Colombia - HOT to cccold

Colombia is so diverse: we've gone from non-stop sweating in Cartagena to wool socks & blankets at night in Guatape, and have done so much along the way. We arrived in Cartagena just in time for the city to bid Obama (& Harper!) adieu complete with naval ships, choppers and thousands of police officers. We met up with our lovely Belgian friends again and toured around the historic 'old town' where Britt introduced me to two things: the delicious desserts at 'Crepes & Waffles' & the clothing store 'Tennis'- I'm pretty sure I'm going to need to open one of each in Calgary when we return!

Old Town, Cartagena

We then spent the afternoon trying to beat the heat in the swimming pool at her dad's condo & enjoyed a delicious home cooked dinner. The next day we took a mud bath in Totumo volcano which was an eerie but very cool sensation with the added benefit of being very good for your skin.

Our next stop was Taganga, on the northern coast of Colombia where we stayed with two of the guys from our sailing trip in an apartment style room complete with our own balcony & kitchen. We took full advantage of the private kitchen & cooked up some delicious meals including a traditional Portuguese dish (compliments of John) & freshly caught tuna (caught by our new friend, Anne).

We snorkeled in Tayrona National Park, spent an afternoon lazing on Playa Conchal and topped the day off with a fun night out at 'Mirador Taganga' - an open-air dancefloor overlooking the ocean.
After some debate we decided to catch an overnight bus to San Gil, the adventure 'capital' of Colombia. We spent a morning taking in the beauty at Gallineral park while mustering up the courage to go paragliding that afternoon. Turns out we spent most of the afternoon waiting for the wind to pick up enough that Jody could go ;) but I was able to go twice! What an exhilerating yet peaceful ride with incredible canyon views.

 Here's a video of my first (not-so-graceful) landing, in a farmer's field :)

 The next day we went white water rafting with some fun folks from our hostel then spent the afternoon at a gorgeous, 180 meter waterfall just outside the town (the photo only captures a small part of the 180 meters in total).

After the waterfall excursion we caught another overnight, aircon-cranked bus to Medellin, the second largest city in Colombia. What a unique city! Their transit system puts Calgary's to shame, complete with gondolas reaching the suburbs up the sides of the mountains. We rode the gondola to the top of one of the mountains where there was a massive park, had dinner in Zona Rosa (and dessert at Crepes & Waffles!), walked around Botero square and took in the view from our Hotel's rooftop hottub.

We are now in a colourful, little lake town of 5,000 people called Guatape and are just loving it.

Yesterday we climbed the giant rock (~650 steps) randomly located on a hilltop just outside the town and spent the afternoon kayaking around the coves and bays on the lake.

Tomorrow we're off to Salento in the coffee region and hope to taste some delicious, local Colombian coffee!

SAN BLAS PARADISE!

Our sailing excursion was simply amazing; we feel so lucky to have had the opportunity to tour the San Blas islands with a great captain & fellow sailing mates aboard the 'Gypsy Moth'. Likely the best way to showcase these fabulous few days is with a photo montage - hopefully they do the trip justice!

Our British captain, Sym, dropping anchor at the first island stopoff - the turquoise water was incredible!

 At one of the islands we snorkeled around an old shipwreck covered in coral and swarming with colourful fish

 The Gypsy Moth

Some of the boat crew taking the dingy to a nearby island where there was a little thatch-hut bar and stunning sunset

 Snorkelling all day, every day :) Such beautiful reef and so many fish; I even saw a shark...!

Lunch!! Caught fresh and boated over to us by some local Kuna fishermen in their little wooden canoe. All of our meals were amazing; Sym was a great cook

 The tarzan swing provided hours of entertainment - here's Jody taking a leap!

Make-shift wakeboarding with a paddle board pulled behind the dingy

Some other fun included a beach bonfire on one of the islands, an impromtu 80's dance party on the boat & night swimming in the luminescent water.

From the San Blas islands we spent about 36 hours at sea before arriving for sunrise in Cartagena, Colombia. We were both pretty seasick unfortunately but that didn't hinder our experience as a whole.

We would recommend a trip to the San Blas islands to anyone; it's been one of the highlights of our trip so far and set our standards pretty high in terms of snorkelling, beaches and scenery.

Panama Continued...

The island of Boca Brava was nice & relaxing. It rained on and off most of the time we were there but luckily we met some great people and made our own fun! Our new Jamaican friend shared the big game fish he caught daily with us and we enjoyed some fresh feasts of snapper, yellowtail & mackerel. We also played a lot of dominoes, in true Jamaican fashion. We toured around during a small break in the weather one day and discovered an abundance of howler monkeys inhabiting the island and black sand beaches.

The sunsets from the open-air, hill-top restaraunt were lovely as well.

From Boca Brava we made our way to Panama City, with a stop in Santiago for a night. We arrived to our hostel just in time to indulge in the Easter dinner (BBQ) they put on for the guests & made a night of it at Tantalo Hotel's rooftop bar, overlooking the lights of the city :) We ran into a nice Dutch couple we had met earlier in Panama and spent a couple days touring the city with them; the highlights included:

Casco Viejo (The Old City) - beautiful old buildings & architecture (both restored and abandoned), indigenous Kuna people selling their handmade goods, and great views of the ocean at low tide

Downtown Panama City - where we ducked into every air conditioned mall we could find to escape the intense heat & humidity (and maybe to do a little shopping!). We also saw the Hunger Games movie, which I thought was a great adaptation of the first book.

The Miraflores Locks at the Panama Canal - definitely lived up to the hype; so impressive & amazing. I would love to go back one day and see the expansion that is currently underway.

 The ruins at Panama Viejo (Old Panama) - it was pretty neat to see ruins 15 minutes from downtown Panama with high rise towers in the distance

We loved Panama City and may have even peaked at a few real estate options (for interest's sake...!); it was definitely a city I could return to one day.

Caribbean Beaches, Cloud Forests & Mountain Highlands

From San Jose we headed to the quiet town of Cahuita, on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica. We snorkeled around the coral reefs there but the visibility wasn't great and we were teamed up with about 30 high school students on spring break, so it wasn't the best excursion we've been on... however, we can't complain as it sure beats studying/working (sorry Mawer!). It also gave me another opportunity to test out my waterproof camera, which I've been loving... hehehe

After Cahuita we tried to find a specific hostel at Punta Uva beach but got completely lost on the bus and ended up walking around the middle of nowhere with all our gear in tow until we could catch a taxi. We spent a night in Puerto Viejo instead and decided it was time to head for the Panama border the next day - first stop being the beautiful islands of Bocas del Toro. We first spent time on Isla Colon where a highlight for us was Starfish beach at Bocas del Drago; the ocean floor was littered with big, red starfish and the beach had the feeling of being on a deserted island:

Then we spent a few days being beach bums on Isla Bastimentos, near Red Frog Beach. It was also stunning and relaxing, except when a big wave snuck up on me and stole my sunnies!

After sunning ourselves for a few days we headed inland to a place called the Lost & Found Lodge (owned by two Canadians!). It is located on the side of a mountain in the Fortuna Cloud Forest - quite literally, it is in the clouds. Here was the sunset view when we first arrived, after a semi-grueling hike to get there:

We completed their 'Treasure Hunt' which is basically a 5 hour hike with a purpose - find clues, solve riddles and win rum. There was a pretty awesome lookout at the end as well:

We played a lot of jenga & foosball, had our share of Balboa cervezas and met some great people from all over the world before moving on to the town of Boquete - 'a small town on the Caldera River, in the green mountain highlands of Panama'.

We accomplished quite a lot here over the span of five days, starting with a tour of a small coffee plantation in the highlands called Finca La Milagrosa. Our guide was fantastic and we learned a lot about coffee production from harvesting the 'cherries' to roasting the perfect beans. Mr. Tito, who has run the plantation for the past 30 years, has won numerous awards for his 'Gesha' and 'Pacamara' beans - we sampled (splurged on) the Pacamara coffee at a local cafe today for $7/cup!!! yum!

 

There was an orchid festival in town and the Panama finals for men's fastpitch - the best of both worlds for me (flowers) and Jody (baseball)! There also just happened to be a botanical garden en route to the baseball diamonds :) 

 

We discovered yet another waterfall, Cascada San Ramon, not without much effort involving hiking, bad directions, rain and finally, figuring out that we could just take a $4 cab ride!

 Tomorrow we're off to the Pacific island of Boca Brava however it's been great spending a week inland & at a higher altitude to cool off a bit. We have another 8 days in Panama before our sailing trip leaves for Colombia through the San Blas Islands - we're excited!