Colombia I – North Coast

Arriving to Colombia by boat was the by far the best  border crossing experience of the trip! Perhaps this was because the boat captain took care of all the immigration procedures for us, but seeing the sunrise as we entered into Cartagena port after 32hrs of open ocean crossing was pretty spectacular too!

We entered Colombia as their current government negotiated peace with the guerrilla (FARC) in La Habana. Many Colombians were not happy about the concessions, but what really surprised us was how committed to delivering reconciliating messages the media and big companies were.

Cartagena de Indias is a coastal city, that mixes historical fortresses and a Unesco heritage colonial old town with new city and highrises. It has had a turbulent history full of invasions, occupation & destruction by pirates (Henry Drake) and then reoccupation by the Spanish, before becoming independent again in 1821. Interestingly, around town you can find monuments celebrating freedom from the Spanish,  but also others which thank them for protecting the city and its people against the English invaders.

We stayed in the Getsemani neighbourhood which had a funky vibe, with cool graffitis and great little squares to eat street food and watch the world go by.

We also visited the Castillo San Felipe de Barajas which was built after the pirates invasions to protect the city. Apart from the cannons and fortifications you would expect, it also had some really cool tunnels!

Having never had issues with claustrophobia, exploring caves, tunnels and small dark spaces has become a favorite trip activity. With a trusty phone flashlight, we kept walking down down down in otherwise complete darkness up to the point where the tunnel was flooded and the water level was too high to continue.

Later an official told us there should have been a barricade up to stop entry to the lower part, because they still have no idea where the tunnel leads, but think it might be an exit out to sea.

The old colonial town was a bit fancier and more upmarket than we were expecting, with loads of boutique stores and expensive restaurants. However, the Spanish colonial arquitecture is beautifully kept and the plazas with street vendors,  stray dogs and cool cast iron structures still kept its charm.

After a couple of days in Cartagena, we moved further north along the coast to Taganga, a small fisherman village we used as a base.

Finally the time had arrived to catch up with Nico & Diana Carolina who were staying nearby in El Rodadero, a beach town popular with vacationing Colombians. We had a great day catching up on all the news by the beach, and then topped it off the Colombian way, eating an asado with their friends, starting my Colombian weight gain mission!

After 5 weeks away from diving, we were feeling the urge again so we donned gear to check out the underwater world around Taganga. While there wasn’t the same level of coral as Belize or Utila, we found loads more fishlife and interesting critters. Definitely a place worth a few dives!

At this stage we were still travelling with Pete & Lina and after leaving our big bags in the hostel, we all set off for a few days walking and camping in Tairona National Park. It sits a bit further east along the northern coast of Colombia and is full of walking trails, beautiful beaches and my favourite..coconut palms!

It’s also very close to the Ciudad Perdida (the famous Lost City of the Tairona) but we decided to leave this one for another trip to Colombia and instead move on to the interior of the country. More about the interior in the next post.

Hugs,
Xavi & Sal

Belize Part I – The Barrier Reef

Belize, a multi-cultural country the size of Jamaica and only 325,000 inhabitants, is home to the second largest barrier reef in the world and was a must-go destination for us because we love diving! 

Flourishing under the shade is the country motto…but it’s quite sunny here!

We left you with the 6hr overnight bus ride from Tulum. Once in Belize City, a pretty dodgy place (4 people were murdered there over Easter holidays), we went straight from the bus station to the docks with other travellers. There we took the 45min water taxi to Caye Caulker, a backpacker-friendly, caribbean style piece of paradise where push bikes and golf carts are the preferred ways to get around. 

 

Shrimp sticks – yummm

Caye Caulker’s place to be is ‘the split’, a channel of water with a strong current created by Hurricane Hattie in the early sixties, that cut the caye in two. Nowadays, tourists and locals party, launch themselves into the channel, drink and dance to reggae and disco hits at The Lazy Lizard in this spot, which is also a prime location for sunset viewing.  

 

Sal and I got into the island mood, where everything goes quite slowly with ease… but after a couple of days of lazing around, we had an early 4.45am start to gear up for the famous Great Blue Hole dive. Located at the Lighthouse Reef, around 2 hours south-east of Caye Caulker, the Great Blue Hole is a 124 metre deep cave that collapsed 153,000 years ago!

It became really popular thanks to Jacques Cousteau, who declared it one of the top10 dives in the world.  And he was right.. after an easy 15m descent to the sandy floor of the reef, you face a 300 metre in diameter hole that drops into an abyss of darkness. I felt like we were Sandra Bullock and George Clooney in Gravity, so when we started the descent into the deep blue, I almost shat in my wetsuit! Once I got myself together, we cruised down to the depth limit for leisure diving (40m), where the hole opens up, and navigated in and around out-of-this-world stalactites under the watchful eyes of a few curious 3 metre reef sharks. All of our pictures turned out too dark, you need pretty good equipment down there.

We didn’t take this picture but the bird’s-eye view of The Big Blue Hole is really cool

The bottom time is short (8min), but the images will remain in our minds forever. Climbing the hole up to shallower and brighter depths felt like going back to reality. Overall, a great experience, topped off with 2 more dives where we saw plenty of tropical fish and turtles.

We had another bit of excitement on a canoe trip to explore the part of the island north of the split. After paddling a few hours against the current & wind crossing the channel to get back (not our cleverest idea to go with the wind first), we were ‘rescued’ by an American couple in their dinghy saving us a lot more hard paddling! Back at the caye, we ended our 3 day stay watching an American rap video clip being filmed (hilarious), learning new card games and meeting other backpackers at the hostel. 

Once returned to the mainland and after a week of exploring, we had crossed most of Belize’s coast and we were ready for our 2nd seaward expedition, to Glover’s Reef. Glover’s Reef is a partially submerged atoll 45km off the mainland. We stayed on North-East Caye, which barely takes 5min to walk around. On the way there we met a great bunch of fellow travellers, Anton & Lilly, Sylvan & Chantal, Romain and Nathalie to share the sunsets, drinks, activities and meals with, thanks guys! 

While the pictures may look as if we stayed in a fancy resort, the truth is that it’s pretty affordable and there are different accommodation options, from camping in your own tent, a dorm, beach cabins, up to nice cabins over the water. Sal and I enjoyed a dorm to ourselves (no farting teenagers this time, Furo). The rest of facilities were pretty basic (compost toilets, bore water showers, no electricity,…) so it felt a bit like our own Robinson Crusoe / LOST adventure. 

Our dorm for the week!

The stay was really cool, a real slice of paradise! To begin with, all the coconuts you can find/open/eat/drink are free. Sal turned into the Scrat (the squirrel from Ice Age) in coconut heaven and started trying to climb trees and stockpile coconut after coconut.

Sal is happy, very happy

Then we were trained in the opening techniques, either the machetes for the drinking ones (green and yellow on the outside, still hanging from the trees – great with coconut rum!)….  

…or the “peeling stick” & machete combination for the eating ones (already brown and fallen from the trees). Happy to say we still have all our fingers intact!   

Huy, new cooking utensil!

After lots of reading, lying on hammocks and peeling coconuts, we went for a couple of dives, but snorkelling was so good that we stuck to free diving after that. Tropical fish, beautiful coral, nurse sharks, eagle rays, lobsters… you name it, we were spoiled for choice.      

Queen Angel Fish

French Angel Fish

Scrawled Filefish

Lobster is a protected species so we couldn’t have it for dinner

Hi-five coral!

Tang fish

Sleeping nurse shark

Aaaaand it’s awake

Spear-fishing is very popular too. In fact, you could buy fresh fish almost every night from the locals that run the resort. Luckily for us we met an American guy who was happy to swap a couple of freshly caught red snapper for coco-locos…

Lilly and our red snapper

we couldn’t believe our luck, as his experienced local guide deboned and scaled the fish on the jetty for us.

We prepared them 2 ways: in a Jamaican curry sauce with coconut milk and coconut rice and just grilled over coals.  The 2 snapper fed our group of 8 and we still had leftovers for the next day, definitely the best meal of the trip so far! 

This has been a long post, so we will cover Belize by land in the next update! Thanks for following us!