Brett's Southern Crossing

After being ill with a stomach bug for a couple of days in Taganga, I continued on to San Gil.  The town is known for an abundance of cheap adventure sports, and after being cooped up in my dorm with a stomach bug for a few days I was ready to do all of them!

I'm in the front in the black t-shirt

San Gil is best known for its river rafting, with a class IV/V river a short drive from town.  It had been raining quite a bit that week and I was happy to hear that the river had just reopened the day of my arrival after being closed due to dangerous conditions (the more dangerous the better, if you ask me).  So I dropped my bags and jumped in a taxi, and an hour later I had my helmet and lifejacket on and was heading down a river with 3 meter waves nearly swallowing the raft whole.  The plus side of all the extra water from the rain is that with the water level higher it’s harder to hit rocks and boulders, and therefore harder to capsize.  So there was plenty of excitement and our biggest problem was one dropped paddle that a safety kayaker was able to quickly fetch.

The next day I decided to try Hydrospeed with the same company.  Hydrospeed is basically white water rafting, without the raft.  You go in the river and your torso floats on a foam body board with special handles to make it easy to hang on to for a long time.  Then you just swim into the rapids (with duckfeet flippers) and let the river do the rest.  Obviously we went on a more tame river than the day before, but there were still about a half-dozen rapids.  It was fun but I didn’t like my guide very much for this trip – he was way ahead of the group, and after kicking for 5 minutes to try to catch up he’d take off while I was still 50 meters away and tired from swimming too!  Eventually a bunch of us gave up on the guide, and ignored the safety kayaker trying to shoo us ahead.  It’s much more fun to just enjoy a lazy float down the river between rapids.  Hyrdrospeed is a bit intense…imagine swimming head first into the rapids, and I did bounce off a few rocks below the surface while trying to kick.  But I would definitely do it again.

That afternoon I went to explore one of the many caves nearby.  My hostel recommended a smaller cave that isn’t in the guidebook, and myself and another guy in my hostel paid about $12 for an hour-and-a-half tour of the cave.  It was interesting and had a few really tight passages plus some big chambers inside.  The beginning of the cave was probably the trickiest part.  We had to crawl under a shelf of rock with the water level standing about 2 inches below, which meant doing a sort-of crab walk or limbo so that my mouth could just make it into the gap of air to breathe.

Me and my guide, flying

The next day, it was time to try paragliding.  I went with Kadin, also staying in my hostel, and we drove with our two guides up to the top of a hill overlooking a nice valley.  Our guides didn’t speak English but I thought they would still give some kind of safety briefing in Spanish.  Instead they just clipped us to them and we zoomed into the air.  Actually, Kadin had the misfortune of going first and the guide realized the wind was so strong they would need to attach extra weight to us.  They tried to land but mostly just crashed, and Kadin scraped quite a bit of skin off his shoulder.  It was a lot of fun, and I was surprised both at how fast they could swoop around above the tree canopy but also how much control they had.  They were able to ascend, descend, move side-to-side, swing back and forth, and pretty much fly wherever they wanted.  The hill we took off from was surrounded by lush forests and tobacco fincas, so we had a great view too.

Kadin

I finally decided to keep myself at ground level and on dry land.  First I went to check out Parque Gallineral, located by the river in the city.  The park has a series of trails crossing creeks, massive old-growth trees, flowers, tropical birds, and a spring fed swimming pool for visitors to enjoy.  Next, I went to the main square in San Gil which is action packed, especially at night where it becomes the place to socialize for the town.  And I also went to check out the nearby Parque Nacional del Chicamoca.  The park includes a huge canyon with the option to take a cable car from one side to the other (a lengthy trip of at least a half hour).  The valley was nice, but overall I think this park is easily skippable.  The main park area is more of a theme park for families, with zip lines and concession stands all over the place.  The cable car is impressive but quite expensive at 36,000 pesos including park entrance (about $19-20), and roundtrip transit is another 15,000 pesos.

A Huge Tree in Parque Gallineral

Finally, I took a bus to the picturesque colonial town of Barichara and hiked the Camino Real (a historic stone path for horse travel) to the nearby town of Guane.  The Camino heads through some nice valleys and makes a great day hike.  I even came across some baby goats munching on fruit that had fallen on the trail, and they entertained me by leaping up and down off the nearby stone walls that line the trail.  They’re impressively agile, and can jump higher than I would have expected! In Guane, which must have just a few hundreds people, a telenovela was being filmed and there were packs of people in the square wearing 1800s era soldier uniforms, women in fancy victorian dresses, etc.  I watched for about a hour and to be honest acting looks like the most boring job imaginable.  You pretty much stand around all the time and for a few minutes a day, you do something on camera.

Camino Real

San Gil has plenty of other options too – multi day hikes, rock climbing, rappelling down waterfalls, or just hiking to see the waterfalls.  I think anyone could enjoy a few days here without any trouble.

Farther up the Caribbean coast is Santa Marta and the fishing village of Taganga.  Taganga is a popular stop for backpackers looking for the beach, but I had the bad luck to be sick while I was there so I didn’t do much.  On the way there I had stopped with my friend Katrin to spend a night in Teyrona.

Katrin at an unnamed beach

The park is gorgeous, one of the most beautiful places I’ve seen.  It’s a combination of the perfect sand, the turquoise color of the water, and the jungle and hills that you have to hike through to get to it.  From the park entrance it takes about an hour to hike to the first beach, Arrecifes.  This beach is too dangerous to swim at, but has a big area for camping and hammock rental along with a few small restaurants.  From there a number of other beaches and camp areas are available by walking up the coast.  We stopped at a small unnamed cove with great water and plenty of local vendors selling food, fruit, and drinks, then continued to La Piscina (the pool), the second of three well known beaches.  La Piscina is protected by a barrier reef, so the waves are very small there.

With another day in the park we could have hiked up the ruins of Pueblito, which is supposed to be similar to the Lost City but much smaller.  Katrin was on a schedule to make a flight to Argentina so we skipped this, and just spend one night in hammocks and a day at the beaches.

From the cold to the hot…Cartagena, on the Caribbean coast,  is really only about 85 degrees, but it’s very humid and felt oppressively hot even though I’m used to high heat.  The bus ride to Cartagena was 12 hours and absolutely miserable because the air conditioning in the bus was so cold the temperature was probably in the 50s.  I was wearing shorts, jeans, two tshirts and had the leggings of my long underwear pulled onto my arms and I was still absolutely frigid.  I had heard about this odd quirk of bus service to Cartagena from other backpackers but didn’t take it seriously enough.  Most of the locals were bundled up and covered in thick blankets they had brought.  No one I talked to seemed to be able to explain it.

Cartagena has a beautiful historic old town, the best in Colombia without a doubt.  Cartagena was a key Spanish port in the Caribbean in the 1500s and often came under attack from rival nations and pirates.  The town is surrounded by a huge defensive wall which was constructed after Sir Francis Drake took the town hostage for several months.  Today, fancy restaurants, shops, hotels, and boutiques fill all of the beautiful and brightly painted colonial buildings.  It just feels Caribbean here, due to the weather and the architecture and the ethnic makeup of the people and the pace things move.

Beyond viewing the historical sights, there are day trips by boat to nearby beaches.  I spent plenty of time at the pool in my hostel, Media Luna and since my next stop was farther up the Caribbean coast I skipped the beach here.  I did notice from the roof terrace of the hostel that there is a modern downtown to the city as well, with a nice skyline of tall buildings.  I didn’t hear anything about it though and it seems strange that visiting the rest of the city is so uncommon.

A Bamboo Forest in Plaza Mayor

Medellin was a surprise and turns out to be my favorite big city I’ve visited.  The Colombian economy has been growing really rapidly over the past 10 years, and Medellin has grown rapidly as well.  It may be the cleanest most modern city I’ve ever seen, the weather is perfect and stays mostly the same year-round (leading to the nickname City of Eternal Spring), there are tons of good bars and restaurants, amazing ripe fruit is sold by street vendors everywhere for 50 cents per large cup, beautiful girls are never out of sight, and a new modern metro system makes getting around easy.  The perfect weather and relaxed atmosphere made me feel like I could have just dropped my pack there and never left.

Quiet Residential Street in El Poblado

I stayed at a hostel called Black Sheep, which is well run and in great shape.  There was a really fun group of people there during the time I stayed which can make a huge difference in how much I enjoy a place.  The hostel is in an upscale neighborhood called El Poblado.  I loved the area because it has a narrow river that runs down one of the main roads and the side streets have grass, trees, and sometimes even lawns.  Most big cities when you think about it are completely paved over, and it’s amazing how much a bit of grass can do to make a neighborhood feel like the kind of place you’d enjoy living.

The central city areas are designed nicely as well.  I could tell they really put a lot of thought into architecting good common spaces, with lots of plazas and mixed-use buildings.  Many places in the city have small bamboo forests with paths and benches, which are great places to relax in the shade or eat lunch.  There’s almost a zen feeling in some places!

A Butterfly Enjoys the Flowers in the Botanic Gardens

A few highlights that stood out to me were the Botanical Gardens, the cable cars, and a day trip to Guatapé.  The botanic gardens are the best I’ve seen, they’re free, and they include a jungle walk, butterfly house, and an orchid area that is covered by a massive 50-60 foot high sculpture that provides shelter to crowds for concerts and other live events.  The cable cars go up into the hills and have great views of the valley the city is built in.  They’re not the typical pricey tourist cable cars, instead they are functional part of the metro system and you can transfer from the metro trains.  Some of the poorer neighborhoods are built on the tough terrain of the hills, and the cable car stations serve these areas.  I really enjoyed the neighborhood at the top station of the cable car.  It had winding streets packed with small food stalls and one-table street bars, tons of children playing, and some great viewpoints.

Guatapé

Guatapé is a lush green area full of lakes (artificially formed by a dam).  It has an attractive town brightly painted and with storefronts covered in frescoes, as well as a massive rock that you can climb almost 1000 steps to summit and enjoy the view.  Definitely good for a day trip.

Paraguay’s capital, Asunción was my last stop before moving on to Colombia.  For a capital city it seemed really relaxed, but I suppose that’s because it’s one of the smallest capitals in South America and kind of a forgotten place when it comes to tourism.  I was glad to finally be able to stay in a hostel, both because it’s cheaper and because the staff at hostels are used to giving advice to backpackers.

The Black Cat Hostel is the only hostel in all of Paraguay, and it’s less than a year old.  I could tell that the staff (who I think were also the owners) were really proud of being on the frontier of backpacker tourism in Paraguay, and I don’t think I’ve ever stayed somewhere that was more helpful.  They put together a huge customized map of places to go and see, and seemed to enjoy socializing with the guests.

Asunción itself has all the usual capital city sites – government buildings and museums.  One of the more interesting places to see is the Panteón de Los Héroes, a monument to Paraguay’s war heroes located in the main plaza.  An honor guard in full dress uniform stands guard, and inside are statues of several Presidents and war heroes (for example, Mariscal Estigarribia, who just about everything in Paraguay seems to be named after).  The walls are covered with hundreds of bronze plaques, given as tributes to Paraguay’s heroes from government, civilian, and military organizations throughout the world.  I was able to locate several from branches of the US Government and Military.

Tomb of the Unknown Child Soldier on the left

The remains of some of the heroes and Presidents can be viewed in a circular area about 15 feet below floor level.  Also included are the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the Tomb of the Unknown Child Soldier.  During the 1865-1870 Paraguay was at war with Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil (the War of the Triple Alliance). 60%-70% of the population was killed and the male population was reduced to approximately 28,000, which resulted in boys as young as 12 being conscripted to fight before the Paraguayan military surrendered.  In the 20th century, Paraguay and Bolivia went to war over the Chaco desert region which was rumored to have oil reserves.  Foreign oil companies funded both sides of the war, though I’m not sure if any oil was ever found.  Amazingly, Paraguay has only been a democracy since 1993, so as you can imagine some of the government institutions are still very young.

Brahman Cows, showing off their ribbons in the upper right corner

While I was there Asunción was also having one of it’s biggest annual events, the 2010 Expo.  The bulk of the expo has become an attraction for families, like a state fair, with huge booths run by cell phone companies, auto companies, and retail brands.  In the back are the traditional rural displays, including farm equipment and livestock.  I couldn’t help but wonder why there were only convention girls in the front of the fair…if booth babes can sell cell phones why can’t they sell sheep and genetically engineering animal semen?

Asunción has a number of other nearby places to visit, sometimes called the Central Circuit.  It includes lakes, islands, hikes, etc.  This is where I finally decided I should leave Paraguay, despite there being a lot more there that I want to do.  So many of the things to do seem best suited to summer, and I was visiting in winter.  I had been wearing thermal underwear and all my layers for over a week and was still constantly cold, and hot showers are a rarity.  I decided to return to see more of Asunción, the Pantanal, and the Chaco another time when I either had appropriate clothes or during the summer.

Since it was cold, I decided to go somewhere warm and Colombia seemed like a great idea.  I couldn’t find any cheap international fares to anywhere from Asunción, which is only served by a few international carriers so I grit my teeth and paid quite a bit to fly to Medellin.

Encarnación is located in the far south of Paraguay, just across the border from Posadas, Argentina.  Some of the earliest European settlement of this region was done by Jesuit missionaries, who built several dozen communities in the area.  Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil all have a good number of sites to visit in this area.  When the Spanish took over, the Jesuits were forced to leave, but the ruins of the cities they built are well preserved and interesting to visit.  I was a bit amazed by how intact the sites are, since on my previous trips to Peru most of the Incan sites had been stripped down and the stones used in Catholic cathedrals in the Spanish colonial towns there.

In Paraguay, the most famous site is called Trinidad and is easy to visit on a local bus.  The entrance ticket is valid for two other sites as well, and an occasional minibus for locals can give a ride from the service station on the main route to Jesus, where another good ruin site is located.  I didn’t take advantage, but guides are available at the entrances for a few dollars.

Crossing the Punte de Amistad bridge from Brazil to Uruguay (near Iguazu Falls) puts you right in the heart of Paraguay’s Ciudad del Este.  It’s crazy here, with hordes of people, thousands of shops packed with cheap and possibly contraband goods, portable grills crammed with grilled meats, ankle deep trash, and insane traffic.  The whole place reminded me a bit of a modern-day town like the pirate town in Pirates of the Caribbean (where Johnny Depp gets slapped by all the women).

The town is known throughout South America as the place to go to buy cheap electronics and imported goods, but they sell just about everything you could imagine.  Paraguay isn’t visited by backpackers much and so there’s no hostels in the city.  I ended up staying at a German owned hotel (Hotel Austria).  I often saw the family working in the hotel, including their kids, and was kind of intrigued as to what originally would have led them to move to this town of all places (though I didn’t ask).

Only Argentina really controls their border, Paraguay and Brazil allow people to pass in and out without stopping them.  My bus raced past the border to the bus terminal, so I had to find my way back to the immigrations office near the bridge to get stamped in (as a US Citizen I had to apply for a visa in advance in Buenos Aires).  The receptionist in the hotel told me it was dangerous to walk there after dark, so I skipped it the first night.  The second day I intended to go during daylight, but a mix-up with the bus routes returned me to town way later than I had planned and it was after dark again.

My strategy for potentially being mugged is to take enough money with me to satisfy a mugger, but nothing else.  I figure you don’t want to end up with someone snarling “that’s all you’ve got?!” and you also don’t want to lose a camera or anything else valuable.  I ended up having no trouble, but the main route back to the bridge was pretty creepy.  During the day it’s crammed with vendors, but as soon as the sun sets the shops shut thick steel shutters over the windows and doors and the street stalls are packed up and hauled away.  What’s left is incredible amounts of trash, homeless and crazy people burning it in makeshift campfires, and people lurking out of the bushes.  The whole place smells like pee.  Definitely somewhere I would not return, but I felt like I had to legally enter the country at some point…

The most intriguing part of the area to me for tourism was the Itapu Binacional, a massive hydroelectric dam that produces more power than any dam in the world.  It’s considered one of the 7 modern wonders of the world and provides 90% of Paraguay’s power and 19% of Brazil’s power.  On the Paraguayan side they offer free tours.  Transit to the dam is a bit complicated, but I eventually found that I could just take a bus to Hernandarias and jump off when the bus turned off the main highway, walking the rest of the way.  Unfortunately the technical tour which includes a tour inside the dam, power generation facility, turbines, and control room requires a week advance notice to request.  Instead I did the “Panoramic Tour” which is a quick 30 minute drive around the dam in a bus and was a big disappointment.

During the rainy season, more water flow through the spillway than all of Iguazu Falls

The dam flooded a huge area and destroyed a lot of the native forest, including a set of falls as impressive as Iguazu in Brazil.  I did lots of paperwork and got permission to visit one of the few remaining forest preserves, called Refugio Tati Yupi.  After taking another bus to Hernandarias, I had to take a taxi the rest of the way to the park.  I had two sets of papers signed by the park director, which the shotgun-toting guards at the gate near the road insisted on seeing.  They initially said that taxis weren’t allowed inside, but the driver sweet-talked them and we were allowed through.  A few kilometers down the road we came to a second set of shotgun-toting guards, who needed my second copy of papers.  I was a bit confused by all the security, wondering if trees were under siege in Paraguay or something.  I was surprised to find it almost like a summer camp near the lake, with picnic tables, a football pitch, and visitors center.

After spending the day hiking around the forest I was able to see capibaras, lots of tropical birds, armadillos, and anteaters.  It’s a shame, but many species are threatened or endangered now.  Near the end of the day, one of the guards had tracked down some monkeys and had me follow him out to them.  We shucked and threw out some maize, and after a while one of the monkeys ventured down to grab an ear.  They’re very nervous, apparently because people will hunt them.

Capibaras are fortunately not threatened, and they’re one of my favorite South American animals.  They’re basically a rodent of unusual size and can weigh up to 250 pounds!

I visited Uruguay twice, the first time was in February as a weekend trip between my first and second month of class (and well before I started traveling through Argentina and Chile).  This was the height of summer, and so myself and a few classmates went to Punta del Diablo to visit the beach.

Buquebus Ferry

A visit to Buenos Aires can easily include a visit to Uruguay, you just need to take a 1 hour ferry from downtown across the river.  There are very few departures to the capital city of Montevideo (which takes several hours), instead it’s common to take the 1-hour fast-ferry to Colonia del Sacramento and then connect on a 3-hour bus.  Most people are happy to do this, since Colonia is a nice place to visit.  Most people would probably use clichéd terms like picturesque, quaint, or sleepy.  Many people stop to enjoy a restaurant, or stay the night in a bed and breakfast and zoom around the town on cheap rented scooters (if the 10 minute walk from one end to the other sounds too taxing).  It’s a small town with an interesting historic quarter, which includes some original structures from the 1700s.  A couple of hours is probably all that’s really needed here though.

Historic Colonia

East of Montevideo is Punta del Este, the famous beach town that attracts South America’s rich and famous.  Steven, Nicki, Shelby and I decided to go farther east, almost to the border with Brazil to a beach town called Punta del Diablo.  This place was amazing, and exactly what what a small little beach down to be: a patchwork of cabanas, cabins, and houses; stretches of bright white sand with the ocean rolling in; a few outdoor bars with raeggetone bands playing at night; decaying fishing boats winched up onto the sand; dirt streets with stray dogs and dune buggies roaming around; and an isolated feel despite the crowds of vacationers.

Boats, buggies, sand, sun, beer....what more could you want?

When we visited it was the height of vacation season for Argentina and Uruguay, and this town of 500 fisherman that just recently scored its first ATM was packed with 15,000 visitors clutching their thermoses and maté gourds.  Still, it seemed like there was plenty of beach available and we took full advantage of the ocean and the sun, in the end getting terrible sunburns after falling asleep on the beach.

My next trip was very different.  I wanted to visit Montevideo before I left, so I returned in May.  By this time it was cold, rainy, and a bit miserable overall.  Montevideo is an oddly dead city on the weekends, but interesting to see.  I walked through the downtown area and then out to the Rambla, a path that skirts the coast and the various beaches of Montevideo out to the suburbs.  I managed to bring two cameras with dead batteries, so below I present my only photo of Montevideo:

The other main thing people tend to do in Uruguay is visit a cattle estancia (ranch), for some country life and good steak dinners.  Maybe I’ll have time on my next visit…

Iguazu Falls, dreary in the rain

Iguazu Falls is taller and wider than Niagara and is made up of almost 200 individual cascades in a lush green area tucked between Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay.  On the Argentine side, visiting the falls takes an entire day for hiking the various trails and taking boat tours to various locations.  It was a lot of fun, which was a bit surprising because it was raining all day and I spent almost 10 hours soaking wet!

The town of Puerto Iguazu is small but pleasant.  I think that Foz do Iguacu on the Brazilian side is larger, but I didn’t have a visa to visit so I didn’t go (although in reality, Argentina is the only one of the three countries that bothers stopping people at the border).

It’s definitely worth visiting, but consider flying – Buenos Aires is 18 hours on the bus.  I did actually get an amazing night of sleep on this journey by buying a suite-class lie-flat seat.

After 4 and a half months living in Buenos Aires I feel like I should have a lot to say about it.  In a way I guess I do, but I’m not sure how to summarize it into a blog post.  My time there was split in half, 2 months living in Las Cañitas and 2 and a half months living in Recoleta with a 2 month trip though Argentina and Chile in the middle.

My Apartment Building in Las Canitas

The first time I enrolled in Spanish classes at the Universidad de Belgrano, which had good teachers and materials but was about 50% more expensive than most schools and class sizes were a far too large at 15-18.  Classes were 5 days a week, 5 hours a day.  It worked well enough for learning basic spanish, but I think it’s a poor way to learn advanced spanish or get proficient in conversation.  The second time I studied with two private professors, meeting in cafes and restaurants, for a combined total of about 10 hours of instruction each week.  This really helped my speaking ability but I have to admit I could have studied a bit more between classes.  Still, by having a resonable number of class hours I was able to devote more time outside of class to practice, which really helps a lot.  Too much class is counterproductive in the end.

Profesor Gérman

Profesora Natalia

Until the end of my time there I hardly did anything touristy.  It was nice because it seems like I really lived like a local for the most part.  Buenos Aires has a lot going on and an incredible number of cafes, ice cream shops, and restaurants.  Everything is available for free delivery from your laundry to ice cream to anything you want from the local minimart.  There are plenty of downsides too – terrible air quality, dog poop all over the sidewalk, etc.

I didn’t learn quite as much Spanish as I hoped.  I can talk to anyone about just about anything, but I’m still a ways from being fluent.  I’m planning to keep working on it in Austin though.

It was an amazing experience and I’m glad I made time to do it!