Alaskawilds

The famous “Cramer’s Eighty-eight” butterfly landed on my arm and hung out for a while.

Colombia is famous for its coffee. So we went looking for Juan Valdez, the campesino and his mule Conchita that has been advertising Café de Colombia all over the world for many years. Leaving Bogota we headed west and first drove to Los  Nevados National Park in the central Cordillera of the Colombian Andes. The 5,300 m-high volcano Nevado del Ruiz dominates Los Nevados.  At the Thermales Ruiz we camped, relaxed in the hot water and did some bird watching. The next day though the fog rolled in and the trails to the volcano were closed due to recent volcanic activity. On our walks we could not get over the unusual and beautiful wildflowers and other plants that grow at such a high altitude.

Thermales Ruiz

Gentian ? Enzian?

Bleeding heart?

We left, crossed over the Rio Magdalena to Manizales and camped at Hacienda Guayabal in Chinchina. 64 hectar of coffee plants on steep hills, we saw the coffee harvest and production and drank great coffee. There we finally ran into Juan Valdez.

Juan Valdez is watching you!

Coffee cherries, ripe for the picking (yellow and red anyway)

C A F F E E trink nicht so viel Kaffee…..lala

On to Salento we went, broke out the bicycles and rode to the Valle do Cocora, famous for the very high wax palms, the nation tree of Colombia.

Riding up the Cocora Valley.

Wax palms grow up to 60 meters in hight.

Salento is a pretty town , has great climate and is a major tourist destination. People from other parts of Colombia come here on the weekends. It is also crowded with backpackers and has many hostels. We did the popular hike to the hut in the hills, drank hot chocolate with cheese (you put them in the hot chocolate) and enjoyed the views.

Salento and hiker.

Views of Cocora Valley.

That’s a loooong tail!

Coati at the “hot-chocolate-and-cheese-hut”.

Hot chocolate and cheese…..

In town we talked to the owner of a bicycle rental and he pointed out a road on a map that goes over the mountains to Ibarra. He said there are many more wax palms on that route. We wanted to see that, so we took off and headed out of Salento up into the mountains again. It was a beautiful drive, single track dirt road (4×4 not needed) and winds its way over passes and through valleys. In Toche we took a left and continued up again. When it got late in the day we camped beside the road under the peak of Cerro Machin Volcano, near a hot spring. There was no traffic at all other than people on horseback or on foot. And the wax palms were everywhere, whole forests, we came to realize that they actually grow in/as a forest and what we had seen in the Valley de Cocora were sad remnants of a forest that had been cleared for cattle farming.

A wax palm forest untouched.

Roadside attractions on the drive from Salento to Ibarra via Toche and Machine volcano.

Paso Fino Columbiano

Toche

 Toche town center.

Moving truck.

Oops

It took Günter a while to find this nice man that just happened to have a chain saw.

armadillo – Gürteltier

It was a two-day drive and we are glad we took this route. Günter has driven over 40 000 miles by now and is doing a great job. I, Sissi, have driven 100 meters so far.

On the drive down from the mountains of Cocuy our brakes really squeaked a lot and we decided to go to Bogotá, have the brakes fixed, get an oil change and have ” Dodgie ” looked over. During that time we could check out Bogotá and try to go to Cano Cristales. We had watched a BBC documentary a while ago about the “blooming” rivers Cano Cristales near Macarena, Colombia. The “Lonely Planet” made short mention of it so we started to research a little more. Macarena is a small hamlet of around 500 people, it lies in an area that is part of the FARC territory. Some of the rivers in that area are home to an unusual plant called Macarenia clavígera. Where it is exposed to the sun it turns bright red in the summer months, in shady spots it is green or grey. A fascinating sight, we read that August is one of the best months to view this phenomena. The military does not allow you to drive to this part of the country, access by boat on the Guayabero river is off-limits as well. It is too dangerous and even the town of Macarena is protected by 5000 Soldiers, you can fly in, get a room and a guide, hike the rivers and after a few days fly out again. Laura from Caminantes del Retorno in Bogotá  made all the arrangements for us. Fly in with a small propeller charter plane (we are used to that from Alaska) and fly out with a military owned plane.

Flying kites in Vill de Leyva.

On the way to Bogotá we relaxed at Villa de Leyva for a few days, spent a night in a field near Suesca lake where the farmer Eusebio came down from the hill and told us all about his farm. He took us for a walk on his property and brought us fresh milk in the morning. The fence posts in that area are made of rocks chipped of large boulders. He told us this is the way the Muiscas did it and he is part Muisca.

Our camping spot near Suesca lake on Eusebios finca.

This is how they make the fence posts, chipped out of a rock.

Fresh milk in the morning! Note the rock fenceposts.

German chocolate in return.

Then we toured the salt mine in Nemocon, camped at the shores of the lake near the town of Guatavita, ate the best Bavarian Cream dessert ever in Iza and finally made it to Bogotá. All the time the scenery was absolutely beautiful, you drive on windy roads up passes, down valleys, along lakes.

Near Guatavita.

In the salt mine.

You pass people walking, on horses, watch the onion harvest along lake……… and people hanging out in the little towns.

Onion harvest

Finally we dropped the camper off at Iguana 4×4 the best repair shop in Colombia, spent two days in Bogotá and then flew to Macarena.

Airport Macarena.

Macarena

The Llanos.

There our luggage was picked up by a mule cart and soon we were in our room at a small hotel. Juliana, a local young lady, was our guide. She was great, together with our new friends Diego and Ricardo and “Senor Dulce” aka Robin the speedy Belgian, we took the long-boat (hewn out of one huge tree) upriver where we got dropped off and picked up by a small truck that took us into the hills on a crazy rough road.

The TEAM!

Then we started hiking, through the hills, down to creeks, past waterfalls, we waded through streams, and there it was: A flood of red fronds that reminded us of the red skeins of salmon roe. A psychedelic swirl of red, grey and green, aquamarines push up against eddies of red and fingers of yellow cut through pockets of bright green. Hard to put into words.

Many waterfalls to negotiate.

The only dry crossing, the rest of the time you have to wade.

…or swim.

…and hike some more…..

This is a frailejone as well!!!

Flannelfalterraupe!

Cooling off in the swimming hole.

We hiked all day for two days, it was hot, but we had plenty of water, both days Juliana brought along a delicious lunch wrapped in banana leaves. This is a popular tourist destination for Colombianos and we had fun driving into the hills with them one evening in – so we could watch the sunset. The ladies screamed every time we drove through a mud hole and at one point I though we would roll over, haha, in the end we all screamed.

They protected us!

In the morning of the third day, Juliana did a quick hike to a view-point on top of a hill and then we went to the airport where the mule cart took out packs back to the plane and we headed back to Bogotá.

We had seen the snow-covered peaks from our camp spot at the pass between Mogotes and San Joaquin and we were looking forward to going there and do some hiking. It was the end of July and the weather up there this time of year can be cloudy and rainy, but that would not stop us. We have clothing and attitude for almost every kind of weather.

The mountains are calling.

The Sierra Nevada del Cocuy consists of two parallel mountain ranges with several peaks that are over 5000 meters high and covered by glaciers.

Pan de Azúcar and Pulpito del Diablo.

Colombia and Cocuy, the white dot.

But first we needed water, our tank holds around 270 liters and so far we were able to get good drinking water for it, now it was almost empty. Some overlanders just buy bottled water for drinking and fill the tank with non potable water for other uses. In the little town of Capitanejo there is a water purification plant so we headed down into the valley of the Chicamocha River. The water plant is very new and the owner proudly gave us a tour, we topped off the tank and were on our way again soon. Up a side valley we drove on a windy dirt road, a long one, it was slow going and the countryside very arid for a while. For those situations we plug-in our electronic device and listen to NPR podcasts that we usually download when we have wifi.

As we climbed higher it got greener and we passed little farm settlements, people on horses and loaded mules or donkeys. The countryside opened up and there were valleys and plateaus dotted with cows and sheep. The snow-covered peaks were getting closer, the air thinner and the temperatures lower. But oh, it was so beautiful, so much like the Alps (without big hotels and ski lifts everywhere).

El Cocuy, the town.

We stopped in the town of El Cocuy to get our park permit, show proof of accident insurance (we showed the Blue Cross card) and then drove to Hacienda La Esperanza at 3700 m. The owner greeted us and he and his farm workers were extremely friendly. They have Normande cows (the most popular breed in Colombia) that get milked every morning and we received fresh milk for our coffee. They also have Romney sheep and the owner told me that his grandfather had imported the breed over 100 years ago from Great Britain; the farm has been in the family for over 150 years.

Hacienda La Esperanza

Normande cattle

They rent rooms to hikers and climbers that come through on their multi-day treks. If they are busy you have to share your room. The food they cook is delicious and most the ingredients are from the farm. One evening we got pressed curds for dessert, with a splash of caramel sauce, delicious. Back home it is called “Zieger”, I never thought of eating it with caramel sauce. The evening meal is always served with hot sweet mint tea.

The tack room

We stayed for a few days, spent the first full day hiking around the high valley and enjoying the views, flowers and birds. The endangered Andean Condor and some rare birds endemic to the area live here, as well as deer, the spectacled bear and Tigrillos (Oncilla) a small striped cat. Never saw them, but we were told by the park service ladies. Different kinds of frailejones and the important Colorado tree (that rarely exceeds 5 meters in height and grows at 4000 m) grow up there.

Frailejone flowers

We had to wait to acclimate before we attempted to hike the 10 km up to the Laguna de la Sierra at 4800 m. To climb any of the peaks we would have to camp up there and we were not equipped for that. Still, we hiked up the second day, Günter all the way up, I stayed below the last hill and enjoyed the frailejone plants that covered the whole valley and even grew up on the rocks here and there. It was a beautiful, fairly easy hike, but the thin air slowed me down. It took Günter 2 1/2 hours to hike to the Laguna de la Sierra, then thick fog rolled in and prevented him from hiking all the way over to the glacier. When he came back down we met up and ate our lunch beside a brook under the frailejones.

This is a popular hike in high season (winter) and even when we were there we met a few hikers, French guys (no packs or supplies, with Converse shoes and a guitar), two American girls, and French girl with guide, and the speedy Belgian called Robin from Antwerp. That evening we all sat by the fire and talked about our travels and how amazing Colombia is. In the morning the milk truck (lechero) comes by and collects the milk from the farmers who bring the milk containers down to the road on their backs or with their horses. The truck makes many stops and hikers can catch it to go from A to B, very practical but also very slow. I could have stayed longer and made a mental note to someday come back, stay at the hacienda for a while, hike to the other haciendas and explore the valleys and mountains. Some day!

The drive from El Cocuy (the town) up to Hacienda La Esperanza, as well as the drive from there to Guican and down to Soata in the Chicamocha Valley (via Guacamaya – San Mateo – La Uvita) is spectacular and one should take time to enjoy the views and countryside.

Cartagena

On the 15th of July we set sail for Colombia, said good-bye to the North American continent and the next morning we had Cartagena on the horizon. Buenos Dias South America! We disembarked in Cartagena harbor – but not our vehicles.

It takes a few days to get your vehicle back, more paperwork and waiting. I marched behind Michael from station to station and back while Vroni and Günter had to wait for us. You are required to buy life insurance in order to enter the harbor. It is a good idea to bring along some reading material for the longer wait periods.

Cartagena

The Hotel Artelleria in Getsemani was our home for a week, a nice place in walking distance to the historic town and a save parking lot just around the corner. They had A/C, a small rooftop pool and lots of fruit for breakfast.

The worlds biggest shrimp cocktail.

One day when we wandered around town, we watched as a crowd gathered on a plaza. Up on stage there was a huge see-through round container, speeches were held and boxes and boxes of cooked shrimp were dumped into this container, salsa was poured and more speeches and shrimp added. Finally everybody lined up for a cup of shrimp cocktail. Not until the next day did we find out that they had broken the Guinness World record (held by Mexico) and created the biggest shrimp cocktail ever. So much for our Spanish.

We bought some ice cold watermelon.

On the fort, so glad we brought our umbrellas.

We rode the bicycles around town on Sunday morning, along the wall and through the little streets, went to a museum and all the churches. The following Monday was Independence Day with a parade, music and dancing.

Cheese filled arepas for dinner, this one I topped with pineapple syrup.

Getting lost in Castillo San Felipe

Murals around town:

He only painted at night….

Ohne Worte 🙂

Colombian salmon?

Soon we had enough of city life, said good-bye to Vroni and Michael and took off for the Caribbean part of Colombia.

Trying to find our way out of the city.

Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta

On the way there was a famous tourist spot were you can take a mud bath on Volcano del Totumo, a so-called “mud volcano” we wanted to check it out but split the scene when we saw several tour buses idling (to keep them cool) and swim suit clad tourists queued up from below and all the way up to the mud hole which is located on top of a dirt cone. For a fee you can wallow in the mud, it did not look very inviting.

Mud volcano

Go for it!

We drove on, through Barranquilla, the town was choked with trucks and slums and garbage, we needed some peace and quiet and wanted to get away from more of the same and the heat.

A little blurry because it took it through the car window, the other side of the beautiful Caribbean.

So we skipped the beaches there and drove up to the cloud forest of the Sierra Nevada mountains hoping to be able to find cool air and something tranquil to spend a few days. Most of this area is a national park and most of it is closed off for hiking or exploring. It is the home of around 30 000 indigenous people, descendants of the Tayronas and holds many sacred sites including Ciudad Perdida (older than Machu Pichu). We drove up near the town of San Lorenzo, camped beside the road at around 1600 meters and went hiking. This road is pretty rough and should not be attempted without 4×4 and high clearance. We hiked higher on the road, the clouds rolled in and rolled out, the sun came and went, so did the drizzle. It was wonderfully wild up there, many birds that are endemic to only this mountain range inhabit the forest, we saw flocks of Santa Marta Parakeets, a keel billed toucan and numerous other birds. There are also monkeys and many other mammals, reptiles like the glass frog live here undisturbed. The highest peak is 5776 meters, most of the highest peaks are snow-covered, but we were not even close and never saw them.

Higher….

…and higher.

Seltsam, im Nebel zu wander! (Wondrous to wander through mists!) Hermann Hesse

Howler monkeys hunkering down.

Wild azaleas.

Guan

Taken with the cell phone through the scope.

The trails go on and on.

Our next destination was some unusual rock formations called Los Estoraques, east of Aguachica. It was a long haul for Günter, the traffic in Colombia is nerve wrecking, anything goes. We saw three motorcycle accidents in one day. The road from Aguachica winds up high into the mountains and is busy with heavy trucks to and from Venezuela. It got dark and we hadn’t found a spot to camp yet, finally spent the night at the edge of a cliff beside a small restaurant that caters to truck drivers. Not very quiet but we were glad to settle in for the night after a standard Colombian meal which always consist of arepas (corn flat bread like the Mexican gordita), rice, some kind of meat and fried plantain. Los Estoraques was interesting, we had to take a guide and some areas were closed to erosion, camping is not allowed because technically the park has been closed since 2010.

Los Estoraques

Aspacica

We left the site and drove east on that same dirt road, finally we saw a tiny gas station on a ridge with a great view and pulled in. The young man was very friendly and told us to park wherever we want. It was a great spot, we rode our bicycles around and over to the little colonial town  of Aspacica, which is just around the corner and very pretty, they do not get tourists and it was rather unspoiled. Just a little rural town with white washed houses, red tile roofs, a beautiful old church and people going about their business. We had lots of visitors at our camp spot the next day, everybody wanted to see our little house on wheels, they hung around for hours, called their friends and brought us fresh hot arepas.

Tatiana and her girl friends, spent the night in the gas station so they could be here in the morning.

Visitors, brought us arepas.

Aspacica

Next to our camper were some cows and soon the farmer came over to talk to us. He, Clemente, is 75 years old and was very nice, he invited us over to his house and in the afternoon we walked over. The houses usually are made of mud bricks and are white washed, simple furnishings, open fire for cooking in the attached kitchen, pictures of family members, dead an alive, are on the walls. His wife served us hot sweetened milk fresh from the cow and some kind of sweet bread. This is the second time we have been invited into people’s homes and it is always very special, I prefer this kind of experience to any tour the guide books recommend. From now on, we are going to try to do this more often. I had two little hand painted pitchers in my stash of souvenirs, bought them in Mexico somewhere, as a present we brought them to Clemente and his wife Chaya. One should not come to a home empty-handed since they will always break out some specialty and try to feed you. We promises of a return some day we left them and drove on.

Aspacica

Pamplona

A colonial university town, it is set in a lush green valley at 2300 meters, we parked for free on a dead-end dirt road above the bus terminal, the center of town was just a short walk away and we spent a lot of time wandering around, shopped at the market, went to church and went to the little museum of their famous home town boy, Eduardo Ramirez, his art is very modern and I am not sure if I liked the art more or the building that houses the pieces.

Pamplona

(Museo de Arte Moderno ) Eduardo Ramirez Villamizar behind us.

After a few days we were debating where to go next, head east to Medellin or go south. We started reading our guide books and then did the guide-book tour, watched paragliding in Bucaramanga, looked down onto the Canyon of Chicamocha, drank a “tinto” in Barichara and walked El Camino Real to Guane. Somewhere along the way we had driven over a long screw and it was stuck in the tire, so in San Gil we pulled into a tire shop and 15 minutes later we had the screw removed and the hole plugged, great. San Gil has a fancy mall where we found German and Swiss chocolate, almond milk for our müsle and other hard to find items. This town is geared toward adventure tourism and offers many things for that travellers looking for a thrill in nature.

Guane, baroque altar, I loved the painted ceiling.

Camino Real hiker

Camino Real trail was rebuilt by a German over 100 years ago.

If you are drawn to adventure walks and like to follow in the shadow of 19th century explorers, then the story of German colonist Geo von Lengerke will get you motivated for a trip to Guane. Lengerke ambitiously set out to unite the highlands of Santander with the Magdalena retracing the original indigenous footpaths. Over six hundred kilometers of stone tracks once used for mules have survived and you can meander your way on these rocky trails through fruit orchards and tobacco fields .

A quote from the Bogota paper:

Heavy iron beams engraved with ‘Bremen 1867’ are now gates to private homes, and there is a particular look to the inhabitants of the Guananta region. Many are tall and fire-skinned, and when they flash a smile, their blue eyes light up. During his years in Santander, Lengerke miraculously found time to populate (thanks to his many girlfriends) the department. Wander with free roaming goats through a patchwork of narrow alleys and visit the town’s unique paleontological museum with its wall-to-wall collection of fossils. The beautiful historic stone church remains almost the same today as the day it was built four centuries ago. –

Tobacco

The Sierra Nevada del Cocuy mountains were next on our list, the highest mountains on the eastern range, so we had to go east again. There is a small road from San Gil to Mogotes and then on to Soata. An absolutely beautiful drive through hills and small farms, along canyons and through little towns. It is a long drive and one should plan at least two days for it because you want to stop and look. The road looks daunting sometimes but trucks and medium size buses drive it every day.

Mogote in the distance

The road up to the pass.

Our camp spot on top.

On top of the pass ( 2577 m) between Mogotes and San Joaquin we stopped early in the afternoon, the views were spectacular and the parking area large. We decided to stay and spend the night. I took the walking stick and followed one of the trails, there are little farms on the steep hillsides and they can only be reached on foot or hoof. What really amazed me were the many different orchids growing trail side, large and small, white, pink and red. 

Crazy spider web.

While I was hiking I saw an older (one year older than me 🙂 )woman carry up a heavy load so I waited for her, she had a strap on her forehead and on her back was a milk bucket. She was waiting for the milk truck. I sat down beside her started to ask her some questions, it it easiest to start a conversation by asking about children and grand children, they are their pride and joy. Her name was Marina and she has two cows, a donkey, chickens, cats and dogs and yes, she invited us to come down to her farm. So the next morning I took off by myself, mandarins, cookies and a chocolate cake in my pack, with trekking poles, because the trail is very steep and at times serves as a creek I think. After 1/2 hour I got to the house and was greeted by her grand-daughter Carolina that lives with her. Marina showed up with a huge root she had dug up in the woods with her machete. From what I can gather it is a special root and she chips and dries it and sells it. She tried to give me milk (not again) and then started removing beans from pods in a wheel barrow, so I helped her for a while but then she decided to cook me a sweet arepa, by now Günter had showed up and we enjoyed the treat and hot “tinto” from her own coffee beans. Her garden was overflowing with vegetables, fruit and flowers. They live self-sufficiently and rarely leave home. Every day, she milks the cows and carries the 8 to 10 liters up the steep trail to the top where we had met her. There, at 4:15 pm a truck comes and collects her milk. No wonder she is in such great shape, when we said good-bye and headed back up to our camper I looked down and I saw a tiny figure running swiftly along a steep trail towards the cows, it was Marina.

The trail down.

Sweet arepa.

Shucking red beans.

Hiking back up from Marinas granja.

The road down the other side to San Joaquin.

The road (64) from Onzaga south was closed and the smaller one heading east to Soata we were told is in very bad shape and washed out. We asked some men in the church square of Onzaga about an alternative and they told as a different way to drive. This route was not in our GPS and online maps, in the “real” map it was marked as a trail. Ok, we went, one can always turn around if it is not doable. Lucky we talked to those men, because this road was very, very beautiful, it follows a river all the way up to 3000 meters, through a lush valley with fields of onions, potatoes, tobacco, fava beans, cows and sheep, people with heavy wool ponchos (ruanas) and children on horses. This road meets up with the main road (55) again near Paramo.

Potato harvest.

Günter stopped to put air in the tires and I took some pictures of the surrounding farms and the potato harvest when oops, I looked through the view finder (my camera has one )and there were soldiers heads popping up in a field. I talked to a drunk worker and he told me there are quite a few soldiers hidden in a nearby farm-house ruin, gully and that field.

There is also heavy military presence on the southern end of highway 64 and we were not allowed to camp there, when I was wandering through an area of frailejones I was stopped by several soldiers and told to leave immediately because it is not a safe area.

Colombia has had a rough time with FARC and other guerilla groups making large areas of the country unsafe, nevertheless, it has gotten much better since the ’80s and ’90s and the areas still largely occupied by FARC are shrinking and well-known, so you do not and cannot go there.

Time to find the glaciers and snow-covered peaks of the northern Andes and on to Cocuy.