Minca Minca Minca Minca

This entry is going to lump together a few recent events and travels, so bear with me... I've been too busy having adventures to stop and write about them!

Anyway. Santa Marta is hot. Hot hot hot. Here are some bits of evidence of just how hot it is here:

1. Lach has stopped wearing underpants.

2. I wear headbands to keep my hair from sticking to my face.

3. Street dog testicles hang much lower than they did in Cuenca.

To escape the heat, we've been traveling around the region every few days, intermingled with rest days in Santa Marta and working with the organization Mariposas Amarillas, where I began volunteering this week as well (more details on that endeavor soon). This is the region of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, the coastal mountain range that rises up just inland from the sea; it's one of the few places in the world where you can stand on a tropical beach and see snow-capped mountains in the distance:

Taken from "surf camp" last week - 3 days of mosquito nets, waves, and getting sore arms from paddling!

This weekend, we headed to Minca, just about a half-hour's drive up into the mountains. The temperature difference was crazy, considering we could still see Santa Marta right from the backyard of the guesthouse...

Getting to Minca: The 5000-peso "colectivos" are basically the cars/SUVs/motorcycles of anybody who shows up at the designated corner in Santa Marta, where, by some unspoken agreement, everyone seems to know that the transports for Minca leave from. In the case of the cars/SUVs, they leave when... they're full. So that's how we ended up bouncing around like popcorn in the back of this jeep, trying to dodge the rain leaking through the roof as we bumped along on the half-paved roads...

According to Lach, this next one is a "very good representation" of what the last part of the jeep ride was actually like:

But really.. the ride was a great way to see a bit more of Colombia (especially inland from the coast). And Minca itself was awesome! We stayed at a lovely place called the Mirador (so named for the Santa Marta view, shown above) and met cool people there, and on Sunday we all hiked together to Pozo Azul, a bunch of waterfalls and swimming holes in the river nearby. Jumping off rocks into the deep water below was an awesome adrenaline rush...

...and the whole day was spent swimming, diving, rock-hopping and exploring. Mom, I think you would really like Colombia!!

Just a few more snapshots of the day/weekend: Lach poses beside some "stairs" made of tires, filled up with rainwater...

On the way to the falls, we saw a new bridge being built. We did some surmising about how they would test the bridge once they got the first planks across... and hypothesized that perhaps they would send the work donkey across first just to make sure it held. Poor thing.

Is it a bridge over troubled water... or a troubled bridge over water?

Tomorrow I head out on the 5-day trek to Ciudad Perdida. More updates to follow upon my return to the land of internet on Saturday!

The great coconut titty of life

Green coconut is a typical breakfasty snack here in the Caribbean. The coconut man prepares for his day by "shaving" off (with a machete) most of the outer shells of a bunch of green coconuts. When you go to buy one, he chops off the top so you can drink the juice...

...and then he machetes the thing in half and scoops out the coconut flesh for you to eat!

Here is some footage from our coconut-brained adventures one morning...

Having finished his juice, Lach gets his coconut chopped in half...

...but we discover that raw unsweetened coconut flesh is actually not that appetizing:

Meanwhile, I'm still working on my juice...

...which is an arduous task...

...but we manage to get the job done, then cover our tracks and get out of there quick!

a Denny's at 2 in the morning

...is how I would describe the smell of the large man sitting next to me on the (non-air-conditioned) bus from Cartagena back to Santa Marta. Part of the way back. One of the four buses we were on over the course of our journey back to Santa Marta, actually.

All you really need to know is this: when a man with a gold tooth approaches you in the bus station and offers you a fare that is only 4,000 pesos (approximately $2) less than the fare offered at the "official" ticket windows - even if you manage to haggle him down to 6,000 pesos less - and even if he promises you that his bus has a bathroom and a DVD player - do not trust him. And if he then leads you out of the bus station and toward a bus parked in a nearby gas station that does not have air conditioning and is clearly full of misery - run. Run fast. Back to the bus station and to the official ticket windows with the officially air conditioned buses.

Otherwise:

Sheer misery on a bus ride

But enough about terrible bus rides and fat men that smell like waffles. This post is really supposed to be about Cartagena, where Lach and I spent Saturday through Tuesday.

Cartagena is kind of like a utopia... in that according to many people's definitions, a "utopia" is a paradise. However, the actual word "utopia" translates from the Greek as "no place". Not a place. Not a real place. That's what Cartagena is like... paradise according to some, but... not real.

Lonely Planet describes it as a "fairy tale city of romance" or something like that. Picture cobblestoned streets, balconies with long green flowering vines draping off them, colorful Caribbean buildings and crumbly old stone walls surrounding the whole thing.

It was one of the first cities in the Americas, a bustling port that saw many a treasure-filled galleon during its glory days, and was famous for being attacked by the English pirate Sir Francis Drake in the 1500's (hence the necessity for the stone walls that are now crumbly). I learned these things in the city's Caribbean Naval History Museum!

These days, Cartagena has traded in the gold dubloons for fancy cafés and high-end boutique shops. We saw many a woman with a tiny dog in her tote bag.

Still, the city is beautiful and the architecture gorgeous enough to take your breath away. Here are some choice shots...

"Las Murallas", the great stone walls that surround the city:

Couple more sunset shots (walking along the top of the wall):

What you get when you order a "café con un poquito de leche" in Mila, a snooty café full of shoulder-bag-dog ladies:

Coffee, frothy milk, brownie square, and a little shot of mint water to clean your mouth after.

Sweet-ass display of sailor knots at the Caribbean Naval History Museum:

The naval history museum also had a couple of teeny turtles in its courtyard, and I got to test out my turtle face in comparison with the pros...

Clearly I did not spend the ENTIRE weekend sitting in fancy cafés being snooty.

It was a lovely few days, but I'm happy to be back in Santa Marta... definitely more my speed.

More to come soon!

Limonada

Some quick video footage about the limeade carts found throughout Santa Marta... 1 glass costs 1.000 pesos (about 60 cents) and is DELICIOUS:

Drowning in poo water

Hi all! Finally arrived to Santa Marta on Sunday night after the epic 36-hour journey/flight-cancellation shenanigans. I am happy to report that I've swum in the Caribbean sea every day since!

Santa Marta is nice, very hot. It's a fairly big city but luckily we are staying two blocks from the beach. Right over the hill is a smaller fishing village called Taganga - Lach is taking Spanish lessons there a few times a week, and I've gone to hang out while he's in class. It is much more tranquilo and has a slightly nicer beach. We get there by taking the local bus: a 15-passenger van that careens through the hills blasting cumbia music. This is one of my very favorite things about Colombia so far, and I promise to post a video about it tomorrow.

The hostel we are staying at is called La Brisa Loca. It's great - run by two American brothers who seem to have travelled a lot, and know just what a hostel needs. There is a pool, a bar, kitchen access and some table and chairs up on the roof. Overall it has a very young/relaxed vibe...

and yes, they translated it into Spanish too...

La Brisa Loca is home to three dogs, a kitten, and this guy:

The kitten can be very, very mischievous, but that is mostly at night when it cools down a bit and he catches cockroaches up on the roof. During the day the animals mainly spend their time doing this:

(this is the TV room, complete with huge comfy mattress couches.. this guy and the dog have pretty much the same idea)

That is really all for now. I've been taking some video too and will post more of those soon. You'll also hear about Cartagena, where we are going on Saturday!

I'm Still. In. Ecuador.

No, you didn't read the title of this post wrong.. I am still in Ecuador. I almost made it to Colombia today. I was ON A PLANE that was going to Colombia. Or so I thought.

At present, I am sitting in bed in my (free) five-star hotel room in Guayaquil, having spent the evening swimming, hot tubbing, and eating (free) dinner. I'm certainly not as cranky as some of the other passengers from the cancelled flight. I has actually been a very nice (and free) evening. The funny thing is, I do not actually feel free at all right now. I feel very much like a prisoner in this swanky Guayaquil hotel - a prisoner that can only be happy with complimentary Q tips and bedside chocolates for so long...

I think I would like to go to Colombia now. You can do that, universe, can't you? For me? Please?

I'll keep you all posted...

Adios, Cuenca!

Better late than never! Here I am on the eve of my Escape from Ecuador, and I promise that I will blog a bit about my time there, but this site will mostly be for What Comes Next.

First things first: a few words about the blog title. My sister deserves the credit for dreaming up "the technicolor yarn" idea for me. It's a play on words alluding to the shocking amount of intestinal parasites I've dealt with over the past four months - "technicolor yawn" is a favorite vomit-related euphemism (spewphemism?) of my dear brother-in-law. The title also, in my mind, ties in nicely with the amount of woven and woolen goods I've been buying down here. And obviously, yarns - I'll be spinning them out as I make my way up and down the spine of the Andes over the next four months, and I hope you'll enjoy my tales.

So.. Ecuador. Cuenca. I've spent the past four months here, working as an International Programs Coordinator at CEDEI (Centers for Interamerican Studies). The job had some perks (leading a 4am hike up Machu Picchu in Peru was pretty awesome) and some downsides (dull office work, no vacation time), so all in all I decided to head out this fall in search of further adventures on my own. I mean really - who moves to South America to work in an office?

But Cuenca was not a bad time at all. There have been a great many fun moments over the past four months. The highlight of these was probably our gringo roadside juice stand...

 

...but that's a yarn for another time.

Farewell, Cuenca! I will miss your German bakery and your amazing encebollado (onion, fish, cilantro and lime soup) place that I discovered only this last week. I will miss working in a bilingual office where we swap como-se-dice's back and forth all day. But I will not miss your rain, your lame machista guys, or your pollution.

Onwards and upwards. Some plans have been formulated and some plane tickets have been bought. The general outline is this: September and part of October will be spent exploring the Caribbean coast region of Colombia, and hopefully trekking to Ciudad Perdida. Then perhaps a quick stop back in Ecuador (?) on the way down to Chile, where I'll visit old friends in Santiago and then head for Patagonia, spending November and part of December volunteering in two different national parks. I'll be home for the holidays and (maybe.. these things can be hard to predict) the birth of my first ever niece or nephew in December!

I'm going to try and keep this thing pretty multi-media, so here is a little video I made about what I've been spending the past week doing...

That's all for now. Tomorrow it's rumbo para COLOMBIA!!