Star Gazing in the desert

After the chilly heights of Bogota we swapped to the Tatacoa desert with temps of 40* plus. The main draw for this place is the star gazing if the sky is clear so somewhat dumbstruck by our accommodation (and ours was comparatively nice) we sat in the middle of nowhere, watching nothing, and waited for nightfall. 

At 7 pm we walked up the dusty track to the Observatory and waited for Señor Astronomer (really) to arrive.  He did soon after but apologised for being unprepared. He then disappeared for 30 seconds only to reappear 'ready' for which we could only read replete with badge-filled Gillet to house his pens, notes and gadgets - the best of which has to be the high powered laser pointer that seems to reach space, it could probably burn someone's eyes out, but my view is you can definitely trust a small studious man in a Gillet not to attack you with a laser.  

He had several telescopes set up for the likes of Jupiter and the cluster that inspired the Subaru symbol... But by far the best was a hugely detailed look at the moon, which he kindly captured on the stream of cameras we all passed to him. 

After 2 hours of neck hurt we returned very happy to our tin hut in the middle of nothing. Gayle slept like a baby while I was woken up by the sensation of something crawling over my legs.  I'll never know if it was the sizeable crickets, spiders or lizards that I saw in there, probably best I reckon. 

Our daytime sights were a few odd landscape shapes left from when the area was a river bed and a 'natural pool'. The water was natural - but the pool was a concrete bath 3x5m, no idea what the point was there - we kind of sat in it watching the guys 'managing' the pool stare at us while we stared at them.  Odd.  Definitely time to find some more cramped bus seats to carry us to San Augustine....

San Augustine.  Home of very old tombs and monuments of people with their animal spirits. Potentially interesting but we were a tad bored.  Perhaps we've reached our limit of old stones now so bypassing our hosts offer of a 'secret trip' to a real live coke farm (a snip at $250!?) we packed for the final small-seat-defeaning-music journey across Columbia. 

The only dodgy bits of Columbia these days are around the borders so with a land crossing ahead of us we set out early to ensure we were off the mountain passes (still known guerrilla territory) by nightfall. 20 hours later we'd twisted and turned through some terrifying dust tracks  on very high drops,  got through border control (we were told to expect 2hours and thorough searches - we got there one hour before they shut and with a cursory sniff from an old dog, were waved through in 15 mins), and had got a final bus to Quito, Ecuador.   When we got to our dorm beds at 2.30 am the thought struck that it was Valentines day.  Romantic to a fault. 

Bogota: Botero, bikes & betting

Our Bogota bus was roomy enough so we were well prepared for a Fri evening 90min taxi queue (because it was raining).  After a slice of pizza (only visible veggie option) and a good night's sleep we were ready to take in the sites of a city close to the population of London but at 2500m+ 

We started the day with an invigorating walk up hundreds of lung-busting stairs - climbing 500m to the top of Mt Monserrat which affords a great view over a not so great looking city - but it is one hefty sprawl of 8.5million people none the less.

Back on lower levels, we saw a town square with Blackpool beach style Llama (instead of donkey) rides, randoms dressed as smurfs and angry people protesting about something (no plaza worth it's salt is without a daily demo about something).

The modern art museum had Gayle delighted over the quality of the free culture on show: Botero, Picasso, Bacon, Freud... due to past training I recognised a Chegal to my credit (but no idea what it signified as usual).  

We moved onto the renowned Gold museum - the whole point of which was to show that the Mayan cultures made stuff - sometimes with gold.  We made short work of that as we had already realised this groundbreaking point.

We topped off the visit with a really good, balanced and informative bike tour which took in:

- a bull ring - no fighting that morning thankfully

- the impressive city park - complete with public Zumba/Aerobics class for 500 people

- huge and impressive graffiti murals

- a coffee factory (best coffee destined for export of course) where a small coffee made Gayle a bit jittery and mental

- a depressing view of the legal red light area

- a trip to the market where we tried exotic fruits - some looked really weird

- a game of Tejo

- a look at the truly inspired street gambling game of - guess which tub a guinea pig will run into....

I think they did a very, very good job.  Although not a pretty city we have a good impression of the place and definitely enjoyed the bits we managed to see. And despite it's reputation of being very dangerous, we saw nothing more frightening than crimes of fashion. 

San Gil - home of extreme sports.......

                               and yet we managed to do 2 of the most serene activities ever! 

Paragliding: despite the inelegant take off cause by high winds & a 25kg weight hung from my lap, the flight was smooth, tranquil and not remotely adrenaline fuelled. Figure of 8s made me feel weightless and did that strange stomach thing (like going over big drops on a roller coaster), and did slightly ruin the ambiance by making me cackle like a loon. All in all a really relaxed way of seeing some stunning scenery and I wished I could've stayed airborne for hours

White water rafting: grade 3 rapids we were told. Grade 1 or 2 at best I think. 2 hours of rafting down a gently meandering river with the odd bit of rapid action was boring.  Our guide tried his best to make it feel edgy by doing back flips off the raft, threatening to capsize us and making us bash oars together (a bit like a really lame group high-5) for the bank side photographer but it was really tame. 

I (Chris) took on some difficult downhill mountain biking - which was more tailored to real mountain bikers than my amateurish efforts but still a really fun challenging day which left me exhausted (due to some unexpected up-hills!) and more than a little dusty.  It was another activity that was somewhat made by the spectacular views that Colombia has on tap.

The town itself was at a quiet point in the season so we had a sedate time outside of our (in)extreme activities, Gayle is finding it hard to locate decent veggy fair, so is begrudgingly alternating between the local trout and a cheese sandwich if she can find someone to make one.

Next stop Villa de Leyva....

....to see what the countryside looks like, and it is quiet.  The local square (the biggest of all town squares) was the central attraction at night for gangs of well-off teenagers and less well-off local dogs.  We had a good people/dog watch over a few choice beers outside an off license, their off licenses have a couple of tables and seem to take up the role of the great British pub or Le grande cafe Francaise - but it's hard to ignore that you are sat next to a sweet stand as you drink.  We quite like it.

During the day we visited a site of great archeological significance, it was a site with stones in phallic shapes aligned to the summer solstice in order to grant great harvests a millennia or so past.  Yes, it's a field full of dicks - and we sniggered appropriately like we were 6.

Next, back on an array of buses once more to rejoin civilisation in the capital: Bogota.

A note on the buses: most of them are not made for the likes of me.  The big coaches are better, but all buses assume the passengers are 5'6" or less (knee caps are often sore from enthusiastic reclining from the traveller infront).  The smaller buses are also made for people a lot narrower than me too, this tends to mean I arrive at places lacking sleep and walking in a less than symmetrical fashion, a bit like Egor.

Salento. Clean air, Tejo & verbs

We arrived in Salento on a Sunday evening, the biggest night of the week it transpired, and it felt like 50% of the 7k population were in the bars and plaza.  A mountain town in the middle of the coffee growing region Salento is full of brightly painted buildings, residents in cowboy hats & ponchos, billiard bars and brightly coloured jeeps (called Willys). It felt somewhere between the set of a Western and rural Latam. 

It also felt cold which was a nice novelty. Hoodies and trainers on we set off to find the local Tejo bar.  Tejo is a game where you throw a metal puck (a Tejo) at 4 targets placed on a metal ring set in clay. The targets are paper triangles filled with gunpowder so with enough force and a good aim the Tejo bashes into the target and the metal ring and an explosion goes off.  More fire = more points. 

The Tejo hall was like an old skittles ally: full of old boys (with obligatory hats and ponchos) playing very seriously from 8 metre throw-lines while we novices stood 3 mts away and whooped every time any points were scored.  The game is free to play - the only condition is that you drink beer while you do so. No great hardship. 

Food next so we found a stall in the plaza selling the local delicacies: bandeja paise (mixed random meats thrown together in a dish with an egg), and patacones (plaintain, mashed and rolled to plate size, deep fried and served with cheese/chilli etc). 

Arteries clogged we retired for the night a bit giddy to need covers on our bed instead of a noisy and largely ineffective fan (unless the objective of them is to look precarious and pull clumps of plaster out the ceiling, in which case they're excellent). 

Next day we hiked a famous loop that takes you through woods, over many highly questionable rickety bridges (some of which are 2 felled trees laid next to each other- this is not a bridge in my opinion), through a Hummingbird sanctuary, up a bloody steep hill to the money-shot view: lush green mountains surrounded by clouds and wax palm trees. The tallest palms in the world they grow up to 60m high and look quite surreal in these surroundings.  

Hundreds of them line the rest of the walk and were distracting enough to get us through the fields of bulls, under the barbed wire and back to catch a Willy home. Minimum 10 people in the 4-seat Willies before they'll leave so 4 people have to hang off the back for the 25 min ride, while the other six forget the concept of personal space. 

At the hummingbird sanctuary we had another local delicacy : hot chocolate and cheese. The cheese is a bit like halloumi and is broken up into the chocolate where it gets stringy rather than melty.  Enjoyable but not sure I'm desperate for a second bowlful just yet. 

Declaring chocolate/cheese combo as dirty (from the man who'd eaten unidentifiable bits of unknown animals the night before) Chris had yet another rubbish cup of coffee.   Despite growing the best beans in the world, Columbians drink instant coffee with a lot of sugar, or the crap beans they can't sell elsewhere. Sad, but when they grade the beans 1-5, grades 1-4 get exported and the cheap rubbish stays at home. 

We stayed another 5 days after that and got ourselves a Spanish teacher for 3hours a day for an incredibly good $120 dollars for us both.  Marcia is a teacher at Bogota Uni but teaches gringos in the holidays so unlike some student teachers who're just starting out, she really knew how to teach. A 5ft 0 powerhouse of energy, bling and irregular verbs she was excellent for us and by the end of the week we'd watched a couple of films in Spanish, and chatted with a Chilean woman for 2 hours without too much frustration. 

There is still so much to learn and without the discipline of a bossy Latino woman checking our homework each morning we won't continue at the same rate but it's getting easier all the time. Off on the night bus(es) to San Gil. A mere 15 hrs away.