Trekking in the jungle

We’re just back from an incredible 5 days in the Colombian jungle, in the Tayrona National Park, in the Sierra Nevada mountains. For our first couple of days, the dramatic storms of the last couple of weeks continued. We left the town of Santa Marta in nearly a foot of water. Heading up on the main coastal road, we stopped several times to negotiate rock falls and mud slides.  

It got even more interesting as we turned off onto a dirt track which wound its way up into a remote village on the edge of the jungle. Within the first 20 minutes, the van cut out in a big hole, next to a mighty drop – at this stage the driver admitted that he didn’t usually drive this van but had borrowed it because of the weather conditions and hadn’t got the hang of the clutch. 

He also wasn’t keen on the four wheel drive, preferring for most of the next 1½ hours to slide all over the place.

We were relieved to arrive in the village – which seemed very isolated when we arrived, but after 5 days walking and encountering communities all over the jungle, on the way back, it seemed pretty connected.  The trek was beautiful, exhilarating, fascinating and at times terrifying.  We climbed up through mountains, surrounded by jungle which opened out into terrific panoramic views.  It rained every day, but in the first couple, it absolutely poured it down from late morning. We waded across countless rivers – on our first river crossing we removed our shoes and socks and got the towel out on the other side (Simon didn’t go as far as talc). By day 2, dry feet or dry anything else was a distant memory. 

When it rained, the tracks turned to streams and the streams turned to gushing torrents of mud. 

I came close to being swept away in one, which was dramatic and not fun.  

Other times were wonderful, slipping down winding tracks of glowing red mud up to our shins, encountering the odd buried, small dead snake, all the time surrounded by amazing plants and enormous trees and trellises.

We had a lovely guide who had grown up in the mountains. We slept in hammocks around his family home on our first and last nights. 

The nearest village to his home was a good 3 hour trek which he used to make there and back every day and then work in the fields in the afternoon. Coca farming had been widespread in the region but is now less so due to several US backed ‘initiatives’ to eradicate it in the ‘80s and ‘90s – aerial drops of chemicals devastated the jungle and poisoned many of the people living in the area. As a result, apparently they still can’t grow avocadoes.  This area, in the lower Sierra Nevada is now under government/military control and there is an initiative to plant coffee instead of coca. 

Just a bit further into the mountains the guerrillas rule, it is a no-go area for most locals and definitely tourists and most of the cocaine in the region is produced here.  A cocaine tourist attraction in the area is tolerated by the military. We declined to pay and go but others in our group did. In a small factory set up, tourists are shown how coca leaves are converted into a cocaine base (they stop before turning it into powder) using chemicals – petrol, sulphuric acid and all sorts. Most farmers grow maize, yuca, bananas, pineapples, potatoes, coffee and cocoa. They rarely sell their products to market because they are so far away and the prices they receive don’t make it worth it. A lot of the farming is subsistence. Now there is more peace in the region since the guerrillas and coca production decreased, it seems like quite an amazing place to live in many ways. Generations of families live together or nearby, and they can drink clean water from the streams and rivers and bathe by waterfalls.

 La Ciudad Perdida is a tourist attraction on such a smaller scale to others, like the Inca Trail. It was such a privilege spending days here. Local people are so genuinely proud of the region and were willing to share it and a bit of their family lives with us.  As we walked around the mountains our guide sang local Ranchera songs to me about love and philandering men.

 

We returned filthy but happy in a dilapidated 4x4, with windows held in by string, sat sideways bumping down the mountain with a live rooster under Simon’s legs – a present for the driver’s friend’s birthday – in torrential rain which poured in through the gaps in the vehicle’s bodywork and down our backs.  Our guide just laughed and asked if we wanted soap passing back. A sense of humour for the ridiculous seems to be a must here and if you have it, it’s a lot of fun.   

The Lost City

After three days of trekking, which would be fairly easy in the dry season but felt like a real achievement in the rain, we reached the steps to the lost city of the Tayrona. Over 1200 steps that is, which I think is only like walking to the top of the Eiffel tower but with the added challenge of the steps being all different shapes and sizes and rather slippery. 

We climbed the steps to find a series or terraces and stone paths winding through the lush jungle. There are 217 restored stone terraces to explore with maybe another 2000 hidden in trees and an estimated 5000 in the surrounding area. Sadly all the riches of the lost city were long gone, mostly plundered while the whereabouts of the city was still a secret, but it was still an amazing thought that much of the central ‘sacred’ area would have been dripping with gold and precious offerings. And that the place would have been alive with little long-haired (hair was sacred and was only cut as a punishment if you were really very naughty just before you were left in a pit - see below - for a few months to be punished by Mother Earth- sun, water, mosquitoes etc) pre-Hispanic people (av. Height 1.2m) at the centre of an extensive community stretching across the mountains and to the coast.

What are now partially restored ruins were once home to a sophisticated population of about 3000 people. All of the terraces are round because they worshiped the sun (and Mother Earth) and all the houses were round and had twin peaks on the straw roofs to represent the two highest peaks in the mountains. 

The Sacred zone was where people came with offerings to give them strength or good fortune in their lives; when they needed a good crop of food or were off to war with some other tribe. There were also zones for housing guests who wanted to make offerings and for melting stone with secret magic liquid. We were naturally curious and a little suspicious as to just how our guides knew such information but apparently it was very well documented by the conquistadors before they destroyed the community during nearly 100 years of war and finally by making everyone ill with flu and yellow fever until the last few fled. Before too much sympathy is given, it should be pointed out that the little folk achieved their unchallenged empire by wiping out all other local tribes in some pretty violent wars.

We enjoyed our wander round the city that was lost for 600 years and Rachel did a splendid job translating all the information from Spanish for our English speaking ensemble of Irish, an Italian and an American. Most of all it was just a privilege to be spending time in such an amazing environment where it was easy to see why the Tayrona led their lives according to the Mother Earth they worshipped. 

Food and drink

We were very happy to rediscover vegetables in Merida. We really enjoyed our chorizo creation (the blackberry wine was delicious by the way) and the following night we chipped in for a meal cooked by some English vegetarian friends we met in the posada. I was excited to find out that following a discussion about what was missed from the homeland they had done a great job of cooking a vegetable curry. It wasn’t quite Balti International but it was still really good.

The search for new local foods has continued unabated. In Merida while buying fruit we found cachapas- a small thick yellow pancake made with maize. We followed the shop keeper’s suggestion and warmed them up for breakfast with ham and cheese. It was delicious and they are also pretty good with jam and banana.

This was a surprise order (below) in a restaurant which we stumbled upon lost in Maracaibo. I had no idea what I was ordering but it turned out to be pretty good. A mash-up of fish and maybe chicken, onions and veg, with yuca and rice.

These are potacones - delicious sweet plantain bananas, served with a local cheese, very similar to mozarrella.

Local drinks have not been overlooked either. Local beers are good; 6% Polar Solera the nicest. Now we’ve worked out the exchange rate, we’re splashing out on jugos, and they’re lovely – papaya and banana are the main ones on offer at the moment.  Papellón con limón is very refreshing – it’s made from sugar cane and lime and is served very cold, often at the side of roads.

Chicha is super-sweet sickly rice milk with sweetened-condensed milk, ice and cinnamon – scooped out of containers and served in markets/on the road. I loved it and finished half of Rachel’s too- she found it to be rather too sickly sweet.

Calentado – we discovered this in the Andes, served at a roadside café from a thermos flask, it’s a hot, espresso-sized hit of potent aniseed liquor.

Vino de mora (blackberry wine) ­– we bought a bottle of semi-seco but it was definitely sweeter than grape wine and went well with our Chorizo meal.

Venezuelan rum – Cacique, Santa Teresa – there’s lots of brands and its cheap- was going down very well with friends in our posada (with coke and lime).

The alcohol ban – the elections are on Sunday. An alcohol ban – in bars and off-license sales kicked in on Friday at 2pm and lasts until Tuesday afternoon. All over Mérida on Friday morning people were buckling under the weight of straining plastic bags clanking with bottles. Those with cars and jeeps were loading them up by the crate load. Not sure the bid for sobriety worked.  

Mauro and Maracaibo

We’re approaching the end of our first ‘couch surfing’ experience.  A great ethos behind this– you register on the couch surfing website, filling in lots of information about yourself, some of which defeated us – life ambitions etc.  People all over the world are registered on it, when you’re heading somewhere, you search for people there who may be able to host you or meet you for a drink.

We found Mauro in Maracaibo, Venezuela’s second biggest city close to the border with Colombia. It got off to a shaky start. We couldn’t find where he lived – in a gated development in the far north of the city. We arrived in yet another downpour and we were delivered by a disgruntled taxi driver.  Things soon started looking up. It’s been a really interesting experience. We thought we were arriving in time for his sister’s birthday party, which we were quite excited about, but it turned out to be the night before – whoops. Instead, we were taken out by Mauro and his friend to a local fast food place serving the Maracaibo version of a burger – meat in fried plantain instead of bread. 

They are so proud of their city, a sprawling, sweltering collection of modern apartment and office blocks and poor barrios on the edge of the enormous lake Maracaibo. The city generates the most revenue in Venezuela through oil – you can see up to 6 tankers on the lake and refineries in the distance. Apparently it also had the first hospital, first access to electricity, a superior version of Spanish is spoken and they have better food!  A biased opinion maybe but it’s better than just relying on a guide book for information.

Today Simon and I have marched all over the place (for the first part in search of a toilet). Pretty much everywhere was closed for election day. The only activity was around the polling station – massive queues, and around the Cathedral. Maracaibo has its own saint – the Virgin ‘Chinita’ (who apparently has ‘Chinese’ eyes).  There was a big festival in her honour last weekend and in the cathedral there’s a story about her and a lump of wood.

An old lady was washing clothes in the lake one day when she came across an interesting piece of wood. She took it home and for some reason put it on her wall. Apparently the wood started banging on the wall prompting neighbours to call round to see what was causing the noise. The wood then started glowing and the image of the virgin holding baby Jesus with two figures looking on became clear. It was decided the miraculous wood should be taken to the Cathedral of the rich people but when it came to be moved the wood became too heavy to lift. When the wood was instead taken to the poor peoples Cathedral it became light again and has been there ever since, surrounded by garish gold and good people dressed all in white. The Cathedral is now the only Basilica in Venezuela.

Mountains, music and lots of rain

Venezuela is under cloud – everywhere but particularly in the Andes, causing floods and bridges to be swept away.  We just don’t get anything like it in England, streets turn to streams within minutes.  

Our walk in the mountains was lovely. We decided not to go on a guided tour up into the Andes from Mérida as the weather was so bad we probably wouldn’t have seen a lot anyway.  Instead, we caught a local por puesto mini-bus into the Lower Andes.  A great ride through villages and passing lots of restaurants specialising in trout. One offered a ‘catch it and cook it’ option which sounded quite exciting. Although, I suppose it could have become a bit distressing had the trout not been caught come dinner time. Anyhow, we gave that a miss and headed off alone with our cheese cobs up a winding track, over stone walls and stepping stones (reminiscent of the Peak District) into the mountains.  The path was easy to follow and the scenery was beautiful as we climbed, often steeply, past lovely plants and birds. It was great to have a day out walking in the countryside without a guide and group. 

We waited over an hour for a por puesto to turn up to pick us up and, as dark and rain descended, we finally heard it juddering up the hill – a blue, clapped out mini-bus (think the A-team van after a bad accident) which against the odds was determined to stick on the roads.  When the driver put it in reverse, rather than the standard beeping, the van blared out the Macarena – much more fun. The whole thing absolutely stank of petrol, we got about a mile and it stopped. Oh dear again. The driver got out, filled a bottle of water from a stream and tipped it into the radiator, went for a wee at the side of the van and we set off again – windows open so that we could breathe. As we got further down the mountains, we picked up more passengers – 23 of us squashed in at all angles by the time we reached Mérida.

The next day, we decided to go with a recommended tourist attraction in our trusty guide book – Parque Beethoven – established to commemorate 200 years since the death of Beethoven, the park apparently had a clock that chimed out a different Beethoven symphony on the hour every hour.  After a half hour walk out of town along a main road and into a fancy housing estate we tracked down the Parque – a dilapidated square with a rusty, broken clock.  The heavens opened at this point and we spent half an hour sheltering under a tree with fading hope of any musical joy. It took Simon stretching through the bars and clanging a bell to hear any noise from the Beethoven clock. Oh well. It opened in 1972, I wonder when it broke.

On a broken theme, unfortunately so was the teleférico – the cable car that ascends from Mérida up the mountains to nearly 5000 metres.  The teleférico workers were all there, in position, in their uniforms with no idea whatsoever why it had been ordered to close 4 months ago – could be the cables, the wire etc. or when it may re-open. They told us they thought a technician may come to have a look at it again in 2009. Ce la vie.

We had a great hour or so in a grand university hall listening to the Merida symphonic orchestra.  Mum told me the other day about a documentary in the UK on the Venezuelan youth orchestra (of which this orchestra forms a part) – a thriving grass-roots movement to get kids, often from the poorer parts of town, inspired and into playing instruments.  It’s been a huge success and I came away from it quite up for getting out the clarinet when we get home! 

“We’re in Mérida”, says Rachel

Since our last blog we’ve got into twittering too, which was probably a better way (avoided excessive moaning) to report our hours of bus journeys and break downs over the last few days. Worth noting though that the mood on the bus stayed pretty high and the children were really well behaved – even when it was boiling hot and we were standing at the side of the road for hours cowering in the shade of the bus. Anyway, onwards and upwards: after spending a night in a busy town called Barinas at the foot of the Andes, we wound our way up on a small bus through spectacular scenery to the big student city of Mérida.

We’re having a lovely time here relaxing. We’ve found a great posada with wi-fi and it even has hot water. It’s pretty cool and rainy up here in the mountains so that’s definitely good timing on the heated water front.  There’s more of a buzz about Mérida, more bars, lots of great places to eat, interesting music, fruit shops and this afternoon we’ve been to a fantastic, friendly market.  It seems to have taken over an old building which must have had a previous use – pretty grand 3-storey lump of concrete.  It sold fruit, veg, local crafts, plus an art gallery and berry wine (which of course we had to buy a bottle of.  We’ll be sampling it later and will fill you in on its taste and effects).

Tomorrow we’re catching a local bus to have a walk around a lovely park with great views of the Andes and another Sugar Loaf Mountain.  On Friday, we’re very much looking forward to heading off on a guided tour to a village called Jaji in the Andes and maybe to a coffee plantation.  Thank you very much to Katie (also for organising it), Sam, Han, Dave and Emmy for our fantastic going away present. We’ll fill you in on it with lots of photos.

The other thing worth mentioning is that the mayoral and governor elections are coming up – on Sunday – and the excitement and hype is definitely building – more on this and Chávez in another entry.  Perhaps once we’ve crossed the border!

“Food glorious food”, says Simon

I’m very happy to be able to write that our food options have increased greatly since our arrival in Mérida. Last night was a disappointing pasta eaten in the nearest place available due to the torrential rain.  Today however we found an unbelievable lunch deal – we enjoyed a lovely rich soup with beans and pork (grisly hairs still on it), a small fried trout with salad, plantain and rice, a tasty fruit juice and a coffee for less than £2 each. It was delicious, satisfying and local. Everything we are looking for on our travels.

Every street seems to have cafés or restaurants with cheap, tasty local options. Tonight we are making use of the posada kitchen and cooking for ourselves for the first time in Venezuela – on the menu are potatoes with chorizo, onion and tomatoes with green beans and arepas – great Venezuelan maize bread served warm, often with meat or cheese filling (looks like a savoury muffin). All will be washed down with a locally bought berry wine. 

And Simon in Canaima lake too

Canaima lake

Take-off - with video and in our plane to Canaima

Our Angel Falls adventure – the trip to the falls

How to describe any of this trip is hard – it’s so far away from the average Thursday or Friday. We charged from the airport to our boat – a long punt-style set-up with a motor at the back and a boy with a paddle at the front. We met our guide, Raúl, who was fairly ridiculous – swaggered about but still seemed to be in an eternal rush. There were 6 of us on our tour, a German bloke, 2 Italians and a Dutch character. We were joined by two sour-faced German ladies and their German tour guide who was even more ridiculous than ours. Bizarrely, they managed to remain thoroughly miserable for 2 days. Anyway, on with the trip. We were seated in twos on benches down the boat and set off along a wide river – about 4 times the width of the Thames. With a couple of stops, it took us about 4 hours to reach the foot of Angel Falls. The scenery was spectacular all the way, flat-top tepuy mountains, jungle on both sides of the river, bright yellow and blue butterflies and lots of little rapids. After a while, we headed up a smaller river and things got more interesting – we had plenty of soakings as we made our way up rapids. Apparently the river level varies a lot from day to day. A tour that left the day after us had to get out and push their boat a lot but we got through alright.

We arrived at our camp for the night - a covered area with hammocks on the edge of the river and the jungle opposite Angel Falls - with sore bottoms but feeling pretty exhilarated. We went for a swim in the river staring up at Angel Falls – it’s difficult to get the scale of it really, about 980 metres. ‘Spectacular’ really is the word for the whole thing. We ate delicious chicken roasted on an open fire for tea, chatted with our group and fell asleep in hammocks under a starry, full moon sky.

The next morning, we were up at 4.45 and marched at a pace that nearly defeated our Dutch and Italian friends up through the jungle to the base of the falls. The clouds cleared and it was pretty amazing. We went further up to a pool and went for one of the most refreshing swims I’ve ever had. It was boiling and humid up there.

Getting back down river was quicker than up. Once back in Canaima, we walked under rocky overhangs of massive waterfalls – spewing the water from 4 big rivers joining into the Canaima lagoon. We spent most of the last few days wet – drenched in the boat, swimming, under the waterfalls and more swimming. It’s been lovely.

We got back last night to Ciudad Bolivar, spent the night here and got thoroughly drenched in a dramatic downpour – we sheltered under a fruit stall in a street market but when the water was turning into a river down the street (up to our knees in places) we decided to make a run for the posada. It’s quite incredible when it rains like that – a bit like a river’s being dumped on your head for an hour. Now we’re about to head off on a night bus to Mérida in the west of Venezuela.

Our Angel Falls Adventure - getting there

Our trip to Angel Falls was upon us in a flash. After a leisurely start in Santa Fe we caught a local bus to the city of Puerto La Cruz and literally stepped from it onto a coach that was pulling out of the terminal next to us for Ciudad Bolivar. Five hours later, we were crossing an enormous bridge over the brown, very wide River Orinoco to Ciudad Bolivar. We headed for a posada that had been recommended to us. Run by a bizarre Swiss guy, we were told that we could only have a room if we went the next morning at 7.45 to Canaima, where we would begin our trip to Angel Falls. Up at 6am the next morning, we paid by bank transfer in Euros, and so avoided the awful exchange rate. Instead of 7.45, they decided we were leaving at 7.15 and chased us out of the posada and in the boot of the jeep and we headed for the airport.

We were expecting a small plane but hadn’t quite prepared ourselves for the tiny six-seater plane we found ourselves sitting in. I was excited, Rachel was not so keen and was fairly fraught as the plane taxied and set off down the runway with us, a large German couple and a Dutchman named Crane. The journey was fantastic; such amazing scenery. We flew from the city across a giant manmade lake, mighty rivers, savannas and on into the National Park with giant flat-topped mountains rising from the jungle. Even Rachel relaxed except when the pilot rocked the plane to show us sights below or when we were flying blind through thick cloud. Our pilot was very keen to speak to us but as he was shouting a mixture of Spanish and broken English and the plane was incredibly loud we really didn’t have a clue what he was on about. The journey took a twist as we flew further south than Canaima to drop off the German couple at a tiny tourist settlement with a mud track runway. After a dramatic landing we found it was a lovely little place and they gave us free coffee as we chatted with a local and the pilot. A bumpy takeoff and on we went, looking below the whole way at waterfalls and cliffs. The plane trip alone was fantastic and we still had the Angel Falls trip to come.