San Andres & Providencia

Let's start with the drama in getting to the island paradise of San Andres & Providencia... we showed up at the Manizales airport at 7am to catch our flight to Bogota, and then onwards to the islands from Bogota that afternoon. However, because of bad weather, the entire Manizales airport was closed! We then needed to catch a 2 hour bus to Pereira. From here we flew to Bogota, however because of this delay, we missed our flight to San Andres. We were told in Pereira that because we booked the flights on two separate airlines, we had to pay an extra $400 to change our flight to the next day. Luckily Ben was able to work some charm at the Bogota airport and we were able to get our flights changed for free!

Our travel insurance was able to cover our delay, which meant we could spend a reasonable amount on accommodation for one night (in their words - "between $200-$250"). Not bad given the place we stayed the previous night was $25! So we checked in to the 5 star hotel of our choice and had a great night ordering room service and enjoying the spa and gym!

The next day we finally arrived in San Andres and stayed 1 night before taking the boat to the smaller and more underdeveloped island of Providencia. San Andres was beautiful, but Providencia was a really special place - completely unspoilt by tourism, full of Carribean charm and surrounded by incredible, deserted white-sand beaches. We rented a scooter during our stay and drove around the island, swimming, relaxing and stopping in at small cafes. It was the perfect way to spend our last week together before Elise headed off to Spain!

After 5 nights on Providencia, we flew back to San Andres on a small plane because the boat was having mechanical problems and had one night there before flying back to Bogota.

Being posers on the beach : )

Manizales

Manizales was the perfect base to explore the Colombian coffee region and enjoy the outdoors. It is a small, clean, university city that is surrounded by mountains and known as the water capital of Colombia because of it's pure drinking water.

We managed to squeeze in many activities during our 5 night stay... there were just too many things to see and do!

We visited an award winning coffee farm called Hacienda Venecia where we had a tour to learn about the types of coffee, processes etc. The coffee was absolutely delicious and we loved the green mountain setting and traditional, brightly coloured farm houses. Needless to say, it was a little difficult to sleep after our crazy coffee consumption from the day!

Although the weather was terrible, we headed out to an eco reserve called Recinto del Pensamiento. A guide walked us through the reserve, explaining the different medicinal plants and after a short break at a hummingbird lookout, we continued on to a butterfly farm, orchard forest and Japanese gardens.

Los Nevados National Park was a little disappointing because of the horrendous weather, but there were glimpses of its beautiful landscapes between the pouring rain, wind and snow. After the day driving through the park, we finished the day back in Manizales at the thermal pools. It was soooo nice to warm up and relax after a wet, freezing day in the park!

From one disaster to another, we were again disappointed by terrible weather on our day trip to the bird reserve, Rio Blanco. Because of the heavy rain, we saw one bird in total (from a distance) in what is supposed to be one the best bird watching destinations in the world. And to top it all off, we hiked through the forest, up hill in the pouring rain for 2 hours to reach the closest shelter. A day we'd rather forget. One positive, we were able to meet one of the Andean bears that lives on the site up close and personal. It was pretty special being so close to it as our guide fed it a carrot by hand!

All in all, despite really bad rain during our trip, we still had an amazing time in Manizales. There aren't many places in the world where you can reach tropical coffee farms, snow-capped volcanos and many beautiful parks and reserves all within 2 hours of the city.

Medellin

After a bus from Villa de Leyva to Bogota we literally just made our flight to Medellin! 

Medellin is the fastest growing city in Colombia and probably the most cosmopolitan too. It's surprising how modern and safe everything was given its extremely violent past (the home of the now dead Pablo Escobar). The city has obviously come a long way since the 90s and is now full of modern restaurants, parks and shopping centres.

We spent our time enjoying the variety of places to eat, museums, markets and managed to squeeze in a bit of shopping too. We had a fantastic day in a lakeside town around 2 hours away called Guatape where the buildings are decorated with beautiful, hand painted motifs. The town is also famous for a giant rock, a short tuk tuk ride away, where you can climb up and enjoy the incredible views of the many lakes and greenery. Well worth the hundreds of stairs to the top!

Villa de Leyva

Although we only had two nights in the Villa de Leyva, we could have easily spent more time there enjoying one of the most peaceful and picturesque towns we have visited so far. We didn't have the greatest weather, but there were enough patches of clear sky to visit the famous town square (the largest in Colombia), enjoy some great coffee and sweets and even a scenic horse ride around the town to a nearby dinosaur fossil (for Elise).

The horse ride was about as authentic as it gets, and Elise was cursing Ben when the guide pulled out leather riding pants (with tassels, studs and all). Ben had the camera ready to shoot, but unfortunately (for Ben) and fortunately (for Elise) the pants didn't fit. Phew.

San Gil

After our time on the coast, we headed inland to the "adventure capital" of Colombia, San Gil. The town itself was quite beautiful with hilly streets, green surroundings and small enough to walk to everything we needed. Rather than booking lots of small adventure activities during our stay, we decided to stick to one unique experience - thermal paragliding in the Chichamocha Canyon.

It was a crazy, exhilarating and unique experience in that we took off and landed in exactly the same location, but the thermal air pockets carry you 2,000m high - a very unusual feeling! The canyon views were spectacular and it was so peaceful in the sky on a perfect, sunny day with only the two of us (and our tandem partners) in the sky for most of the 45 minutes that we spent up there.

We also took the bus to a nearby town called Barichara. It was incredibly beautiful with white houses, cobblestone streets and the usual church and town square. We walked up the hill to a little chapel and viewing point of the surrounding areas and after lunch and a nice coffee, headed back to San Gil.

Santa Marta, Minca & Tayrona National Park

From Cartagena, we took a shuttle bus to a beach-side city around 4 hours away, Santa Marta. Although it definitely didn't have the same charm as Cartagena, Santa Marta served as a great base to explore the surrounding areas and had enough going to keep us occupied in between!

After a few days in Santa Marta, we decided to escape the heat and head an hour inland to a tiny eco-town called Minca. We stayed in a hostel right by the river and had a lazy first day enjoying the peaceful surrounds. On our second day, (Elise's birthday!) we met one of the locals (Joe) who offered tours of the town and took up his offer of a day of swimming in waterfalls and tubing down the river! Joe smartly outsources the hard work to the local teenagers so off we headed up the river with our 17 year old guide, Fabio. We didn't realise that the "walk" up the river involved many sections of being chest deep in water and scaling a waterfall, but it was an adventure nonetheless. After around an hour, we were swimming in one of the beautiful natural pools of the waterfall which made the crazy river walk seem worth it in the end. As we started to head back down the river, the sky turned grey and suddenly we were scampering up the muddy hillside, barefoot in the pouring rain. We eventually made it back to meet our other 17 year old guide by the river who had our tubes ready to go. The tubing was great fun, albeit a little extreme with the heavy downpour creating some huge rapids. We arrived back where we started it all at a small restaurant and had a bite to eat before changing and enjoying a walk around town with Joe to see some of the nearby coffee plantations, nature trails and even an area full of hummingbirds. Minca was such a nice escape from the city and the perfect place to celebrate a birthday!

  
After a couple of nights back in town, we jumped on a small bus to the entrance of Tayrona National Park and started the hike to one of the camping sites where we planned to spend the night. Tayrona is unique in that it's a beautiful area where the jungle meets the sea and you have to work a little to see the best parts. After a picturesque hike through the jungle, passing monkeys & white sand beaches, we arrived at El Cabo where we rented hammocks for 2 nights. It was so peaceful to be able to sleep with the sound of waves, fresh air and unfortunately the buzzing of mosquitoes (the mosquito nets definitely came in handy!) The hammocks were surprisingly comfortable and each morning we only had to take 20 steps to get to the beach - not a bad place to spend a few days! We took the easy / fun speedboat option to get back to town to avoid another hike back in the humidity. 

Incredible sunset on our last night in Santa Marta

Cartagena

When we arrived in Cartagena (after a super fun night sleeping at Bogota airport), we knew we would love our time there as soon as we pulled up to our hotel. It was one of the most charming, buzzing and interesting places we have come across on our travels, with a unique Caribbean vibe and colourful architecture.

The streets of the older part of the city were filled with fruit & food vendors, horse-drawn carriages and performers so naturally we spent many hours just wondering through the streets just soaking up the atmosphere.

 

We stayed a short walk from the walled part of the city in a district called Getsemani which was full of character (& characters) and thankfully a little cheaper and less touristy than the main area of the city. Our accomodation was a bit of a splurge but well worth the money and we got plenty of use out of the beautiful pool during the hot, humid days. At our hotel we met a fun group of Americans who we went out with most nights to the local salsa clubs, bars and restaurants.

One of the funniest and most memorable afternoons we've had was a visit to the nearby Totumo mud volcano, where you can take a dip in the thick, bubbling, volcanic mud. It was such a strange sensation, made even stranger by the random Colombians who massage you upon entry. However, things got even stranger afterwards when we received a nude wash-down from the local Colombian ladies in the lake. Thank God for murky water!

On our last full day in Cartagena, we took the boat to a beautiful beach called Playa Blanca. Apart from being hassled all day by people trying to sell us everything under the sun, we still managed to have a relaxing day enjoying the beautiful, clear water.

Arequipa

Arequipa was our final stop in Peru where we decided to brush up on our Spanish with a week of lessons and work off the many calories we had consumed in Lima with some hiking!

During our time in Arequipa, we enjoyed the historical district where you could find plenty of interesting antique shops, cafes, bars and squares. The most famous attraction in the town is the Santa Catalina Convent which we visited during the night by candlelight when the daytime crowds had disappeared. It was definitely much more impressive than we were expecting, albeit a little creepy! The convent is enormous - the size of an average city block - with it's own streets & cemetery.

Inside the convent

Our main reason for visiting Arequipa was to hike down & up the world's second deepest canyon, The Colca Canyon, and see the Andean Condors which have wingspans of up to 3.5 metres. We were picked up from our hotel at 3am and took the bus to the Colca Canyon for a quick breakfast and then to a viewing area to spend some time watching the condors. They were pretty amazing to watch, gliding in the canyon below. 

 At around 11am we began the long, 21km hike down the canyon and to an area called 'Paradise' where we spent the night. The track was not the easiest and a little frustrating with loose gravel & rocks galore! When we finally arrived at the cabanas and saw the steep track leading to the top of the canyon, Elise had made up her mind that she wanted a mule for the 7km trek back up to the top! But pride prevailed when 5am came along and she made the slow journey up, enviously looking at the people on mules and Ben's long legs all the way up.

It wasn't the biggest confidence booster being told by the guide, "Group, you are all good, you will make it to the top in less than 3 hours. You Elise, you are not bad but not very good. Maybe 3.5 hours for you." : (

Day 1 hiking (bottom middle shot shows what we had to climb up!)

 After the torturous hike up, we finally had some breakfast and drove to a nearby town with thermal pools to rest our sore muscles before heading back home to sleep it off.

Lima

A Tale of 2 Gluttons

Well, we don't have too much to say about Lima because most of our time was spent eating! Although Lima is definitely not the most attractive of cities, it sure makes up for it with it's amazing & cheap restaurants! We were able to visit 2 incredible restaurants - Central and Astrid & Gaston (which is currently one of the top 50 restaurants in the world) where we were able to at least pretend to be high rollers for a night!

The last picture is of Ben participating in a team photo with the Peruvian national soccer team who we bumped into at the airport.

 

Cusco & The Inca Trail

After a few days doing some last minute preparations for our trek in Cusco, we were picked up from our hotel at some ungodly hour (5am!) to head to the starting point of the Inca Trail in Ollantaytambo in the Sacred Valley. We were introduced to our group at a quick breakfast - an interesting bunch of 15 people from the US, Australia, the Netherlands & England. The group included all sorts..... from a father & son team from the North Shore who were the ultimate private school geeks in matching outfits to a dutch hippy who decided to do the trek in a silk dress and fashion boots! We definitely come across some interesting characters on our travels!

The first day was challenging but a good warm up for the days that would follow and involved walking through some tiny indigenous communities and past a few Inca ruins to reach our first camp site at 3,000m above sea level. We were pretty excited to be camping for the 1st time ever and not a bad way to do it with 21 porters who were there to carry the camping gear, cook and set-up our tents! We were kept awake by a donkey munching grass right outside our tent through the night (jeez of all the places!), before being woken up around 5.30am to start the second day's hike.

Ouch is probably the best way to describe day two which involved a 6 hour steep, uphill hike to reach Dead Woman's Pass at 4,200m above sea level. Dealing with the altitude was really challenging and we needed to stop for mini breaks every 50m at one point near the top. The view from the top was beautiful and it definitely was a feat to have made it. But the celebrations started a little too soon! The next section was also tough, going down thousands of steps to the second camp site.

The third day was bearable but l o n g .... around 15kms that involved constant trekking up and down hills. But we survived (just) and made it to the final camp site which was in front of Machu Picchu mountain. It was a relief to know that Machu Picchu was sitting just on the other side of the mountain, only 1.5 hours away.

We had to get up at 3.50am to walk to the entrance of the final section of the trail to reach "Sun Gate" with the goal of watching the sunrise over Machu Picchu. Fair to say that we were a little disappointed to be greeted by dense fog as far as the eye could see as we approached the famous viewpoint : ( After almost 50kms of difficult trekking, sleeping on rocks, no showers and waking up at crazy hours, Pacha Mama (mother nature) wasn't on our side. Thank god, by around 11am the fog lifted and we were so grateful to see the spectacular Machu Picchu ruins.  The only spoiler was the hoards of tourists who had arrived by train and kept on getting in the way. We were very close to attacking them with our walking sticks!

We really couldn't have made it without the porters & cooks from the group. They were tiny but amazingly strong, carrying 25kg packs and virtually running the trek in their sandals! We couldn't believe what the cook was able to prepare with camping gear, whipping up delicious pizza, pastas and even a cake on the last night! Each section of the trek was so much easier knowing that there was a delicious, hot meal waiting for us.

Reaching the highest point of the trek on day 2 with our group

  

 

 Trying on one of the porter's packs

Our first night camping, the amazing cake our cook prepared and the porters

I think the guy on the left sums up how we were feeling when we finally reached the fog-covered Machu Picchu sunrise!

 The postcard shot of Machu Picchu!

 We were smelly, sore and sleepy by the end of it, but the Inca Trail was an incredible experience and completely worth the effort.

For the next week and half we spent our time enjoying the beautiful city of Cusco with it's fantastic food and cheap massages.

In Cusco's main square enjoying some sun

Viewpoint of Cusco from a nearby mountain

The hole in the wall lunch spot that we became obsessed with! Best value food we have had so far

Cusco by night (P.S. Not us getting married!!!)

Lake Titicaca

After our tour of the Salt Flats we decided to get out of town ASAP and boarded the 1am train to Oruro and then straight onto a bus to La Paz. In La Paz we were in heaven with a really lovely room, hot shower and tons of great restaurants and cafes within walking distance. We caught up on some much needed sleep and food for the next couple of days before continuing on to Copacabana - the Bolivian side of Lake Titicaca.

The lake is enormous (it takes 3 hours driving just to get from the Bolivian side to the Peruvian side) and is the highest navigable lake in the world at around 3,800m above sea level. 

Copacabana was a very chilled out little town with just one main street and beautiful views of the lake. The main tourist attraction is the Isla Del Sol - an island around 2-3 hours away by boat which holds great significance to the locals as they believe that the sun god was born here. We arrived at the northern point of the island and then hiked to the southern end, around 3 hours away, but a beautiful walk. At points we could definitely feel the high altitude as we puffed our way up the hills!

In town - the local church and by the water

Just another day on the island taking the pigs for a walk

Very funny sight - our huge bus crossing the lake on a not so sturdy boat. Glad that we weren't on board

 The following day we caught the bus to Puno, our first stop in Peru! From here we took a tour of the Peruvian side of Lake Titicaca, visiting the famous floating reed islands and the natural island of Taquile. Although SUPER touristy, we got a great taste of the unique way of life for the locals who use the reeds from the lake to build everything from houses to boats. There are even floating hospitals and schools!

On the island of Taquile we had a lunch at a local restaurant before heading back to the mainland.

Uros - the most famous reed island

Taking the scenic ride on the reed boat