The Devil’s Nose

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Riobomba is a small and fairly uneventful town, smack in the middle of Ecuador.  It is, however, an absolute haven for trekking. Every second shop is a mountaineering store for all the equipment needed to survive Ecuador’s terrain! One of the most popular excursions is to a nearby volcano that reaches up to 5000m in altitude. Unfortunately for us, we have very limited time to get to Cusco for the Inca Trail hike and so, a three day hike in Riobomba is not on our itinerary.

We chose Riobomba because of its supposedly amazing train ride down to Aluasi! The most beautiful scenery in Ecuador is just South of Alausi on a stretch called “La Nariz del Diablo” (The Devil’s Nose). So we spent the evening in Riobomba hanging out in our hotel room (that’s right, hotel, moving up in the world from 24 person dorms!) and having a couple bottles of wine with some tunes. The three of us were pretty stoked to have a place to ourselves to kick back in, and as an added bonus there was even a very random fireworks display that went on right outside our window. Lovely evening!

 

The next morning we went to check out the train to Alausi. Turns out they’ve changed their policy since Lonely planet was there last, and the train ONLY does a round trip route from Riobomba to Alausi and back and skips the Devil’s nose stretch entirely. If we wanted to see the Devil’s nose, we had to bus the two hours south and catch the train from there. Oh well…

So we explored Riobomba first: that took a total of 45 minutes and all we saw were a couple churches and a giant cooked pig. Riobomba is not a very interesting city as far as tourist sites go.

 

So we hopped in a bus and set of for Alausi.
  Alausi is even smaller than Riobomba. The town has a mere 8000 residents, and is only a couple city blocks long. The town sits in a deep valley, which made for a beautiful drive in. As we descended the mountain towards Alausi, we were above the clouds. The mountaintops were like steep islands floating in the air, and the clouds below like waves. But once you made it far enough down the valley, the city was veiled in a low hanging fog that I kept saying felt “magical”. There was a giant statue of San Pedro that loomed above the town on a small hill, and the thing looked eerie and mystical covered in the clouds’ mist. I am almost always a fan of small towns over big cities when I travel, but it does mean there’s not much activity going on in the evening. So we spent the night telling stories and playing cards and had a great time! We tried out some strange Ecuadorean liquor that was peach flavored, and it was quite tasty, even though the bottle looked 50 years old and was covered in dust when we picked it up from the corner store.

For dinner we ate our favorite: street food! A lady was selling fresh made French fries with fried chicken in a bag. It was laid on a thin layer of shredded lettuce and topped with mayo, ketchup and a liquid mix of tomatoes, red onion, cilantro and light vinegar. Say what you will about eating food on the side of the street, but the bags were a $1.25 a piece, delicious, and filled us up for the evening!

At 6:45 in the morning, the alarm went off. Time to head out on our train ride! We bought tickets and grabbed a snack from the bakery then headed out. The train was one of those “old school choo choo trains” (as we described it). It slowly trucked along the tracks between 12 and 15km/hour and into the countryside. Diane and I had seats on the left side of the train, and not 2 minutes into our trip the announcer said, “to let you know, 95% of the scenery will be seen from the right side of the train…” Fabulous. Good thing Adam is the better photographer and took hundreds of shots of the scenery.

The place was beautiful though! I can see why it’s so popular. The morning sky was nothing like the previous nights’ and was cloudless and blue! This region of Ecuador is much more mountainous, and this area in particular had steep mountainsides and deep valley’s that ended with the small Alausi river winding through the bottom. I instantly decided that I love valleys. They are beautiful to look at, great to take photos of and fun to train through! I have no better reason than that.

The devil’s nose mountain really does look like a giant nose. From an aerial photograph we saw in the museum later, the whole mountain looks like a crocodile, with two eyes, a long snout and the train tracks act as a mouth. It is named the Devil’s nose after all the local folklore that surrounds the area. It was believed that satanic spirits haunted the mountain.  The spirits did not want a railway track built there. Locals claim that goats blocking the tracks turned into devilish imps to chase away the workers. Others claim to have seen a man standing at the end of the nose with a red cape and glowing red eyes. During the making of the track, there was a collapse in part of the mountain that killed thousands of migrant workers from Jamaica: another bad omen. But whatever the case, the mountain is STUNNING!! Our whole tour was just a short couple hours, with an hour break to check out the museum and have a sandwich for breakfast.

Once we got back to Alausi, we immediately booked a ticket to Machala, a town on the south-west border of Ecuador. 
 The two buses we took were less than appealing to say the least. The first bus was 4 hours of sickening curves and stomach-turning lurches. I had to take a gravol within the first half hour or I wouldn’t have made it without vomiting (did I mention Ecuadorian buses don’t have bathrooms?). We had to switch buses in Guayaquil, which was way out of our way. Diane and I kept trying to find a faster way to get there, by jumping off in a small town and waving down a bus going the other direction. Our bus attendant must have hated us, because even though he explained to us several times that this was the only route to Machala, we kept coming up to him with the map to ask about other possibilities. Anything to not have 5 hours of backtracking!!

We ended up in Guayaquil after all… 
The bus station was massive and we were tired and lost. One thing we did figured out though, is that if you stand still in a bus station anywhere in South America long enough, looking like a dumb gringo and staring around with a dazed expression, someone will help you. Almost immediately a guy came up to us, asked where we were going, showed us to the proper desk and then took us right to the bus (and it’s a good thing he did, because our bus left in 3 minutes).

Our second bus took twice as long as it should have. It was hot, muggy, crowded and 6 hours long. Once all the seats were full, the bus driver started loading up the isle full of people. We were seated in the back of the bus and there was a mom and three children standing in the isle next to us. I was so exhausted, but felt so bad for the kids who after a half hour standing looked tired. I offered my lap for one of the little girls to sit on, then Diane did the same. For the next couple hours it was smoldering heat, way overcrowded, both our legs went numb with the kids sitting on them and the roads were old and neglected. At one point we were stuck in an hour-long traffic jam in a small town that happened to have a parade route going down the center of it. I think the three of us were delighted when we finally arrived in rainy Machala and checked into our room.

The Middle of The World

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On our next day in Quito we decided to visit the Mitad del Mundo (The Middle of the World) just a quick 50 minute bus ride outside of Quito. Christian, the guy who worked at our hostel, agreed to take us out to see the equatorial monument and show us the area as our “personal tour guide”. This was VERY kind of him, considering he gave up his entire day to tour us around the city for free. In total there were 5 of us and we were all very excited!

 

There are actually two places to see the equator; and if you are a good tourist, one man explained to us, you should see both! The first is the GPS located line; the true center discovered only a short 15 years ago. The second, is only 200 meters away, where the French estimated where the equatorial line SHOULD be a couple hundred years ago. Pretty amazing feat to get it so close if I do say so myself!

We started with the GPS located line, and got a tour of the surrounding museum which was wonderful.
  The museum was laid out as if it was a traditional native village. Little bamboo huts, grave sites, and dirt paths were all set up to explore. Some of the huts sold hand-made trinkets and woven Ecuadorean blankets, while other huts were more educational. We went into the first and saw all sorts of preserved animals. A giant, 40 ft anaconda skin hung on the wall, tarantulas larger than my spread out hand were in glass boxes, and two massive boa constrictors sat in a tank below. In another display case there was an actual, real life, shrunken head! Apparently only tribes from Ecuador truly practice the shrunken head technique, and they managed to have one on display. It was the head of a child who had died in a tragic accident, the head was smaller than my fist, and all it’s orifices were sewn shut. It was apparently a little over 150 years old, and, to be honest, it was super creepy! It is a tradition with native tribes of Ecuador to shrink the heads of captured enemies, or of people who should be revered in the village. Beside the head, we found a a detailed 12 step process to head shrinking, which I won’t go into, but believe me, it’s gruesome! And if you put your own hand into a fist, that is the size your own head would be if it was shrunk!

We learned several fun facts about the Wuaorani tribe during the tour.  We heard of their traditional hunting techniques (poison dart blowers and double ended spears) and customary dress code (nothing at all). Their burial ceremonies were the most interesting I thought. When a man died, it was expected for him to be buried with all his worldly possessions, that way, he was prepared for the afterlife. However, a man’s wife was also considered his possession; and so, when a man died, his wife was buried alive next to him (that’s love). When a CHIEF died, his wife, his servants, and all his children (apart from the eldest son who would carry on the chiefdom) were buried with him. The bodies were folded up and placed in giant pots to be buried in. In this sense, it is as if a person is being brought both in and out of the mortal world in a dark womb.
  How gruesome!

 

Next we took a look at the equator itself. A big red line was painted along the ground to outline exactly where it ran. I had no idea there would be so many cool things associated with the Equator, and I still have no idea how so many of them work. 
First off, we all know how excited I was to flush a toilet in the Southern Hemisphere and see if the water really drained in the other direction (which it did). So I was particularly excited to see what happened right AT the equator. From the moment we arrived I was scoping out the banos in hopes to test my theory; however, no need, because the guide did a demonstration for us! For those who are interested, DIRECTLY over the equator, water runs PERFECTLY downward. It doesn’t spin in either direction at all! Only a step to the South, the water flows clockwise, and a step to the North it spins counter clockwise! I was so excited about this it’s lame. Apparently, the further from the equator you go, the larger the spins become. That is why tornadoes and hurricanes (which will circle clockwise or counterclockwise depending on the hemisphere) never occur along the equator, but are much stronger as they move away from the center of the earth!

Another interesting experiment we tried was balancing an egg on its point, on top of a nail, right on the line. Almost impossible to do so in either hemisphere, balancing an egg on its tip is relatively easy on the equator!! Contrastingly however, if a PERSON closes their eyes and tries to walk a straight line with their arms out (as if for a drunk test) they will immediately fall over. Tried and tested, believe me, it is difficult!

 

Perhaps the most exciting for me was the last test! This entire trip Adam and I have been joking about how weak I am. For all my friends out there who have seen me try to open a water bottle and fail, you can attest to this: I’m not very strong. HOWEVER (and I’m going to brag about this point for the rest of my life, sorry Adam) directly over the equator, I am stronger than Adam!!! Don’t worry; I have unbelievable video proof of this feat to show you all! We tried an experiment where Adam put his hands together, fingers clasped in one giant fist and arms in front of him. I used both hands to try to pull his fists down, while he pushed up toward the sky. Two steps off the equator line I was literally hanging like an idiot off Adam’s outstretched arms in an attempt to pull them down. Fail. We then took one step over to the red line, and did the same thing. I used one arm only, and very easily pulled both his fists down while Adam pushed up with all his strength, veins literally popping out of his neck with the struggle! UNBELIEVABLE! I didn’t even believe it myself! But I watch the video every time I feel insignificant!

 

When we’d finished at the equator it was time for lunch! Christian knew this great little restaurant just a block or two away that sold guinea pig as one of it’s specialties (This was something we’d been searching for since we arrived in Ecuador)! The lady who ran the place opened the restaurant just for us, and started cooking up a storm! We ordered one giant guinea pig between the 5 of us and it was more than enough food! We started with toasted corn with garlic and onion and chilled lima beans (delicious). After, there were the trimmings of a wonderful avocado and tomato salad, boiled potatoes, and some toasted chickpeas. Then came the guinea pig! It was huge, filling an entire platter, and came all put together, looking just like it would have alive, except it had no hair and was a little more still. Apparently the traditional way to eat guinea pig, is to just rip the meat apart with your bare hands… So that’s what we did! It was surprisingly very tasty! The texture was similar to chicken, but with fattier parts like rabbit meat. The skin was tough but crispy and the taste was unlike any other meat I’ve ever eaten. I don’t even know how to describe it. It wasn’t gamy, it wasn’t the most delicious meat I’ve ever had, but it was tasty!! Trying to eat around its little rib cage proved to be a bit tedious, but we ended up eating almost all of it. We left the head, mostly because looking at the thing’s burnt face and big teeth was a little off-putting. Also, I couldn’t eat the paw, because it was way too life-like and I felt bad as it looked like it was trying to climb off my plate with its tiny claws… Excuse me for being so descriptive. All in all the meal was great, we successfully tried another strange animal in a foreign country and no one had to slurp back a beating heart this time!

After lunch we went to the second, and original equatorial line. There were a bunch of touristy museums to poke around in, and we checked out some strange insect museum with all sorts of bugs I’d never want to run into in the wild! There is also a massive monument right over the supposed equator line that is a favorite for touristy pictures! We snapped some shots, tried to pet some wandering llamas, and carried on our way!

 

Christian then took us on an amazing, whirlwind tour of Quito’s old town. This was the first time we really explored the city, and it was absolutely breathtaking!! I knew the city was beautiful, but I absolutely did not expect it to be so wonderful. Adam was like a kid in a candy shop photo bombing every plaza, church and statue in the city center. Obviously his favourite city architecturally, and I agree. The city had a very European feel to it. The architecture was intricate, and much of it dated as far back at the mid 18th Century. A couple of the churches took up to 160 years to complete, and on the inside were completely covered in gold adornments of detailed design. The main church of the city, which took 120 years to complete under the order of Ecuador’s president, was the most impressive by far. It had an almost gothic feel to it with large pointed turrets that stood high above the city. It looked like a building that should sit in the old center of Edinburgh or Bruges. The building was so detailed in it’s design; it was difficult to choose where to focus. However, what made the building so unique was that, instead of gargoyles as figurines on the side of the building, there were statues of animals that are specifically local to the Galapagos Islands! Big iguanas, sea turtles, birds, the church was covered in these local touches that made it so perfect!

Not only were the plazas and the churches so amazing (as like most places here in South America) but the streets themselves were colourful and fun! Many of the buildings were perfectly painted in pastel colours with white trim. Almost every home had a second floor balcony with a quaint little gate around an area just a few square feet total. Apparently, years ago, it was common for young men to woo their lady-interests by serenading them from the streets below! The women would then walk out the door, on to the little balcony, and the two could talk. It is a very Shakespearean idea, and the balconies all looked like they were out of a Romeo and Juliet production! How cute!

I was a little surprised at how much history and legend each area of the city had. Canada, and in particular the West coast, just doesn’t have the same history. It is newly settled in the big scheme of things, and so churches dating back several hundred years are non-existent. I assumed South America was more recently influenced by European culture as well, yet, cities like Quito have the same amount of history as the best of the European cities!! (and it doesn’t come with the European prices, what a bonus). For those of you interested in seeing beautiful, European architecture but can’t afford the Euro, I highly recommend Quito!

We ended up back at the hostel around 6:45 and refreshed ourselves from the long day. Then we recruited half our hostel and went out on our own mini pub crawl. We started at a lively Irish pub across the street from our hostel, and ended up at an adorable little salsa club with entirely locals. The place was so small, with a little bar and red brick walls. There were only a handful of people in the place, but we all grabbed partners and got out on the floor to learn salsa! There was a couple dancing when we arrived that was out of this world! Clearly professionals in the dance, they were fascinating to watch! Diane even got a chance to dance with the man and his leading was so perfect she said she felt like the best dancer on earth. And she looked like it too! It definitely makes a difference when at least one person in the pair knows what they’re doing!
  So after another long night out, we were up early for check out. We decided last minute where we were going to go, and after a hearty breakfast, we set out for a small town called Riobomba a few hours South of Quito!

Otavalo and Cotacachi: Ecuadorean Market Towns

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Ecuador is obviously different from Colombia in many ways. The landscape immediately changed after the border from mountainous terrain to rolling hills. The climate is a lot drier, and thus browner, and there’s less sprawling coffee plantations and more farmland. Sheep, cattle, llamas, pigs, all sorts of wildlife with more flat land and sparser forests. Women stand in lines tilling the fields by hand or carrying bundles of sticks along the side of the road.
  Even though the currency of Ecuador is the US dollar, the dress is much less influenced by North American apparel. Many locals wear the traditional clothing of brightly coloured ponchos or capes, dark pants (long thick skirts for the women) and fedora hats. The women carry their children in swaddled blankets on their backs, and are almost always adorned with thick necklaces of gold and silver chains.

At nearly every stop the bus made, people selling cheap food or trinkets climbed on to sell their goods. Homemade potato chips, apples, chicken, nuts, water, icecream, you name it. The venders walk up and down the isle calling out the names of their goods in rapid succession. “helado helado helado helado!!” “papas papas papas!!!” “un dollar por seis; veinte cinco centavos!” The men or women stay on for a stop or two, then tell the driver to stop so they can jump onto another bus. You will never find yourself hungry on an Ecuadorean bus, that’s for sure!

On our first day in Quito we did very little. We grabbed lunch at a bar in the main square, checked out a park and ventured back to our hostel to wait for Diane to join us! Now that Hilary had gone home to Toronto, Diane agreed to join us for our trip around Ecuador and we were very excited! The three of us went for delicious Mexican food for dinner, then called it a night early to get ready for a long day trip to Otavalo in the morning.

Otavalo is a market town about 2 hours North of Quito. It is a wonderful little town with a plethora of street venders selling food and a beautiful craft market full of traditional Ecuadorean wares. The three of us got up early to start our day. We watched a very entertaining Jackie Chan movie in Spanish on the bus ride out and arrived in Otavalo by the early afternoon. Buses in Ecuador are incredibly cheap: about $1 for every hour of the trip. Such a far cry from Brazil, which are between 8 and 10 times the price!! So we were all happy to reach the town for the cost of a toonie!

The market was quiet on the Monday that we went, but had some great deals! There were tonnes of intricate, hand-carved silver pendants and earrings, wood carvings of native animals, hand held pipes, thick alpaca sweaters, brightly coloured paintings, and traditional blankets and scarves. We had a great time walking from stall to stall bargaining for the best price and checking out the handicrafts. In the end, Diane and I both bought sweaters and Adam got an alpaca blanket that was gorgeous! When we’d properly explored the market, we ventured back to the bus station to catch a bus to Cotacachi. I never would have known that this place existed had it not been for Cathy, who told me about the leather bags she had bought from there. Only 40 minutes and 20 cents from Otavalo, Cotacachi is even more quaint and beautiful! From what we saw, it was only several blocks squared: the bus station went only 2 places, there was one plaza with a church… and a million leather shops! The place smelled amazing, with real leather scents coming out of the stores. Jackets, purses, wallets, shoes! Each place had handmade leather wares for super cheap and many of the shop owners made their products right there in the store. We spent a good hour at least walking up and down two city blocks checking out all the leather in each store along the way. We got some great deals in the end and then made our three hour trek back to Otavalo and finally Quito. We had cheap eats at a local Ecuadorean restaurant of rice, chicken and lentils for $2.75 then back to our hostel for a few beers and games of pool.  Not a bad first day in Ecuador!

Cali: A Salsa Dancing Haven

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We decided to go to Cali solely to dance! In the Southern part of Colombia, Cali is supposed to have South America’s best Salsa clubs, and according to Lonely Planet, “you can dance until sunrise, every night of the week, no questions asked”.  Sounds fun to me!

 

We ended up meeting up with my god brother’s friend Nick, who just happened to be traveling through Colombia at the same time as us. Although I haven’t seen him in about 13 years, for some reason, while traveling, it seems acceptable to greet people from home like they’re your long lost friend! Nick’s been on the road for a little over 6 months; he quit his job, sold his worldly possessions and decided to take his motorcycle around the world for 3 or 4 years. Even after a few short months he had amazing stories to share with us. Turns out, motorcycling around the world is more common than I had imagined. Spence, another guy at our hostel, was actually doing the exact same thing! The two of them were going opposite directions around the world, but figured they’d meet up again in a couple years somewhere around the Middle East. What an unbelievable journey for them both!

 

We took it pretty easy during the day in Cali. We walked the length of the infamous Sexta street, where all the bars come alive at night for parties. Being Friday, even during the late afternoon you could see the bars and restaurants filling up quickly. Cali itself is a fairly large city, but the areas we explored still had a familiar feel to it. The place was exciting and in parts very pretty, and I much preferred it to Bogota and Manizales. On top of that, the city was at a significantly lower altitude, which meant I could finally wear shorts again!! 
After dinner, we found a bottle of Aguardiente (the traditional Colombian liquor that tastes similar to sambooka, with a sweet anise flavouring to it). We had no idea what it would taste like, but decided to mix it with a Canadian dry ginger ale, and after one sip, it was instantly my favourite drink (Unfortunately not so much for Adam, who loathes sambooka to begin with). So we rounded up a United Nations group from our hostel, and headed out on the town.

 

Sexta street was nuts, all the bars and clubs were packed by the time we arrived at 10:30. We found one we liked the look of, sat out on the patio and ordered towers of beer while we shared stories with our new friends. A couple bars later, and before we knew it, it was 3 am. Most of us carried on to a salsa club on the other side of town to dance away the rest of the morning. The place was packed right until closing (at 6am, just as the sun was rising). It was half indoor and half outdoor terrace, which was a perfect way of keeping the temperature down. We danced for ages, with locals just grabbing us out of nowhere to drag us onto the dance floor. Some couples were good, others were just dancing to their own beat, but no one stood out as an excellent salsa dancer by any means. One of the couples in our hostel (who did not join us that night) had said they found very little “professional” salsa dancing in South America. The two of them traveled the world attending salsa conventions and were by all standards experts at the dance! They came to Cali, hoping to find the worlds best salsa dancing, and were a little disappointed. Fortunately for me, who knows only the basic steps, it was exciting just to get out on the dance floor and listen to the music! By the time the club closed, I was exhausted. Time to head to bed, because check out was in 4 and a half hours.

 

The next evening we were booked for a 20 hour bus ride to Quito. 
 Great.  After practically no sleep, I was once again a mess for our travel day. I spent most of the day napping on the couch and back and forth from our favourite breakfast bakery for omelets and banana smoothies. 
We got on the bus at 7:30 and prepared ourselves for another looooong overnight journey. The bus was cramped and had awkward leg rests that made it impossible to stretch your legs out. After watching yet another Jason Statham movie on the bus – that’s 3 for 3 with our buses in Colombia. They love him here – we tried to sleep. It was an awkward, freezing cold, half-sleep for both of us all night. We stopped at a million stations throughout the trip for people to get on and off and the roads were less than ideal for our journey. 11 hours later we arrived in Ipiales, a city right near the border of Colombia and Ecuador. We got off the bus and stepped into the freezing cold. Both of us had every layer possible on and my teeth were still chattering. We grabbed a cab and couldn’t even afford to pay in Colombian money, now that we were down to our last $1.50 in the currency. Luckily the cab driver accepted US dollars and we made it to the border. The border was quick and had no lines which was great. Then back into another cab to get to the bus station in the other town. When we dragged ourselves out of the second cab we were greeted by two, short Ecuadorean men with huge smiles. “Quito! Quito! Quito!” they yelled in rapid concession at us. We managed a nod, then they opened the trunk of the cab, grabbed all our bags and trucked off towards a bus! It took us a moment to figure out what happened in our sleepy daze before we ran to catch up with them. They put our bags on the bus, beckoned for us to sit down and we were on our way in no time. It was a simple bus, with no bathroom, and full of people getting on and off, but we made it safely to Quito several hours later and exhausted out of our minds!

 

Manizales: The Colombian Coffee Region

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The 5 hour bus ride from Medellin to Manizales, although treacherously windy, is absolutely breathtaking! Colombia has by far the most beautiful landscape that I’ve seen in South America yet. Huge mountains and deep valleys of luscious green foliage make for an unreal road trip trough the countryside. Low hanging misty clouds filled some of the valleys, which made the mountains look as if they were floating in the sky when you looked over the cliff edge. The roads wind from mountain peak to mountain peak and back and forth along the steep summits. It makes for wonderful sights and stomach lurching rides. The bus drivers drive like they are formula one racecar drivers. They pass semis, bikes and cars at alarming speeds around blind corners and have no problem throwing bags and passengers in all directions in the back. I spent a lot of time looking out the front window trying not to get carsick. The only thing I could do was throw in my headphones and stare out at my impending doom: putting all my faith in our driver and crossing my fingers every time we rounded a bend.

The city of Manizales was a lot larger than I had expected. It is right in the heart of the coffee triangle of Colombia and sprawls across the side of a mountain for kilometers. Just to get to the centro from the bus station, we took a long gondola ride up over the city to the top of the massive hill. The view of the city is wonderful from such a height, and although the city itself isn’t beautiful to look at, the valley that it nestles into is a wonderful backdrop. 
We weren’t sure what Manizales really had to offer, so we decided to walk lengthwise along the top of the mountain from our hostel to the city center and back (a good 2 hour walk). Just as our guidebook had suggested, there wasn’t much to see. No beautiful plazas or ornate churches, very few lookout points, and overall just another city in my eyes. So we decided instead to go on a coffee crawl from one cafe to the next to find the best coffee in the area. Why not when you’re in one of the greatest coffee regions in the world! 
Colombia has just recently begun to serve high quality coffees within its country. Historically, Colombia would export close to 80% of its good coffee and keep the lower grade beans for itself. Luckily for us, however, many of the coffee shops in Manizales now offer delicious coffees for a reasonable price! We especially found this in our second cafe, where the servers were obvious connoisseurs of coffee themselves and described all the flavors and aromas to us before letting us smell the beans, then drink the coffee. The coffee was served with a small piece of dark chocolate, which was supposed to be eaten before each sip to bring out the best of the flavors. It was delicious! Definitely the best of our afternoon’s coffee crawl!

By the end of the afternoon I was buzzing with caffeine jitters. I am definitely not as skilled at coffee drinking as Adam, who had even more coffee than I did during the day and felt fine. But it was a great way to explore the city and an awesome introduction to the region.

 

The next morning, we set out early to a tour of a coffee plantation! Just 20 minutes outside of Manizales, and down a long windy dirt road, we arrived at the plantation. Immediately, we were given small cups of strong espresso coffee. The plantation kept reminding us to “drink as much coffee as possible” while on the tour, and the beverage was readily available at any given time.

Our guide started out by explaining the history of coffee and the logistics of coffee plantations in Colombia. Colombia differs from many regions that make coffee because of its close proximity to the equator and mountain range. The cloud system that moves up and down the Andes, actually gives Colombia two full rainy seasons (unlike most places in the world) and so, the area can produce twice as much coffee in one year than most places. The downside to this, however, is that the beans on the plant all grow at different times. Some beans are ripe in May, while others on the same plant are ripe two weeks, or two months later. This, combined with the steep mountain terrain that the coffee region exists on, means that all the coffee beans have to be picked by hand by many laborers. Every 2 weeks the coffee pickers will go out into the field to pick the beans; this is an extraordinary 20+ times a year that the beans are harvested. The beans then go through a large drying process; they are shucked from their original shells, searched through by hand for the perfect bean selection, and eventually packed into large sacks and shipped out of the country. The roasting process of the beans fascinated me. The temperature of the beans has to be so exact, just like the heat of the water and how long you should pour each espresso. The equation is so precise, it is amazing that the batches can come out tasting the same time and time again!

We had a wonderful half-day tour of the plantation, walking through the fields, picking our own beans to roast, and seeing first hand each step of the coffee making process. One of the cooler things I’ve done on the trip, the coffee plantation made me appreciate the great tasting coffees we so often take for granted in Canada. Once the tour was over, we sat down to an amazing Colombian soup dish of potatoes, vegetables, capers, avocado and chicken. It was delicious, although I can’t remember what the name of it was for the life of me. Then we made the trek back to the hostel and finally off to Cali!

Medellin: The Search for Pablo Escobar

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In the 1980’s and 90’s, Medellin was considered one of the most dangerous cities in South America. It was home to drug lords such as Pablo Escobar, and its reputation was synonymous with big time drug cartels and violent crimes. Today however, Medellin has cleaned up its act, and is an incredibly welcoming city, with a busy downtown core and neighborhoods with character! The Poblado district, where we stayed, was one of the nicer neighbourhoods we’ve explored on this trip, in fact. The area was full of well kept, charming parks and loads of restaurants serving international and local cuisine.

 

On our one and only full day in Medellin we decided to explore as much as possible; we started with checking out Pablo Escobar’s grave. We took the metro to the designated stop and immediately realized that finding the cemetery would not be easy. The station was right in the middle of a busy neighborhood and no cemetery-esque areas were visible. Luckily we had all afternoon, so we just started to walk through the streets. After a while, we admitted we were lost and asked a little old lady where the “cementerio” was. She pointed up and down blocks, told us to turn left and then right and we’d find it. So we carried on. After stopping 4 times to ask directions, and each time getting a completely different answer, we found it! A huge white building with a statue of Jesus on the cross was right in the center of the place.  From there, thousands of plaques with cremated remains spread outwards in a giant maze. It was going to be a daunting task finding the right grave.

Unfortunately, as we went to open the gate, we found a big lock on the outside. Next to the gate was a sign that read: “closed from 12:00 to 14:00”. We looked at Adam’s watch… It was 12:04. Fantastic. So we grabbed a couple drinks at a local bar and waited out the two-hour siesta break.

As soon as the cemetery opened we were in the gates! The place was a little overwhelming with the number of names, and there was no touristy indication that Pablo Escobar’s grave was the center of attention. So we walked and read, walked and read and after way too long searching, we came across two guys that worked there. We asked them if they could help us find Pablo Escobar. They looked at us like we were crazy, then the younger guy perked up. “Pablo!!” he laughed hysterically, “you are in the wrong cemetery my friends! You are looking for the big one. It’s huge, with a big building and big monument!” Seriously? We’d been sitting around for over 2 hours waiting for this cemetery to open and all for nothing?  So even with directions we decided to take a cab; we specifically asked for Pablo Escobar INSTEAD of cemetery, and the driver took us right there. So much simpler for a 2 dollar cab ride!

Our sad faces when we realize we’re at the wrong cemetery.

 

The taxi driver pointed over to a large building across the cemetery and sent us on our way. We felt so stupid. The place was huge! And the building that he pointed to had a tonne of cars, a bus and people milling around. Obviously it would be a tourist destination, and not a desolate old cemetery in the middle of the city! So we walked toward the building determined to take a photo and get on with our day of sightseeing (now that we were so far behind on our day).

Stoked to have finally found it!

So we walked into the building like the biggest tourists ever: cameras out, backpacks on, ready to throw elbows through the crowd to get a picture and get out. We smiled at a security guard on the way in the building and he looked at us strangely before smiling back. Then we moved our way through a group of people into a room that everyone was staring into. When we walked into the room, we walked STRAIGHT into the middle of an open casket funeral that was going on. The dead man’s wife was wailing over the casket and about 90% of the people in the room were crying: then there was Adam and I. The only gringos in the whole area, who just pushed through a grieving family with our cameras out, determined to snap some shots. I went so red, and the ridiculousness of what just happened made me want to laugh out loud: although I’m sure that would have made things worse. So we hightailed it right back out of the funeral and back to the front door with the security guard. “Pablo Escobar?” we asked. He just shook his head, smiled a bit at us, and then led us to a very modest sized family grave on the backside of the building. How MORTIFYING! 
It took us a total of three minutes to take a photo, check it off our tourist list and head back towards the metro…3 and a half hours later. Fail.


The downtown core of Medellin, our next destination, had a great ambience. Street venders lined the main street for block after block selling their goods: pirated dvd’s, music, clothing, trinkets and street food among many others. We walked the main drag for a good stretch before coming across a beautiful plaza. The city itself is so much more beautiful than Bogotá, and the vibe is both livelier and warmer. Later in the evening, we asked a man for directions to a restaurant. When he realized that he’d given us the wrong directions to the place he left his shop, and ran down 5 blocks to find us and let us know the right way. It’s unfortunate that Colombia, and in particular Medellin, has such a bad reputation, because the people are so lovely and accommodating. All throughout the country we were surprised by how friendly and helpful all the locals were to us! I suppose that’s why Colombia’s new tourist tagline is “The most dangerous part of Colombia, is not wanting to leave”. And I believe it!

Bogota and The Salt Cathedral

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Our flight to Bogotá left at 3:58am from Manaus, had a 45 min layover in Panama City, and finally arrived in Colombia just after 9am local time. I’m pretty sure we were sleepwalking to our hostel from the lack of sleep we’d had. Short naps, no longer than 30 min on each flight, 3 hours the evening before, 2 hours Thursday, and 6 DAYS in an uncomfortable hammock before that. All we wanted to do when we arrived in Bogotá was go to bed! When we arrived about 10am, it was still 2 hours to check in. We passed the time staring at a wall until we were finally allowed to crash in our room for a couple more hours.

We took it pretty easy our first day. Hung out drinking coffee at a local cafe, then walked around the city, checking out its bustling streets (with lots of crazy homeless people). One huge difference in Bogotá was its temperature. It was absolutely freezing (If the freezing temperature was 10 degrees Celsius)! The city is at such a high altitude, that even the sunshine during the day is several degrees cooler than we have been acclimatized to. Both of us bought a pair of jeans, and I spent two days wearing three layers of shirts.

After a good night’s sleep it was time to do some sightseeing. We went up the cable cars to the Cerro de Monserrate, which is a lookout over the whole of Bogotá. The city is mostly just urban sprawl for as far as the eye can see, but the mountains on the other side are gorgeous! At the top of the lookout there is a church, which was packed with people on the Sunday that we went. There are also a bunch of souvenir stores and a plethora of eateries for a snack or a full-fledged Colombian lunch!

Instead of spending our afternoon in museums, we decided to check out the Catedral de Sal in a city just outside Bogotá. A local Colombian we met in Sao Paulo a month earlier recommended the “salt cathedral” to us.  He had said it was one of his favourite things in Colombia. So we made the two-hour trek to Zapateria to check it out. Surprisingly, we figured out the bus system in Bogotá (which is a hundred times more difficult on Sundays) and ended up in Zapateria within a short couple hours. 
The city was absolutely beautiful. It sported large brown brick churches, bustling cobblestone plazas and had a rustic, small-town feel. Zapateria is nestled in a little valley, with gorgeous green mountains towering over it – an idyllic little getaway from Bogota’s much less aesthetic surroundings.

The Catedral de Sal is an underground system of tunnels that have been designed into a church that stretches over a huge space. The walls of the tunnels are covered in salt deposits that have built up over the years, thus the name “the salt cathedral”. Our tour group was entirely in Spanish, and with the speed that our guide was talking, combined with his loud, inaudible microphone, it was almost impossible to understand what was going on. I picked up some dates – like 80 years and 6 years, but have no idea what they referred to. So Adam and I ditched the tour and explored the place on our own.

The cathedral was a huge labyrinth of passageways that led to large, stone-carved crosses and statues of religious icons.  These “points of interest” were spectacularly lit up in changing colours of glowing light. Bright red one second, then the statue transforms into a softer green or electric blue. The place was so surreal; one moment everything is shrouded in the darkness of the cave, then all of a sudden, larger than life carvings glow into focus.

Most of the crosses that we’re scattered about the cathedral were about 6 to 10 ft high, but as you wound your way down to the main cavern, there was a huge display with an altar, a few larger than life statues and a cross that stood about 60ft high. Pews were lined up and the place very well could be used as a functioning church: although without our guide there to explain, I really have no idea. We spent at least an hour exploring the strange underground cathedral before finally climbing back up to the daylight and finding our way home.

The next morning we set out on a 12-hour bus ride to Medellin. Just getting out of the city to the bus station was an ordeal. Our taxi took 20 minutes to make it only 6 blocks along the city center. The streets were completely crowded with buses. Big city buses, tour buses, mini buses (which seems to be the favoured mode of transportation around Bogotá), but all of them were empty! The place was one huge gridlock traffic jam with hundreds of empty buses. I never saw one bus with more than 3 people on it. It was a strange sensation to say the least.

When we finally did catch our bus to Medellin, we were placed in special “gringo seats”. These were seats that were about 6 inches closer to the chairs in front than any other seats on the bus. Immediately the young guy in front of me reclined his seat back to its full potential, crushing my legs and essentially leaving his head in my lap. I had to spend the bus ride with my legs in Adams leg space, and his in the isle, because even with an upright seat it was impossible to have your legs in front of you. After 10 hours of this man stretching and pushing back on the seat, I thought I was going to murder him. I just wanted to rip off his little green hat and throw it off the bus!! It didn’t help that we lurched through windy mountain passes the entire 12 hours and I was in a motion sickness haze for the better part of the day. Luckily, the man arrived alive, and I am not wanted by the police for murder… But let me tell you, it was close!

Manaus: The Heart of the Amazon

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We arrived in Manaus in the early afternoon and decided to team up with Hilary and Diane to find a good hostel. After walking through the port, we met Thomas: a charismatic native of Manaus with a great sense of humour.  Thomas recruits and refers tourists to his hostel and organizes their stay. Tours, places to eat, things to see, you name it, Thomas will help you organize it and then introduce you to 5 other people who have already done it. His grasp of the English language is impeccable, and he is exactly the kind of person we all wanted to meet upon arrival. Strangely enough, having recruiters swarm you at bus stations and ports is something I kind of miss from Asia, and it’s infinitely easier than walking around the city from hostel to hostel with a 15kg backpack on!

 

So just like that, we had a cozy place to stay, with a room just for the 4 of us, and were sitting down organizing tours within the hour. Sadly, Adam and I had only one full day to spend in Manaus, so we booked a day tour for the Friday and hoped to see as much of the city as possible! 
After we were hooked up with a cheap seafood dinner of local Amazonian fish, we were offered a free, private walking tour of the city from Thomas’ brother (or sister as he jokingly referred to him as).

 

The markets in Manaus are incredible. The less impressive fruit market was quite a sight to behold.  Truckloads of fruits and vegetables collected from the jungle, lay over huge wooden palates waiting to be bought.  A massive variety of tropical fruits and vegetables to choose from and a stack of bananas larger than I’ve ever witnessed!  Afterwards we walked over to the fish market.  The market was slowing down by the time we arrived in the evening, but at 5am, Manaus’ fish market explodes with people trying to get a deal on fish for the day. There are apparently over 2000 different species of fish to be found in Manaus, and the fish market is where you can get most of them.  Row upon row of stalls where fisherman slice up their catch and prepare the food for buyers.  Anyone can buy fish at the market, but it is particularly popular with restaurant owners buying their daily specials at the crack of dawn.

After the markets, we walked through the city checking out it’s main sights: the opera house, the university and the many beautiful plazas that are scattered throughout. I was amazed at how industrial and beautiful Manaus really is. It is a booming city with a very strong economy and is WAY larger than I would have imagined from a city in the middle of the jungle. There are over 400 factories in Manaus, many of them big name car companies and appliances. It’s even one of the largest microwave distributors in the world. Random. Manaus is a city where people from all over Brazil come to get work. It has such a huge workforce that there are always places to find a job. Before Southeast Asia began its rubber production, Manaus was the largest rubber exporter in the world. The rubber production made for an extremely wealthy economy. The place was so rich, that the women would have all their clothes shipped to Europe to get them CLEANED instead of doing it themselves, and the men would smoke cigarettes through dollar bills.  If only I could afford these luxuries!

 

When we arrived back at the hostel, Thomas had pitchers of caipirinhas waiting for us. It wasn’t long before we met a bunch of Colombians, Swedes and Spanish guys outside and joined them for drinks. We sat in patio furniture on the street and attempted to understand our trilingual conversations. We drank and sang Spanish songs like “La Bamba,” with the accompaniment of Juan-Carlos’ guitar, for what seemed like hours. Then we all headed out on the town till the wee hours of the morning!

 

When Adam’s alarm went off at 7:30am I was a zombie. We had a maximum of 3 hours of sleep, although no one really checked the time we finally fell asleep, so it could have been less. So excited for an 8 hour day tour of Manaus…
 not!  Turns out it was just Adam and I on the tour with a man that didn’t speak English. Not sure how we always end up on private tours, but it seems to be a trend for us in Brazil! I was in no condition to translate Portuguese, but our tour was amazing nonetheless!

 

We took a boat out to the meeting of the rivers to start. This is where the Rio Negro and the Rio Solimoes converge to make the Amazon. Because of the amount of acid in the water, the Rio Negro is a very dark, almost black colour. Contrastingly, the Solimoes is a light brown, muddled hue. The acidity and temperature differences between the two rivers keeps them separated, and thus there is a very defined line where the waters meet that stretches for about 6km! We could actually feel the temperature differences as we traveled between the two on our boat.

As we were boating to our next destination, we FINALLY saw the elusive pink river dolphins! Adam has been talking about these pink dolphins since day 1 of our trip. They were on his trip’s bucket list before anything else in fact! So it was very exciting to see them in the wild. They are the only fresh water dolphins in the world and no one quite knows how they ended up in the Amazon. It is believed that perhaps they migrated into the river up to 15 million years ago! Their brains are 40% larger than a human’s and they are unique in that their neck bone is not fused with their spine, giving them a lot of mobility in their heads. The dolphins are a light grey colour with pink around their heads. A number of strange local legends surround the animals; it is said that the dolphins shift shapes in the night to impregnate women on land! We did spot a couple in the distance when we were on our 6-day trip, but seeing them up close was very cool!

 

When the dolphins swam out of view, we boated through a floating village that both survived and made a living off the river. Local fisherman caught pirarucu fish from the river and kept them in large tanks to sell them at a later date. The fish are massive!! They can get up to 180kilos and small ones are still a whopping 90kg. One of the fishermen tied small fish to a wooden pole and let us try to fish for them in the tank. They snapped at the fish, literally jumping out of the water to grab the food, but it was practically impossible to reel them in with the weight of them; however, for lunch afterwards, we got to eat the fish as part of our buffet. Which was fun, even though we didn’t catch one ourselves.

From there, we walked through the ecological park to the giant lily pads! Seems that everything is a little larger in the Amazon, and these lily pads were no exception. They got up to a couple diameters each, and were a beautiful display among the calm lake. 
 I couldn’t take enough photos of them if I’d tried!

Once we’d explored the park, and had some lunch, we visited one of the floating homes and met up with two children: a young boy about 10 and a girl no older than 5. The little girl clung onto a baby caiman, with it’s mouth tied shut, like it was her own little stuffed animal. She dragged it around without even thinking twice that she had a tiny dangerous animal swinging from her hands! Next to her, the young boy was bear hugging a sloth! The two hopped in our boat and offered us the animals to hold. Adam and I were ecstatic! The sloth was one of the most adorable things I’ve ever seen. I’ve only ever spotted the animals in trees, moving around slowly and clinging to a branch for dear life. But up close, they have the most ADORABLE faces.  They have big black eyes on top of a long face and a neck that turns around almost a full 360 degrees. And they are so light! I was expecting the sloth to be much heavier than it was, but it couldn’t have been more than a couple pounds. It’s long claws wrapped around me in a huge sloth hug and then the animal seemed content to just hang out in my lap. So cool! After Adam and I played with the sloth for quite some time, we checked out the caiman. It was so little (no longer than a foot and a half from head to tail) and had huge green eyes that stuck out of its head. It felt just like a snake, but looked a little more ferocious with its teeth sticking out under its tied jaw. It was surprisingly calm however, and allowed the little girl to grab a hold of it as if it was her childhood blanket. We paid the kids a couple Reais for their time before continuing on with the tour.

Our guide then took us on a boat ride THROUGH the jungle. Because of the flooded waters, the forest was no longer walkable; instead, we cruised through the tall trees and thick forest with unbelievable dexterity in our giant boat. I have NO idea how this man maneuvered through the trees that were at points no wider than a half inch on either side of the boat, but he did it! It was a beautiful trip and a very unique way of trekking through the area!
  Photos did NOT do this part of the trip justice.

 

Finally, we ended our trip with more piraña fishing! Although these pirañas were much less voracious than the ones in the Pantanal, we still managed to catch 7 of them and take them back to our guide’s friend for his dinner.  
By the time we arrived back at the hostel we were exhausted! Out for an early pizza dinner in front of the opera house, then off to bed… for a nap. We only got to sleep for another 3 hours before we were up at 1am to head to the airport! Another long night with no sleep ahead of us… Great!

Cruising down the Amazon River

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We arrived at the docks at 7:30am. Our boat was scheduled to leave at noon, but the guidebook insisted we arrive a few hours early to claim the best spot on the boat: i.e. as far away from the engine and the bathrooms as possible. 
  Apart from two other Canadian girls that arrived at the same time as us, there were 4 people on the boat when we got there. Definitely could have slept in. Nonetheless, we set up our hammocks, got some breakfast and were overly enthusiastic to start lounging in out hammocks.

Meeting Hilary and Diane (the two Canadian girls) was great because it allowed us to switch off watching bags to get breakfast, shower, walk around etc for the next few days. The four of us got a prime location on the top deck and were ready to set sail by 8:15AM!
  By noon I had already made it through a good chunk of my book. The hammock was still comfortable, and we were anticipating leaving very shortly. Huge cargo trucks full of vegetables were unloading their goods on to the boat to distribute to settlements along the river as we went. We watched them pack on the boxes with surprising speed until at last the two trucks were empty. Then another two arrived.  When they had finished unloading, two more showed up; and after that, another… By five o’clock that evening they were still loading up their 7000th box of green tomatoes! I honestly have no idea how all that food fit onto our ship. We finally pulled away from the dock at 5:34PM.

 

Time in the hammock: 9hrs 19minutes

 

Time left to Manaus: 6 days!

Before the boat even left I was already starting my second book. I started reading Shantaram, which is a long, but an INCREDIBLE story – Nikki, thank you for the suggestion, I don’t know how I could have survived the trip without this book!  
Food was sold on the boat for a very reasonable price! However, the selection was the exact same every day, breakfast, lunch and dinner. Scrambled eggs in a bun for breakfast, and a rice, spaghetti, salad and steak plate or steak soup for lunch and dinner (In all fairness, they did offer the same meal with a chicken option for two of the nights… LUCKY!). I can’t believe I still enjoyed the food by the last day, although I was thrilled to switch up the meal when we hit Manaus.

Other than eating at designated mealtimes downstairs, there was very little else to do on the boat. Showers were small and just straight, cold, river water. They had two, long, uncomfortable wooden benches, a few scattered plastic chairs and a rooftop with a steel seating area. Thus, we spent a ridiculous amount of time in our hammocks. 
When I first imagined our river trip, all I could picture was “hot” and “mosquitoes“. I had looked up the temperature in January before I left and it was 44 degrees Celcius with 95% humidity… Oh my God. I pictured us sweating under a mosquito net, trying not to cover up skin, but avoiding malaria at the same time! In reality, it was the complete opposite. The movement of the boat kept all but the strongest mosquitoes away: that, and the fact that I have been taking my malaria pills, I have three types of bug spray, a mosquito net, long sleeves and pants (that are NOT black) and I have been taking propolis extract.  Propolis is a liquid that you drop into your water a few days before a mosquito zone, which you later sweat out and mosquitoes leave you alone – recommended to me by locals. I was set! I was amazed, as someone who draws mosquitoes to her anywhere within a 5km radius, that one, or a combination of these methods worked!  In fact, I managed to come out almost completely unscathed! I had a few bites that were only itchy for an hour and then gone! Hallelujah!

 

As well, it wasn’t hot! Actually, with the wind from the boat moving, and the cool air from each night’s thunderstorms, it was FREEZING! I wore pretty much everything I own AND wrapped myself in my hammock and still shivered through the night!! (Caitlin, it was very reminiscent of when you woke up at Oktoberfest and found me wearing 18 layers of clothing and huddled in my sleeping bag that was good to +10 degrees Celcius [ironically the same temperature that human skin is good to]).  Depressingly, each night on the boat seemed to be colder than the last. Adam even has a picture of me on the last morning, so bundled up in stuff, that only my nose was visible from under all the layers. I wore pants the ENTIRE trip, and long sleeves shirts went on as soon as the sun set (Yes, I do mean shirts, plural). I couldn’t believe it! We were only a couple hundred kilometers from the EQUATOR!! I don’t know what the temperature actually was, but I know we haven’t acclimatized that much!

By day 2 and a half on the boat I couldn’t feel my lower back. Having spent the better part of two days SOLELY in a hammock, it became an excruciating task just leaning over to pick things up off the ground. No position, sitting or lying down, was comfortable! I found myself doing stretches and yoga at least three times a day just to have a reasonably content two hours sitting back in my hammock! I flipped and flopped during the day: sitting up to read, crossing my legs, and then using a rolled up jacket as lumbar support.  In the night I rolled myself into a thousand different positions, trying desperately to forget the pain and cold and get some shuteye before the loudspeakers blared Brazilian dance remixes of American country songs and Michel Telo’s ever-popular “Nossa, Nossa” at 8AM.  By day 6 I think we were all thrilled to pack up our things and get into a real bed. Adam timed every second he was in his hammock and managed an impressive 89 hours 11 mins 7seconds out of a possible 126 hours. We figured I was about 15 hours more than that… Which is disgusting, and NOT recommended whatsoever!

However, apart from sleeping and eating, the river trip was WONDERFUL! We traveled through areas where the river was just a little wider than the boat we were in. The surrounding jungle was THICK! So much so I can’t imagine ever being able to explore it for the first time! There is thick, green foliage in every spare inch of the jungle, right up into the water. The plant life was unique, and varied and very, very green. The thing I found most fascinating, however, was the people that LIVE right on the river’s edge! Old wooden shacks are scattered along the length of the river where families survive off the land. They travel extensively by canoes that they paddle up and down the river, fishing for food. Little kids would paddle up along side our boat, tie themselves to the back, and climb aboard our ship. They ran around playing games, selling food and begging for food and gifts. I gave a couple of the little girls the Canadian pencils that I’d been carrying around for that exact purpose. One little girl looked LESS than enthused when I gave her a pencil instead of money and stared at me with a blank expression for over a minute. I finally took out my eyeliner sharpener and sharpened it for her, then scribbled in my book and gave it back. Her expression didn’t change a bit, so I waved her away. HOWEVER, when we were at lunch a little later, we saw her clutching the pencil like it was the winning prize at a fair. When we got back upstairs Diane had said that she and other kids came back asking for more pencils to have. So I guess they were happy with them in the end!

At other parts of the trip, you could hardly see the other side of the river it was so wide! We even came across a huge cruise ship that did a two-week circuit from the Dominican, down the length of the Amazon to Manaus. It shocked me that such a large ship could even fit through the channels, it obviously had to have taken another route. But wide or narrow, the river was beautiful. I couldn’t get over the fact that we were actually ON the Amazon River, and floating up the entire length of it! On the second day, after watching all the native kids row around on the river from their little huts, I turned to Adam and exclaimed that this was one of the coolest things I’ve done in all my travels! Just seeing how life works in the jungle is eye opening and surreal! On some flatter parts of the jungle, a few families had even made small farms, with goats and cows and horses all penned up along the river edge. The houses were all on stilts, which would be necessary when the river floods in the rainy season, and people moved around on makeshift walkways in the air that connected houses to sheds and docks. Our boat stopped in several small settlements along the way to unload goods from Belem. Some of them very small, others, like Santarem, we’re surprisingly developed for such a remote place in the middle of the jungle. None of them were as advanced as Manaus however. Our final destination was a huge city, right in the middle of absolutely nowhere! Manaus has become the hub of the Amazon jungle, and I think we were all shocked at how developed it was when we pulled up in our boat six days after leaving our port in Belem!

Belem: Detox Days

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Adam is pumped to finally be at the Amazon River

To be honest, we did nothing in Belem. We desperately needed to sleep and detox after Carnaval, and quickly got comfortable lounging around our hostel.  Soon, even the most menial tasks were overwhelming. Originally, we were supposed to spend 24 hours in the city.  It was going to be a quick stopover before we booked hammock space on a cargo boat and cruised the length of the Amazon River from Belem to Manaus.  When we arrived, however, we found out that a brand new boat was sailing for Manaus this upcoming Saturday.  The lady ensured us it would be very nice and, not being in much of a hurry, we decided to hang around for 4 days.

 

Each day we came up with a task to complete. Groceries. Laundry. Buy hammock. After we completed one task, we felt accomplished and could spend the morning and the evening catching up on reading.  So that’s what we did. 
Our mornings were filled with LOTS of coffee drinking and writing; then, each afternoon we spent a little time at the market.

Belem’s market is THE largest open aired market in all of South America! It runs along the riverfront and holds just about everything you can imagine.  To begin with, there are rows upon rows of clothing: sweatshirts, t-shirts, football jerseys, bathing suits and the such.  Then Hammocks.  Hammocks are a very popular commodity in Brazil is seems, and Belem’s market had colourful, hand-woven hammocks strung up all throughout the stands. After that there were crafts, and trinkets, and carvings, and toys.  Then finally the food began!  Hundreds of cheap eateries all packed together in one area.  Each sold a version of fish and meat with the usual rice, spaghetti, beans and salad.  They had wooden stools to sit on, and one, very reasonable, price for everything (we paid a little less than $3US for a massive plate of food that neither of us could finish).  After the eateries were vegetable markets. Huge pallets of tomatoes, peppers, onions, and MANY things I’d never even seen before.  I’m assuming these were local to the area, and, with one of the most diverse ecosystem’s on Earth at your fingertips, I’m sure there were an endless number of unique foods sold there. After the fruits and vegetables, venders sold hundreds of little vials of liquids all labeled in Portuguese. It wasn’t until I looked in our guidebook later that we realized they were extracts from plants found in the Amazon jungle. They were natural healing remedies that the locals used, apparently, quite frequently! Bottles of coconut milk were sold, then the meat: live chickens, ducks, rabbits etc were in cages all waiting to be freshly picked for eating. Finally came the fish. The smell was horrid, as to be expected in an outdoor fish market, but the selection was incredible. Every day the fishermen go out early in the morning to fish, by 5am they are all back at port and selling their goods to the venders. It’s a hectic scene as people shout prices and throw around fish, trying to get the best deals (as we saw on our last morning when we passed on the bus early in the morning).

At the more “affluent” end of the market – which was enclosed and air-conditioned – there were loads of expensive buffets, small restaurants and a brewery. We found and acai berry shop and sat down for prawns and acai on our first day in Belem. We ended up sitting with a couple from California that we had literally met only 20 seconds earlier. They heard us speaking English, asked us where we were from, and we asked them to join us for lunch. Afterwards, we remarked how different things can be when you travel. I HIGHLY doubt I would invite a random couple for lunch on the sole fact that they speak the same language as me back in Vancouver! But it’s such a normal thing to befriend someone instantly when you are in a different country.

 

 

We all loved the acai. It is actually everywhere you turn in Brazil, so I’m amazed it took us this long to try it. At this place they sold it in litres; it comes out in a thick dark purple liquid that has a similar consistency to yogurt. It has a fairly bitter taste alone, and will stain your teeth purple in an instant, but, after adding a little sugar and tapioca, the stuff was delicious! Not to mention, it’s considered the super berry of the world with all the supposed health benefits it provides. We’ve had it several times since in Brazil, and I’ll be on the look out in Vancouver when I’m back!

 

Our lazy few days were easily pushed along by the weather. Although it was hot and muggy during the afternoon, by about 5 o’clock everyday the rains came in. I suppose that’s why the Amazon is considered a rainforest.  But these were not just normal rains; these were torrential thunderstorms that boomed across the city for a few hours each evening.  I have never heard thunder this loud before. The rain bucketed down in waterfalls all across the city and even within our hostel walls I jumped with every clash of thunder. The storm lasted just a few hours, then calmed down around 9 or 10. So we spent that time watching movies and playing cards: a far better alternative to bearing the storm outdoors!

 

When Saturday arrived it was time for the boat! We were up at a ridiculous hour of the morning (first from a man wailing in the halls of the hostel at 3am, and then from our alarm a couple hours later) to set up our spot on the boat and trek up the entire length of the Amazon proper!