Our trip of a lifetime in numbers...

So we are now back in the bosom of our families in the UK feeling deeply sorry for ourselves that our trip is now finally over.

Our trip was everything we dreamed it would be and more. We have memories we will never forget,  had the opportunity to experience so much, as well as meeting some wonderful people along the way. We absolutely loved South America and can't wait to return to explore more of the rich and diverse opportunities it has to offer.

For a bit of fun we thought we would put together some statistics about our trip with the intention of seeing just how things added up along the way!

Countries visited: 7
Internal flights taken: 3
International flights taken: 2
Time spent in the air: 29 hours and 15 minutes. (15 minutes paragliding!)
Time spent on buses: 257 hours (11 days)
Km travelled on buses: 14,659 (the same distance as driving from Lands End to John O'Groats 11 times)
Football shirts bought: 6 (Only 2 of those were presents)
Curries eaten: 3 in restaurants, 2 excellent ones cooked by friends (Claire Bradbury and the Westlake sisters, both magnificent).
Amount of times fruit actually appeared on hostel breakfasts in Argentina when always listed: 0
Amount of wonders of the world visited: 1
Mummies seen: 5
Number of Llama related clothing items bought (not as presents): 8
Depth of the worlds deepest canyon: Cotahuasi Canyon is over 3500m deep (more than double the Grand Canyon).
Days spent at Spanish school: 12
Marriage proposals made: 1
Marriage proposals accepted: 1

Hasta luego Sud America. Gracias por su hospitalidad y memorias inolvidables. Besos.

Tasha and Matt x

Saying goodbye to South America...

This will be the last blog about our actual adventures in South America, sadly, as I am writing it from the comfort of Cheshire. There may well follow a few amusing stats updates though, so keep your eyes peeled.

After the searing heat and relaxation besides pools on Colombia's Caribbean coast we left on a bus from Santa Marta overnight to San Gil. The bus journey was comfortable, but did take more like 14 hours, rather than the 9 advertised. This seemed to be something of a theme in Colombia, still very cheap for bus travel, but not exactly punctual!

San Gil is Colombia's adventure sports capital due to it's location near to a number of rivers (for rafting, tubing, hydroboarding etc.), numerous waterfalls (for rapelling, diving) and it's many valleys (for paragliding). These sort of things can be very expensive in many other areas of the world and were not something we had really participated in during our trip, so we were very much looking forward to our stay. We narrowed down our 3 day trip to making sure we definitely did paragliding and would also try to do either rafting or rapelling too. The hostel we stayed in was also extremely nice and the most helpful for organising activities in all our time in South America. If you find yourself in San Gil then you should definitely stay in Macondo Hostel! They even have a jacuzzi! Unfortunately we also found out that the bus strike that we had heard rumours of in Colombia (and now our third in South America after problems in Argentina and Bolivia) had closed all road entrances and exits to Bogota for the forseeable future. This meant we had to spend more of our remaining budget than we had planned on onward travel via air to Bogota since we were only a week away from our return flight to the UK.
That issue aside we really liked San Gil. It's a nice little town to wander around with some good cafes that are not too expensive and very nice people too. We ended up only taking part in paragliding, but it was an incredible experience. We booked through our hostel to head out for an afternoon flight for 15 minutes in the local valley. We were picked up by a man and his very cute son for the trip out to the point of take-off and had an enjoyable and scenic drive through the country past numerous tobacco, bean and coffee farms on the way. Once we arrived at the take-off point we were quickly ushered towards the young lads who would be our tandem partners and 'pilots'. Tasha went first and got quite a shock when her lad decided to skip the health and safety talk and simply threw the parachute up and flew off the edge of the peak! This led to around 15 minutes of mostly screaming (much to the amusement of our driver!), which Tasha does assure me she thought was one of the best things she has ever done. For my part I would certainly agree. The views were incredible from way up in the air and the lads even squeezed in a few twists and turns and drops to keep things interesting. We would definitely do it again at some point.

The following day we headed to the airport for the short internal flight to Bogota from nearby Bucaramanga. Bogota is a huge city of over 8 million people and is at a similar height to Cusco of around 2650m above sea level. This means even when the sun is shining it can be pretty chilly and there is a constant threat of gusts bringing the temperature further down. We had once again arranged to see our friends Ruth and Helen at our hostel and shortly after arriving they appeared. We had seen them 8 times on our journey and were very glad to finish our trip with them. We had a short walk around the first afternoon and a nice craft beer from the Bogota Beer Company before retiring to bed.

Next day we had agreed we would all go to the Botero Gallery as opposed to the Gold Museum that most tourists visit. Apparently the Gold Museum is hugely impressive and spans 3 floors, but we had seen no end of pre-Inca and Inca gold already and thought an art gallery would make a nice change of pace. It proved to be an excellent decision. Botero is famous worldwide for his 'fat people' pictures where he makes every subject seem almost balloon like in appearance and his most famous works were all there, such as his 'fat Mona Lisa' and 'fat Christ on the cross'. As well as all this, there was work from a huge number of other famous artists such as Monet, Picasso, Dali, Klimt, Gaudi, Miro and many, many more. As big fans of wandering round galleries we thoroughly enjoyed it. We spent the afternoon souvenir shopping in the towns best areas for last minute gifts. That evening Ruth and Helen also cooked us their 'famous' curry. It was one of the best we had in South America and there was loads of it.

The next morning Tasha sadly felt pretty under the weather so I ventured out on my own to do the city's grafitti tour as lots of people had recommended it. Tasha is very keen on grafitti too so I made sure I took plenty of pictures and explained the stories behind them for her. There were some brilliant pieces around. I personally was amazed by some of the pictures on a wall of a secondary school which we were informed were completed by students with the encouragement of the school, a fantastic idea. I also enjoyed the works by a group called ToxicoMano which used punk imagery, 50's adverts and old fashioned film gore. This could inspire a tattoo yet! The afternoon was a quiet one and we had a quiet dinner with Ruth and Helen in the knowledge that sadly it would all be over the next day...

We flew home at around 5pm Colombian time with Iberia (would not recommend) via Madrid and landed in Heathrow at around 230pm the next day.

We had returned home to the UK very sad it was all over, but with some fantastic memories and friends from our time in South America. Truly the best 5 months of both our lives.

Flowers and Drug Lords

After spending 4 days in the beautiful countryside around Salento we were heading for Colombia's most changed city, Medellin. It was the seat of the world's most famous drug baron, Pablo Escobar, until his death in 1993 and was very dangerous for all. His long running battles with government and police had left the city destroyed in parts and fearful of violence. However, once he was killed the city immediately started a rebuilding project which has completely rejuvenated the city and it's inhabitants.

We arrived during the huge Fiesta del Flores that engulfs the city for 1 week every year. This involves no end of events and parades all week culminating in a huge party and parades over the weekend. Sadly we only really had the Thursday evening and all of Friday due to our ever decreasing time left. We only had time for a dinner and drinks on Thursday evening too once we had located the hostel and checked in. We decided we would take in the botanical gardens the next morning and the Escobar tour in the afternoon.

 The botanical gardens are reached via South America's best public transport network, the sky rail. Medellin is very proud of this system and it was a pleasure to use it, cheap and efficient. We got to the gardens mid-morning and it was already teeming with flower enthusiasts admiring the winning displays. I must admit Tasha enjoyed the whole thing more than me, but I was very impressed with the ingenuity of the displays. We spent a couple of hours wandering around and grabbed lunch before leaving. One of Colombia's popular delicacies is a hog, roasted and then emptied, before being restuffed with the meat along with rice and peas. It's called lechona and is seriously good!


We then headed for the pick-up point for the Escobar tour. Once there we discovered we were the only 2 people doing it that afternoon, a private tour! The tour is a drive to see Escobar's first building in Medellin, his grave and finally to his family home. The first building is a huge place and following Escobars downfall the government claimed all of the propwrties he owned (barring his family home which is signed in his mothers name), and to add insult to injury the first building he owned is to be a police station and also the prison that he built to house himself, and escaped from, which is now a convent! A couple of surprising bits of information to us. His grave is above the city and is alongside most of his family. It's a very simple site, as apparently Pablo wanted. After this we headed to the 1 remaining building his family own for the mist info on him. The house has a few bits of memorobilia, such as his first car and his jet ski, and also lots of pictures. Pablo had been in the house the day before he died and left due to one of his many superstitions. A wine glass had been knocked off the table and not broken, a sign of bad luck in Colombia. He fled to another house and then, very uncharecteristically, made an 8 minute call to his son. This slip in his routine allowed police to trace his location and shoot the building up. Whilst he was definitely shot many times by the police his family believe he may have killed himself first. Apparently he always said he would do this if caught (due to his fear of extradition to the US) and had a bullet hole in his right temple. The culmination of the tour is a meeting with Pablo's brother Roberto who still lives in the house. He was an elite cyclist who retired from the sport due to threats and became Pablo's accountant due to his good education. Whilst serving time for this he was sent a letter bomb which left him almost blind and deaf. He was very friendly and explained the money from the tours helps an initiative he runs to find a cure for Aids. He also claims they have found this and it's 18 months from approval! An amazing story if true. We could have asked questions, but to be honest the surreal nature of all this left us slightly dumbstruck, as well as wondering what was a polite question to ask such an infamous man!

After a quiet night and following morning we headed for an internal flight to Cartagena and the Carribean coast...

Quaffable Coffee, Palm Trees and Dynamite

After our exciting few days with Victor in Cali we were looking forward to what we had read to be the very tranquil and beautiful town of Salento.

 Salento is in the Quindio region of Colombia and one of the many coffee growing regions of the country. As we wound out of the bustling city and into the luscious green hills we felt relaxed already. We arrived into this tiny little village on a Saturday afternoon into a bustling main square, filled with local families milling around the many artisans stalls and shops, as well as the numerous food stalls and restaurants that lined the plaza. It was quaint, vibrant and colourful, we immediately loved it. We stopped in the square and had some delicious local trout and then jumped in a "taxi" which are colourful 4x4 jeeps to take us to our hostel which was on the outskirts of the town.

As recommended by Victor we booked into La Serrana. This was a farmhouse up on the outskirts of town with unrivalled views of the surrounding valleys. It was sensational, extremely rustic and you felt at home right away. We immediately decided to stay one day longer than originally planned so we could make the most of this impressive spot. Still a little lethargic from our adventures in Cali we spent our first full day wandering around the small town browsing the artisan stalls and soaking up the atmosphere, as most of the hustle and bustle would be gone by the next day after the Colombian families would head back to the city.

The next day was all about coffee, we decided to attend the Plantation House coffee tour as had heard it

was a good option and it also ran in English, which would mean we would understand 100% rather than the usually 50-70% with our limited Spanish skills! The owner of the Plantation is the vibrant Aussie born Tim. He was a character from the start, extremely funny and obviously very passionate about coffee growing. He started by firstly taking the mick about his neighbours coffee growing as we walked towards where his plantation stands. There are two types of coffee grown; Robusta which is very strong, but does not have a good taste and Arabica which has lots of taste, but is not as strong. In Colombia they solely produce Arabica coffee beans and it is around the 3rd biggest producer of Coffee in the world (2nd is Vietnam, who knew?). There are also 2 types of coffee plants that can be grown old fashioned which are smaller, require more space to grow and produce less yield, and then new plants which have been bred in a laboratory environment and therefore require less room, are bigger, produce more yield and are stronger against diseases. Tim being a traditionalist only grew old fashioned coffee and it was clear that he was not in the coffee business for the money, it was pure passion for cultivation, taste and tourism. Tim`s plantation not only had coffee plants he also grew bananas, avocados, pineapples and had a small bamboo forest, it was a beautiful vista and at the heart was the house where the processing of the beans happened. The house was still undergoing work (Tim had bought the house 5 years previously from a 72 year old lady) and thusfar Tim had installed some excellent

ecofriendly contraptions including a rain water filter from the roof and, of course, solar panels. After a walk through the plantation Tim then talked us through the whole process of growing coffee from seed through to the dried out bean which is when the product will leave the farm and eventually exported for roasting. Interestingly coffee beans are mostly always mixed with various different farms, as most coffee farms are small they are not self sufficient to produce one bag of the same coffee so they sell their beans and all the farms are mixed together to then be exported. The only way of measuring and changing the price of the bean is by size, that is the Colombian's only classification system. Tim produced mainly two types of the old fashioned arabica bean; bourbon and tipica. After the explanation of drying, husking and organising the beans we then got to try a cup of each of the two varieties roasted in front of our eyes over an open stove. They were both extremely delicious and we were agreed that the Bourbon was the best - this bean Tim is hoping to enter into competition at some point in the future. We had a wonderful few hours with Tim and the opportunity to explore the plantation at our leisure as well as sample one of his delicious bananas! He also told us about his "plan to take over the coffee world", which we thought ingenious; rent your own row of coffee plants. He would rent out lines of coffee plants and the buyer could control how they were cultivated (grown with vanilla pods planted around them for example), how they would like them produced before being sent to the owner (roasted, unroasted etc). Then the buyer can say at the end of their fabulous dinner party..."would you like to try a cup of coffee from my farm in Colombia?"! Apparently the model has worked well with Olive Oil and Tim was in the process of figuring out the financials - so watch this space!

Later that afternoon we continued our coffee journey by taking part in a coffee preparation class (on Tim's recommendation) at the nearby restaurant La Eliana. The owner Jesus was a Spaniard who had lived in London for 13 years working in IT before "retiring" with his Colombian wife to Salento to open a restaurant as was his passion. He was a very charming man and much of the session was spent discussing London and his life. The session essentially comprised of tasting four types of the same coffee using different preparation methods; the classic filter, cafetiere, italian stovetop and finally an espresso. As you would imagine the strength and quality of taste intensified with each round and we were surprised at what a difference there actually was. It was the end to a wonderful day filled with excellent coffee!

The next morning we got up early to go to the nearby Valle de Cocora for a hike. After a short "taxi" (4x4

jeep with people hanging off the back) ride we reached the start of the well sign-posted trail. The start of the trail was a lovely walk along the river bed and involved some very interesting Indiana Jones style wooden bridges as we zigzagged our way into the Valle over the river. We then reached the crossroad where we could turn left to hike up to the top of the valley and circle back down and then right to take a small detour to a ranger post (Acaime) where you pay a small fee and get a wonderful hot cup of coffee with cheese or a pineapple chicha corn drink (both local delicacies), the house was in a beautiful spot looking up over the valley and there were numerous hummingbirds and various wildlife roaming around. After our little break we backtracked to the crossroads and then took the steep 20 minute climb to the top of the valley in cloud forest. Again a wonderful (cloudy) vista. After this we started our decent back into the town and this is when you walk through the most striking element of the valley; massive towering wax palms. These were 60m high and scattered across the side of the valley, spectacular. It was a wonderful walk/hike and we were glad to get outdoors and active.

It was now our last night in Salento and we had to get moving the next day to Medellin and we had one thing left on our list to complete in Salento, Tejo. Tejo is a traditional Colombian game played widely in the

smaller towns of the country. Essentially you have some heavy metal discs which you have to throw at a clay board that has small targets inside a circular ring that contain gunpowder and therefore, when struck would explode!! We had managed to get a large group of people from our hostel gathered in the local bar to play the game (you play for free as long as you buy beer...brilliant!) and started our games. It was much more difficult than expected, trying to hit the targets no bigger than a credit card from a 15 metre distance, so much so that we had to reduce our distance a couple of times! It was really good fun and we think probably one of the strangest games we will ever play!

We were very sad to leave Salento, we loved it and could have easily stayed in the sleepý hills for a very long time.

Cali and an old friend

We left Popayan late afternoon and thankfully had a hot, but hitchless, ride for 4 hours to Cali. This is Colombia's third largest city and has over 2million residents. Quite big compared to a lot of our trip! We also were meeting an old friend from Leeds called Victor that Tasha had worked with for over a year and is from Cali.

We stayed in a hostel called El Viajero, part of a South American chain and very nice. Had a small pool and proper cornflakes for breakfast! And yet more Colombian coffee for free all day. It was also located centrally and a handy base. We were shattered when we arrived, and very hot, so had a beer and arranged to meet Victor early the next day, then went to bed.

After cornflakes and coffee we were greeted by Victor at the hostel. This was fantastic as we had not seen him for over 3 years and both really liked him when we worked with him in Leeds. We were heading to his Uncle's finca (country house) for the day armed with a huge chicken to make the Colombian favourite sancocha for lunch! We spent the journey catching up a bit and then took mototaxis the rest of the way out to the amazing finca. It is right in the hills an surrounded by beautiful scenery. It can sleep quite a few people, as well as having a pool, a great place. Although the sun barely broke through we had a fantastic time. We just drunk a few beers, caught up and ate the delicious sancocho. It is a chicken stew with rice and avocado and is very tasty! Unfortunately although the sun never blazed we all got burnt and, combined with the beers and a windy road back to Cali, Matt felt a touch sick!

Fortunately a good nights sleep sorted Matt out so we again met Victor, early at his parents house this time, for another great day. His parents were very welcoming (a Colombian trait we have loved) and told us we'd all meet up in the evening for a few drinks (a theme!) and some food. We had noticed a couple of posters about the Juegos Mundiales at the hostel without really realising this meant the World Games were in town. Victor had planned to go with his friend so we tagged along. It was at the bull ring and was beach handball that day and was only about 3 pounds for a day ticket! The matches were actually great fun and very fast paced, with lots of acrobatics too! There was also a brilliant dance display at the end. Matt was also somehow mistaken for a Russian player and asked for his picture! We also got asked a few times for photos with locals as Victor explained as foreigners we were still something of a novelty in Cali! We sadly had our last meal with everyone that night and said our goodbyes. Cali had been a fantastic stop, in a great city, with brilliant people. It was so nice to be with Victor hos family and friends and we felt right at home. We headed for Salento the next day a bit sad it was over in Cali.

The final frontera

A little espanol lesson first, frontera is border. This edition of the blog is dedicated to crossing into Colombia and the first town we visited, Popayan.

I'll start with the journey from Quito to Popayan. We had known this would take most of a day and required an early start due to the Colombian bus journey being risky at night. The road between Colombian border town Ipiales and Popayan is in the still, guerilla patrolled, hills. This means there is a very real risk of buses being ambushed at night and the passengers robbed. Sadly, this still happens regularly and is the one hangover left to travellers in the country from Colombia's violent past.

We had left Quito around 6am intending to be in Popayan early evening time. The bus journey to the border was uneventful and the immigration relatively quick. We then taxi'd to Ipiales and booked on Colombia's most prestigious bus firm Bolivariano for the 2pm bus, to arrive in Popayan around 9pm. This should have seen us through the worst of the journey before darkness. Unfortunately a combination of poor luck and a truly horrendous bus driver ruined that. We ran into 3 roadblocks/accidents to add time on. But, the idiot driver also stopped 4 times to eat, nearly turned the bus over, broke a wheel and generally upset every passenger. This meant we did the majority of the trip in the dark, worried, and also that we arrived just before 2am! Not a good start but thankfully we were safe and unharmed.

Fortunately we had a brilliant hostel in a beautiful city. The hostel was ParkLife and it was on the side of the cathedral in the main square. The rooms were themed, we had gypsy, and the whole building incredibly cool. The staff were also knowledgable and friendly. We immediately loved our start in colombia the country was colourful, lively and the people very welcoming.

Popayan is a very pretty, very white city built with roads all leading to the main square. It is historically important as the home place of Colombia's most important president, Guillermo Valencia, and has a good museum about his life and work. We had the best market lunch we've had too. A huge bowl of fish and tasty broth with rice, salad and avocado! We wandered around all day enjoying the small towns food, coffee and museums. The other thing we did was visit the local hot springs the next day to relax a bit. These were up in the hills in a small village called Coconuco with fantastic views into a valley from the naturally hot waters.

But we only had a short time as we were meeting an old friend in Cali...

The rest of Ecuador...

After Puerto Lopez, with it's whales and relaxing, we made for the two biggest cities in Ecuador back to back. These are the capital, Quito, and first for us the countries largest city, Guayaquil.

Guayaquil tends to only be a place to swap transportation for the majority of backpackers and it is easy to see why. It's a very modern city in places, with huge malls and a redeveloped seafront, but offers very little in culture at first glance. It is also notoriously dangerous in areas and expensive in the safer zones. However, an old friend of Tasha's now calls it home so we wanted to drop in on him and his Ecuadorian girlfriend. He is Matt and she is Lorena and they now run a restaurant called Matthew's European Cuisine in the CBD. We can vouch for the quality of his cooking! This also meant we could ask for recommendations for a brief stay. We only really had two days so Lorena recommended Parque Historico as a really good place and she was right! It is a free park with a zoo showcasing the Amazon life in Ecuador and also a restoration of life in Guayaquil in the nineteenth century. The whole thing was really well presented and we spent a good few hours walking around. That left our other day. We fortunately landed in Guayaquil in time for the cities birthday! So we met Matt and Lorena and went to San Blas to watch the fireworks on the river from a high point. They were really very good and there was an incredible amount of them! We headed off the next morning having found Guayaquil a nice little stop.

We took the bus from Guayaquil's truly enormous bus station (three floors, two hundred bays!) headed for Quito. We had chanced a hostel called Community as they only had dorms, but brilliant reviews. We were greeted by Luis, the up until all hours receptionist/cleaner/tour organiser etc. He immediately offered to show us a good restaurant for a cheap tea and told us loads about Quito. We had a great chinese and headed for bed.

Next morning we decided we would head to Mitad del Mundo (middle of the world). This is the place in Quito where the Equator line is. There are two sites claming to be the 'real' centre and we visited both. The first is a much grander site with a large monument on the line, museums and shops/restaurants. We took some pictures and then a quick excursion to look at a village in a volcano crater nearby. The other site was really the one we wanted to see though...this is because they do tacky 'experiments' on the Equator line! They had a sink to show the water head straight down on the line and spin in opposite directions when south or north! They also had nails to attempt to balance an egg on due to the gravitational pull being straight (Tasha succeeded, I did not!). We had a friend called Cristina with us and we headed back to the hostel for a few beers after. The hostels we've liked most have always encouraged a group atmosphere and this was one of those. Breakfast and dinner were all round one huge table so everyone chats and gets to know each other. This also meant the few beers turned into an excursion to a club until 4am! This left us slightly hungover for our other day in Quito so we chose to wander around the beautiful old town. This was actually good as it was Sunday so lots of street performers, markets and generally chilled out was the order of the day. We went to bed early in the knowledge we had a mammoth journey over the border to Colombia starting early the next day...