After Palomino it really was nearing the end of the holiday. We couldn’t quite, or didn’t, make it all the way from Santa Marta to San Gil in a day. I think we could have done it in retrospect, but we stayed the night in Bucaramanga. An eminently missable town I reckon, at least, if you’re short on time. We did chance across a Frenchman who was there to go climbing an hour or so South of there… apparently a really good climbing spot. Hey ho.

Anyway, next day on to San Gil, a very nice little town. Probably the Wanaka(Queenstown) of Colombia, in that it’s the adventure capital. We opted for caving, not least because it was the cheapest option ;) . I was actually quite surprised they brought regular punters down the cave.

At one point it involved a 2m duck (where you have to put your head fully under water) you can see Maaike holding a rope in one of the pics, you could use that to pull yourself along under the water … I must admit, I’ve done a little caving in NZ link, and I really never liked having to do ducks there, but the water in the cave was almost warmish. Odd.

There were bats, and their guano was a place where plants grew in the cave. Plants which would die if exposed to light (or so we’re told, seems like an odd thing for a plant to do but there you go). Nice formations too. Yes, really very happy we chose caving, it was a great way to close out the adventurous part of our Colombia holiday.

Oh, and a picture of a weird fruit..

From Santa Marta we took a 3 hour or so bus ride to Palomino. It’s on the beach. Well, it’s a beach resort. In a hot country. Hot, sandy, beach (with a strong current). What on earth were we thinking ;) Well, we were thinking it’d be a fine place to relax before getting back into the hurly-burly rough and tumble world of the US and Europe (our next destinations after Colombia).

Anyway, off to Palomino. I was confused by the toilet, just what exactly is it trying to say?

More fantastic thunderstorms, it lashed rain most days for at least an hour, and we had one spectacular lightning storm far out over the sea. It was really impressive. Probably the loudest and closest thunder I’ve heard too.. very much like those really big fireworks which you feel in your chest.

We had cocktails and nice food, lazed around and read books, played table tennis, and generally had a very relaxed time.

A quick note on Santa Marta. It’s a nice little town in and of its own right. We spent a few nights here before Ciudad Perdida and before and after Palomino. We found a very nice little street market just down the road from the hostel. Very tasty pizza for just a few $$’s a slice, and very nice fruit juices. Oh, and we had a most spectacular storm as well.. just a damn shame about the street lights :(

Spoiler alert: We found it. And it was at the end of a track, so I’m surprised it has been lost for this long.

We arrived into Santa Marta for our trip to Ciudad Perdida (The lost city), on our friend Val’s advice. Ciudad Perdida was built in ~700AD and was “lost” when the Spanish invaded, as the city was abandoned. Some treasure hunters eventually found it in 1973 (getting info out of an old man by getting him drunk :( , and looted it. The story we were told was that three brothers found it. They’d collect gold, bring it back to town and then drink the proceeds. A brother in law got jealous, followed them, shot one and the others escaped. I don’t think the story related what happened to the brother-in-law, but he was chased off anyway. Ultimately though, a hunter who wasn’t getting a fair cut decided to sell the location to the government in 1975, after which it was mostly protected.

The walk is hard enough, and very definitely hot enough. I was so completely drenched in sweat after only 30 minutes or less each day. It’s so hot and humid. Fortunately, at every stopping point there’s a river to bathe in. There’s price-fixing amongst the tour operators, so it’s 900,000 Pesos whether you do the trip in 4, 5 or 6 days. We opted for 4 days, it really doesn’t need any more.

Just a quick side-note here, this is a local carrying Maaike’s bag bag up a big hill after it fell down. What a gentleman. As it’s a Cactus bag it had no damage at all.

There are indigenous in the area, three different tribes. We’d see them daily running past us up the hills etc.

I really enjoyed the city. It’s lovely to be there with relatively few people. I’m not quite sure what the limit is on the number of people, but far less than Manchu Pichu anyway (and it sees far fewer tourists regardless of limits). In the pictures below is a hole. This is where you were put for a week or so if you’d transgressed the rules. Our guide Wilson told us a story of an indigenous friend of his who’d left his wife (and kid) and run off with another. When the village found out they captured him and make him carry sand up a hill, locking him up at night. The sentence was 3 months. He managed to escape, and had to leave the area as they kept looking for 3 years. Actually seems cheaper & more straightforward than getting an actual divorce…

Our group was awesome, really nice bunch of people, and all at similar fitness levels. I had fun introducing (most of) them to werewolves and villagers. Annoyingly the werewolves won every round! even once I’d reduced their numbers! hey ho.

Also annoyingly, I’d left the ISO on the little camera stuck on 800.. so a lot of the pictures were overexposed. I need to get some camera pointers.. for example, look at this picture (taken with my DSLR)…

the brightness? contrast? seems quite off… but I’m not quite sure what I’m doing wrong. The colours just don’t look vibrant at all (and it is ISO 100). Pointers most welcome. The colours on the little camera come out way stronger.

Oh, one thing about the rivers, respect the local advice. We were swimming in this one (after the heavy rains), and the locals came and told us to get out, so we did. 10 minutes later it completely flash flooded…

Oh, a note on the food, or at least the drinks. Fruit juices in Colombia are amazing. Simply amazing. Just had to share.

Another tick on the UNESCO list which I’m not keeping. Cartagena. It was one of the storage points for merchandise sent out from Spain, and for treasure collected from the Americas to be sent back to Spain. It was also heavily fortified and the remains of some of the forts can still be seen and visited. We spent a couple of nights here and had a very nice day walking around the old city, getting properly rained on and enjoying the sights.

The rainy season really is a thing. It lashes down for anywhere between 20-40 minutes and then clears up, usually accompanied by lightning.

We visited Castillo San Felipe de Barajas, a very significant fort back in the day. Riddled with tunnels they still haven’t finished exploring. Maaike wasn’t that impressed when the lights went out while we were in them..

Stunning sunset. This place needs a timelapse ;) Seriously, I’m considering putting a little bit of effort into making my little timelapse website more accessible and then making it into a public geek-art project. It’d be awesome to see timelapses from around the world, especially from groovy views like this one!

We also went for a swim in the sea. Not sure if it’s technically the Caribbean or not, but it was really really warm, even I enjoyed it ;)