Cartagena, Colombia!
Incredible. I was really looking forward to this, and for a reason. I mean, Colombia is the crown on South America's head -if that could be announced just by knowing the northern parts of the country.
Venezuelans put up a persistent struggle before I got out of there. About 10 road blocks with
"documentación, por favor" and a stuck-up border official were the highlights. Plus a guy who clogged the bus bathroom before it left the terminal for its supposedly 15-hour trip to the frontier. No worries, just arrived 6 hours late finally to Cartagena, plus I got more taste of the South American bureaucracy: being stuck at the border, the ladies in our bus suggested that we bribe the official to let us pass -and so we did. He got like 35 euros worth and let the bus pass without an inspection. You just gotta love these countries. And some people still wonder how smuggling is possible!
Then, after changing the bus in Colombia the scene changed immediately. I had some rhum with some locals as nobody can watch the Van Damme greatest hits (or should I say misses) about the tenth time (I mean, why do the bus company guys love them so much?!?) sober. As the journey went along, we picked up about twenty football fans coming from a game and serving us with aguardiente, a local (or, Columbian) booz. So we partied all the way to Cartagena and suddenly the 28-hours in a bus were not all that bad. No sign of guerrillas here and no formalities of any kind, mind you.
Then I got to see the city. It is an old colonial town (actually bearing the name Cartagena de las Indias), and back in the day this was the major port for shipping the Indian gold to the old continent. This also made it a tempting place for pirate attacks and guys like Francis Drake made a go for it in their time. The Spanish then fortified the town, and the remnants are still surrounding the old town -plus there is a big ass fortress on the side of it. Mind you the place is also right next to the Caribbean coast and this all makes it just about the most incredible town I have seen on this trip. Also, in the old town the buildings are still mainly colonial style: 16th century architecture with narrow streets, palaces, churches, plazas, monasteries, etc. -see the pics below of the town, followed by the fortress. And if this was not enough, right now there are Caribbean games of nameyoursport here in Cartagena, so there is a lot going on. And the snorkeling, diving and chilling on the beach is still ahead..
I have eaten twice in McDonald's in my three days here. Shameful? Something wrong with the local food? No, but as I went in to see the Bicmac prices -6900 pesos (2,22 euros) for a burger and 9100 (2,93 euros) per meal- I noticed the same kind of salsa bar McD's had in Peru. Imagine combining 6 extra ingredients to a normal McProduct, among them 4 spicy salsas -now that gives a new kind of life to the burger. I decided to live in an even more Westerner style and went to movies to see Pirates of the Caribbean in order to "get into the vibe". Only they weren't passing it anymore so I had to see the new Superman. I was not too overwhelmed.
On a different note, I still lack a clear way to get out of here on time to catch my flight to Cuba from Panama. There are no roads to Panama, so obvious ways are via sailboat (primary option, cheaper and sounds just too good to be true) or via plane (no direct ones from Cartagena, so it will cost a bit..). Time will tell what happens, as for now the sailboats are going rather irregularly to say the least.
Republica Bolivariana de Venezuela
This time I'm writing this from Caracas, Venezuela. I got my passport after all on tuesday in Manaus and headed straight for the border, as I was starting to be fed up with the millions "want jungle tour?" -questions, my gay hotel keeper who was continuously commenting on my outfits and the general non-spanish linguistic atmosphere. At this point I would like to express my sincerest gratitude to the Finnish consul of Manaus, Jacob Cohen, and his son. I owe them one, as they really worked to get me the passport. And guess what was the delay owed to? Brazilian post. I will not get started on that now, but just to ask, would you as post officers try to deliver business mail (marked especifically to be delivered in business hours) either on saturday at 5 PM or on monday at 20.30 PM? Seriously, there seem to be all kinds of idiots around.
From Manaus the journey continued over the northern border to Santa Elena and straight onwards to Ciudad Bolivar. From Manaus that was about 30 hours straight, thank God with breaks. On the way I met Victor, a Mexican restaurant keeper and a traveller extraordinaire, who accompanied me all the way until today as he went on to other adventures. Anyway, Ciudad Bolivar was a disappointment, because we stopped there with the intention to go see Salto Angel, the world's highest waterfall (nearly one kilometer of height). However, it is so deep in the jungle that we had to either take a three-day jungle trip or pay a ridiculous 230 euros per head to fly over it. So, as we were a little short on time, we took off to Caracas without Salto Angel, making also sure that this would not be the last time I come to Venezuela as this is something I do want to see. At least there was the rio Orinoco that some at least might know of the song Orinoco flow:
As we were waiting for the Caracas bus (actually killing time as we had like half a day for it), we sat down for a few drinks. Victor, a part from being a nice and funny guy to travel with, has this unimaginable charm with women of all ages wherever he goes. So before we knew it, he got us invited to a party in the neighbourhood. Ok, I must admit it sounded a little too much like an attempt to rob us and leave there wandering without money, but it wasn't. This "party" was the local restaurant keeper, a woman in his fifties, that had invited us actually to her place to rip Victor's clothes off. And as they moved on to negotiate restaurant business and other hot topics of the day, I was left with her probably underaged daughter to wait for them. That must have been the most stuck-up conversation I have had in my entire life. In the three days I knew him, Victor showed remarkable talent of getting me into awkward situations like this one -I can only imagine what the lady expected me to do with the daughter in the meanwhile.. So Ciudad Bolivar did leave us with something to remember after all. Man we were laughing in the bus remembering the situation couple hours back. Here's me and Victor having a few beers at the local:
Still, it was a little disappointing as we did not get to see the waterfall or even any Tepuis close up (we could see several from the bus windows). Tepuis are the high, flat-topped mountains typical to Venezuela. They have formed during thousands of years, so that they actually have their own ecosystems on the top. Too bad I did not get any pics of them either.
What there is plenty of in Venezuela is (Simon) Bolivar (see above). He is considered a saint and revered up to the point that the actual name of the country is Republica Bolivariana de Venezuela. For those that do not know, the dude is directly or indirectly responsible for the independence of just about half of South America. The "Venezuela" part, by the way, comes from the fact that the first thing the Spanish saw upon entering the coast were houses on stilts -hence:
Venezuela, or little Venice. But Bolivar is the man here: even every little
pueblito has a Plaza Bolivar and you can see Bolivar's pictures everywhere, surpassed in quantity only by the pictures of Hugo Chavez, the current president. The elections are coming up and he takes full advantage of the position, leaving any possible challengers very little room to move against him. The people on the street hate Chavez, but as there seem to be no even half-ok challengers, he will probably take yet another term in office. I'm pretty sure his government is controlling the media, at least TV shows just some propaganda-like shit all the time. He is also one of the heads-of-state -trio so dear to the mighty USA; Castro in Cuba, Chavez in Venezuela and Morales in Bolivia.
Anyway, we decided to get the hell out of Caracas as fast as we could after seeing the important sights. This was because of the total chaos on the streets (just like Bolivia) and generally a little unsafe feeling we got there, especially during night. First we had some errands to run like me getting the Cuban tourist visa, etc. but then we decided to see how efficient travellers/tourists we actually were. And all the major sights of Caracas, including a charming little town an hour away called El Hatillo, were seen in one long day. Victor said he has travelled around the world for about thirty years and it shows with his bag of tricks and skills of planning things. I'm still a newbie after all. Some pics from the Pico del Avila, a sightseeing point that is reached via a 20-minute cable car, then the centre of Caracas and El Hatillo:
Now on to the usual stuff: a bic mac here is 6800 bolivarianos (2,5 euros) and a meal 10100 (3,7). Not to give you the wrong kind of impression, Venezuela has all the western world stuff, as it is rich with oil (and was living it large some years back) though in my opinion it has more issues than good things related to the oil -not to mention the country overall which preceivably has several problems. But it is a beautiful country and will be a destination for me on a later note. And yes guys, it has also those Miss Universum -types, as I'm told some families start to build a Miss Universum from birth with proper training, nutrition, etc. But in general I'd say Brazilian chicks are better looking. One more notable thing about Venezuela is that football is not THE sport here, it's baseball. I guess there was too much competition around or something. ;)
In Brazil:
Best national beer tasted: Brahma
Best national dish: Rodizio, the eat-all-you-can meat feast
Best experience/sight: The best experience was the jungle tour, but of sights Corcovado takes the cake.
In Venezuela:
Best national beer tasted: Solera
Best national dish: Pollo en brasas, kind of a grilled chicken, with pasta
Best experience/sight: The trip to Pico del Avila, a sightseeing spot over Caracas
Welcome to the jungle
..said my private indian guide Frank on one sunny friday morning. I took a three-day tour from one of the many agencies in Manaus, paying what seemed a lot at first but what became more reasonable as the tour went on. Before leaving I packed up on meat in a local
rodízio, where you have a salad bar and complement it sitting on the table and signaling with this kind of disks (below) to the waiter if you want them to bring you more meat -eat all you can of every kind of meat, garlic bread, cheese, etc -genious!
On the first day we woke up at 5 to catch a bus to the middle of nowhere. Our goal was a small shelter (that is, a roof and nothing else) up Rio Urubú, some 250 kilometers northeast of Manaus, and the journey was done by bus and a rather long boat ride upriver (second pic below), accompanied by some river dolphins. Arriving at 11 in the morning, we had a breakfast of coffee and bananas. Here is also one of the first things I encountered -these dudes scream really loud:
First we took a three-hour canoe trip in the bushes (first pic below). Frank took the canoe straight into what seemed like unpenetratable wall of wood and leaves. There we had a different view of the Amazon already with lots of animals (like a big ass spider I nearly grabbed by accident) in it. The thing about Amazon was that if I was not hiding my camera in a water-tight bag I was too surprised by the animals to take pictures (or the subject was moving too fast and too far), so unfortunately you will not see any discovery channel pics here, just pictures of the two things that could not escape, me and the jungle. Anyway, next we had a lunch of chicken and rice, which was followed by a three-hour piranha fishing trip that did not produce one single fish though "the waters were swarming with piranhas". For dinner we had chicken and rice. The day was sealed with alligator spotting at 8 PM, as it was already so dark you could not see the end of your nose. We found one small alligator right at our feet.. Before "going to hammock" (no beds there) at 9 PM I got ambushed by black ants that were out hunting (a sting causes very high fever), but managed to run faster than them and escape. Going asleep was a little hard, as the crickets, monkies and especially frogs were having a rock concert and some intruders found my hammock every 20 seconds or so. Oh yeah, there were no mosquito nets as "here we have no mosquitos", though I could have sworn I heard several. A sunset from our "base camp" as the second one below.
Then, after waking up at 4 AM, well rested but just waiting for the light, I had time to wonder how I eventually, about 11 PM or so, got used to the idea that I was not alone in my underwear. At 6 AM Frankie woke me up for some coffee and bananas (both of which tasted great here even before the trip), because this was to be the actual jungle day. Here's Mr Jungle Jim (or, as Frank said, Jackie Chan) ready for adventure.
And in we went, for four swetty hours partly on trails but sometimes just by Frank's gut feeling. He was an especially crazy guerrilla as he had served in the Brazilian army as well, so I did not make a fuss about my own army background there.. Here are some shots from the trail (last one a "small" spider web, note Franks head in the bottom-left corner):
Then we got to our hideout in the woods, the "shelter".. I was slowly starting to regret I asked Frank to treat me without the silken gloves. Upon arrival we cooked lunch -chicken and rice.
On the jungle trail I among other things, scared away a wild pig that I'm sure was not even half as scared as me, saw some monkies (yep, genuine jungle monkies!!), about a dozen different birds, a fresh print of a jaguar and so many spiders I am starting to hate them. On our afternoon walk deeper into the woods I saw more monkeys and even a red Macau (a big parrot-looking red bird). I was exhausted and could not wait to get to camp and have a dinner of -you guessed it- chicken and rice.
I was not too sure I wanted to sleep without any real shelter, but at this point Frank revealed to me that the first days' base camp might not be a good place to go back to, as our cook who came with us up to there had gotten sick with malaria. Oops. So much for the no mosquitos -guarantee. There was nothing to be done except double the dosis of malaria pills and spray repellent like a madman. So in the woods we slept. Before going to sleep we had some wonderful talks about women in an each-one-teach-one method (talking about languages, no Brokeback Mountains there..) though he probably got more out of it than me. Anyway, portuguese is rubbing in and now I can communicate, though still quite poorly.
After another night well slept with several different insects and some armadillos that wanted to dig into our provisions of chicken and rice, I insisted that we get back to the base camp as I was genuinely worried about our cook who we had left there alone with malaria. So Frank rushed us through the bush like a crazy, and we arrived in two hours (compared to four going there) to find out that the cook was up and laughing with some friends who came for a visit from the village nearby. Frank just said: "I told you he a strong man". Nuff said. In camp we had a breakfast of coffee and bananas. Here's my breakfast moment with a parrot that could whistle:
Then we had time to kill before we were supposed to be picked up in the afternoon, and suddenly Frank came to me with bad news: there was no more chicken, we would have to catch our lunch! Upon hearing these dreadful news I was virtually running for the canoe even though I was still a bit dazzled by the morning exercise (BTW: I will from now on try to avoid eating chicken and rice forever). This time our trip was more productive, we got a total of five piranhas (I got two and the biggest one), which was hardly enough (though it was really good) for two grown men. Lucky we had rice left..
Getting back into town we had some well deserved beers with Frank (right) and his friend and I was dreaming of McDonald's (seriously). Too bad there is no McD's in Manaus. In Rio there was, and the index showed 6,40 reais (2,32 euros) for the burger and 9,95 (3,61 euros) reais for the meal, by the way.
What did I learn from this trip? I'm actually a city cowboy, no matter how much I spend time outdoors trying to convince myself and others of the opposite. I reached the point where there were just too many insects for me, and I have seen other tropical forest without that effect. Amazon took the cake, by doing that and also otherwise, you can literally feel the life around you there. Notably though, not once did I complain, so I can still go home (or move on if I get the passport sometime this century) with some respect.
