there more easily than in Bogota, where the unemployment rate is outrageous, the living in expensive, and the competetion is fierce. 

Jose and I just wandered in one day and met Jim, a South African from Johannnesburg who works there.  We sat at the bar where he was making juices to order from a long list of the incredible tropical fruits that are available on the coast in Colombia.  I think that day alone we ended up ordering something like four different concoctions.  When you order a juice, you watch them peel the fruit, blend it, strain it, mix it with whatever you want (I like it with milk), so you’ve probably gulped it down just about two minutes after the fruit was peeled.  The only way it could be fresher is if they picked it off the tree when the order is put in.

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La Casa de Felipe is listed in guide books like Lonely Planet, and my friend Mark had stayed there over Christmas break and recommended it. It’s not on the beach, but a less than 10-minute walk up the hill from there, and being on the beach in Taganga is not such a big deal, actually. There are a couple other hostels in town (one called Pelikan, on the main road, looks pretty charming and they said they were charging $20,000 per person (about $8.50 at the moment). And there are some hotels, but Casa de Felipe offers just about everything you could get at the types of hotels that seemed to be available, and for better prices. Our room was about $23, but had a private bath. It’s possible to get cheaper accomodations there, though, by sharing a bath. The place itself is kind of an oasis, lots of hammocks, terraces, trees and flowers. The hammocks are for lounging, but they are willing to rent them out for sleeping when rooms are tight. Good for backpackers but also enough of a hotel to be comfortable in general. Like most places on the coast except for the most upscale, they have no hot water, but the water is warm to start with and hot water not really necessary.

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Since we were looking to head to Parque Tayrona for quiet and uncrowded beaches, we spent the first two nights (and the last one) in a little fishing village near Santa Marta called Taganga, which was a step in the right direction. It’s more of a tourist village than a fishing village these days, probably, but still not TOO touristy, and still definitely small, so there’s some charm because of that. Also, people come here to head out on diving and snorkling expeditions.

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Semana Santa is the week leading up to Easter, and it’s the biggest national holiday there is.  It translates loosely as Hoy Week, but literally means Saint’s Week.  I think it’s somewhat like Thanksgiving in the US, because the time window is narrow and specific, whereas Christmas is more spread out and with more flexibility.  Almost everyone travels during Semana Santa, and all schools are certainly out of session. 

Travel is hellish during this week, because the system is not big enough to accomodate all the people who want to go somewhere.  Prices, especially plane tickets (where there’s little competition to begin with) skyrocket.  Resorts will be jam-packed, and getting to popular destinations can be pretty difficult.

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Walking around late Saturday afternoon in Barichara, just across the side street from the church on the Plaza Mayor, I walked into an old colonial house that had an open door and seemed to be some sort of restaurant or hotel. A guy came up behind me and said something in Spanish, and I answered in Spanish, but when I turned around he got one look at my face and said, “You speak English!” Since I do, I said yes, and we started chatting.

It turns out he was the owner, and lives in Washington, DC, just about a mile from where I lived for ten years. I had Mark and Jose come inside, and the owner, whose name is Jairo, introduced us to this wife, Vivian, and Vivian’s sister, Janet, who runs the place. Jairo is an architect and designer, and Vivian works for an engineering firm in DC–they’re both Colombian but have lived in the States for many years.

So, Jairo and Vivian had converted this colonial house into a 7-room inn and restaurant, and it’s amazing. Like most colonial houses, the rooms are all built around an open courtyard, and in part of the courtyard they had built a small tower with a crow’s nest type space at the top for a couple tables, where your view is of the belltower of the church. Beautiful.

Even if you’er not staying there, you should drop in for dinner and drinks. They also play American music from the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s.

They fed us dessert and Bailey’s, and told us about a park for the arts that Jairo designed and built up near the church on the top of the large hill overlooking town. So, we went the next day. (Phtos coming soon)…some very amazing sculpture from a competition that was held about 8 or 9 years ago. Lots of landscaping and just peaceful places to sit and contemplate. Check them out.

When we arrived at the San Gil bus station last Friday, we immediately set out to buy return tickets, because we were not able to get them in Bogota, and since it was a puente, we were afraid maybe we wouldn’t get seats to come home. But it turns out there were a lot of options, so we bought tickets with a different bus compay, called Copetran, because they had the most convenient time for us.

But when we got to the bus station the next Monday, it turns out there were lots of companies trying to sell tickets to Bogota, and it would have been possible to get a 20-30% discount if we were buying the tickets on the spot. Out Copetran bus didn’t show up by the time we were supposed to leave, and the way things work in Colombia, it could have been many more hours before it showed. In fact, they were advertising a 2:00PM trip, when our trip was supposed to be at 1:00PM, which was pretty much admitting that they never intended to leave at 1:00.

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