On our trip to La Guajira, we encountered a weird new type of gas station. Since the gas price is so low in Venezuela (~ $0.05 per litre) and the Wayuu (indigenous people) from La Guajira have dual citizenship (Venezuela and Colombia), they can drive to Venezuela for gas and come back to Colombia to sell it. Here are pictures of some of the gas stations in the area….
La Guajira is the northern peninsula of Colombia. It's very remote - a road less travelled by most tourists. We did the trip in 4 days / 3 nights with our Israeli friends, Ofri and Niv, who we met on the Ciudad Perdida Trek. Our driver took us 4x4, on dirt roads, to a remote village called Cabo De La Vela where we spent 1 night. We then took a small boat 3 hours across a pretty rough ocean, to Punta Gallinas. There are no hotels, hostels, or guesthouses out here... the area is mainly occupied by the Wayu Indigenous Tribes, so we were staying at their "Rancherias" (sleeping in hammocks again). The area is mainly desert but it was absolutely beautiful and well worth the trip (even despite Jen getting food poisoning and sea sickness).
On our way back to Taganga we had to wait for the truck to pick us up so Niv and Jen did a photoshoot of Dom and Ofri (she's an actual ballet dancer) frolicking in the in the desert sands. It was great entertainment to pass the time :)
The Ciudad Perdida (The Lost City) is the Machu Pichu of Colombia.
The journey is often more important than the destination… this is definitely the case with Ciudad Perdida. The site of the Lost City is really impressive, but the 5 day / 4 night trek through Colombia's Sierra Nevada jungle is what really made the trip worthwhile. Going up and down several hundred meters of altitude daily, through multiple river crossings, and non-stop breathtaking views... a total of 47km of walking roundtrip. The most impressive thing is that it was SO hot that even after drinking 2+ litres of water per day, Dom only had to pee 3 times (just kidding). Our casa lodging was also exquisite: exterior hammocks or beds with front row jungle views and the natural sounds of jungle to send our weary bodies to sleep. An added plus - every casa had natural pools for us to escape the relentless heat and humidity.
We are now in Taganga, on the Caribbean coast of Colombia and spotted this boat on the beach….cool.
Dom's nephew, Emilio, and his mom, Adriana, were kind enough to invite us to stay with them and show us around Bogota.
In 6 days, we mainly took it easy but managed to visit a few key sites...
La Candelaria (the old town)
Botero Museum
The Gold Museum
The house of Simon Bolivar (the liberator of Colombia)
Monserrate Peak (which gave us a nice view of the city)
The salt cathedral at Zipaquirá
And we finished our stay with dinner at Andrés Carne de Res in Chía (a unique restaurant which we will leave for another post).
Huge thanks Adriana, Emilio, and Carolina for making us feel welcome and taking the time to show us around!!If you ever go to Bogota, you have to go to "Andrés de Carnes de Res". This restaurant will surely entertain your senses. The food is good, the animation is good and there is a lot of things to see (puppeteers, weird characters walking around, tacky decorations, etc.) ….. this place is really huge.
If you can, go on a Friday or Saturday as you will have also people dancing Salsa on the dance floor.
I thought the pig super heroes where just found in the Simpsons, but I guess I was wrong…. here are Bat Pig, Flash Pig and the Green Pigtern grafitti at a bus stop in Bogota.
Here are some other cool graffiti that were found in Bogota.
One of the difficult choices you have when travelling for a year is what to bring and what to leave behind. When travelling for a 2 week trip, you usually try to make sure that you will not have to do any laundry. However, for a year long trip, you cannot bring 365 T-Shirts.
That being said, I was looking for a shirt that I could wear more than 1 day and that was easy to wash. Looking around, I found two options:Update (August 31st 2012): After 3 months of traveling, we prefer Merino Wool. The main reason is that it really holds to its oderless reputation. The only drawback we found is that sometimes it gets little holes.