Taganga - Palomino

Taganga - Palomino

Sunset at the beach in Taganga.

From San Gil we traveled north by bus to Bucaramanga. The road was so windy that an old lady across the aisle was throwing up into a bag. We caught a flight on Easy Fly airlines at the airport were everything was so new they were still painting the walls. Because of deregulation and a growing middle class, combined with crappy roads and crazy drivers, air travel has increase over 300% in Colombia in the last year. We landed on the Caribbean coast at Santa Marta. We caught a cheap cab to of Taganga which is a small town on a bay east of Santa Marta. We stayed at Divanga Hostel. The town was kind of half torn up and much more third world than the highlands we’d been visiting.

Easy Fly at Santa Marta Airport

Cold Aguila Beer at sunset at the beach

Sunset at Taganga Beach

We walked down to the beach. It was Sunday so the place was jammed with Colombians who had been drinking and eating for hours. Different music blasting at each point along the beach. The wind came up hard and started blasting. Paper plates and cups, and Styrofoam food containers were bouncing along and hitting people on the beach. The beach composition is about half pebbles and the other part is sand and stuff. It was a nice sunset.

Sunset on a busy Sunday in Taganga

Fresh fish in a wagon and on a motorcycle.

We took a tourist van to Tayrona Nat’l Park. Everything on the van was broken; gages, windows, lights, wipers, radio, etc. They dropped us in Tayrona Nat’l Park. We walked along the beach. It was hot but with a breeze and we came to some places to swim in nice clear water on granite sand beaches. Eventually we came to Cabo de San Juan which is a campground with about 300 tents on a big field. 

Tayrona National Park

Tayrona National Park

Tayrona National Park

Perfect swimming in Tayrona National Park

Tents at Cabo de San Juan in Tayrona National Park

Cabo de San Juan in Tayrona National Park

We caught a boat back to Taganga. It was a 25 foot fiberglass ponga with two 115 horsepower motors loaded with 27 people. Once we were outside the rock reef we hit the swell and launched off a wave and landed with a crash bang and everybody yelling. The boat ripped along, timing the side swell. The occasional wave would break across the side and soak everyone. After a bumpy hour we arrived back at Taganga. 

Boat from Tayrona to Taganga

Boat from Tayrona to Taganga

 

Palomino

From Taganga we caught a cab to Buena Vista Mall in Santa Marta. At the mall we tried to change money but they didn’t have money to change until the afternoon. We hit the ATM and had a coffee at Juan Valdez Café. We caught a local bus for $4 to Palomino. An hour and a half later we were deposited along the road in Palomino. It is a strip along the highway lined with shops and restaurants and is busy with truck and bus traffic. About one kilometer straight north on a dirt road is the beach and the collection of bar - lodge - restaurants along the beach including our accommodation at Dreamer Hostel. Our room was incredible. It was one of four in a thatched roofed zulu lodge. The peak of the roof was 24 feet high. Palomino is a very mellow kickback place.

pool at Dreamer hostel

Dirt road were everyone walked back and forth to the highway

Beach at Palomino

Palomino Beach bar

Not much to do in Palomino

Our lodge at Dreamer Hostel

Our lodge at Dreamer Hostel

SAN GIL

Street in at Barichara

From El Cocuy we had a 14 hour bus trip to San Gil. The mountain roads are so steep and curvy and narrow that as soon as the bus got up to speed the pavement would fall apart or part of the rode was missing and we’d slow down to a crawl. Sheri sat a few rows back and Curtis sat at the front next to a friendly dwarf which was good since he didn’t take up much space. Once we did make it to more developed roads the drivers totally abused the idea of a direct bus and picked up people for a few blocks and dropped them to pocket like 25 cents and also drove out of his way in heavy traffic to drop some potatoes at their girlfriend’s restaurant.  We switched buses in Tunja with assurances it was a direct bus, which it was, but it stopped at about 40 minutes out for an hour long lunch break. This bus also showed movies in Spanish at maximum volume: Pacific Rim where robots or something blow up the navy; RED 2 where Bruce Willis shoots a lot of people; and Sylvester Stallone in Bullet in the Head where, well guess what happened. After all this we were a bit traumatized and were happy to be dropped on the highway at dusk in the town of San Gil. San Gil is a colonial town along the Fonce River surrounded by mountains. 

Mansion de Sam, NW corner of the Plaza in San Gill

We stayed at Manison de Sam at the corner of the main town plaza. We had a nice big room with 6 beds and a balcony on the street. At the corner of the plaza people were gathered around a barbeque and sitting on benches chatting and sipping beer. So we got a couple of ice cold Aguila beers and did the same. It was a perfect temperate and much warmer than where we had been. Later we went back to Sam’s and had great thick sirloin steaks for about $6 each (12,000 pesos). 

Our room at Mansion de Sam

Inside courtyard at Mansion de Sam

A band in the plaza stirring up support for a candidate in the March elections.

Street chechas: grilled chicken or beef kabobs or a Perro (hot dog), topped off with a boiled potato as a tip holder.

 

Our favorite beer store in next to the plaza in San Gil

Electioneering Band took over this small cafe.

One day we took a bus to Barichara, a colonial town, and walked along the Camino Real (royal road) to Guane, a small village. The old cobbled road was empty except for three friends who were trekking along for exercise. One guy was from Colombia and was nicknamed ‘Robocop’ because he was so thick and heavy footed; the other guys were from Venezuela and one joker called himself Arturo the Good. Arturo owned an old house in the village and took us there then he took us to a small museum where they had a lot of fossils and a mummy and indigenous pointed skulls (apparently they wrapped their heads tightly to make them pointed). They bought us chicha, a fermented corn drink, and headed back to Barichara on foot, but it was way too hot for us. We took the bus. Back at the room apparently there had been a 5.5 earthquake 14 miles away and small parts of our plaster ceiling had fallen down. 

Cathedral at Barichara

Old doorway in Barichara

Start of the Camino Real in Barichara

Colonial street in Barichara

Old man's beard in a tree on the Camino Real

Sheri and Arturo "the good" at Arturo's house in Guane

Fossils at Guane Museum

Fossil in Guane Museum

Curtis, "Robocop", Victor, and Arturo "the good" in Guane

In San Gil we walked over the Rio Fonce on a pedestrian bridge, leaving the old busy colonial town and entered directly to a modern sparkling new outdoor mall complex. Two faces of the same town. We had lattes overlooking the town and the river from the stylish Cinnamon Café. Sheri stared at her smart device the whole time.

Footbridge over the Rio Fonce in San Gil

The main market at San Gil

The main market at San Gil

One afternoon we booked a rafting trip. We had six people and a guide on a paddle raft and the rapids were surprisingly good (2,3,4). Pretty much right out of the chute the raft flipped and everyone swam. Actually the water felt good and it was only $15 (30,000 pesos) for a 2 ½ hour trip.  

EL COCUY

The Sierra Nevadas of El Cocuy National Park from Laguna Grande de la Sierra

From Villa de Leyva we planned a night trip to the small town of El Cocuy. The first part was a small bus ride to Tunja, the capital of Boyaca province. Once there we found that our planned Libertadores bus was delayed and would not leave until 11:30 pm. We booked the second rate Gacel bus at 9:30 pm. With time to kill we walked up, steeply up, to the main plaza of Tunja. People were busily shopping and eating all around the plaza. We walked on a pedestrianized street past a shop offering pork. As a display there was half of a hollowed out pig absolutely stuffed with cooked shredded pork. We had samples which were not bad. A heaping bowl was 4000 pesos (2 bucks). We passed on this and instead went to Trigo bakery and had delicious lattes and chocolate cake. Back at the station we boarded our worn bus and headed into the darkness. The music was blasting and we were alternately in the dark or the bus was fully illuminated. The driver and bus boy were just having a great time joking and playing around; screaming out the door and blasting the horn as they ripped through little villages. We talked to another passenger, a female college student, who was going to El Cocuy. She is going on a student exchange to Germany for six months. Boy what a culture shock she’s in for. Eight and a half hours later at 4:30 am after the swerve-y-ist ride ever we were dropped in the chill air at a shop in El Cocuy. The driver was wrestling with the guy behind the counter and cracking jokes. He bought us coffee and was on his way. We trudged to a hotel, La Posada del Molino, which is a two hundred year old house were one of the town founders lived. We pushed open the ancient heavy wooden front door and the place was completely unattended. We walked around and Sheri pushed open a door to a room. It had a bed where we collapsed and slept for four hours. 

Men on the street in El Cocuy

Street in El Cocuy

Square next to our hotel. In the evening a man was teaching his chickens to fight.

Local bus at the plaza in El Cocuy

Garden at La Pasada del Molino during the evening.

The upstairs part or our two level room.

Next day the friendly manager, Juan, showed up and lined us out for trekking in the mountains of El Cocuy National Park. We walked around the town. All the buildings uniformly are whitewashed white and have light green wainscot and trim. The men all wear a panama, pork pie, or cowboy hat and a heavy wool poncho called a ruana.

Putting our order in for dinner. Chicken, rice, potato, plantain and salad.

Graveyard at El Cocuy

We started our trip to the mountains at 6:00 am in the town square where we caught the lechero (milkman’s) truck. It’s a small cattle truck with a couple of barrels tied on inside. There were some sacks of feed and fertilizer and a few Colombians in the back. We hopped on and the truck started grinding up the foot hills to the mountains. At points on the road the truck stopped and picked up cans and jugs of fresh milk from the morning milking. Handsome men in their ruanas and women wearing baseball hats and rubber boots met the truck, sometimes on horseback, and it was quite a social scene.  After an hour and a half we were dropped off at a curve in the road. There was a Germany fellow on the truck and he was excited at the prospect of drinking raw milk and filled a bottle and somehow Curtis got swept up with this idea and drank about a pint of milk which he paid for dearly later.

Lechero (milkman) starting at 6:00 am at the main plaza.

Some of our fellow passengers on the milk truck

Pouring milk into a barrel.

Farmers bringing milk to the lechero.

Bringing milk to the road on a beautiful white horse.

We walked about two hours into the national park and stayed at Sisuma Cabana which is a masonry lodge located at about 3950 meters (13,000 feet) altitude. The friendly guide and cabana caretaker, Juan, met us and put some lunch together for us. We trudged up to a pass (Cusiri) at about 4410 meters (14,500 feet) and returned in hail and drizzle. The milk in Curtis’s stomach kicked in and he had to lie down all the next day.

Sisums Cabana at 3950 meters (13,000 feet).

Guard Station at El Cocuy National Park. They gave us some fresh cooked arepas.

Walking into Sisuma Cabana.

Juan and Sheri at Sisuma Cabana

An incredible calico clad Russian woman who was camping in the rain.

After that we spent a day hiking to the snow line on a mountain called Pan de Azucar (Sugarloaf). Starting by climbing a terminal moraine then a second and third to a point above tree line, then through a steep boulder field to a sloped granite shoulder that had been ground smooth by glaciers. Walking up this slope the air was thin and some people were on their last legs while others trotted along blabbing on their cell phone. We arrived at snow line at about 4850 meters (16,000 feet) in good order. Returning we walked about halfway back and diverted to a chain of three glacial lakes (Lagunillas del Campanillas). The middle one was pure azul and had white granite sand beaches. Sheri opted for a swim in the frigid water. As we approached Sisuma Cabana Sheri realized her jacket had fallen off her day pack. With tired legs, after walking at altitude all day, we turned around and climbed back up a moraine. Fortunately we only had to backtrack a half hour or so and found her coat.

Colombian hikers wiped out by the elevation and exertion.

Approach to Pan de Azucar. The flat topped rock is called Pulpito del Diablo (Devil's Pulpit).

Pan de Azucar at 5250 meters (17,200 feet). Tropical glaciers are receding at a rapid pace. This will be gone in a few decades

Sheri taking a break.

A group of strong and happy Colombian trekkers.

We made it! Snowfield at 6 degrees north latitude.

Trekkers enjoying the mountains.

Looking down the solid granite slope below snowline.

Rock art in the Mountains

Hearty plants on the beach of the lake - Lagunillas del Campanillas .

Sheri at Lagunillas del Campanillas

Lagunillas del Campanillas

Lagunillas del Campanillas

Next day we struck out in the dark at 5:30 am for a two hour walk to the road and another lechero truck. The sky was clear and the sparkly frost reflected in our headlamps. The truck took about an hour and we arrived at Hacienda La Esperanza in another section of El Cocuy National Park. The Hacienda is a hundred year old house which, depending on point of view, is either full of character or falling apart. There are all types of antiques hanging around, along with sacks of wool and potatoes. Anything modern, like a propane tank, was warped in burlap as camouflage. A young man, Sebastian, greeted us and made eggs for us and we were introduced to the owner, Marco, who knew three English words; “Oh My God”; which he would blurt out at the appropriate moment. He is running about 90 Romney sheep, which Curtis knew the breed was from New Zealand which gave him some agro cred. There was another couple there; Jared from Boston who was speaking good Spanish and his friend, Andrea, who is a Colombian ex-pat living in Dallas who was returning to visit. We spent the afternoon and evening with them and they are good folks. In the evening Sebastian served a group meal in an indoor/outdoor dining area and started a fire in the fireplace which was welcome in the evening chill.

Hacienda La Esperanza

Hacienda La Esperanza

View out the front door of the Hacienda.

Momma cat and her kittens in an armoire.

Taking a break on the porch of Hacienda La Esperanza.

Andrea, Jared, and their new friend.

Hacienda La Esperanza is more than meets the eye. It’s a farm at the end of a road at 13,000 feet that provides access to El Cocuy National Park. Marco’s grandfather built the place and for ten years in the 80’s the area was controlled by ELN gorillas and no one came but Marco stayed on and ran the farm. The green pastures are well watered from glacier fed rivers. The farm is a gathering place for local cowboys to sit on the steps of the porch and drink beer on a Sunday afternoon. People from all over the world come and stay here, including the US ambassador to Colombia. A van arrived out front which had a crew from the BBC who were making a two year documentary about Condors. And of course every day at 8:00 AM the lechero arrives to pick up fresh milk.

Curtis and Marco

Locals having a chat at a store near the Hacienda.

Little girl was riding her bike on the only flat spot around next to the church

From the Hacienda we trudged up a steep hill to Laguna Grande de la Sierra at about 15,000 feet. The series of lakes is set in a cirque with ground granite ledges and surrounded by snowcapped peaks.

Frailejon plant in the wet Paramo environment

Sheri grinding it out.

Sheri at Laguna Grande de la Sierra.

El Concavo at 5200 meters (17,000 feet).

Sheri at Laguna Grande, with Pan de Azucar.

Photos from 1938 show the glaciers coming down to the lake and the lake full of ice bergs.

Moving on from the Hacienda we rode with another lechero for about 3 hours down to Guican, a village at the foot of the Sierra. We killed time and caught a bus to El Cocuy where we were to catch a bus at 10:00 PM but it was booked so we spent one more night in El Cocuy at Casa Vieja which was a bit of a dump but cheap, 10,000 pesos per person ($5.00).

City Hall in Guican

Sheri and Curtis in Parque Nacional El Cocuy