Lakes, lies and lucky escapes

After leaving La Ceiba for the final time, I headed down to Lago de Yojoa, the only other place tourists seem to visit in Honduras. This is entirely due to the fact that it’s home to D&D Brewery, a microbrewery with a restaurant and cabins hidden in the forest surrounding the little village of Los Naranjos next to the lake. It’s widely credited with putting Lago de Yojoa on the map (there genuinely didn’t seem to be anywhere else to stay nearby). Hidden in the forest, with a cabin all to myself, and cool enough at night that I needed my woolly cardigan, it was a refreshing change from the stifling heat of the coast, despite the extremely loud and irritating American family also staying there. It was probably one of the fancier and more expensive places I stayed at during my trip, especially since you have to buy all your meals there. The brewery aspect was cool though and I made the most of it by trying a different beer every night.

On my first day I went for a hike to see the lake with one of the local guides – essentially up and down a massive hill – but better than risking getting lost in the jungle wandering around by myself. It was well worth the money and he pointed out loads of birds and plants and took many pictures of me awkwardly posing at the top (my speciality).

The following day, I went to Cerro Azul Meámbar National Park (known as PANACAM) seeing as it was relatively cheap, close and could be done without a guide. After completely failing to stop any taxi, mototaxi or bus, I ended up walking to Peñas Blancas, the next town. There, I stocked up on snacks and took the bus around the lake to La Guama where I was met by a whole crowd of men with mototaxis (golf buggies) all waiting to take people to the park. They clearly weren’t having a very successful day as I was the only tourist there. Anyway, I picked one, made a half-hearted attempt at haggling the price and we set off.

It was about a 20-minute drive, mostly up. My driver was surprisingly chatty, and after we’d established that yes, my Spanish is very good, I’m from the UK, quite a bit older than I look and no, not married (genuine question, though, in hindsight, I could’ve saved myself a lot of hassle on this trip by not being quite so honest), we somehow got onto the topic of catcalling. I said it makes me feel uncomfortable (understatement of the year; it either makes me mad or fear for my life, depending on the context). His argument went something along the lines of “but if I don’t say things to women in the street, how will they know I like them?”. Try as I might, I could not make him understand that, you know, you just don’t get to and instead maybe you find a better way of engaging in conversation with a person. Again, looking back, I am questioning my decision to risk annoying an unknown man while in the back of his mototaxi in the middle of nowhere. 

He dropped me off at the park entrance, where I paid and then started off on the trail. I didn’t see another person for the whole 3 hours I was there; despite it being probably the nice and most well maintained park I had visited on my trip, for some reason, no one else wanted to see it. The paths climb up through the forest to the top of a huge hill overlooking the lake and there are several viewing platforms along the way. It was a treat to have it all to myself and wonderfully peaceful.

I made my way back down to the entrance and chatted to the guy at the reception while I waited. He was so friendly and even gave me a little booklet with all the bird species living around the lake. My friendly mototaxi driver came to collect me and, on our way back, took a slight detour to show me a little lake. Fortunately, the bus was already waiting at the bottom so I hoped straight in and avoiding interacting with the 20 or so men hanging around it.

The next day I got up at the crack of dawn to undertake what turned out to be a journey of epic proportions to get from San Pedro Sula to San Salvador, El Salvador. Looking at the map now, I can see it was extremely ambitious of me (clearly, I didn’t make it all the way there). For starters, it took a few hours to get from the lake to San Pedro and, hilariously (not), once I made it there, I was told that all the buses to the border had already left. At not even 9 in the morning, this had to be a lie. Luckily for me, after traipsing around the terminal for an hour, I managed to find one that was just leaving. I hadn’t had any breakfast so I rushed to grab something from the first place I could find – a Dunkin Donuts. So, weighed down by my stupidly full rucksack and with a ridiculous assortment of bags, shoes and laptop case strapped to me, Dunkin Donut and iced coffee in hand, looking every bit the gringa perdida, I stepped outside to discover that what I had foolishly imagined would be a regular bus was actually a small, slightly-falling-apart minibus, already packed with people. Clearly none of them were very impressed by my arrival or willing to make room for me and all my shit. I spent the first half an hour standing, then they managed to move some things around and sit us anywhere, only to keep piling more people on the bus. With all the stops and tiny roads, things went on like this for about 7 hours. At one point I had a small child on my lap. We stopped for a toilet break but I didn’t even manage to go because the bus had already started to leave. Worst of all, towards the end, when the seat next to me was annoyingly free, the driver’s unintelligible 16-year-old son decided to sit in it and bother me the rest of the way.

We finally got to Ocotepeque, close to the border with El Salvador, at around 3 pm. At this point, the bus driver and his son suddenly started saying it was waaaaay too late to get to El Salvador today; it was too dangerous and I’d be better off staying the night in Ocotepeque and leaving early the next day. The only rational explanation I can find for what happened next is that they misunderstood and thought I was talking about San Salvador, the capital, and not El Salvador, the country (after the 7-hour bus trip, I just wanted to reach anywhere in El Salvador). Anyway, before I really knew what was going on (I was hungry, confused and tired from being in a bus all day), the driver’s son had taken my bags out and gone into the hotel they were staying at; obviously I went after him. He showed me to a room, his room for all I know, and got really intense about how I HAD to stay there. Exhausted and wanting to get rid of him, I gave him the money and thankfully he left. About 2 mins after I got the hell out of there.

It was a short taxi ride to the Honduras – El Salvador border, and it turned out to be the easiest thing ever. I got the bus to La Palma, El Salvador’s much nicer version of Ocotepeque. It was as lovely as the Lonely Planet had promised and I found myself a cute hotel with 100 cats and a place to get pupusas (El Salvador’s version of the humble arepa) and the inescapable strawberry milkshake.

Hay más tiempo que vida

No creo que esta expresión tenga algo que ver con Honduras en específico, pero me la dijeron varias veces estando ahí y me pareció bonita. Hasta donde tengo entendido, quiere decir algo como no hay que apurarse/disfruta el momento. Al haber pasado casi un mes en Honduras, e incomprensiblemente más de una semana en una ciudad llamada La Ceiba (no hay absolutamente nada en La Ceiba), creo que lo seguí al pie de la letra.

Mi primera parada después de cruzar la frontera fue Tegucigalpa, la capital y, según había escuchado, una de las ciudades más peligrosas de la región. Claro, la sola idea de llegar allí me tenía un poco preocupada pero al final fue sin causa: la pasé bien y me quedé dos noches.

El día después de llegar fui caminando al centro, que no quedaba tan lejos. Como de costumbre, logré perderme bastante y me metí por varias calles que definitivamente no eran. Sin planearlo, llegué al mercado principal que era un caos de gente, ruidos y olores. Me compré un agua de horchata y di una vuelta, terminando en la parte de comidas donde había por lo menos veinte puestos diferentes de baleadas y pupusas, los platos más típicos de Honduras y El Salvador respectivamente. Me senté en uno donde una familia entera vendía pupusas, la mamá y sus cuatro hijos de varias edades. Pasé bastante tiempo hablando con ellos – literal, no me querían dejar ir. Como suele pasar, creo que me vieron la cara de niña de 18 años y por poco evité acompañarlos a la iglesia. El hijo mayor ofreció caminar conmigo al centro y logré por fin despedirme de él una hora después.

Luego de caminar un rato, terminé en lo que creo que era la plaza central (abajo) donde compré una baleada y otra agua de horchata y me senté ahí a mirar a la gente. Claro, duré como 5 minutos en estas antes de que se me acercara un hombre y se me sentó al lado y empezó con la charla normal (¿qué haces aquí? ¿de dónde eres? yo estuve en… ¿y vienes sola? bla bla bla).

El día siguiente, tomé un bus para llegar a La Ceiba, cruzando el país de sur a norte, alrededor de 7 horas. Creo que me quedé unos 6 días allá, los únicos motivos que encuentro para explicar esto son: estaba harta de moverme tanto, hubo varias protestas y cerraron algunas vías, tenía bastante trabajo y había un gato.

Un día fui a una playa cercana con un chico del hostal. Otro día conocí un grupo de nicaragüenses de un lugar que se llama Bluefields. Su población es, en su mayoría, afrodescendiente y hablan inglés criollo nicaragüense. No se conocían entre ellos, pero todos iban para las Islas Cayman a buscar trabajo. Se quedaron varios días en el hostal mientras organizaban su papeles y un día cocinaron para todos un plato típico de allá: rondón. Es un especie de sopa a base de pescado, coco y ají, aunque no tengo ni la más remota idea de cómo se prepara porque los hombres se encargaron de esto y no cabía más nadie en la cocina. Les quedó delicioso, pero sólo fue después de terminarlo que me advirtieron de que tiene un fuerte efecto afrodisíaco – “o te manda a hacer el amor o te manda a dormir”. Afortunadamente no me hizo nada.

Logré por fin salir de La Ceiba y seguir mi viaje hacia Utila, una isla caribeña y prácticamente el único lugar en Honduras sobre el cual había escuchado hablar a otros turistas. Todos van con un único objetivo en mente: bucear. Y como es de esperarse, la isla, que tiene una sola vía siguiendo la curva de la bahía, está repleta de escuelas de buceo. Debe haber por lo menos 20. Debo admitir que antes de llegar a Honduras no tenía ni el más mínimo interés en aprender a bucear. Cualquiera que me conoce sabrá que soy una persona sumamente perezosa, no me gusta mucho estar en la playa y me vuelvo insoportable cuando hace calor. A pesar de esto, como los cursos eran muy económicos y yo ya estaba allá, decidí arriesgarme. Por recomendación de otros turistas que había conocido la noche anterior, opté por Captain Morgan’s Dive Centre, aunque creo que todos ofrecen prácticamente lo mismo: cursos de buceo en menos de $300 con alojamiento.

Para mi sorpresa, empezamos el curso ese mismo día, una chica estadounidense y yo. Nos quedamos en el mar justo en frente de la escuela mientras practicamos diferentes técnicas. Lo que aprendí fue que es difícil acostumbrarse a respirar bajo el agua, todo pesa UN MONTÓN fuera del agua y es realmente agotador. Durante todo el curso me vi obligada a tomar siestas por la tarde en las hamacas del segundo piso que daban al mar. En todo caso, no me podía quejar de la vista.

Sin embargo, algo que sí resultó muy frustrante fue descubrir que me mareo. El primer día que salimos en el barco desperté a las 6 y desayuné una baleada, que es básicamente una tortilla enorme doblada a la mitad con frijoles, queso y aguacate adentro, sin duda la comida más típica de Honduras, y desde aquella mañana algo que pondría en la misma categoría como el guaro: el solo pensar en las baleadas me da una nausea impresionante y las aborrezco con todo mi ser. Pasé los 20 minutos que nos tardó llegar al sitio alimentando a los peces y maldiciendo la hora en que se me ocurrió gastar $250 en un curso de buceo. Afortunadamente para el viaje de vuelta algún genio me recomendó mantener la mirada en el horizonte y no volví a marearme.

A pesar del mareo, el cansancio y lo mucho que me quemé con el sol, la pasé genial. Sin duda el mejor día del curso fue cuando salí con mi tocaya que casualmente estudia algo como oceanografía, entonces se lo sabía TODO. Bajaba con una pizarra pequeña y a cada rato me señalaba con la mano algún pez, en que seguramente nunca me hubiera fijado, y escribía el nombre en la pizarra. Vimos un montón de corales, peces y rayas – incluso una tortuga!

En cambio, lo peor que me pasó fue casi ahogarme una mañana que salimos en el barco y nos rodearon por lo menos 20 delfines. Al parecer, no es algo que suele suceder entonces todos se lanzaron del barco de inmediato con snorkel y aletas puestos para nadar con los delfines. Al ver que yo no planeaba seguirlos, los líderes me dieron una buena dosis de presión social y cedí olvidando por completo que soy pésima para nadar en el mar aún sin tener que lidiar con el reto adicional del snorkel y las aletas. Aunque como pueden ver abajo para bucear soy bastante buena.

Un día mientras caminaba por la única calle de Utila me topé con un chico que había conocido más de un mes antes en León, Nicaragua, y como cosa rara, volví a encontrarme con él sin planearlo todos los días, incluso varias veces al día. Luego de haber pasado más de dos meses sin ver una cara conocida era como encontrarme con un viejo amigo.

En mi último día en la isla fui caminando hasta el final de la calle a un sitio que me habían recomendado para hacer snorkel. A pesar de no ser tan extremo como bucear, y por muy bobo que suene, se sentía bastante inquietante estar totalmente sola en el mar rodeada de cientos de peces y plantas raras y las partes profundas se veían muy espeluznantes. Como estaba en el superficie, todo brillaba bajo la luz del sol y los colores eran fascinantes.

De regreso a La Ceiba conocí a dos hermanas húngaras y una chica de Suiza. Habíamos ido un visitar una cascada durante el día, que resultó ser mucho más complicado de lo que parecía, y por la noche, agotadas y aguantando el calor sofocante de la ciudad, pedimos pizza y nos pusimos a jugar juegos tontos sentadas alrededor de la mesa en la sala del hostal. Fue algo sencillo, pero se sintió tan reconfortante y liberador pasar tiempo en compañía de otras mujeres; no me había reído así en mucho tiempo. Al siguiente día ellas se fueron y yo seguí para mi siguiente parada – el Lago de Yojoa.

Non-stop rain in Nicaragua

Wrote this a while back.

This last week has probably been the worst one yet since starting my trip, what with being robbed and losing my diary a few days before reaching my final destination (having been to the bus terminal and bus depot 5 times to pester them, I’m willing to admit that they might not actually have it). It’s sad though, I was looking forward to rediscovering it in 20 years time. It also means that I am now going to be relying entirely on my terrible memory to write about the rest of the trip. Here goes.

San Juan del Sur was my first stop in Nicaragua. Of all the places I visited in the country, it was here that the effects of last year’s protests on the tourism industry were most evident. There were a baffling number of hotels and tourist shops for such a small place, almost all of them empty. I found myself accidentally staying at a self-declared “party hostel”, home to a disastrous sounding event called Sunday Funday. To give a better idea of the type of idiot tourist it attracts, the guy at reception seemed genuinely offended that I didn’t want to hand over my passport for them to look after it for me. Fortunately, it being Wednesday when I arrived, the hostel wasn’t too crazy and I spent the evening chatting to one of the guys working there, appropriately named Juan.

Keen to get the hell out of there before the hoards of terrible travellers descended and the all-day drinking began, I headed to Ometepe island, the next stop on the route literally every other person I met was taking.

The island is made up of two huge volcanoes, Concepción and Maderas. I stayed in the largest town on the island, Moyogalpa, in a hostel filled with a whole menagerie of animals: ducks, geese, rabbits, dogs, a cat and a parrot who only seemed to have learnt the one word (“Bueeeenas!”). By the end of 4 days, I also wanted to kill it.

After about 12 hours of nonstop rain, seeing as it was sunny, I decided to rent a scooter from the hostel owner and explore the island. Having given me a 10-min lesson, he seemed fairly confident I wasn’t going to kill myself or wreck his bike and sent me on my way.

Moyogalpa was about 15 km from my destination, Ojo de Agua, a pool on the east side of the island between the two volcanoes, yet somehow I managed to take 2 hours getting there. The way was absolutely beautiful, with the volcano Concepción always in view,towering ominously over the island. It was truly paradise in the sunshine. Everything was so fertile and green and alive. Fortunately, there were very few cars on the roads, though I had a few near misses with hens and various other animals.

The journey was perhaps more interesting than the destination, but Ojo de Agua was beautiful nonetheless. I spent an hour or so walking through the plantain fields and swimming in the fresh, clear waters. At the pool, I met Rony, who worked there selling coconuts with rum and he offered to take me to a good spot to watch the sunset (considering the island is pretty small, and I had the scooter to make my escape if necessary, I decided it probably wasn’t the worst idea in the world). Unfortunately, I hadn’t factored the weather into the equation – we were right in the middle of rainy season. When we reached the sunset spot, thick clouds appeared and it started absolutely pissing it down.

The rain died down after an hour or so and we decided to make the most of it. From where Rony and his friend left me it was about 20 km to my hostel, and it’s truly a miracle I made it there in one piece. 10 mins in, the rain started again which, together with the darkness and the fact I’ve never even ridden a moped before, made for an absolutely terrifying journey. It turns out there are quite a few long stretches of road with nothing whatsoever – no lights except my candle of a headlight and no way of knowing if there were any cows or horses unexpectedly lurking at the sides of the road. I got through the especially dark patches screaming Shakira songs and miraculously made it back alive and soaked to the skin. Comparatively, the rest of my time on the island was a breeze, though thanks to the constant rain I didn’t make it up either of the volcanoes.

My next stop was Granada. By far my most exciting discovery in the city was a tiny restaurant called Tostometro. Hidden in the market and run by a mother and son duo, the concept (tostón/patacón burgers) is a simple one, but it was genuinely one of the most delicious things I ate on the entire trip.

While in Granada, I also spontaneously joined a group from my hostel on a trip to Lago de Apoyo, an unimaginably deep crater lake not far from the city. We spent the afternoon swimming and floating around in tyres. It was just like being at the beach minus all the bad bits.

After a week in Granada, I headed to León, a city considered to be the intellectual capital of the country. In León, I spent large parts of the day bewildered as to how 30 degrees could be so unbearably hot. I did the free walking tour and befriended the guide. According to him, the fact that Victoria is also the name of a popular Nicaraguan beer was a good enough reason to go for one, or five. I also went to the Sandinista museum, which is run by volunteers who were involved in the Sandinista rebellion. It was probably one of the most interesting museums I’ve ever been to. My guide gave me a widely different version of what happened last year, suggesting that it was part of some kind of US conspiracy, which probably isn’t as crazy as it sounds.

On my way up towards Honduras, I stopped for a few nights in a town called Estelí which is between two national parks. I visited the first one, Reserva Natural Miraflor, with two other people from the hostel. We arrived by bus and were met by our guide, Alejandro, who lives on a farm with his family in the national park. In an attempt to find some common ground, I foolishly told him that I grew up on a dairy farm. His immediate response was “Oh, so you know how to milk cows” (nope). Half and hour later, I made an embarrassingly bad first attempt.

We went for a long walk through the park with Alejandro, talking about everything from the crops they grow to the different park regulations. Out of the blue, he asked me if there were many immigrants in my country and whether it was easy to get into. It turns out he had made two attempts to get to the US and, after being jailed for months in Mexico, decided it wasn’t worth his life. He had taken out a loan against his home to get enough money to make the trip and would’ve lost everything had another family member not managed to make it using the third and final try. It was difficult to know how to react, since I was essentially taking the same route but with no restrictions whatsoever. It made me realise, probably for the hundredth time on the trip, how insanely privileged I am to be able to go basically wherever I want (I think the only time anyone ever asked for proof of onward travel was entering Costa Rica) and take my work with me and do it wherever I like.

The second national park I visited was called Tisey-La Estanzuela. It is probably most famous for El Jalacate, a series of incredible sculptures carved into the rock face itself, hundreds of meters up overlooking the valley. I’d heard the sculptor described as a hermit (he’s spent the last 30 years carving away up there) and, true to form, he was nowhere to be seen. It was such a peaceful place and a real privilege to have it all to myself. There didn’t seem to be anyone else around at all, except a very old man who suddenly appeared as I was leaving to collect my “entrance fee” (pretty sure there isn’t one but hey ho) and made me video him doing tricks with a yo yo. The perfect final stop in a country I barely scratched the surface of.

Cloud forests – the best kind of forests

I entered Costa Rica on the Pacific side and started my trip in Uvita, a small beach town which, like practically everywhere else in the country, is within a national park. The hostel I stayed at has to be one of the most beautiful ones I’ve come across yet, a huge wooden building hidden in the forest. All you could hear were the different unidentifiable rainforest sounds, especially at night, and it was wonderfully peaceful. Walking to the beach from the hostel I think I must’ve passed at least 5 mango trees each with piles of rotting mangoes underneath; the fact that there are literally too many mango trees everywhere for people to be able to eat all the mangoes never fails to amaze me.

From Uvita, I continued up the coast to Quepos and nearby Parque Manuel Antonio, the smallest, most accessible and, consequently, most touristy of Costa Rica’s national parks. I got there early the next day and it was packed, so much so that I was lucky to walk ten minutes without coming across a group of people, though less so on the longer trails. Despite the crowds, I still managed to see a surprising amount of wildlife (a sloth, monkeys, crabs and a coati), of which I only managed to take a couple of half-decent photos. I even swam in the sea and narrowly avoided losing my clothes to the monkeys.

After Manuel Antonio, I made my way to the capital, San José. It turns out there’s not all that much to visit in the city itself as a tourist, though I was lucky enough to be able to meet up with a friend of a friend, Ana, who became my tour guide for the day, despite never having even met me before – the Tico reputation for being some of the friendliest people is certainly not unfounded. Ana picked me up from my hostel in her jeep and drove us to the top of Volcán Irazú, an active volcano with a beautiful green crater lake. From there, we drove to Prusia, another national park (there are an incredible 29 altogether!), and stopped for a delicious lunch on the way back. And, as if that wasn’t enough, we met up later in the evening to get our fix of reggaeton at San José’s infamous Calle de la Amargura (Street of Bitterness) which is full of bars and clubs.

Having spent around a week in the capital, I got the bus to Monteverde, supposedly five hours away but actually more like seven. Up in the mountains, the town of Santa Elena was a refreshing change. Famous for its cloud forests, now my favourite kind of forest, it was the highlight of my trip to Costa Rica. I visited the Santa Elena cloud forest which is the smaller, cheaper and less visited of the three cloud forests in the area. I don’t think I saw more than ten people during the four hours I wandered around and when I did eventually come across another human after two hours of forest it frightened the life out of me. Somehow cloud forests feel completely different to anywhere else. Every corner is alive, wild and green or, as one guy in my hostel put it, “everything has something growing on it”.

The other highlight of my stay in Santa Elena, and possibly the strangest hostel activity I’ve ever witnessed, was a German, an American, a fellow Brit and a Swiss guy, who just so happened to be travelling with recording equipment, trying to make their own trap song à la Bad Bunny. It was surprisingly not terrible.

Panama and the start of the trip

About a month ago I discovered that it is in fact impossible to change from a short-term work visa to a tourist visa in Colombia without leaving and re-entering the country. Being the organised person I am, I found this out exactly one week before my work visa expired, having stupidly assumed that it would be possible to pay to get a tourist visa. So, on the night of 30th May, after some puzzled expressions from customs staff (“you know your visa expires today, right?”), I set off for Panama City.

I’m not sure what expectations I had of Panama City before arriving, if any, though it looked every bit the tax haven it is famous for being, with sky scrappers everywhere. Coming from the perpetual grey of Bogotá, it was incredibly hot and humid. I ventured out into the sweltering heat one day to wander around the old city, successfully photobombing about 20 quinceañeras and not managing to find icecream anywhere (clearly, I couldn’t live here). I strolled back along the cinta costera to the hostel, with people jogging past me, bewildered at how anyone could think of doing exercise in the sweltering heat.

Back at the hostel, I discovered that patacones are the way to everyone’s heart (the hostel staff were genuinely impressed with my skills) and the easiest and cheapest meal to make. I think I’ve eaten them at least every other day since.

While in Panama City I also went to the Panama Canal, despite having no real interest in boats, mostly because my dad said I couldn’t leave without seeing it. And, while I decided not to pay $20 for the museum, I did spend an hour or so on the top floor of the museum building watching the locks empty and fill to let the ships pass through. I successfully negotiated public transport there and back and marvelled at the efficiency of the metro (possibly the only thing Panama City has over Bogotá).

A few days later, I decided it was time to move on and took the night bus to a town called Boquete. After the heat of the city, Boquete was much more my cup of tea: green, fresh, sunny and absolutely beautiful. I arrived with an English guy called Ed who convinced me that the best thing to do after a seven hour night bus would be to go on a three hour hike, and it actually was. We took a bus and hiked through the forest to three waterfalls.

Before coming to Boquete, I’d read about a night walk to the top of nearby Volcán Barú so I was happy to discover that a lot of people staying at the hostel also wanted to do it.

At midnight, we set off in the shuttle bus to the start of the track, 1,800 m up, perhaps none of us fully comprehending just how steep a climb this would be. The summit is at 3,500 which, spread out over 13 km, didn’t sound too extreme in my head. And, somehow, the climb wasn’t actually that terrible, so much so that we made it almost to the top an hour before sunrise and had to huddle against an old wall to not die from the cold – it turns out it’s very, very cold at 3,500 m. For me, the most amazing part of the climb, other than the novelty of walking 13 km in the pitch black with no clue of your surroundings, were the stars. Being in the middle of nowhere, I think it’s the clearest I’ve seen them in my life, though admittedly not the best moment to realise your glasses prescription is definitely not the same as it was a year ago. At some points, when we came to an opening in the trees and the path and sky blended together in the blackness, it felt like you were just walking into the stars. Luckily for us, it was a clear night so once we’d scrambled to the very top we could see for miles. After half an hour the fog suddenly drew in and completely covered the landscape, with the glare of the sun filtering through. It was absolutely stunning.

The descent was not nearly so exciting as the climb, mostly because you realise that the whoooooole way is just a stony track. An incredibly long stony track. And also because I got burnt. But, it was an experience unlike anything else I’ve ever done and definitely worth the sore feet and achy legs.

 

Bogotá mejor para todos Y TODAS

Hace poco me pasaron un artículo de opinión con el dudoso título “La decadencia del lenguaje incluyente”. Después de aguantar casi mil palabras de “mansplaining”, me puse a investigar un poco el caso. Se trata de la aplicación del Acuerdo número 381, aprobado el 30 de junio del 2009 para promover el uso del lenguaje incluyente y obligar a entidades gubernamentales a utilizarlo en documentación oficial. Con base en este acuerdo, según un fallo reciente la Alcaldía Mayor de Bogotá debe modificar su lema “Bogotá mejor para todos” para hacerlo más incluyente: “Bogotá mejor para todos y todas”. Al parecer, estas dos palabras tan pequeñas han suscitado una verdadera controversia en la adopción de lenguaje incluyente y sus llamados “límites”.

En su artículo, el estimado señor José Fernando Flórez se arma un gran escándalo. Nos advierte de los posibles peligros del uso generalizado de lenguaje incluyente, tales como el de vernos obligados a hablar en forma artificial (llegando al extremo de compararlo con el régimen del Terror en Francia en el siglo XVII), de sabotear la eficiencia básica del español, de comprometer la inteligibilidad de los mensajes gubernamentales, del gasto innecesario, y de quedarnos tan ridículos como los venezolanos. Dios mío.

Además, el autor demuestra una ceguera increíble al suponer que la modificación propuesta se trata de una malinterpretación de las funciones gramaticales de la palabra “todos”; ignora por completo la complejidad del asunto. Da risa, y hasta lástima, su lamento por la “falta de perspicacia idiomática” de la que padecen tanto el Concejo distrital como el juez que falló el caso. Simplificando así el problema, le es fácil al autor reducir los que apoyan la adición de “todas” a bobos que ni siquiera saben manejar su propio idioma; muestra clásica de una técnica que se conoce en inglés como el descarrilamiento (derailing). Otro ejemplo clarísimo es su uso de argumentos que nada tienen que ver, como el de “hay tantas cosas urgentes por resolver”, minimizando así la importancia del problema en cuestión. Ante tal polémica, la propia RAE se vio obligada a intervenir para asegurarnos que “En español…el masculino gramatical es el término no marcado en la oposición de género…por lo tanto, la forma “todos” engloba a hombre y mujeres”.

No obstante, lo que ambos no logran entender es que no estamos hablando de si la palabra “todos” puede o no abarcar ambos géneros – claramente puede – no hace falta explicar que, con un análisis tan reduccionista, un punto de vista tan básico, el “todas” es redundante. Al contrario, lo que hay que cuestionarse es el porqué. ¿Por qué es el masculino el término “no marcado”? ¿Por qué seguimos apoyando esta desaparición de lo femenino? ¿Por qué resulta tan pero tan polémica la sugerencia de agregar dos palabras a un lema? Habla mucho de la sociedad en la que vivimos, que hay tanta resistencia ante algo tan pequeño y más que todo simbólico.

Como afirma Susana Rodríguez Caro, Defensora delegada para derechos de las mujeres y asuntos de género, utilizar solo el “todos” es “aceptar y reforzar lo masculino como equivalente de lo universal, lo cual implica un retroceso en materia del reconocimiento y respeto de los derechos de las mujeres, por el que tanto han trabajado a lo largo de la historia numerosas mujeres y organizaciones defensoras de los derechos humanos”.

Al argumento de dañar la eficiencia del idioma, la única respuesta que tengo es que me parece absurdo – casi increíble – la noción de que la eficiencia gramática (lo que sea que esto signifique) pudiera tener más valor e importancia que la inclusión, respecto y bienestar de una persona o de un grupo marginado.

Solo porque algo es parte de la gramática de un idioma, no quiere decir que no se puede o que no se debe cambiar. Por ejemplo, en inglés hay muchas palabras que se utilizaron hace 50 años que hoy en día son consideradas sumamente racistas, por lo tanto, la discusión sobre “todos y todas” no se trata de un mal uso del español, sino el reconocimiento y cuestionamiento de su sexismo inherente. Los idiomas no son fijos: son mutables y deben evolucionar para representar mejor a (TODAS) las personas que los utilicen.

The Amazon Diaries

“So what have you been doing for the last week?” I ask Charissa.

“Cooking food, eating food, making tea and looking at the rain forest” she replies.

This is a fairly accurate summary of our trip, with some crazy tour guides, nocturnal monkey attacks and Amazon skinny dipping thrown in for good measure. It was quite the adventure.

We began our 10 day trip in Leticia, capital of the Amazonas department, and the only city that you can fly to. There isn’t really any other way to get there, unless you’re coming by boat from Brazil or Peru. In Leticia we discovered 5,000 COP (£1.20!) capirinhas and witnessed the daily spectacle that is the arrival of hundreds of thousands of birds noisily flying to Leticia to roost in Parque Santander (it happens every day at sunset). Whilst we were at the park we befriended a jewellery seller called Greggy who, for the next five days, took it upon himself to be our tour guide, of sorts.

The following day he took us to a small town called Macedonia, about an hour or so by boat up the Amazon river, where he had a friend who would let us stay for a few days. It turns out Macedonia is a fervently religious Jehovah’s Witness community. There are no cars in the town, as the houses are all built on sticks and stand around two metres above ground. When it rains and the water level rises, everything is flooded and people get around by boat. No alcohol or cigarettes are sold in the town and, whilst tourists usually stay for an hour or so, they rarely stay the night. We ended up staying for five with our lovely hosts Germán and Sara who, for next to nothing (a night’s stay costs 15,000 COP and meals 5,000 COP), welcomed us into their home.

Highlights of our stay included going on a boat trip with Germán, where we were able to spot the Amazon’s famous pink dolphins, and going on a walk through the jungle to a Peruvian village where we ate a delicious (and enormous) lunch of fish (cooked over a fire wrapped in plantain leaves), rice, beans, pasta, salad and fruit. After, we went for a swim, the sky glowing with the rays of the setting sun in the west and a beautiful double rainbow in the east. We expertly avoided the sting rays and tiny penis-invading fish that apparently inhabit the waters.

I am yet to decide whether it was an overly positive or negative experience, but we were also able to go on a trek into the jungle with a friend of Greggy’s called James, who can only be described as a half-crazy, machete-wielding, marijuana fanatic (apparently the middle of the jungle, at what felt like 100% humidity, is not everyone’s idea of the worst place in the world to want to smoke a joint). Our trek lasted a good eight hours and was exhausting, but we managed to see and experience many weird and wonderful jungle things. James also told us about the time he got lost in the jungle for a week and had a vision in which he got so hungry and desperate that he ate his dogs ears and tail. Apparently this turned out not to be a dream after all, and indeed, his dog is mysteriously missing both its ears and tail. I came to the conclusion that I am completely unsuited to jungle life.

Drinking water from the bejuco tree

After our trek we were treated to an absolutely incredible meal – juanes de yuca – prepared for us by Sara and terribly photographed below. It’s something like a tamal, but made of yuca not maize flour, and with a piece of fish inside, wrapped in a leaf whose name I can no longer remember and cooked in boiling water. My written description doesn’t do it justice either, so you’ll just have to take my word for it.

A few days later, we left Macedonia and got a boat further up the river to Puerto Nariño, a slightly bigger and, on the whole, much more touristy village that I’d visited a year ago.  As soon as we stepped off the boat, we were approached by various men offering us cabins, hostels, boat tours – everything. We hung around for a while and eventually met “Monstruo”, a guy who runs a nature reserve outside the town and who let us stay in his home in Puerto Nariño in the meantime. On first impressions, Puerto Nariño is a place that seems incredibly committed to the environment. Like Macedonia, there are no cars or motorbikes (they would be pretty useless anyway) and there are countless signs dotted around warning of hefty fines for littering etc. And they seem to be working.

As ever, we had a pretty chilled time in Puerto Nariño and our days there usually consisted of going for a wash in a nearby river (our host’s house had no running water), making huge breakfasts, wandering around the town, relaxing in the hammocks, going for dinner three days in a row “donde El Calvo” – we even went for a beer in one of the town’s two “nightclubs” (one of which is tragically called “Punto G”). One of the most noteworthy things to happen during our short stay was, without doubt, being woken up at 3 am by the appearance of a very tiny, very cute and incredibly playful monkey on the balcony where we were sleeping – he was happily jumping from hammock to hammock, apparently after having been discovered in our host’s baby’s crib. Only in the Amazon…

After staying a few nights we decided to move to the reserve, a 20 minute walk outside the town. It essentially consisted of a house in the middle of the jungle, complete with banana trees, a little lake and our own personal mochilero-nest-laden tree. Calling it paradise would be no exaggeration. “Mochilero” is the name of a bird frequently found in the region whose nest resembles a bag (a mochila). It can easily be recognised by its distinctive cry: a delicious plopping and rippling kind of noise, like fat raindrops falling into a pool of water. Unlike any other bird I’ve ever heard.

We were warmly welcomed by Marcos, the man in charge of building the house, who was eager for us to try all the different fruits that were growing in the reserve: the sweet yet acidic, almost fermented-tasting cupuaçu, the strange guama pods and tiny bananas. He told us about the animals living nearby, which terrifyingly included carnivorous (i.e. man-eating) monkeys. He was a great host. Half of us stayed in hammocks in the house and others put up tents and built a shelter outside. Marcos seemed pretty impressed with their efforts, and so was I, especially when I found out that the tents were completely waterproof anyway.

In the evening, and inevitably always after it had already got dark, we made campfires and cooked dinner. The nocturnal chatter of the birds, the thunder and my unfamiliarity with sleeping in a hammock made for an interesting, if not very interrupted, night’s sleep.

Whilst in Puerto Nariño we also decided to go on a spontaneous trip to Lago Tarapoto, with friendly, local man Larry. The whole idea started because Sara had a sudden longing to get on a boat and we wanted to swim. We ended up being driven around for a while by Larry – observing more pink dolphins and the renaco tree, also known as “el árbol que camina“. We swam in Lago Tarapoto, which is apparently full of piranhas, though Larry subdued our fears somewhat by reassuring us that they don’t attack unless you’re bleeding and not moving. Sara did get repeatedly nibbled by some unidentified fish, but our swim was otherwise uneventful. Once back on land, Dario (the boy who had introduced us to Larry), suddenly asked me if I’d been to Puerto Nariño before and wasn’t I the girl who got bitten by a parrot? (This could only happen to me). And indeed, it was me. It’s strange to think that someone with whom you shared no more than three hours of life might remember you a whole year later. It’s nice to be memorable.

Back in Leticia, we went to Parque Santander again and made friends with two more jewellery sellers, Veronica and Maximiliano, from Argentina. They’d been travelling through South America for three years and were gradually making their way to Mexico. They were the most friendly, beautiful couple, with an impressive array of hand-made jewellery. True to the stereotype, they were drinking mate, and we got to know them as the cup, full of that bitter, green-tasting liquid, was passed around. The following evening Veronica taught us the basics of bracelet making and, after several false starts, we each managed to make something that resembled a bracelet. The others brought cachaça to the park. After a lengthy discussion we established that it is essentially the aguardiente of Brazil (i.e. horrible), and they were happily singing and drinking until late.

On our last day we went to Brazil. The Brazilian border town of Tabatinga is essentially just the other half of Leticia, but in Portuguese. There’s no gap at all between them. We set off with the idea of eating ceviche and inexplicably ended up in a Chinese restaurant. It was an enjoyable trip nonetheless, and thankfully I didn’t have to put my 1A beginner’s Portuguese to the test.

My Amazon adventure came to and end on 5th October. Unfortunately, LATAM decided to move everyone else’s flight to 7th. We later learnt that flights had been cancelled so that the planes could fly to Barranquilla instead, where there was a qualifying mach for the World Cup. Obviously.

Like many other parts of this incredible country, the Amazon is a unique and unforgettable place, home to many happy memories

Back in Bogota

As the title suggests, I returned to Colombia at the beginning of August. I didn’t stray too far from the capital in my first month or so here – the dissertation took a lot longer than expected. Thankfully I had “El Gordo” (i.e. the fattest cat you’ve ever seen) keeping me company.

However, I did manage to escape the city for my birthday, at the end of August. Charissa arrived in Colombia a few weeks after me, shortly followed by two good friends of her’s, Basti and Max. It turns out Basti has an aunt living in the nearby Tolima department, who kindly let us stay for a few days. Probably the most striking thing (or, at least, the most memorable) for me about Tolima is that it’s HOT. Really bloody hot. You could feel the temperature rising and rising as we descended into Tolima, which, together with the miles of curvy, steep mountain roads and sharp corners (invariably taken at 70 kmph, despite clear signs saying the limit was 30), made for a very “interesting” journey, to say the least.

Before we reached Ambalema, we stopped off for lunch (consisting of enough food for the entire day) and went to a nearby river. It’s a popular bathing spot at the weekend, however as we were there on a Monday it was empty. We climbed over the fences (apparently not trespassing, because, who owns a river, right?) and spent an hour or so cooling off in the water with some beers. Unfortunately no one had the foresight to put on mosquito repellent.

We arrived in Ambalema in the late afternoon and, after showering and saying hello, set off to explore. Ambalema is a very typical Colombian town. It’s tiny. I think every single person we passed greeted us and often stopped to have a chat; this would never in a million years happen in Bogotá. There is a disproportionately high number of cats and motorbikes in Ambalema. I’m fairly sure every family must own at least one or the other, if not both. We ambled down to the main square and selected a suitable food/beer place from the many ones surrounding it. We spent several hours there, watching everyone going about their business and marvelling at the sheer number of motorbikes zooming past us (in a town where literally everything is within walking distance). Max discovered the wonders of the salpicón – essentially an enormous fruit salad in a plastic cup with icecream on top.

It’s hard to get across just how different pueblo life and city life are (even just as a foreigner): we walked back from the centre in the darkness, sticking out like four sore thumbs, without a care in the world. It makes you realise how much you absorb the culture of suspicion that reigns in Bogotá, without even realising it.

However, Ambalema’s tranquil, danger-free image was shattered during the night, when we were kept awake (and scared out of our wits, or at least, I was) by the loudest and longest thunderstorm I’ve ever experienced.

Having enjoyed the sights and sounds of Ambalema, on Wednesday we decided it was time to head somewhere else.

Basti (the only one of us who had formed any kind of plan) was keen to go to a place called La Vega, which unfortunately sounds a lot like the Spanish word “verga” (enthusiastically telling people you had a great time in “the dick” is really not ideal). It’s a small town about an hour north of Bogotá and, with no other ideas, we decided to trust the scant but positive reviews online and go and see for ourselves.

Much to our relief, this turned out to be a brilliant idea.

Basti’s uncle kindly drove us all the way there. The camping site we’d decided to stay at was at least a half hour’s drive from the town and, luckily for us, we ended up having the whole place to ourselves. If I remember rightly, it was called “Cascadas del Chupal” and, as the name suggests, there were waterfalls. There were many small paths from the main camping ground, each leading to a different waterfall or pool, of which there were around 5 in total. We quickly dropped our bags and headed off to explore.

In the evening we made a campfire and some surprisingly delicious food (even arepas!). I couldn’t have picked a better place to turn 24 or people to spend it with.

 

 

Jardin, the most beautiful town in Colombia?

I’m sure those of you who are familiar with my excellent time-management and organisational skills won’t be surprised to see me still writing about places I visited seven months ago. If not, bear with me and just imagine we’re still in June.

Before visiting Jardín I had read somewhere that it is widely believed to be the most beautiful town in Colombia – quite the claim – and I can confirm that this is completely true. Jardín is a small town in the south of the Antioquia department, a three hour bus journey from Medellín. As I was coming from Manizales (the capital of neighbouring Caldas) it made sense to me to visit Jardín on my way up, as opposed to going to Medellín and then back out again. Unfortunately in Colombia things aren’t always that simple and what often appears to be an uncomplicated journey and overall sensible time-saving decision on the map, isn’t always so in real life.

To get to Jardín from Manizales you must first get a bus two hours to Riosucio (much nicer than its name suggests) and from there a three hour bus to Jardín. What I didn’t anticipate (and of course, the only way to find this out is at the bus station) is that there are only two buses a day from Riosucio to Jardín. One at 8 am and one at 3 pm. I arrived in Riosucio at 4 pm. Fortunately it’s a nice enough place to be stuck in for a night, especially when you can do so for as little as 15 00 (£3.80) in Hotel del Palacio.

As always in Colombia, the fact that a road exists on the map does not necessarily mean it is a road. About 15 minutes out of Riosucio and the”road” turned into little more than a track. The views were incredible, as you can see below, but the route is not recommended.

Fortunately, Jardín was most definitely worth the journey. It is picturesque in the extreme: a town with a population of 15 000 people, quietly nestled in the lush green coffee growing hills of Antioquia. The whole place is alive with colour: the buildings, flowers, tables and chairs outside the cafes and bars (of which there are hundreds). Unfortunately, my photography skills didn’t quite manage to capture those vivid and dazzling colours for which it is so well known, yet Jardín truly is a very beautiful place and one that embodies the sunny spirit of this wonderful country.

On the Sunday I spent there the town was filled with families leisurely walking around or people sitting outside the numerous bars that surround the plaza, whiling away the hours. I even saw a surprising amount enjoying a spot of aguardiente, that most Colombian of poisons, at 11 am. There was a relaxed and cheerful feeling about the place (and one that you’d be hard pushed to find in a similarly sized English town) that was more than a little catching, though not enough to tempt me to partake in their early morning enthusiasm for guaro.

Aside from all the lovely cafes and restaurants, there are lots of things to do in the countryside surrounding the town. Little after arriving I befriended a nice local called David, who very kindly offered to show me around. We walked along the Caminata de Herrera way, which was beautiful, crossing a river, through banana fields and leading to a popular bathing spot on the river where there’s a famous rock called the charco del corazón – a tiny heart-shaped pool where Jardín’s answer to Romeo and Juliet apparently used to meet, until one day they mysteriously disappeared.

There are lots of other interesting places nearby, such as caves and walks, but they didn’t fit into my six hour schedule. I did, however, have time for a ride in Jardín’s cable car, which I found to be a lot older and more rickety than I would’ve liked. At the top, other than a lovely view of the town, there is a small cafe and apparently a footpath. The cafe is great, though I can’t comment on the state of the footpath as it began raining almost as soon as I stepped out of the cable car. And, with the rain, my exploration of Jardín came to an end.

It is undoubtedly a very quaint, beautiful and welcoming place. The people are among the friendliest I have met in the country, and in what is statistically one of the happiest counties in the world, that really is saying something!

Adventures on Colombia’s Pacific Coast

My trip to the Pacific started out on a bit of a whim; another British Council-er had been and from the photos it simply looked stunning. That and the fact that it’s incredibly off-the-beaten-track and few people tend to go there. It is definitely not up there with the likes of Salento, Medellín and San Andres island in terms of popularity as a tourist destination.

I spent most of my stay in Nuquí, a town located in the Chocó department. To provide some geographical context, east of Chocó is the department of Antioquia and to its south Valle del Cauca, if you go north you’ll be in Panama and to the west lies nothing but the endless expanse of the Pacific ocean. It’s BIG. From what I understand – especially after telling numerous Colombian friends I was going – it’s not a particularly visited part of the country. Its capital is the city of Quibdó and most of the department is forest. It’s one of the wettest places on earth. People from Chocó are, in their majority, of West African heritage, though there are also significant numbers of indigenous peoples living there. The department is incredibly isolated from the rest of the country (it is at least a 7 hour journey by road from Quibdó to the nearest city) and is often neglected by a government hundreds of miles away in the Andes. Chocó has the highest levels of poverty in Colombia and its sheer inaccessibility, abundance of natural resources and access to important drugs trafficking routes mean that it continues to be one of the greatest victims of armed conflict in the country.

On a brighter note, arguably one of the most famous things to come out of Chocó is a band called ChocQuibTown, whose aptly titled song I have included below…

Getting there proved to be quite complicated. After saying goodbye to our lovely hosts in Armenia, I took a bus to the nearby city of Pereira and from there, the night bus to Quibdó. Normally this journey takes about 10 hours and goes via what I have been told is a “very good road” (the one we took left much to be desired). However, a landslide in a town called Carmen de Atrato, which tragically left 10 people dead and many more unaccounted for, meant that the bus took a different route (as well as an unexplained 3 hour stop in a random town at 3 am) making my journey more like 15 hours. Lovely.

Arriving in the capital of Quibdó was, above all else, a massive shock to the senses, all the more so after the calm and tranquility of Armenia. It’s possibly the least touristy place I have visited and I think I may have been the only foreigner in the city at the time. On first impressions it looks quite run down and maybe just a tiny bit scary. This wasn’t helped by how crazily busy it is with so so many people bustling to and fro. It is a very vibrant and loud place and the city centre was somewhat stressful in this respect. There also seems to be a disproportionately high number of clothes and shoe shops for a not-that-big city (they were everywhere).

After spending the morning wandering and mooching in the hotel, I had a sudden moment of genius and remembered I have a friend from Quibdó, which ended in me going for beers with some of his cousins (LOVE Colombia). They then decided to take me on a slightly drunken motorbike tour of the city at 10pm in the pouring rain – 2 beers Vicky always makes excellent decisions… I got to see a lot more of Quibdó than I had bargained on and, thankfully, didn’t die in the process. We finished the evening eating yummy fish sitting on plastic chairs in the drizzle outside a particularly busy (and tiny) restaurant.

In Quibdó people overwhelmingly travel by motorbike and there are even mototaxis. Unfortunately for me, on my way to the airport the following day I learnt the perils of this seemingly fun mode of transport and came away with an impressive and very painful, egg-sized burn below my right knee. The same burn that everyone who has ever lived in a motorbike using country seems to have and one that invariably elicits the response “you did that on a motorbike didn’t you?” Might get a tattoo.

The flight to Nuquí most definitely made up for the pain and was, without doubt, the tiniest, most extreme and most incredible flight of my life. Pretty much as soon as we flew over Quibdó and crossed the river civilisation stopped. I had been told that there were no roads to Nuquí, that it was only accessible by plane or boat (from the port of Buenaventura), but that still didn’t prepare me for the sheer isolation of it, the unending swathes of forest interrupted only by the gentle bends of the river winding through it. It was truly a world away from anywhere I’d seen so far. This impression was confirmed upon arrival in Nuquí: the Pacific coast is a whole other Colombia.

(I flew with Satena from Quibdó. I know that it is also possible to fly from Medellín, though I imagine it is considerably more expensive to do so.)

I arrived to this…

As far as I could tell, people in Nuquí live mostly off of fishing and tourism, though, on the whole, it was considerably less touristy that I was expecting. It’s the kind of place where everyone knows everyone and there are chickens EVERYWHERE. There are several hotels in the town – I stayed at Palmas del Pacífico. Bahia Solano, a bit further up the coast from Nuquí, is more touristy though it is difficult to reach from Nuquí as boats only go three times a week (it is possible to fly from Quibdó to Bahia Solano too). Most people tend to come on weekends as it is easier and cheaper to organise trips by boat. Fortunately for me my friend also has a cousin in Nuquí, who very kindly offered to arrange a trip for me with a boat-owning friend of his. So it was that we set out, in said boat, on what was definitely not the most comfortable or stomach steadying of journeys. It was about a 40 minute ride up the coast to reach Utria, a National Park covering an expanse of 54 300 hectares. In general the whole area seems to be much the same as the park, though it is specifically protected and visitable. I somehow managed to get in as Colombian, avoiding the 42000 COP “foreigner’s price” and paying only 16000 (yessss).

I got a tour of a small part of the park with a guide who explained all about the different trees, plants, animals and insects that can be found there. Following the walkway through the mangrove forest (above) and spotting all the different kinds of fish hiding in the submerged roots below was pretty exciting. Apparently we were on quite a tight schedule so we had lunch and were soon back on the boat. We stopped off in several other places, including a beautiful bay with both white and black sand beaches and another beach with a hidden waterfall where I took a quick dip!

It’s possible to do a similar trip to the south of Nuqui, stopping off at various villages and ending in some hot springs, however given the rapidly worsening state of my burn I didn’t think it the best idea…

Nuquí has got to be one of the most remote destinations I have ever visited. On few beaches can you sit for 3 hours (writing this!) watching the sun set and only have a handful of people walking past and a pesky dog for company. More than anything else it’s a place to reflect and disconnect, though doing otherwise would’ve been impossible given that there’s no internet here. It truly shows a different side of Colombia and demonstrates the country’s incredible diversity.