Mompox

I laid up in lovely Taganga for another couple of days. Walking was kept to an absolute minimum, eating and drinking to a maximum. So after a day's decent diving it was with a vague limp and a heavy heart that I left Taganga, destination Mompox.

Mompox was described as being beautiful, but off the beaten track. Little did I realise that this was a slight understatement. Taganga to Santa Martha bus station was fairly easy, but took longer than expected. 10 minutes to spare before next bus, so I shovelled in a coffee and a bunuelo (Colombia doughnut) for brekkie.

My bus to Bosconia became delayed by a "couple" of hours, so by the time I arrived in sensational Bosconia my connecting bus to Mompox had departed. But this being South America it proved to be no problem as no sooner than I had left the bus some chap was shouting "El Banco" at me, I had read somewhere that this was close(ish) to Mompox. So I give him a quick nod and follow him down a road to a people carrier that was already packed with 8 people. My seat was back left, right over the rear wheel. Fantastic. I took my seat beside a nice man with a rooster in his lap. I petted the rooster and off we set, the driver switching on the radio and turning it up to 11.

2 hours later we arrived in El Banco, a sweltering town on the banks of the Magdalena River. Mompox was still 80kms away and it was already 4pm. I found a boat captain and asked him if he would take me. He didn't look too pushed and said he'd [unwillingly] take me for 20 dollars. Twilight robbery. But as luck would have it, a motorbike taxi driver (common enough in parts of Colombia) dawdles by and says he'll do it for 10 bucks. Deal.

On I jump with backpack strapped tight and we head off into the impending sunset. The road is nice, the view beautiful, the wind in my hair refreshing. I hum "born to be wild". Life is great.

But then 5km outside of El Banco, 75km to go, the lovely paved road turns into a dirt track the likes of which I haven't seen since backcountry Cambodia. Holes, bumps, rocks, streams, trees, pigs and the finest dust I have ever seen. You name it the road threw it at us. I bounced on the back of the bike like a jack in the box. After about an hour when I thought I could feel no longer we arrived at a river. I thought it was all over, but no, the driver rides onto a canoe ferry (a novel invention) and we are paddled across the river for 50 cents.

On the other side the road got worse, impossible I thought, but true. We ride on for another hour. At this stage I am so numb that I don't even notice when we enter Mompox. So after just over two hours we ride up to the only hostel in town (the lovely Casa Amarilla) and I clamber off the bike. I feel like I have been raped by an elephant. I walk into the hostel and the owner (a nice English chap) greets me incredously with "Gosh, you obviously had to take a motorbike???". He shows me a room, gives me a beer and I finally get a look in a mirror. I look like a schnitzel. I am literally caked in dust.

The trip in the end was worth it, as Mompox is lovely. Full of history (Simón Bolívar, liberator of much of Spanish South America, said "If to Caracas I owe my life, then to Mompox I owe my glory.") and people that are still shocked to see foreigners (great to have schoolkids giggle and point when they see you). It is a small town and one of the hottest places I have been to (4 showers a day), so after a day and a half it was time to head up to the highlands and get away from the heat for some weeks.

Hiking to the Lost City, Hopping homeward bound

It was to be a 6am and I awoke groggily to the guide swinging my hammock.
My first lucid thought was "Ow". The ow was eminating from my ankle which I tried to move and like a stubborn horse in showjumping, it refused. I dismounted from the hammock and put some weight on it. Owfeckingoucharseowowouch. I cursed like a silesian prostitue and hopped down to the toilet to do my ablutions. The guide saw me and looked rather concerned as this was the big day, we were covering all the ground we had hiked on day one and two. He called over an old Kogi woman who proceeded to do some weird massaging of the ankle. Like the X-Files, I really wanted to believe but all she brought me was a whole world of pain. I tried to smile at her but it was hard with gritted teeth and teared up eyes. She then applied a bandage that the guide had given her. Whatever about ancient massages, this old lady had no ideas how to strap an ankle. She just wound the whole bandage around the ankle. Luckily an Israeli chap who had just got out of the army jumped in as soon as she had scuffled off and reapplied the bandage in a very professional manner. Next it was the Irish lass who gave me some Neurofen - I swallowed 3. After that I put on two pairs of socks and forced myself into my shoes.

After some coffee (no rum unfortunately) and food we set off and surprisingly the ankle didn't feel too bad. It was all mainly uphill at the start which was good as it meant little weight on the ankle. I started to feel elated and a spring developed in my step. The kilometers flew by and then it was time for the last downhill before home.

Whether it was the Neurofen or the Indian's black magic wearing off or the fact that the downhill was extremely steep I don't know, but after a couple of steps the pain was intense and increasing with every step. I had to stop every couple of steps for a pain break. Then I tried walking sideways - not bad. Then backwards - great! But unfortunately my vision was slightly impared and I fell on my arse. The minutes went by slowly and I descended like the hunchback of Notre Damn. Miraculously flat ground appeared again, but at this stage even flat was painful. But it was only for another kilometer or so and then the village where we started came in to sight. At this stage I was only thinking of sitting down so I plowed through some rivers and arrived at the bar where we started. Before even sitting down I ordered two beers and drank them within about 7.2 seconds.

After a face wash, some food and some more beers I felt vaguely (OK, very vaguely) normal again. We hopped into the jeep and cruised back to Taganga. I had the most fantastic shower of my life and a lie down (the bed felt like it had been made for the pea princess) but the trek demanded celebrating. So somehow I arose, had dinner with all of the crew and to this day I cannot explain how I was hopping around the dance floor at 3am... Indian magic?

Hiking to the Lost City, The found city, born slippy and a twist in the tale

It was indeed to be chocolate and toasties and not the low fat AK-47 option. Standing up was tricky as my muscles hurt like bugger, my blisters had popped & were looking rather nasty and the back of my legs looked like a dart board. Dozens of big red marks from mosquitos, and hundreds of little red ones from the sandflies. So now I was probably suffering from tetanus, a mild strain of frog poisoning, late onset rabies and now malaria & dengue fever to boot. Oh well musn't grumble.

In the morning we looked around the lost city, which to be honest is not much of a city but rather a collection of stone circles and steps. Some Koji still live around the city so we paid a little visit to the shaman who stumbled stoned (the joys of Coca) out of his hut and gave a speech about acid rain, deforestation and the ills of society. To be honest I reckon his hut is fully air conditioned and he has CNN on 24/7.

Tour done it was time to slip slide down the steps back to the river. It proved to be a hair raising experience as most people slipped at some stage or another, but no broken bones only some mossy asses. The rest of the day was spent retracing yesteday's steps, so to alleviate the boredom we started singing various songs to keep us going. We belted out the Beatles "Help", roared to the Rolling Stones "Sympathy for the Devil" and I was halfway through a fantastic rendition of the chorus in Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" when I decided to vault over a gate in the path. I hadn't taken a couple of things into account:
1. I am carrying at 15kg backpack on my back
2. My legs are pretty much like jelly after hiking for the last 4 hours
3. The ground on other side of the gate is very uneven

So rather than landing like Nadia Komenich I landed like a drunken sailor on my ankle, which made some funny noises. I stood still and time passed. I waited for some screaming pain, but it was only mild. A lucky break (no pun intended)? I decided not to wait around and shifted up a gear covering the last few KM in no time whatsoever.

Back in camp 2 it was down to the river for some sweat removal and a cooling of the ankle, which was still fairly useable. Dinner was great as usual and we played some more games to fill the time and bed was extremely late at 10pm.

Hiking to the Lost City, River Crossings, Kidnappings, Sandflies and The Lost Beer

Day 3 was the day to finally see the lost city. The guide called us at 6am upon which I dismounted the hammock like a drunken gymnast and fell on my arse. Breakfast was extra strong Colombian coffee and 2 toasted cheese sandwiches accompanied by advice from the guide to eat up as today would be a toughie. Great.

It was all action straight from the start. As dawn was cracking we were already clambering over a slippery ledge with a 20 meter drop. Minutes later we were being ferried over the river in a very rickety lift contraption and then it was all uphill for at least an hour. But at the top and out of the blue there is a mini tuck shop with an Indian lady (not Apoo's wife) selling coke (black) for 3000 pesos (1 dollar 50), quite a few people cracked but I remained firm.

A tricky downhill section was then successfully navigated and at that point we could hear a roaring sound in the background. This was apparently the raging river that we were going to have to wade across 9 times in the coming hour. We survived and only one person was nearly washed away. Feet soaking and more blisters preparing themselves to appear on blisters we emerged at the beginning of the 1500 steps up to the lost city.

The steps were mossy, wet, broken, tiny (made for Indian feet) and bloody steep - a perfect combination for breaking one's snot. The fun was increased by attack mosquitos which would clamp themselves on to your leg by the dozen as soon as you stopped to catch your breath. Which given the steepness of the climb was every couple of seconds. 1478 steps afterwards (I counted) we emerged at the top to find a lost city but also a piece of very modern technology - a military helicopter perched on one of the stone circles. The army was everywhere and so was a film crew. It gradually emerged that Channel 4 was filming a documentary about the last group to be kidnapped from the lost city in 2003. A group of Israelis, Germans and English were woken up at 5am and were marched deeper into the jungle at gunpoint where they were held hostage for just over 3 months.

We hung around and watched the "hostages" jump in the helicopter and watch it take off, which was quite incredible as even though we were sitting 50 meters away, the force of the blades was like a hurricane. We marched on and finally made it teary eyed to camp around 2pm where myself and the Irish girl could stand it no longer and dived into the beers that the porters had brought for "special ocassions" and at $2.50 a pop they were worth every penny.

The afternoon was killed by drinking beer and rum and playing charades (what one does to pass time). At one stage some of the ex-hostages came by to revisit the camp. The German girl went up to the "bedroom" (a room covered in matrasses and mosquito nets) and came back minutes later crying and quite visibly shaken. The English man seemed to take it all in his stride. It was another early night and a little bit of an uneasy sleep, wondering if it would be a 6am wake-up call with hot chocolate and toasties or an AK-47 in the face.

Hiking to the Lost City, The revenge of the blister

I woke up on day two. Which was a complete surprise. Tetanus, Rabies and Poison dart frogs had all failed to dispatch me. On the other had I was stiff as a board and I had two sizeable blisters on the sides of my feet. But today was the "easy" day, so into my pounded hiking shoes I climbed and set off down the trail with a spring in my step. Twas indeed an easy day as after visiting a Kogi (the natives of the area who dressy in natty white) village and having a pineapple and mango pitstop by the side of a beautiful river where a massive owl moth was resting, we arrived at camp two just in time for lunch.

The cooks rustled up another feat, a fantastic vegetable soup with corn, yucca, potato and much other floating vegetation. After that it was down to the crystal clear fast flowing river beside the camp, complete with 2 meter mini-beach. The stress of the first two days were quickly washed away and the day buzzed by quitely with some hammock time, more food, a game of cards and again lights off by 9pm.

This was going to be quite the detox trip.

Hiking to the Lost City, Dead on the road

The alarm goes and my heart sinks. I am not rested. I have a hangover. My fingers hurt. Did Rover survive?
Fall in to the shower and try to make myself human again. Fail miserably and instead stagger down to the trekking office to meet my fellow hikers, who by God are a chirpy bunch - English, Irish, Dutch, 2 Germans, an American, an Israeli and a Colombian man with his daughter. All bright and perky in their GoreTex and hiking boots. I am quiet obviously the only one who went anywhere remotely near a beer last night.

Two jeeps are there to take us to the trail head. One for people and one for the provisions. I make my excuses and head to the food truck to sleep on a sack of rice with some mango pillows. 2 hours later and we arrive. I am not sure if it is possible but I feel worse. Logic tells me it is scientifically called a hangover. But the other part of me is feeling the onset of rabies. Get a bottle of water, no adverse reaction. I feel confident for a while. Lunch is laid out and we are told to eat up as it is a tough 4 hour uphill hike. I eat a piece of cucumber.

2 hours later I do not care about rabies, I have forgotten I have a hangover. Rover is a distant memory. I am climbing a never ending steep incline which is covered in dust and have been doing so for the last hour. People get sweat patches when they exercise. My t-shirt had inversely a tiny dry patch in the center. The rest was so drenched that I could literally wring it out like it had been freshly immersed in water. Hiking in 35 degree heat and near 100% humidity is not for everyone. In fact it was not for me either, but at this stage I had no choice.

Head down and up we go. My ego wasn't helped by some local in a pair of rubber boots breezing by me and smiling just where I was convinced I was going to throw myself to the ground, cover myself with dust and get it all over with.

The body is an amazing thing and a couple of hours later my hangover was gone, probably left somewhere near the top of the last hill in a pool of water, my rabies was getting better and we are at our camp. "Camp" might be a bit grand, it was a long shack with a tin roof. Hammocks were slung and mosquito nets errected and the guides got cracking in the "kitchen". Meanwhile we headed down to a local waterfall which fell into a natural swimming pool. So in we jumped and washed the liters of sweat and grime from our bodies. Then I felt a nip, thought I imagined it at first but then came another one. My zoology ain´t that great but I was quite sure there are no piranhas in this part of Colombia. I felt another one and looked down to find a swarm of likkle tiny fishes who were munching on my dead skin. I am not having a good animal day. People pay good money for this treatment, but I was not having any Nemo munch on my toes so it was back to camp for some surprisingly good food. A couple of rounds of cards and it was off to bed. 9pm.

On my way to the "toilet" for a preslumber pee I put my hand on the wall to search for a light switch but instead connected with a medium sized slimy mass of jumpiness. I dropped my torch, but got the light on and saw the culprit kermit staring at me. He was quite colourful, so undoubtably poisonous. I bend down to pick up my torch and in the process scrape my head off a rusty nail in the wall. So there I stand in the middle of a Colombian rainforest poisoned by a frog and dying of simultaneous rabies and tetanus.

I go to bed and see if I wake up in the morning...

Hiking to the Lost City, Part 1

A misnomer if ever there was one, the Lost City is indeed not lost. Perhaps it was mislaid at some stage or even temporarily forgotten, but it is now certainly found. A better name would be "The really remote and bloody hard to get to city", but that might put people off.
After booking the trek for the next day I did the sensible thing and went out drinking till 4.30am. But still in fine form I teetered back home to a chorus of roosters. On my merry way I heard a little yelp by the side of the road. I peered down and discovered to my bemusement a puppy, barely 3 days old, rolling on his back with his eyes still scrunched closed. I look around and see no sign of mother dog. Wait a bit. Still no mother dog. Trek leaves at 8am. Conundrum. The Gods doth test me once again...

Nothing else to do but pick him up and bring him home. After carefully negotiating the barking stray dogs (could they not see I was helping one of their kind?) on my way back to the hostel I stagger in and contemplate the next step. Sleep I decide and think about it in 2 hours. So being mr. nice, I fashion a bed for Homeless Rover out of the only thing to hand - toilet paper. So there it is a lovely bed of TP on my bedroom floor, a water bowl made from the wastepaper basket lid and the little bugger won't settle down. Yipping like a chipmunk. 5am. Feck.

Pick him up and hold him in my palm (he fits perfectly), instant quiet. So I have the choice of staying up and holding him in my hand or go search for the mother. Need sleep, so it's option 2. Put my clothes back on and whilst pulling my t-shirt over my head, forget that the ceiling fan is about 8ft off the ground, so my pinkies go straight between the blades of the fan (and dog lovers, no, Rover was not still in my hand). I am surprised that my fingers are still attached when I look at them. Only a small gash and some up and coming bruising. Find Rover under the bed and storm out the door. Growl back at stray dogs, I am in no mood to be trifled with. Walk down the road and next it is a group of drunken Colombians who make all kinds of belittling remarks about a Gringo taking his puppy for a walk at 5am. Make a face at them that somehow infers that I am not in the best of moods. Jeers stop.

Back to the scene of the crime and at this stage Rover is sucking my fingers. Heart wrenching stuff, that is until I realise that he is sucking my bloody finger. Make mental note, must google rabies transmission mother to child. Look around and finally see a likely candidate close to the spot - a female dog with a six pack of milk hanging down. Put Homeless Rover down on the ground near her. Visibly grateful she launches into a headlong attack which I narrowly avoid by doing some Matrix like ducking and weaving. Do the manly thing and run for my life, leaving Rover to his destiny with his crazy mother. Walk back up road, past my drunken Colombians, who have a common question mark above their heads as to the location of the puppy. I do not stop to explain.

Back to my room. 5.30am. Bright outside. Nothing better than an hour and a half's sleep and hey it's only an easy gringo hike tomorrow?

Taganga

Four hours away from Cartagena, Taganga is (or at least was) a small, sleepy fishing village. But in a lovely location and sporting a decent beach it was destined for tourism, so true to form the first hostels (including the incredibly professional and great Casa De Felipe) and internet cafes opened up a couple of years ago. It is still small and sleepy enough with a decent backpacking scene which means getting up late, going to the beach, siesta and going out late. When in Rome.

Cartagena

Cartagena is called the pearl of south america and it is easy to see why. The old town is picture book, replete with cobblestoned streets, leafy balconies and shaded squares. Colonial style on steriods.
It was a perfect place to regain the land legs, wash everything and get fed again.

Sailing to Colombia

Having breakfast on the Pacific in Panama City and onto Portobelo for dinner on the Carribean. Not many places you can do that. Our transport of choice to Cartagena was a beautiful 50 foot yacht skippered by Salvatore, an incredibly nice chap from Spain and his adopted first mate, an orphaned mongrel named Chilly.

Our motley crue comprised a couple from Italy, an English guy, two Swiss Germans, myself and my two Paddy bodyguards. We set off on Wednesday morning into a slack wind and made our way slowly towards the San Blas islands home to the Kuna people. We motored between Robison Crusoe like islands composing nothing but golden sand and palm trees. In fact at one stage there were dozens of such islands as far as the eye could see. On the first night we dropped anchor off yet another paradise island and as Salvatore prepared dinner we all jumped in and swam towards shore. The waters were so clear you could see down at least 10 meters. Just off shore there were starfish the size of dustbin (American translation: Garbage can) lids and sea slugs large enough to embarrass an elephant. Dinner was fantastic and accompanied by many a beer followed by the obligatory rum to finish off the night.

Day two was more islands, a bit of snorkelling followed by a BBQ on a tiny island (yes, with palm trees and golden sand) with some Kuna people. They cooked up a storm frying lobsters and dishing out some fabulous coconut rice. More beers and rums and a couple on insights into the Kuna culture and we were back in the moonlit dingy heading back to the mothership.

The next morning we weighed anchor late and headed out of the archipelago into the Caribean and true to form the waves increased in size and saw half the crew leaning over the side regreeting their breakfast. The rest of us made like Salvatore and cracked open a beer and just chilled topdeck waving every so often at passing oil tankers. To cap it all off at one stage we had an escort of dolphins racing us for a couple of kilometers. So after 5 days we arrived into Cartagena harbour at 3am, at little worse for wear but a lot of memories richer.

Panama City

Twas the night bus from hell - windy mountain road, lights off at 8pm and no iPod. So the Irish Trio were left betting on the outside temperature gauge (an ever present LED display at the front of the bus) and how low it would go. I won with a risky bet of 20c. For good measure we threw in a Mexican wave for every hour we completed. Then it was on to the name game and a couple of rounds of trivia. By the time we got sleepy at 2am the driver pulled in and decided it was time for dinner. Nothing for it so we procured a small bottle of rum to take the edge off and propel us into the arms of morpheus. The plan didn't work as by the time we were back on board we were giggling like school girls as we smuggled our contraband onboard in plastic cups. Another round or two of drunken trivia and we finally got to sleep around 4am.

Which was indeed perfect timing as the bus arrived in Panama City at 4.30am. We took a taxi to a recommended hostel only to find that reception didn't open till 8am. So we scoured the (very dodgy) vicinity to find anywhere open. As luck would have it there was a Panamanian version of KFC open so we huddled in, ordered some coffee and started to play shithead. What we didn't know was that this venerable establishment was also the central meeting point for all transvestites in the city. So by 5am it resembled a Thai disco, with more large adam's apples than you could shake a stick at. We managed to kill the 4 hours only to find that the hostel had no room when it opened up.

So into a taxi and onto hostel recommendation nummero dos. After a while finding the general area our hopes soared as we found the building. But they were soon to be dashed after finding that the hostel had closed down months ago. Slight aside: Avoid the Rough Guide to Central America like the plague. Next we just asked the taxi driver to take us somewhere cheap and central, which he did a fine job of.

Panama City is fun and the Panamanians are extremely friendly (even by high Central America standards), so we spent a couple of days here soaking up the atmosphere of the Calle Uruguay and the Casco Viejo which is definitely one of the most up and coming places I have seen, with nearly every building being renovated.

At the end of Central America with the impeneterable Darien Gap between Panama and Colombia we searched for a yacht that would take us to Cartagena. The search was quick and we found a lovely 50 footer that was leaving in 2 days. Onward ho.

Photos here

Bocas Del Toro

Bocas is one of those places that just lures you in from the start and you find yourself leaving days / weeks / months later, wondering what you did. In my case I did a fair bit of snorkelling, quite a bit of beaching and a healthy chunk drinking (the beers on Bocas are unfairly cheap). I was aided and abetted by 2 Irish chaps I had met in Livingston and Little Corn Island so there was no slacking allowed. But after about 10 days we decided we'd had enough and struggled back to the mainland on a night bus to Panama City.