• Home
  • About
    • Who We are
    • Affiliates
    • Disclosures & Guidelines
    • FAQs
    • Privacy Notice
  • Funding Your Travels
    • Banking on the Road
    • Credit Cards in Our Wallet
    • Spending
  • Contact
    • Media
    • Submission Guidelines
    • Partnership Opportunities

i should log off

log off and live!

  • Travel & Planning
    • Travel Reflections
      • Good, Bad & Ugly
      • Re-Entry
    • Travel Resources
      • Travel Tips
      • Travel Bloggers
    • Reviews
      • Gear
      • Operators
      • Travel Clothing
    • Travel Gear
      • Cameras
      • Danny’s Clothes
      • Electronics
      • Health & Hygiene
      • Jillian’s Clothes
      • General Gear
  • Destinations
    • Travel Guides
    • Africa
      • Egypt
      • Ethiopia
      • Lesotho
      • Kenya
      • Malawi
      • Morocco
      • Mozambique
      • Namibia
      • South Africa
      • Sudan
      • Swaziland
      • Tanzania
      • Uganda
      • Zimbabwe
    • Asia & Oceania
      • Armenia
      • Cambodia
      • China
      • Georgia
      • India
      • Kazakhstan
      • Laos
      • Thailand
      • Turkey
      • Uzbekistan
      • Vietnam
    • Caribbean
      • Antigua
      • Cuba
      • Jamaica
    • Central America
      • Belize
      • Costa Rica
      • Guatemala
      • Honduras
      • Nicaragua
      • Panama
    • Europe
      • Armenia
      • Austria
      • Belgium
      • Czech Republic
      • France
      • Georgia
      • Germany
      • Hungary
      • Italy
      • Spain
      • Turkey
    • North America
      • Canada
      • Mexico
      • USA
    • Middle East
      • Egypt
      • Israel
      • Jordan
      • Oman
      • Turkey
    • South America
      • Argentina
      • Brazil
      • Bolivia
      • Chile
      • Colombia
      • Ecuador
      • Peru
      • Uruguay
  • Weekend Adventures
    • Cycle
      • Pastimes
        • Beer & Wine
        • Books
        • Cooking
        • History & Culture
    • Dive & Snorkel
    • Hike
    • Trek
    • Whitewater
  • Photos
    • Photo of the Day
  • Family Travel
You are here: Home / Archives for Destinations / South America / Colombia

San Gil es Perfecto

July 20, 2009 By Danny

Before I say anything else I think it is of the utmost importance to recognize the fact that someone here turned 26 (not me, I’m already 27) on Friday when we arrived in San Gil, the self-proclaimed adventure capital of Colombia. To commemorate the occasion in style we celebrated with juicy steak, delicious cake, and exquisite Chilean wine. This was of course AFTER we set up our whitewater excursion for the next day. Priorities.

The water level was, as seems to be the case with us 100% of the time, low. As we prepared for our first river trip without a kayaking guide, just following after a raft, and without any staff that could speak English, we noticed that the equipment was a little subpar. By subpar I mean that my paddle was missing a 1/3rd of its surface area…another first for me. The river was a strong (the water was surprisingly pushy for the low water level) class II river with a couple of III’s thrown in there. Thankfully this made it the easiest river we’ve done yet and so we don’t have any stories of blood and gore for a change. On the other hand, the poor condition of our equipment allowed us each to save the other when upside down for the first time. Nevertheless, we had a great time on the Rio Fonce.

Finishing the river early in the day we headed for the nearby towns of Barichara and Guane. We had hoped to walk back (about 6k along a “delightful” trail) from Guane to Barichara but as the bus left Barichara for Guane and began its rather steep descent into the valley below…we were less than pleased with our chances of making it back before nightfall. While in the Guane museum – filled with hundreds of fossils and pieces of colonial history from the area – we were more concerned with the amount of time it would take to walk back than with the new dinosaur skeleton discovered in the valley a mere nine months ago.

With three hours to do it and being told that was the most it would take, we started the trail and finished in less than half half our allotted time…silly us for being worried. The path itself was created by a German some years ago to commemorate the trail the indigenous used to “commute” in the time of the Spanish conquest. We passed many fossils in the rocks, we could identify some fish and clams, as well as a couple of still alive gringos and a man on a mule. When we finished, way ahead of schedule, we celebrated with some delightful grilled meat purchased from a street vendor (cost $1) and then warmed up with some yummy hot chocolate.

Filed Under: Colombia, Food, South America Tagged With: Birthday, hiking, whitewater kayaking

Me Encanta Bogota

July 16, 2009 By Jillian

Today is our last day in Bogota, on the one hand we can’t believe we’ve stayed here almost a week and on the other we wish we could spend a few more days. We’ve really enjoyed Bogota, it is a modern city with public transportation, parks, cafes and plenty to do.
Perhaps we’re enamored because its so different than Central America, or because we have great CS hosts, but either way its been a great start to South America. I can honestly say that its the first city we’ve been to since March where I could see myself living.

There’s been a lot to do here, we’ve hit a lot of museums but the one worth highlighting is the Museo de Oro (Gold Museum). An incredible collection of Pre-Columbian gold objects, the museum is really a masterpiece. Collections of religious and ritual items, corporal decorations, and an incredible statue depicting a religious procession thought to have inspired the story of El Dorado, the legend of the golden king whom the conquistadors sought for but never found. Even more amazing than the shear number of objects were the intricate designs made in gold.  The miniature offerings for the Gods, often depictions of daily life from objects in the home to humans, were breathtaking. We even found a mini hammock, which unfortunately we could not add to our ever growing hammock collection.

Bogota doesn’t lack for the strange and bizarre either. Outside of Bogota we stumbled upon another of the supposed “seven” wonders of the world, the Salt Cathedral. Now you may ask yourself- what is a salt cathedral. Well… it’s actually a cathedral carved into a huge salt deposit 200m underground. What else would you do with a big hole in the ground, right? While it was neat to be in an entire complex created of salt, it was a bit strange. I’ll let the pictures tell the rest of the story, but it is worth noting that the tour guide admitted to us that it had fallen to the “eighth” wonder of the world. No surprise really.

Living here in Bogota for a week has been wonderful. The air is generally crisp like a perfect fall or spring day, chicken buses of Central America have been replaced by a modern bus system, and the terrain and vibrant city life remind us of San Fransisco without the ocean, complete with a traveling Andy Warhol exhibit.  What a great start to South America!

Filed Under: Colombia, South America Tagged With: churches, cities, museums

Hot Chocolate a la Colombiana

July 15, 2009 By Danny

The only thing you might remember from Oaxaca, Mexico is Jillian’s famous grasshopper video. Besides crunching on bugs, we’ll always remember the delicious hot chocolate.  Steaming and slightly cinnamony it was the perfect start or finish to a day. From street vendors in the morning to cafes in the evening everywhere in Oaxaca there was hot chocolate. Imagine my surprise… no delight… when I found delicious, creamy, sweet hot chocolate in Bogota.

Only in Bogota, one needs to add cheese to the equation.  Yes, that’s right, cheese. Our first morning here in Bogota our CS host Marta took us for a walking tour of downtown and ensured that we tried a proper hot chocolate…lets just say I’ve made it my mission to sample as many as possible.  So far,  so good.

In case you are wondering, here are the steps to drinking delicious hot chocolate in Colombia.

Step 1: Order your hot chocolate with cheese. For those of you trying this at home, you’ll best be served by a soft (think mozzarella) Mexican type cheese. If it comes pre-shredded all the better as this will save you valuable time.

Step 2: If it does not come pre-shredded, chop your cheese up into bits and pieces to be placed in your magical drink. Use your fingers or your silverware, doesn’t matter which.

Step 3: Put the cheese in the chocolate. As you put the cheese into your mouth keep in mind that the cheese is better in the chocolate and if you eat all of it then you will be missing out. Also be sure not to drop the cheese from a high altitude as this will send some of the chocolate onto your shirt…forcing you to do laundry prematurely and wasting valuable chocolate.

Step 4: Drink the chocolate. If you’re cheese is fluffy enough it won’t all sink to the bottom and you’ll be lucky enough to slurp little pieces of semi-melted cheesy bliss in your chocolate filled mouth.

Step 5: Eat the remaining cheese at the bottom. You should use either a fork or a spoon otherwise you risk embarrassment. The cheese will be softer but it shouldn’t be a melted mess, you will likely find the exact same sized bits you chopped up, only chocolatier.

Really, I was skeptical. This is good, I guarantee it!

Filed Under: Colombia, Food, South America

Isn’t it dangerous here?

July 14, 2009 By Jillian

So here we are, in Colombia.  Our first new continent together. This is exciting. This is exhilarating. This is dangerous?

We’d originally planned to skip Colombia. We had thought it was dangerous and decided it wasn’t worth our while. But then we started thinking… upon entering Mexico many people advised us against going. We had a great time. We had a phenomenal time. So why should we skip Colombia if we didn’t skip Mexico?

The more important questions is why do we, as people, typecast entire countries when we know so little about them? All I knew about Colombia before I started preparing to go there was what I learned from watching Clear and Present Danger. Is that really fair, probably not.

IMGP1619

So here we are, in Colombia.  There are dangers here, just as if we were going to New York or Detroit. There are also beauties to behold…from volcanic mud baths along beautiful beaches to mountain vistas and more whitewater than you can shake a stick at. The people of Colombia are actually rated as some of the happiest in the world (although the statistician in me is at at a complete loss for how one calculates happiness.)

IMGP1357

A few weeks ago, we were sitting on the island of Utila in Honduras. This was before we were rocked by an earthquake and before Honduras ousted their president. We were speaking with some people who were headed to the USA in the near future, planning to road trip the east coast in just a few weeks. I asked what their plans held and for the most part there was nothing surprising. But then they said they planned to spend 10 days in New York and just 2 in Washington, DC. I asked why such a short time in a city where all the tourist attractions are free and they told me that Washington was just too dangerous for them…after all, it was the murder capital of the country… in the 1970’s.

Filed Under: Colombia, South America Tagged With: safety, stereotypes, travel

Packing for South America

July 13, 2009 By Danny

Our time in the USA quickly came to an end and yesterday we began our trek through South America. While we spent most of the time being stuffed with delicious food (there goes the weight we lost from Central America), we also spent an inordinate amount of time at outdoor equipment stores like REI.  In fact we went to two different REI’s in the Atlanta area.  After four months of use a lot of our equipment had either failed or begun to fail on us so it was time to exchange and resupply.  We’ve added a number of gear reviews to the website if you are interested and as always you can get an up to date list of our pack contents on the gear page.

We traded out clothes that weren’t cutting it, mostly things that were easily torn or didn’t live up to the rigors of travel.  For Danny this was a few shirts and a pair of pants.  Jillian traded out some undergarments and shirts, added a travel dress and took out a pair of capris.

Because so many people have asked about what is in our packs and how much we actually have, we made a video of how to pack a backpack that will give you a visual of how things fit.

Filed Under: Colombia, gear, South America, USA Tagged With: packing, packs, travel

  • « Previous Page
  • 1
  • 2

Connect With Us

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Flickr
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Featured Posts

Our Bucket List
How We Travel For Free
$ Travel Tips

Recent Comments

  • Barbara on Kayaking Kauai’s Na Pali Coast
  • Lori Hubbard on Review: Eneloop Batteries and Charger
  • TK on The Trouble with Philadelphia

Banking on the Road

It can be very hard to keep track of your finances while you're on the road long-term. Be sure to check out how we took care of our finances while traveling and feel free to email us any questions you have.

Adventure Guides

Torres Del Paine
China Adventure
Uzbekistan Overland
Egyptian Odyssey
Malaria
Argentina Adventure
DIY African Safari
South Africa Guide
Bolivia by Bus
How-To African Visas

[footer_backtotop]

Copyright 2008-2015 · All Rights Reserved · Contact I Should Log Off · RSS · Partner With Us · Privacy