Brett's Southern Crossing

Manizales was pretty much the finale of my trip.  I spent a few more days in Medellin afterwards before flying home, but didn’t do much of anything.  Manizales is a midsize city near the mountains and is very hilly.  Like Salento it’s part of the Zona Cafetera, and it’s also near the Parque Nacional Los Nevados.

Dried, washed coffee. Broken and defective beans are sorted out.

My first day trip was to visit the coffee finca Hacienda Venencia, which is much larger than the little farm owned by my hostel in Salento.  The tour here is 2 hours long and very detailed…it covers Arabica vs Robusta coffee, the growing process, harvesting, sorting and washing the coffee, coffee markets and exporting, and roasting.  The tour also visits the massive hacienda of the family that owns the business.  Not only is it large and beautiful, but it’s surrounded by amazing gardens and grounds, swimming pools, and the view of the valley from the porch is spectacular.  These people have peacocks roaming the grounds, to give you an idea how luxurious it is.

The B&B/Hostel

Hacienda Venencia also has a smaller picturesque little house with rooms for rent.  It would be a perfect place to relax in a hammock and hike through the coffee farms for a few days.  But it is a bit remote, there are only a few jeeps each day that go between the farm and town.  These jeeps are the same old Willys that I mentioned in my Salento post, and the local saying that there’s always room for one more was definitely true here – on the ride back we had 17 people in the jeep and there wasn’t even anyone on the roof yet!

The next day I went to see Parque Nacional Los Nevados.  This park in the high mountains is supposed to have amazing views, but the day I went we basically spent the whole day driving around in clouds.  The scenery when you can see only a hundred yards is barren….just rocks, with no vegetation growing.  It also was amazingly cold once we got up to the higher altitudes!  I didn’t bring the right clothes for 32 degree weather.  Our last stop for the day on the tour was at 4800 meters altitude, where we hiked another 200 meters up the mountain.  For some reason on this day I had tons of energy, and while the group slowly plodded up the mountain I pretty much raced up, doing it in half the time of the others.  I was barely even breathing hard.

There were a number of national police doing this at the same time, for training purposes I guess.  As I zoomed past two officers, one asked me if I was a guide.  He was your typical officer….looking strong, with a buzz cut and a very grim look on his face.  These two guys were huffing and puffing, walking about 10 steps and then needing a few minutes to rest leaning on their rifles.  The climb was killing them, and I could tell he was really hoping I was used to climbing the mountain twice a day at the pace I was overtaking them.  I said no and he scowled a bit and started walking on, then he slipped and did a faceplant straight into the mud.  He had fallen on top of his rifle, which now had mud caked in the barrel and bolt, which is think is breaking the cardinal rule of soldiering (don’t wreck your weapon!).  Needless to say he was embarrassed and it didn’t help his mood at all, so I didn’t stay to watch and continued on quickly.

The tour was mostly a bust, but at least I got one good story out of it!

We stopped at some hot springs to warm up in this nice valley

Medellin was my favorite big city, but Salento was my favorite place overall.  The best time to visit is the weekend, when the village is overrun by Colombians taking a weekend trip.  Salento is about 3 hours from Cali ánd 5 hours from Medellin, and just an hour or so from the midsize cities of Armenia, Pereira, and Manizales.  So it’s ideally located for weekend family getaways.

I arrived on a Friday evening and found the restaurants lining the main plaza all had platforms set up with outdoor tables, many blasting salsa music from speakers the size of small cars.  The inner part of the plaza had lines of tents with a few picnic tables and grills, serving typical dinner specials: a choice of meat with rice, a fried plantain, beans or lentils, salad, soup, an arepa (flatbread), and sometimes a fried egg.  In Salento the specialty seemed to be plates with trout.  During the day there are a number of great cafes and coffee houses to relax in.  One place not in the guidebooks is Alegra’s, with great gourmet food and amazing cakes.

Our hostel's coffee finca

Coffee beans -- the red ones are ripe

My hostel was called The Plantation House, and was originally part of a coffee finca.  The place had a few dorms and lots of private rooms, and had a diverse group of guests including backpackers, older couples on vacation, and even a large Belgian family with lots of kids.  The hostel is owned by an English/Colombian couple, and they recently bought a nearby coffee finca as a side business, which they run informative tours of for just a couple of dollars.  The finca has lots of coffee, fruit trees, and a bamboo forest.  Beyond the tour it’s also possible to stay on the farm or volunteer to work a half day in exchange for lunch.

Inside the shell, a raw coffee bean

One of the most beautiful places in Colombia is the nearby Valle de Cocora.  It’s a lush green valley full of cow pastures, and is known for its wax palms, which tower 60 meters over the forest.  There’s a full day hike that’s possible to get great views of the valley, and it passes a humminbird sanctuary.  I went with a group and we decided to just relax and picnic by the river in one of the cow paddocks for the day.  Another cool part of visiting the valley is that transit is all done by oldschool steel jeep, mostly Willys but I saw a few Land Rovers and other makes as well.  Some of the jeeps are WW2 era, although most are from the 70s, and they would definitely be collectors items back home.  As the jeeps fill up people begin to ride on the roof, and on our return from the valley most of our group rode on the roof leaving the inside pretty much empty!

Trying to sneak up on the cows

Francesca tests a cow femur we found as a hair accessory

Salento was my favorite place just because it was relaxed, beautiful, and the small town was both active and had some nice quality places to eat and hang out due to all the visitors.

Although it’s less than 200 km, the bus ride between San Agustin and Popayán takes over 6 hours on a very dusty and bumpy road.  Popayán is a nice colonial town, but I had seen plenty of colonial buildings by this time so after a one night stopover I continued to Cali.

Butterflys mating in the Cali Zoo's Butterfly House

Cali is known for being the dancing capital of Colombia, and the area of the city I stayed in was really nice – packed with upscale restaurants, salsa clubs and boutiques.  Despite its reputation as a party city my hostel was pretty much empty, and a bit dull.  I have a feeling I had an unusual experience here, but maybe it was just because I was in town early in the week and not around the weekend.

Giant Anteaters

I really only did two activities while I was there, the first being to visit Cali’s famous zoo.  The zoo is nicely designed, reasonably small, and allows visitors to get very close to the animals.  I had good luck on my visit, with most of the animals being awake and active.  The lions even roared a little, although I suspect they were just clearing their throats after waking up from a nap.  It was still loud!

The next stars of Meerkat Manor?

My other activity was to head into the countryside to visit the sugar plantation El Paraíso with a large historic hacienda on the property.  The house was large, and built into the landscape nicely with lots of gardens and an irrigation system that is fed from the mountains surrounding the valley flowing through channels throughout the property.  This plantation was owned by a famous Latin writer named Jorge Isaacs, who wrote the book María.

Water flowing through a canal at El Paraíso

Over 3000 years ago the region around the small town of San Agustin (in the south of Colombia) was home to a society that carved hundreds of stone statues similar to the statues on Easter Island to mark sacred areas and catacombs.  Archeological sites are scattered through the hillsides, and I spent a couple of days exploring them.  A bit about the culture has been deduced from the artifacts at these sites, but they’re mostly a mystery and the culture doesn’t even seem to have name.

A rare statue in which the original painted colors have survived over 3000 years exposed to the elements

There are a lot of archaeological variations in the stones.  Almost all of them show the hands in front of the chest, but they may be holding objects or children, playing instruments, etc.  Some statues are male and others are female.  If you look carefully you can see that some of the females are pregnant.  Many statues show human/animal hybrids, since the cultures in this era tended to place a special significance on animals like jaguars.  And a few of the statues are of the animals themselves.

A bird carrying a worm

A statue inside a funerary pit keeps watch over a tomb

The town is a small one, with mainly dirt streets and lots of bars that play salsa music at a shocking volume but then close at about 10pm.  The main archaeological park can be visited by taking a short trip on a local bus.  I did that, as well as a couple of tours to more remote sites by car and on horseback.

Exhibit A, demonstrating why I don't wear hats

The next logical stop after San Gil is Villa de Leyva, which is known for its well-preserved colonial architecture and is a popular weekend destination for residents of Bogotá.  To me, it was just bland and boring so I only stayed a night and headed on to Bogotá.

Bogotá had some interesting things to do, but in the end it was my least favorite place where I spent any significant time in Colombia.  The common place to stay is La Candelaria, an “old town” neighborhood that is still within walking distance of the main tourist sights and central business district.

By now I think I could use a special acronym for places like this.  Maybe JABC (Just Another Big City).  It had museums, it had big government buildings, there were restaurants.  Yawn.  But I will say that the two museums I visited were top notch.  First, I went to see the Colombian Central Bank’s Botero museum which has a huge collection of Colombia’s most famous artist’s (no, not Shakira!) works.  The museum is free and one of several world class art museums operated by the bank.

Botero's paintings and sculptures are known for being in this "plump" style

I also stopped by the Police museum, where English-speaking officers give tourists guided tours.  The tour took almost two hours and included everything from varieties of uniforms and weapons, as well as famous events in Colombia’s police history.  The tour starts and ends with the most gruesome stuff.  To start, we saw exhibits on the drug wars of the 90s including big photos of the bloody bodies of the drugs lords who were killed.  At the end is an exhibit on the many creative ways of executing people that have been devised throughout history, with detailed diagrams.  The Spanish really took pride in their executioner’s creativity during the Inquisition!

WANTED: Pablo Escobar

My favorite museum was the Museo del Oro (Gold Museum), also owned by the central bank.  They have an absolutely massive collection of Incan gold, with around 35,000 pieces of jewelry and other artifacts that somehow survived the best efforts of the Spanish Conquistadors to steal and melt it down to return to Spain.  I spent almost 4 hours here, everything is really well presented.

For a nice view of the city, a $2 cab from La Candelaria took me to the funicular to Monserrate.  This hilltop is covered in gardens, miradors, and has a catholic cathedral that is bland on the outside but nice inside.

One of the stranger sights in Colombia is located in the town of Zipaquirá, which I went to see as a day-trip from Bogotá.  Near the historic center of the town is a large salt mine, which has been converted into a salt cathedral.  A tour is included with admission (in Spanish), and you see 14 small chapels each commemorating an event during the crucifixion of Jesus.  At the bottom, 180 meters below ground, is a huge chamber that has a full set of church pews for mass.

A wall encrusted with salt, with a baptism fountain nearby

If it doesn’t sound bizarre to you, let me assure you that it is.  I half expected to walk around a corner and find some kind of cult of the dead carrying out a secret ritual.  It reminded me a bit of that scene in Indiana Jones and Temple of Doom where they’re trying to sacrifice the woman into the lava.  No lava here, but definitely a creepy Temple of Doom vibe (still interesting!).

A balcony overlooking the main cathedral chamber

Zipaquirá has a nice outdoor market in their central park on Fridays and Saturdays.  Most street fairs in South America seem to have lots of booths, with most of them selling the exact same crap.  Here the booths all had different things from candy to clothes to souvenirs, as well as tons of food stands and some live bands playing on stage.  A weekend trip is best so you can enjoy the fair as well.  It takes almost 3 hours to get to Zipaquirá on public transit so leave early and plan for a long day.

Even though I did a lot of interesting things, the main reason Bogotá was down on my list of cities in Colombia was just a matter of feeling,  It was a bit dingy, and it seemed a bit unsafe.  Some people in our hostel were mugged the night before I arrived, and my first night in the city the FARC set off a carbomb outside a radio station, doing a lot of damage to the station and nearby buildings.  Having mentioned that I guess this is a good time to talk about safety in Colombia since many people back home have been surprised to hear how much I liked it here and asked if it was dangerous.

My opinion, after 5 weeks, is that Colombia was probably the safest place I visited, and I felt completely comfortable there outside of Bogotá (and even there, it was no big deal).  You may be thinking “Wow, in that case there must have been terrorist attacks by the dozen in Chile!” Ok, I admit that a car bombing doesn’t sound good for Colombia but you have to look at safety as a tourist in a nuanced way.  Many places, including Buenos Aires, are known for crime targeted at tourists.  Mostly things like bag snatching or stealing cameras, but many Argentines won’t even use their phones in public.  I didn’t feel like I needed to worry about this much in Colombia.  In terms of the violence, Pablo Escobar was killed in 1993 and since then drug violence has decreased a lot.  Over the past decade several guerilla groups have declined and died out.  A lot of the problems that still exist are in the jungle areas of the Amazon.  There have been moves towards starting peace talks between the FARC and the government (hardline elements opposed to peace are suspected of the bombing, the last bombing was over 10 years earlier.  Not more common than terrorist attacks in the USA).  You could also compare it to the situation in Ireland not too long ago, and people have always been willing to go there.

I look at it like this.  If you think about visiting LA, or Washington DC, or Baltimore you probably would have no issues with that at all.  But viewed at the right angle or without really understanding the area you could think it’s crazy.  I’ve seen The Wire, no way I’m going to Baltimore!  LA is full of gangs and rogue SWAT units and rioting and homicidal football players.  Washington DC was the murder capital the USA a couple years ago, who would want to go there?  Well, there can be lots of murders in Washington DC and it’s still safe to go see The Mall.  I guarantee you’ll love a trip to Colombia and you’ll both feel and be safe during your visit.

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.