Breaking the mold

ia

Everyone should one day take a mountain bus driven by an allergic-to-life Colombian.  It is true maniacal pleasure.  Once you get nauseated the sensation doesn’t go away; doesn’t matter if you stop reading, stare at the horizon, take deep breaths, etc.  The travel gods don’t even care if you still have eight more hours to go—they will not hear your pleas.  Tia and I learned this on our ear-popping trip with Bolivariana from Manizales to Bogotá.  To top it off we spent an hour at the side of the road watching tractor trailers try to extract themselves from each other like two very confused elephants mating.  Is it possible to put a bus company on the list of state-sponsored, terrorist organizations?

Compared to its South American contemporaries, Bogotá itself had a lot of artsy character.  Think Jackson Pollack dripping paint in front of a stolid audience of pencil-wielding automatons.  Aside from the scarf-wrapped, rocker jean-toting hipsters that dotted the brick laid sidewalks, our hostel in La Candelaria abutted a street that had various statues on the rooftops, one fishing with a squash on his line, another looked likely to jump.  Wandering down Carretera 7 

 on a drizzling Friday night, we encountered the weekly tradition of Septimazo:  a motley gathering of meat grills, Bob Ross wannabes, melted plastic sculptors, brass bands, Latin dancers (good and bad), cotton candy, and temporary TV stands featuring Asian singers, all with crowds formed in semi-circles packing the street.  Elsewhere, when confronted with the need for a better public transportation system, rather than build a metro the city simply shut down a few major streets for the exclusive use of buses.  In fact, even more roads are shut every Sunday to bikers only!  Kind of ingenious, huh, and something out of a madman’s mind?  Bogotá doesn’t play by the rules and we like it. 

Sadly, it rained down on us the entire four days we spent there and Tia was horribly afflicted by altitude sickness.  As such it won’t make our list of cities to live in one day, but not a bad place for a visitazo!

Oh, and most importantly, we found Duff beer (sí existe!).

I think I have the black lung, pops

An hour and a half outside of Bogotá, lies the sleepy town of Zipaquirá.  An otherwise unremarkable place except for having Colombia’s #1 tourist attraction: a Roman Catholic cathedral built 200 meters underground in a still-working salt mine.  In addition to the main cathedral which holds Sunday services that can accommodate around 8000 people, there are 14 smaller chapels representing the events of Jesus’ last journey.  You can wander unchaperoned through the three different underground levels, stumbling across beautiful sculptures, secluded rock confession booths and narrow pathways leading from place to place.  Pictures don’t really do it justice but we can see why it’s considered one of Colombia’s most notable architectural achievements.

We paid an extra $5 each to take the special “miner’s route”.  Described as dark and claustrophobic, we expected to get an intimate view of the paths actual miners took.  Well, apart from the first three-minute walk, we were basically in big, well-lit spaces not much different than the rest of the cathedral.  Tear.  We did, however, get to discover that Juan has a future as a salt miner if nothing else works out.   Our guide stopped at some point and started making people take turns with a pick-axe.  When it was Juan’s turn and the guide found out we were from the U.S., he promptly said, “Oh.  Well, let’s see how an American does it!” and everyone laughed.  Luckily for us, Juan salvaged our pride by breaking the biggest piece of salt off the wall out of the entire group.  Yay for Juan!

No, I won't pay you to splash water on me

After spending a few days in Santa Marta recharging our batteries at the hostel pool and having drunk Brits drool over the impressiveness of Juan’s bigote, we headed for Cartagena.   With its cobblestone streets, flowered balconies, impressively big wooden doors and an eroded fortress wall wrapping around the entire city, it is easy to see why people consider it Colombia’s most beautiful city.

We tried sweets from the portal de los dulces (mentioned in Love in the Time of Cholera), bought Juan some authentic Cuban cigars, and partied with Lucy and Tomas again!  I don’t know how we forgot in the short span of a couple of weeks just how many beers Tomas can drink…

We were too lazy to plan any day trips to nearby beaches, but we did motivate for a trip to Volcán de Lodo El Totumo.   When we first arrived, the 15m mound looked like a poorly placed man-made attraction.  But, after climbing the stairs to the top and lowering ourselves into the natural mud bath, it made more sense.  The mud was buoyant and extremely difficult to maneuver in.  If NASA ever needs a new zero gravity training site, it wouldn’t be a bad choice.   In order to move from one side to the other, it was necessary to create a human chain and pull each other along.  The only thing that dampened the experience was the human vultures – people who will want money if they help you down a single stair, or pretend to watch over your flip flops, or throw water on you when you are cleaning off.   

More pictures here:

Cartagena