The rest of COLOMBIA!

Ok, for those of you who are wondering why this second post took so long, please refer to the first post where we informed you that we are terrible procrastinators...

So we left off in Medellin. Medellin is, hands down (sorry Mike,) the coolest city in Colombia. We arrived just before dawn, in a state of complete and absolute delirium caused by sleep deprevity, and immediately fell in love with the green hills and red brick buildings of this city. Aside from a beach, this city has it all: a modern metro system, tons of art and cultural offerings, parks, planetariums, gardens, free outdoor movies, and a population possessing the most progressive, intelligent and friendly dispositon we´ve encountered... anywhere. It reminded us of San Francisco in that way. (I realize the picture makes the city look smogy. It´s not at all, the picture is just overexposed.)

Gondolas. These are part of the regular metro system! People actually commute to work on these. No joke.

Medellin has this ´metro culture´ thing going on that they are really proud of. They even go so far as to make announcements encouraging riders to, ¨give up your seat to the elderly and to people who look really tired,´ and to, ¨cover your mouth when you sneeze.¨ etc. Pretty cool. The metro was just awesome- it was like being in Europe. You can get anywhere quickly and cheaply.

Colombia´s national flower? The Orchid.

Fernando Botero is Colombia´s great modern painter. He paints and sculpts everything, everything, as if it were chubby. It´s done lovingly and is super charming. Look him up.

After just over a week in Medellin, we finally got the confirmation from our farm in Ecuador that we were due to arrive in a week. So, naturally, we hauled ass to Ecuador. Not without taking in at least some sights. This is Colombia´s Valle de Cocora.

Just on the other side of that valley above is the small town of Salento. It´s a quaint and relatively untainted gem.

Artsy shot in Salento. Also we had some really amazing food on this very same street. Instead of a plate, they serve you fried whole trout with beans and cheese on a huge deep fried patacon (a plantain that´s been smashed and fried) with a pineapple and tomato chutney. YUM!

                                  In the Jungles of Valle de Cocora.                                                                     (after the water took down the bridge that you had the luxury of crossing, Mikey)

On a hike in the jungle. This was one of the easy bridges- there were 7.

1 hour of  trudging through mud pits, 7 makeshift bridges, and 2 tropical downpours later we arrived at the humming bird reserve- which was a big farmhouse in the middle of the jungle with a donkey, a chicken and a campesina woman. She greeted us with a big mug of hot Panela, and a huge block of  campesino cheese- which we devoured while watching hundreds of humming birds fly about.

Gorgeous views on our way back from the humming bird reserve. Interestingly, the most dangerous portion of the hike. As Nico had to learn the hard way, when you´re falling into a muddy chasm, don´t reach for the barbed wire to save you. Not a Bear Grylls moment.

Views from the archeological site in Tierradentro. The bus to get here was five hours long and stupid bumpy. Imagine a bus. Now imagine that bus with square wheels. Yeah. 

In the subterrenean staircase that leads down to the secret tombs of a people who lived between  600bc-900ad! They would build these staircase tunnels that led to the family tombs. Once the tomb was full they´d put a huge flat rock at the entrance to the cave and then fill the huge staircase with dirt as if nothing were down there. 

Inside one of the tombs. They had some incredible paintings and holes in the ground where  bodies were placed.

Our Last memory of Colombia before fast tracking it down to Ecuador. The roads had collapsed the night before and everyone was scrambling to meet their needs. Basically the bus drivers would take you as far as the landslide area, then you had to cross on your own and find a bus on the otherside to take you the rest of the way. It was hectic. It may not be PC to say, but for a moment it felt like we were refugees.

Mucho mejor si es echo en Ecuador!  

SO... Ecuador is amazing! Our first night in the country, at a pizza place in a shitty little border town, we were approached by a super friendly pastor named Danny. We had this lovely conversation over dinner and then we left to go about our evening, knowing from this little interaction that things here would be different. Ecuador has a warmth, a friendliness, a culture and a curiosity that has made traveling here really wonderful.

Our beautiful house in Mindo. So we hauled ass to get out of Colombia and into Ecuador on time because we had this farm gig lined up through WWOOF just outside the capital. This was the house for all WWOOF volunteers- who, for most of our stay, was just us. There´s a little river behind the house where we did laundry Little-House-On-The-Prairie-Style and swam. We did a lot of work to fix this place up and make it homey. It was kinda hard to leave...

This was the view from our front porch. We´d do Yoga and drink coffee to this scene. Not too shabby... Once we sat in the hammock here and watched the fog roll in as night fell and the fireflies put on a light show. It was downright awful;)

Alayna (aka The Black Ninja) cutting bamboo for our dish rack.

Our bestest friends...  :D

The Eco- Hostal we were working at. The hostal and the entire property were very pretty, you would never know that this whole area was infested with tirelessly bloodthirsty bitting flies. Evil bichos! Aside from battling the flies and other nefarious insects, we worked here. Sort of. We practiced zen by painting the sauna purple one day, letting the rain wash it away the next, then painting it purple again the next day, just to have the rain wash it away. Again. And again. For five days. We also did our damnedest to start populating the green house with little seedlings. We do hope somebody is watering them... In spite of all this, we enjoyed ourselves immensely and look forward to the next WWOOFing experience.

Well. This was a little awkward. Shouldn´t he be seranading me with the guitar...?

                                                              Artsy Shot of Elvis.                                                                      (I actually worried for a minute that something might have happened between those two when I browsed through the photos on Nico´s camera and saw that there were like, 50, of these black and white artsy shots of Elvis. )

Rule no. 1 at the farm house: if you dont have it, hack down some bamboo and make it! Eco-Dishrack available now for 4 easy payments and one really, really hard payment.

Artsy shot of our living room, with the patio, driveway and yard in the reflection.

After two weeks on the farm, we decided it was only fair to treat ourselves to a week on the beach to warm up and recover from our million bug bites. This is sunset from our balcony in Canoa. Because it was low-season in terms of tourism, we got this amazing room in a hotel that would otherwise be way beyond our budget. It also meant we essentially had the whole town, beach and waves included, to ourselves.

Yup... Just us.

Our neighbors on the beach.

 This was an awsomely unexpected day on a different beach. A bunch of us packed into a VW van, bought beers, potatoes, platanos and fish, and drove to this glittery black sand beach. Awesomely, this little hut was just here waiting for us. Look at this bbq!!

Black Sand Beach . Playa Negra. This sand weighs a ton.

So Rustic! Check out that plating! This fish, which was swimming in the ocean just a couple hours prior to this, was smothered in ginger and lemon juice and tossed over a fire. How sweet is that!?! Daily life needs more of this. (Check out how that sand glitters!)

Animal Market in the indiginous town of Otavalo. Simultaneoulsy the cutest and most tragic of events: while the indigenous bartered among one another using guinea pigs, the baby chicks chirped their happy little hearts out in complete ignorance of the fate of their happy little farm friends... and their own.

A sweet shot of the Otavaleñas in their traditional dress, selling their wares at the market.

Sqiggly pink potatoes. Gotta get us some of these at home.

This was the at the animal market in Otavalo.  Notice the kitten on her shoulder- unfortunately not a staple of the traditional dress.

Quito- Capital of Ecuador. For some reason a lot of people have told us to straight up pass on Quito. We´re not sure why cause we are loving it. (I screamed like a girl for the 2nd time in my life when I saw that our hostel has a Super Nintendo.)

Another panorama of Quito. In the mornings, when the sky is really blue you would swear that the hill with the angel is painted into the landscape. 

 So for now we´re settled in Quito and enjoying once again the big city energy. In a few days, we´ll be continuing south-ish on our march towards Peru. First stop along the way: Parque Nacional Cotopaxi... 

Ciao for now mashis!