Final Blog :(

Well, here it is. The last blog. It´s been a trip, but it´s time for me to go home.
My trip to Ciudad Perdida was an absolute success. But by the last day I was soooooo ready to sleep in a normal bed again. My original group consisted of only 3 people, including myself, but after another group of seven lost their guide (he got sick) we joined together to form a nice group of ten. From my original group there were Ruth and Ben (Irish), then from the other group we had 3 Germans, 1 Canadian, 2 Americans (one from Yakima another from Salem, Oregon), 1 Australian and myself. All the people working for the tour company as guides and food guardians were local campesinos from the area. It felt nice knowing that we were being led around by people from the region who knew the area and were the ones making the profit from our tourism. We stayed in hammocks in shelters along the way which were surprisingly comfortable. The food they made us was absolutely wonderful, different for every meal. Our guide Yovani and our two food guardians did everything they could to help us along the way and make our journey more comfortable. From the second we stepped out of our hostel the first day until the last day when we returned we were drenched in sweat. Santa Marta is humid and hot as it is, but the slightest bit of physical exertion results in a sweat so profuse and without pause that I have nothing in my entire life to compare it with. It got easier as we ascended in altitude, but it was still physically difficult so the sweat level was pretty much the same the whole time. But on the plus side, my skin hasn´t looked this good since I was about 11. The hike itself is about 30 miles each way, but they managed to break it up in such a way that we only hiked about 4 hours each day, with the exception of the 5th day when we hiked about 9 and a half. We spent the first 3 days getting to the ruines, spent the 4th day touring them and made it back in the remaining 2 days.
The ruines are believed to be the remains of a huge city-like complex at one time containing several thousand of the Tayrona people. The Lost City consists of a number of circular platforms that are connected by steep and winding staircases. They cover an expanse of 16 kilometers squared, but only the central platforms are open to the public. The ruines themselves are incredibly well-preserved. Like Machu Picchu, they were never discovered by the Spanish colonizers. In order to reach the Lost City from the river at the base of the mountain you have to climb almost 3000 steps, or 1200 meters (if I remember correctly). Seriously, climbing up and down those stairs was the scariest thing I´ve done the whole trip. I´ve never been that scared--ever. Why? Well, first of all the stairs are made of stone. Unlike Incan structures, the stones are uneven and uncut. They are at times steep and other times very steep. They are ALWAYS slick and mossy. Most of the time my feet didn´t fit on the next step and my hiking boots kept bouncing back each time I tried to climb the next step. If that had been all, it would have sucked, but it wasn´t. About 5 minutes into the climb it started to pour. Tropical, jungle rain that doesn´t let up. So as we got higher the rocks got slicker and slicker. This was already after a few hours of hiking. So, I´m sweating, soaking and tired, but I don´t even notice it because I´m thinking that each step is going to be my last. Seriously, I´m not exaggerating, that was the scariest part of my trip, maybe even of my life. The entire three months. I would never do it again. ever. I started crying a few times. Not going to lie. Coming down was almost as bad, except for the it wasn´t raining. But it rained later. And that experience also brought me to tears a couple of times, but I won´t even begin to go into that story. Let´s just say, at the end of the day both my body and spirit were broken.
There´s sooo much more to be said about that trip, but I´d rather do it in person, so you´ll just have to wait.
But all, in all, great trip!
After getting back to Santa Marta I left for the beach along with the Irish folks and Mike, the Canadian. We went to this national park called Parque Tayrona where they have a couple mile stretch of beaches linked by a footpath. We met up with a few other people from our trek who had also decided to spend some time relaxing and snorkeling on the beach. Again we slept in hammocks, but the beach was waaaay better than the jungle. And since the beaches are only accessible by foot there are less people than a normal public beach. The caribbean sea was absolutely wonderful and just what the doctor ordered. Well, sort of. The last day I got sick with a fever and a head cold, but whatever. I´m still sick now, but it´s not too bad. The fever broke and now I´m just suffering the usual cold symptoms. I was planning to visit Cartagena, but since I got sick I couldn´t get moving in time. Oh well, something for the next time I´m in Colombia. I took the bus to Bogota yesterday and arrived this morning. So far, the place seems pretty cool. I´m feeling pretty lazy so I don´t know if I´ll wander too far, but I do plan on visiting the famous Gold Museum and the Police Museum sometime before I leave.

Alright. That´s it. To sum up: Good trip. Many more details and stories to be shared in person and with my photos!

Love and Peace.

Gabi

Colombia, at last

I finally made it to Colombia. And tonight I will finally be in my destination of Santa Marta. I decided to fly there for two reasons: the first being that it is way quicker and will ensure that I arrive in Santa Marta in time to organize a trip to Ciudad Perdida, and the second being that its probably safer. Colombia is a big place so bus rides take some time and its not like Argentina where you can basically take one bus and get wherever you like. To get from the border town of Ipiales to Santa Marta on the coast I would have to take no less than three buses. And since I would only be taking them during the daylight hours it would take me no less than three days to get there. And I´m not exactly comfortable with the bus situation as it is. I mean, I guess here you can bargain for a better price, but I have no idea what a good price is/I have no idea how much money Im spending anyway because everything is in hundreds of thousands of pesos. Anyway, thats why I decided to fly.
I had an interesting day yesterday. It was my single goal in Cali to find a battery charger for my camera since I had mysteriously misplaced mine a couple of weeks ago. I first went to the owner (maybe, I really dont know) of the hostel and asked him if he knew of any RadioShacks around. He looked at me blankly. RADIOSHACK. still, nothing. The reason I was so sure that there should be a RadioShack here in Cali is because while in Quito I went to a RadioShack that had what I needed, but when he took it out of the box, it was broken. He recommended that I visit the RadioShack in Cali. Thus, my insistence that I find the nearest RadioShack. Next I tried looking it up in the yellow/white pages. Again, nothing. No radioshack, no electronics store, no camera accessory stores. NOTHING. And the owner guy was of absolutely NO help. Soon after he showed me where the yellow/white pages were, he peaced. Thanks a lot. I googled RadioShack. still nothing. Finally, I just decide to go out into the world and see what I can make of it. I start walking, just looking around for a place that sells ice-cream or something, when I stumble across a ¨ferreteria¨ or a hardware store. I went in and explained my situation to the guy working in there and he directs me to another part of town where they might have the part I´m looking for. He explains to me how to get there (under two bridges, straight 5 blocks and then turn left) and as Im about to leave says, ¨and, it shouldnt be too dangerous. I was just there a couple of days ago and it was okay. It used to be a place where you had to be careful, but you should be fine.¨ OH. whatever, I decide to walk. So Im walking, and its sweltering and I´m feeling a bit uneasy, but just keep walking. The under the two bridges area is a little shady, but once I pass through there and walk a few blocks I´m suddenly in a very busy part of town. I guess, you could call it downtown, but I really don´t know. I find the store that he recommended to me. Its closed for siesta. But the nice thing about the cities in South America is that usually all the business in the same line of work are located on the same block, or in the same building. So I just went to a couple of stores around there and asked them where I could find a charger for my battery. And they directed me to other places until I finally found a place that was open and that carried the part that I needed. I felt so accomplished. All by myself I had found a very obscure battery charger in a big city, in a big country, far, far away from home. And it works, too.
So, after that I decided to take this matter of flying to Santa Marta into my own hands. At that time, I still hadnt decided to fly or not. Earlier that morning the owner guy promised to make a phone call to ¨his friend that owns a travel agency¨ and give me a price. Which he never ended up doing. So I went to the airline and got an estimate for a flight to Santa Marta, enquired about a discount, got one, and bought my ticket. So there, owner guy--you suck. Afterwards I treated myself to a HUGE soft-serve ice-cream sundae. What a good day.
In conclusion (Allie!!!), I got all my goals accomplished, plus one, and I managed to navigate my way around the city relying solely on my natural-born wit and intuition. I´d say it feels pretty good to be a ganster, right about now.
Thinking about that ice-cream makes me want another one.

Peace!

Ecuador

Hey everybody, whats up.
Right now I´m in the town of Otavalo, Ecuador. They are famous for their Saturday morning markets so I decided to stop over here to check it out before heading even more north to Colombia. But, I just got here and the only thing I´ve done is taken advatage of the cable t.v. in my hotel room. Is that wrong? I´ve also walked around a bit. And I bought and ate a cookie.
Hopefully tomorrow I´ll go on either a bike tour or a hike around the lagoons around here. It all depends on whether or not I find another person to do it with me. So, I´m just killing time before I go back and check to see if the tour agency has found another person.
Anyway. Quito was nice. I stayed with my stepmom´s family. It was nice to sleep in a home and eat home-cooked meals for a change. I met up with some friends that I had met in Montañita who were also in Quito and together we visited the ¨middle of the world¨ (i.e. the equator), which incidentally is about 240 meters off of where the actual equator is. But it´s the thought that counts, right? I also took a night tour of the colonial part of Quito. I saw all the churches lit up and from a nice viewpoint above the city. Then the next day I visited them by day. All in all, Quito is a nice city.
That´s about it. I´m anxious to get to Colombia!!!!