Marie, Hank, and I were going to Santa Marta for two main sites – Tayrona National Park and the 5 day “Lost City” trek. But first we had an afternoon in the pleasant town of Santa Marta
Luckily, we decided to go to Tayrona park first, and that was enough to convince me the 5 day hike was not a good idea.
We all packed an overnight bag and our swimsuits and took a bus to the National Park entrance. From here, it was an hour hike over rolling hills to the beaches. It was very hot and muggy and I realized a 5 day hike in this weather & hills would not be a good idea. Tayrona was beautiful – where the jungle meets the sea, and lovely sand beaches and coves.
We spent a couple days at the park, and slept in hammocks in a camping shelter. Overnight, I laid my swimsuit out to dry and someone came along and stole it while I slept. I mentioned this in an e-mail to some co-workers and by the time I returned to the office, the rumors were flying that I had gone topless at the beach!
We returned to Santa Marta to stay at an excellent hostel and have an excellent steak dinner. In the morning, Marie and Hank set off on the Lost City trek (La Ciudad Perdida) and I caught a full day bus to Bogota.
Before researching for my trip to Colombia, I didn’t know a lot about Cartegena. As a youngster, it evoked images of the film “Romancing the Stone” where the sister was kidnapped and held in Cartegena. My friends Marie and Hank had flown directly to Cartegena and I met them there in the morning.
We took an afternoon trip in an open air bus to the Castillo San Felipe where we climbed the walls and in the tunnels beneath this fortification.
I was most interested in visiting the Volcan de Lodo El Totumo (the “Mud Volcano”). We took a short tour to the volcano where we climbed the stairs and slowly made our way into the thick mud pool. We completely covered ourselves in mud and we paid a few bucks for some local ladies to give us mud massages. Upon exiting, the local boys used water to wash us the mud off, but to tell the truth, it would take a couple days of showers to completely remove the mud.
In Cartagena, we walked around the walled city and visited a couple museums.
Particularly pleasant was sitting at a bar on the western wall of the city and watching the sunset as we drank Sangrias.
The next time I get to Cartagena, I want to go sailing and snorkeling in the Islas Rosarios, or in English, the Rosarios Islands.
Planning my itinerary around Colombia would be tricky. I had preferred to start in the north and head south to end in Cali for the annual Salsa festival. However, in using frequent flier miles, I could only fly to Medellin, Cali, or Bogota. So, I decided to fly to Medellin and make a backwards “S” shape trip through the country. Luckily, it would be the first days of Medellin’s December festival, including the lighting of the holiday displays.
I spent the day walking the city streets, including hiking a hill for a view of the city.
The artist Fernando Botero is from Medellin and many of his fat statues decorated the streets around the museum.
After dark, I checked out the festivities of the lighting of holiday displays. There were free concerts and lots of concessions.
Later, I would catch an overnight bus to the coast.
A Caribbean Paradise in a chaotic country is Los Roques Venezuela.
Los Roques Venezuela is accessed via a short flight to Gran Roque from Caracas.
There were incredible views while flying into the islands.
This would be my first time in the Caribbean and it did not disappoint. The sight of the islands, beaches, and reef was beautiful as we flew in. We had arrived very early in the morning so we walked around the small town of Gran Roque and stopped at the chapel.
We had an island hoping trip in the afternoon stopping at the most amazing white sand beach. We also stopped at a sea turtle reserve where they were keeping baby sea turtles that they hoped to release someday. They released a few as we watched.
The next day, we headed out to one of the outer islands…our own deserted island. We snorkeled and walked on the beach. Further down the beach was a small restaurant so we had lunch and then sat in the hammocks and had a couple beers followed by swimming on the amazing beach.
Upon returning to Gran Roque, we hiked up to the highest point on the island to watch the sunset.
On Friday, since our flight was leaving in the afternoon, we went to another beach the was near the main island.
Late afternoon, we flew back to Caracas and again stayed close to the airport. We flew home on Saturday morning after spending the remainder of our Bolivares Fuertes at the airport, the currency that is worthless outside of Venezuela (and not worth much there either).
We had the rest of the afternoon to enjoy this area. There was a very lovely lagoon with a white sand beach and the reddest water I have ever seen – red from the minerals in the earth. Sapo falls fell into this lagoon, along with several other falls.
We swam in the lagoon and in late afternoon, we had a hiking tour to see some of the other falls, including a walk behind one of them.
In the morning, we were shuttled to the river above the falls
and we got in a motorized canoe that took over 4 hours to the base of Angel Falls. We had several stops along the way to swim in a small waterfall and have lunch.
At Angel Falls, we hiked up the muddy hill to the base of the falls. Angel Falls actually has two falls – the long drop of the upper falls along with a shorter, wider lower falls. We were able to swim at the base.
At night time, it was completely dark as we slept in our hammocks.
The next morning I got up to view the falls at sunrise.
This was followed by breakfast, boat ride down river, and flight back to Ciudad Bolivar.
After our second week of work, we said goodbye to our Venezuelan co-workers and set off on our 1 week trip to see the highlights of Venezuela.
We first were to catch a flight to the city of Ciudad Bolivar. We had tickets to this flight but when we got on the plane, we discovered our seats, E & F, didn’t exist on this particular plane (they had A, B, C, and D). Upon talking to the flight attendants, they made a couple move and we had seats – I’m not sure if they booted some people from the plane or if we were all lucky enough to get seats. We stayed at a really lovely guesthouse in Ciudad Bolivar
and could overlook the Orinoco river from the roof of the guesthouse.
After breakfast, we transferred to the airport where Jimmy Angel’s airplane was set as a memorial outside.
I had always thought the Angel Falls was named for angels, but no…it was named for Jimmy Angel who supposedly “discovered” the falls…if you ignore the indigenous people who had lived there for ages. We boarded a 6-seater airplane and flew to a tiny airstrip in the middle of the jungle, with views of all the water and table mountains below.
After a week in Caracas, everything is going well but we are always wary.
Our local co-workers are always giving us advice…it is OK to walk from our hotel thru the basement mall and across the street to the office, but we should not walk one block north or one block west of the office because that’s dangerous!
View from the officePro Chavez rally
We’ve eaten out several times and visited the huge Sambil mall in Caracas – the largest mall in South America. The food is surprisingly good…especially the Arepas. A big surprise is the cheese – cheese has not be prevalent in other South American countries but it is here and it’s great. Also great is the “parcita” passion fruit mousse.
On our weekend between our 2 work weeks, one of our co-workers picked us up to do some touring. We hiked up Avila Mountain
View from Avila Mountain
and then went to El Hatillo, a small touristy village outside of Caracas.
On Sunday night, we were supposed to go to dinner with another co-worker and as we were sitting in the hotel, the walls started shaking… it was an EARTHQUAKE.
We just hung out in the hotel the remainder of the afternoon because the streets seemed really quiet but dinner time came around and we wanted to eat. First, we tried the seafood restaurant across the street but it was closed. Then we went to the mall. The doors were unlocked so we entered but it was a scene out of a disaster movie. Not a soul in sight and a melted ice cream cone in the middle of the floor. Luckily, the restaurant on the top floor was open but we were the only diners – it was a strange night.
After days of boating and snorkeling on my Tao Philippines trip, I still didn’t have enough and opted for another day of snorkeling out of Coron. Our tour group when over to Coron Island, a mountainous, karst limestone island. We swam in Kayangan lake & hiked to a stunning viewpoint.
Lunch was fish, crabs, rice, salad, and some strange pickled seaweed.
There was more snorkeling from the lunch beach.
We snorkeled in the Twin lagoons with alternating hot and cold water due to thermal activity and then snorkeled at Twin Peaks reef and CYC beach.
Back in town, I stopped at the local market for some yummy mangos.
After breakfast, I caught a shuttle to the airport. I met a couple ladies that were on my day tour the previous day and met their friends. One woman had stepped on something sharp in the ocean and her foot was very infected. They had seen several doctors in the islands but it was getting worse and she was now in a wheelchair. They were heading to Manila to get to a better hospital.
The Cebu Pacific flight was great as I had a great view of the islands and ocean.
Palawan is the hotspot in the Philippines… it’s like the next Thailand. Two of the best cities to visit are El Nido and Coron. It’s possible to take the El Nido to Coron Ferry, or you can take a trip between these towns as part of a tour. One of the best things I did in my life was a 5 day “cruise” with Tao Philippines in Palawan. This is what you could expect if traveling with them.
Departure Point: El Nido
The wonderful beach town of El Nido is the departure or arrival point. I recommend you spend at least a full day here before or after your trip, and do one of the local snorkeling trips. There’s a wide range of accommodation (Check Rates and Availability).
Check In
We checked in the night before the cruise to make sure everyone had arrived and to prepare for departure the next morning. They told us what last-minute things to purchase, specifically a waterproof scuba bag like this.
Day 1
We met the group at the office in El Nido to take care of last minute details (i.e. buying beer for the cruise and packing the boat). The boat was locally built, in the style of traditional Filipino fishing boats.
We had breakfast and then set out to some of the islands just outside of El Nido.
Later in the afternoon, we stopped at “Tao Village”, a private beach on an island. Some ladies came over from the village and we had turns having an included 1 hour massage on the beach.
For dinner, they roasted a pig for Jack’s birthday (the owner of Tao)
Day 2
We stayed in Tao village until 10 am to enjoy the beach.
The showers at Tao camp.
I did some solo snorkeling and saw a small shark. We rode the boat for another hour and stopped at another amazing beach where we were the only people there (this would be a common theme of the 5-day trip). After lunch, we sailed most of the day, stopping at a snorkeling stop where I saw a school of about 30 tuna fish.
We grilled a Jack fish for dinner and then went to a home with a generator and karaoke machine to karaoke with the local fishermen.
Day 3
We had a very long ride on stormy seas until our first snorkeling stop. We saw a lion fish and bought an octopus from the fisherman.
Then we stopped at a small village for a walk and to buy more fish before stopping for the night at an even smaller fishing village.
As the sun went down, I watched 100s of bats fly across the sky.
Day 4
I got up early and kayaked to a large lagoon to watch the sun rise.
We spent some time at the preschool that’s sponsored by Tao.
We took the small boat thru a mangrove passage followed by a hike to a wonderful waterfall and natural pool.
After more snorkeling, we had a feast of a lunch with fresh crab, fish, and shrimp cakes.
We spent the afternoon motoring to our night stop on Pass Island – a small private island with amazing snorkeling.
Day 5
HAPPY THANKSGIVING to me, the only American on the trip. Won’t be having turkey today…more like fish! Had a couple chances to snorkel today, including in nice light off of Pass Island.
Then later on a large WWII shipwreck.
Ending/Arrival Point: Coron
The trip ended in Coron, Philippines on the Busuanga Island. There are lots of choices for accommodation (Check Rates and Availability).
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Traveled Nov, 2011
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I got in a bit of a fight with the operators of the shuttle from Puerto Princesa. It all started when they put me in the back seat. Then an older French lady sat next to me and she stunk! I couldn’t breathe and I was getting car sick so I popped the window open about a quarter of an inch. After telling me a couple times to close it the driver’s assistant tried to kick me out in the middle of nowhere.
In El Nido, I met a Russian guy who had been staying at my hostel in PP so I joined him, Swedes, Austrians, and Germans for dinner and drinks on the beach.
The next day I had a great breakfast at the town bakery and then went out on “Tour A”, at a total cost of about $16. There were only 5 women + our 2 guides – 2 ladies from Sweden and 2 American Optometrists…one from Seattle! Our day was amazing. We swam in a lagoon and snorkeled all day.
We had a nice lunch of fish and pork. In the afternoon, we had a break on 7 Commando Beach. Amazing.
At 5pm I met the group that was going to be on my Tao Philippines tour starting the next morning and I met up with the group from the previous night for dinner on the beach. El Nido was really a great place…at night, the beach is covered with comfy chairs and tiki torches at each restaurant. Meals were about $5 and beers $1. It was paradise and I wish I had spent a little more time there, but the next day I was about to start a 5-day “Cruise”
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