City of the eternal spring

March 12th-14th, Medellin Cololmbia

After a relaxing few days in El Rodadero, Santa Marta in the north of Colombia, we took a 1 hour flight south to the second largest city in Colombia - Medellin. We had the best hotdogs of our lives at the Santa Marta airport, of all the places!

I've been really excited about Medellin, especially after watching so many episodes of Entourage! We're in the land of Pablo Escobar, notorious leader of the Medellin Cartel, who used to control 80% of the world's cocaine. Medellin was once known as the 'most violent city in the world'. However Escobar's death in 1993 ended the drug war and crime has since decreased. What's actually kinda funny is the number of people who've mailed to warn us not to go to Venezuela because of the violence (we're not going), and we've resassured them that we're fine in Colombia. It's great how this country has managed to pull itself up and shed it's past image. Of course not all areas are safe, it's still very violent at the border near the Amazon but we're sticking to the cities, so we should be fine.

We got here and took a 45 cab from the airport which is outside the city, to our hostel Black Sheep. This place is awesome! It's like a hotel really, in fact better than many hotels I've stayed at, but still has a downstairs hang out area for the social hostel vibe. Reminded me of 7 Patas in Sucre! We checked in and immediately started chatting with a British couple in the patio. Soon the conversation extended to everyone there and we were all exchanging our travel stories, it was good fun. We met a Canadian guy, about 45 years old, who used to be country head at a pharmaceutical company and quit his job to travel - and he's now been traveling for 2 and a half years! He told us that it was 2-4-1 chicken wings at Hooters that night. Hooters in Medellin!! We immediately said yes because the day I say no to hot wings is the day something is very wrong with me. So the 5 of us went to Hooters for dinner and the wings were definitely the best I've ever eaten in my entire life. They were so spicy even I was dying!

Then we walked around the main square and enjoyed the sights. We are staying in a nice resedential neighbourhod on the outskirts of El Poblado barrio which is very safe and quite upscale. The main El Poblado area is also the tourist hotspot, so lots of restaurants, bars, nightclubs etc. The place is very beautiful, I never expected Colombia to be so pretty and well kept! After dinner, we went to the Medellin brewery for a quick beer before heading home. As usual, Bernie was a star, no one in the world can resist his happy vibe. :)

The next day we didn't really do anything at all other than go out for lunch for ribs. The rest of the day we were complete vegetables watching TV! We've been told that Colombians speak the nicest or 'best' Spanish in all of Latin America. However they speak quite fast and have some major differences which confuses us - for example, the word 'calle' means road. We were taught to pronounce it 'caye', all double 'l's should be pronounced as a 'y'. In Medellin however, it is pronounced 'caje'! In Buenos Aires it was 'cache'. It's not easy being a Spanish student traveling across this continent! However I understand pretty much everything but Bernie seems to have some trouble with the accents. People in Colombia as well don't understand his Spanish, it really makes me laugh.

Today we plan on going on a walking tour of the city, this place is definitely one of my favourites already. Because of it's great weather, not too hot and not too cold, it's known as the city of the eternal spring.

Adventures of Bernadine

February 27th - 28th, Argentina and Brazil 

Woke up at 7 am so we could get to Iguazu falls early morning but we got delayed by a new friend in the bathroom - a tarantula! Now Bernie is quite a scardey cat when it comes to spiders, so when he calmly told me that there's a large spider in the bathroom, I was like whatever. Then he insisted I look at it and oh my god, it was HUGE! It wasn't moving though, so we went on packing and trying to get out quick. Then it moved into the room so we tried our best to work around it. Finally we checked out and told the hostel staff about it. They rolled their eyes at us but when they saw it, they were also shocked! Very soon all the people who'd woken up early for breakfast came to inspect with their cameras. But no one went close enough to touch or move it. Adventure before the adventure!

We finally got onto the local bus to the falls, very excited about the day ahead. It's funny but Bernie and I have become quite the hikers! We really like walking so it was quite perfect as Iguazu park has 3 trails that lead you to the different viewing points. The falls are in Argentinian side of the river Iguazu, so you can see them up close and feel the ever present spray. The first point we went to was the main one 'Devil's Throat' and it was just so impressive. Bernie's been to Niagra Falls and said that this was much more impressive. Pictures can't do it much justice, but it's better than me explaining the view. 

The other two trails took you past different falls and views, through lush greenery (we saw a croc/alligator) and we decided to do a boat ride that takes you near the falls so you get wet in the mist. We were soaked to the bone by the end of the short ride but I can actually say that I've bathed in the Iguazu! I had known we were going to get wet so I took flip flops and after the ride, as I was changing back into my other shoes, a coatis came running up to me and grabbed my bag as I sat there helplessly screaming! Luckily a nice man ran after it into the jungle and retrieved it for me. Phew! 

We then took the bus back to our hostel to pick up our bags and leave for Brazil. We had to finish our remaining Pesos so we ate an unhealthy amount of ice cream :) After that, got on to a local bus, like Baba Dylan in Goa, and within 10 minutes were at the Argentina border. 5 minutes later, we were in Brazil and got off at immigration. At this point, our bus continued on abandoning us and 3 other Japanese tourists. So we sat on the grass at the side of the road waiting for another bus from the same company to pick us up. We sat there for about an hour in the hot sun and finally our bus showed up.

We're now in Brazil!!! 

After all those Spanish classes and speaking so much Spanish, I cannot remember any Portuguese. Simple things like gracias automatically comes out of my mouth instead of obrigada. I blame my Pops for not teaching me the language.

After we checked in to our hostel 'Katharina's' in the town of Foz de Iguacu, we went to a hyper market and bought loads of crisps and chocolates and Bernie bought around 20 different flavours of Tang which he's now addicted to. There are so many flavours here! Then we went to a chorasqueria for dinner which is a buffet and meat restaurant where Berns ate all the meat as they brought it around on skewers and I ate rice and crazy amounts of feijoada and lots of salad. It was a very satisfying meal. 

This morning, we went to the Brazilian side of the falls, where you have a panoramic view. Iguacu Park is very large and a bus inside the park drives you up to the falls where you walk a bit to see the spectacular view. As impressed as I was in Argentina, now I could really appreciate the scale, power and see the number of waterfalls. We took many many pictures, I hope we do something with all of them. It was really very awesome to see this World Heritage natural wonder. We though about doing a helicopter tour but decided that we saw two days worth already so got back to the town. 

Now we are at the airport waiting for our flight from Foz to Rio de Janeiro! I can't believe it's happening, Viva Carnaval!

Me Gusta Espanol

January 9th, Sucre Bolivia

Woke up this morning really excited and happy because:

a. We were going to Sucre

b. We were taking a 45 minute flight versus a 12 hour bus

c. We were leaving La Paz - great city but too chaotic, and I was ready to go to lower altitudes because I was always out of breath

The flight was much more than the cost of a bus, in fact the taxi to La Paz airport cost more than the bus, but it was so worth it to travel in comfort! We got out at the tiny Sucre airport bathed in sunshine and 19*C. I'm yet to find out the reason, but there are dinosaurs everywhere! Huge statues in the airport, parks, even our cab driver's gear was a dinosaur head!

We pre decided to stop and chill at Sucre for 2 weeks and checked into hostel 7 Patas. As soon as we got here we saw a big group of people chilling in the patio and started chatting. Very quickly we made friends with 2 Brit boys and their traveling companion from Iceland. 

Bernie and I have decided to take Spanish lessons in these 2 weeks and it looks like that's what most people are doing in Sucre. It's just such a lovely peaceful pretty town that if you're coming from La Paz or from Chile, you get here and realise you need a break from mad big city life. So most people here have been here/intend to stay here for a minimum of 2 weeks, most have already been here a month or more.

After a lovely meal at a restaurant called Joyride, the 5 of us headed out to Me Gusta Espanol, the Spanish classes that got extremely high reviews on Tripadvisor (once again, thanks Tripadvisor). The Brits are really hilarious and I can't stop laughing at their stories and jokes. They also have been traveling for 2 months now and speak little to no Spanish, so we joked that maybe we'd all be in the "idiota class".

At Me Gusta, we met the owner who explained how it works (4 hours a day, 5 days a week with lots of fun activities such as movie night, cooking night etc, and lots of conversational practice), he then gave us our entrance test to see what level of Spanish we were at. It was actually really fun, but as expected, the "quatro idiotias" are in beginner class together, the Iceland boy was a bit more advanced so is in another group. I have to wonder if we'll actually learn anything because my group is full of loonies, but I'm excited. I mean, we've actually voluntarily signed up to go back to school with homework and everything!!!  

After signing up for Spanish School, the 5 of us walked to the local market to buy a random range of things for the boys who have all 3 been robbed of a lot of stuff at some stage of their travels. The roads in Sucre, much like La Paz, are amazing. They have entire roads of lawyers, shoes, clothes, jewellery, photocopying, even libraries! And I mean shops and shops selling identical wares on the same street, it's crazy yet very efficient if you think about it. You need a power tool, go to the power tool street, need a carpet? It's on carpet street next to power tools street!

We spent all afternoon walking around the market area and through the 'Witches Market' which sold all sorts of herbal looking remedies, and boxed up 'portions' to help any solve sexual issues, alongside dead llama and bat carcuses. I mean there weren't any shamans with pointy hats stirring a smokey brew, more mainstream witches I guess! There weren't too many of them, and all had identical stalls so it was a bit disappointing.

We also bought notebooks for our school tomorrow!

Back at the hostel, we sat at the patio and the boys began drinking beer. Random people from the hostel joined to chat, it's good fun hearing about everyone's experiences. I wasn't drinking after my exciting night out in La Paz, so after a dinner of a chicken+beef+pork roll from the local 'pollo' joint, I am up in the room chilling now, very tired. I hear the boys having a blast downstairs, I left them as they bought a new bottle of whiskey from the local shop and have been passing it around swigging from the bottle. Classy Englishmen!

We considered renting a flat and staying here longer, but let's see what happens after day 1 of school!

Hasta luego!

Dec 28th: Hallelujah...

Nadine isn't crying anymore! And we also got our bags back! It's a happy time and Nadine is dancing in the airport :) we relax with some nice food and Cusco is suddenly a more beautiful city! I think we'll have to do separate posts with pictures and stuff of places - haven't downloaded any from the camera yet.

Dec 27th: Out on a Lim(b)a...

So our bags didn't arrive in Lima. Technically this is more like up shit creek without our paddles but that didn't really work that well. Maybe "I Need $Dallas, $Dallas, $Dallas is what I need" but Nadine hates that song... Anyway I wasn't too worried I've had my bags lost a few times and it's always made it in a day or two - we had one and a half to spare but hey it's an exciting new trip and I'm not ready to be upset yet... We try all the calls we can and Nadine gets more and more stressed but I decide to leave it for a day and enjoy not working for another day (you may remember I actually stopped working more than a month and a half ago but it's still the best thing ever).

Anyway, I try extol the virtues of a PMA (positive mental attitude) on Nadine - not so much because I believe in the power of positive thinking or karma (she even wanted to pray for a while.... In a church!!) - I just think it reduces the moaning and whining when there's nothing really to be done but wait. :p

The only thing that upset me a little bit was that if we'd just booked this on the amex platinum (which I highly recommend but please contact me so I get referral points), then we would have been able to spend up to £300 EACH on replacement items (bags, clothes, shoes etc) for not getting our bags back in FOUR hours! And another £300 each if it hit over 48 hours - anyway lesson learned. I will be flying he most complicated routes throughout the States in the future. Anyway, rant/commercial over.

Dec 26th: Leaving on a jet plane...

I hate flying. I'm not afraid it's just boring. And wolverine was so bad I watched until the last ten minutes just where the climax is and gave up because it sucked so bad.
Thirty minute delay turns into 2 hours but I don't really mind because I love sleeping during taxi, take-off and landing! Rushed through Dallas airport and starting to worry but hey American Airlines wouldn't lie to you about your bags right? Oh wait.

Cheerio England, hello South America!

December 26th, Boxing Day, London

Bags are packed, we're ready to go! Three months in South America and a havasack and small bag each. At Heathrow we're thrilled that our American Airlines flight to Dallas Forth Worth is a code share and we actually get to fly British Airways. I'm quite nervous as we have a long journey ahead and too many changes: London to Dallas to Lima Peru onward to our final and first destination, Cuzco Peru. We've checked our bags to Lima and we get on the flight excited. We both immediately fall asleep and wake up 2 hours later in... Yup you guessed correctly, Heathrow. Flight's been delayed by two hours, exactly the layover time in Dallas.

But we figure the airline will have to put us on alternate flights if we miss our connections. 10 hours later, we're in Dallas and are given our "express pass" and told to run through immigration and security to our boarding gate to Lima. We make it in the nick of time but ask about our bags. The lady at the counter promises us that they are not leaving without our bags. Happily we get on board the flight with a huge tour group of Asians. We feel at home.

At Lima, we wait at the baggage carousel... And our bags don't show up. We're not too annoyed because we expected this in a way, travelling through the US is always a nightmare. We speak to a nice lady who shows us her computer screen which tells us our bags are in Dallas. There's only one flight a day she says, so hopefully you will get your bags tomorrow. We chill at the Priority Pass lounge and eat olives, confident that all will be well and isn't this all so exciting?!

We finally land in Cusco/Cuzco, 3400 m above sea level. We wait around for two hours filing reports and the confidence is going down as we listen to other people in the line who haven't received their bags for more than a week now.

Oh boy! We get to our quaint hostel Inkarri and are so pleased with wifi and skype as we get on the first of many calls to LAN, American Airlines, Cuzco airport, Lima airport, Dallas airport... And lots of angry tweets to AA.

The great South American Adventure has begun!