“Kindness in words creates confidence; kindness in thinking creates profoundness; kindness in giving creates love.” – Lao-Tzu

Scuba volunteering in Santa Catalina

Best way to sum up my time volunteering at the dive shop in Santa Catalina for 6months is by sharing this video. Enjoy
 

On the route to Panama, via Capurgana

I made my way from Tolu to Turbo (one of the most run down port towns, unfortunately because maybe at one time it was nice but it's just been used and unappreciated in every way. It's dirty, smells, expensive, and the people are unfriendly.) Anyway, it was only one night there to wait for the boat over to Capurgana, the border village with Panama.

The boat ride over was just a couple hours, but overpriced and over booked, and if your luggage exceeded their limit they charged you more than the airlines for each extra kilo.

On the boat ride you could see why there aren't any roads through the Darian to Panama. It's a really thick jungle and small mountains, but really steep. Looks beautiful though.

I only expected to stay in Capurgana a couple nights so that I could be on my way to Panama, but I found a lot of things to do, or well maybe I'm just lazy and didn't explore everything in one day, it took 3.

First thing I got a "tour" (the guy wanted to give me a tour and when I said no he followed me and wouldn't stop talking) to a natural springs pool. Best part, the little green dart frogs all along the pathway. So cute!

The interesting thing about Capurgana is that it is completely run by the tourism, or at least the boat industry of going and coming from Panama, but the village doesn't seem to be affected negatively by it. The people aren't obsessed with ripping off the foreigners or getting their business. They seem like they don't care one way or the other if you buy from them, there is no place to go while you are there and either way you will spend money somewhere that will eventually come back around to them.

The next day I took a hike into the woods to some waterfalls. The waterfalls weren't much but the hike was fun and I and the couple of foreigners that I went with got a bit lost coming back.

Love the nature!

Next the the hostel I was staying at was the Casa de Las Molas. Molas are the patterned tile pieces that the Kuna women of the San Blas Islands wear.

The owner of the house is an artist and made these Molas but he and his wife are also very passionate about recycling. All of the art around their house was made from trash that they found on the beaches of Capurgana! They collect everything they find and find some kind of use for it. They make seats out of beer bottles and their cartons, drapes out of links of soda tabs and links of bottle tops, pathways from filled glass bottles turned upside down and dug into the earth. They also work together with the local schools to try to educate the kids about the trash. The are so dedicated to their cause. They charge a small small fee to come to their home and get a tour of what they do. What they have done is incredible and inspiring.I hope that their work touches all those kids that they work with and spreads. :)

The last day I hiked the hour and a half from Capurgana, Colombia to the next village Sapzurro, Panama. This is the only real land path from Colombia to Panama, haha or just to be able to say that you went by land, but you cannot go anywhere by land to or from Capurgana or Sapzurro.So I made it to Panama! They check your passport at the border but they don't stamp it :(.

Tolu or not Tolu

At first when I showed up here in Tolu I was super disappointed because everyone had told me how crystal clear the water was and that the beaches were beautiful. The first thing I saw was the dirty waves breaking on stone walls with 10 meter stretches of beaches separated by breakers. I couldn't imagine how this could have become so touristy with all the hotels and people on the streets selling beach souvenirs. And I didn't bump into as many tourists as I expected for the 'high' beach season. After walking up and down the coast that first afternoon I thought about leaving the next day and heading to the next place to get to Panama, but I figured I should try to find out what this place is all about. I bought a ticket for a tour around same islands for the next day. I figured for 45,000 Pesos (about$25) I couldn't lose too much.

That night all the people came out from wherever they were hiding in the day to celebrate the town's anniversary. They set up a huge stage in the town square and people started gathering and drinking in the square about 3 hours before the music. By the time the music started, the square was packed with more people than I imagined could have live there. After a couple of hours there the crowd started getting rowdy and all the young people started a water fight with the bags of drinking water that they sell for about 25 cents and cans of foam spray. It was actually refreshing being drenched by the water in the middle of the crazy crowd jumping all over the place. The concert host said the party would continue until the sun came up at about 5am, but around 1am there was a huge crack of lightening so strong it made your ears sting that started a torrential downpour in the same instant. The people (or well at least 90% of the more sane ones) stampeded out of the square but no one really made it the 100 meters or so to the shops around the square without being completely soaked. 10 minutes later the roads were rivers flowing so strong that you almost couldn't wade across it, and last but hardly least the power went out. I huddled under an overhang for 15mins before I made a mad dash across the river and down two short blocks to my hotel just praying that my camera would still work tomorrow.

The power didn't come back on that night but my camera did work and the sun did come out in the morning to be a beautiful blue sky day out to the islands.

The first stop was on the island of Mucura. These were definitely the beaches I was expecting. Hot, white sand, deserted beaches all around the island. The only unfortunate thing was the locals there that were so aggressive trying to get us to buy things that they actually got mad at the boatmen who brought us over when no one agreed to buy anything.

I took a little walk around the tiny island. For being such a small island it had more diversity than I thought. Good thing it was low tide because the 'main road' goes through the mangroves and  I don't think I could have found my way through it without seeing the 'road'.


Then to the deserted beaches!!

The Spanish colonial city - Cartagena

I definitely understand why Cartagena is such a big tourist destination. Evidently it was the first Spanish city here in the new world. It's really beautiful and they made it really touristy with all the tours, horse carriages and traditional dancing in the square and they have nice hotels, bars and restaurants for the atmosphere. But even so I agree that it's one of the places not to miss, and it's partly because of all of these things. 

I stayed in Getstemani right outside the walls of the old city. Walking into the old city is like walking through the gates of a theme park. From Getsetamani - a crowded, noisy area catering to the locals- going to the old city you pass though the portals under the yellow clock tower.
Once in the old city you're immediately bombarded by hawkers trying to sell you ever kind of knick-knack, painting, artesania (handicrafts) or tour. Aside from them there're the beautiful Spanish buildings with all their balconies and flowers.
Square after square with their churches and fountains, restaurants with live music and alleyways with cobble road and the clip-clop of the tour carriages, this is what you imagine of the old Spanish cities.

Surrounding the city is a stone wall about 10(?) meters high. You can walk on the wall and look out to sea, which is only about 50m away, or look into the city.

 I arrived in the late afternoon, so my first look of city was it's night side. A bit different the next day I went walking around when it was still light out.
This fat woman was quite an attraction of this plaza. I don't really know if she has any significance.

This city was the absolute hottest place I been in my travels so far. I know I remember Thailand being extremely hot, but this hot was suffocating because the air just didn't move inside the walls and there are so many people and so much humidity.

The adventure destination that I didn't do any of the adventures - San Gil, Santander

The one destination that I really wanted to go to in Colombia was Bucaramanga, Santander Provence. Just 2 hours south of Bucaramanga is San Gil, the adventure spot of Colombia. It's got a great location partway up the mountains and next to the Chicamocha Canyon in the middle of the country.
San Gil, another touristy town, was a good jumping off point for the small colonial villages.
From San Gil you can take a short bus ride to Barichara, the main village, and then walk to the other villages. I went with Claudia, a German girl I met in my hostel. The Camino Real from Barichara to the village of Guane is supposed to be one of the original paths that the Spanish used when they first came to the area. The path is an easy, although stony, 1.5 hour walk to Guane. Guane was the same style, white houses with red tiled roofs, as Barichara but a lot smaller and much less touristy. They each were also built around the main square where the old church is.

The streets in Barichara

Veiw of Cabrera from the path

From there we took a bus back to Barichara to walk to another village, Cabrera.
Cabrera was really nice because you could tell that almost no tourists bother going there. There's almost no tourist shops trying to sell you this and that and the children are still curious about the foreigners who showed up in their village.

The next day we took a bus to another small village close to San Gil. From there we walked only 30 mins to the stream and the Pescaderitos (fisheries). They are natural pools that you can swim in all along this beautiful stream that runs over stone earth.
The bird watching was also pretty good there.
For me the weather turned out to be amazing that day. Warm and cloudy in the morning, with a bit cold water but good to swim in, then it poured down rain for an hour while I hid under a huge rock overhang. Immediately after the rain stopped the sun came out an dried up everything. Perfect timing at 3 pm, still time to dry out, go swimming a little and it's not too hot.

The town of San Gil.
I was staying next to this beautiful modern church. This is the first church I've ever been to that was so open and integrated with nature. The sides were completely open and had a kind of jungley thing going on. The arch of the building let in natural light and a wonderful cool breeze. Such beautiful architecture.

San Gil

Valle de Cocora from Salento

When I got back from the coffee farm I met 2 cool Israelis, Anna and Brian at the hostel and we decided to go hiking in the Valle de Cocora the next day.
The circuit we took started on a horse trail, which kinda sucked because there was barbed wire on both sides and when the horses passed either way there was no side of the trail that we could escape to. But the Valle de Cocora was absolutely beautiful. We had perfect weather. About 80 degrees without humidity and a beautiful blue skies.
After an hour we got to the waterfalls. Small but nice. The water was too cold to swim in though.
Anna decided to stay at the falls while Brian and I continued on the trail.
Nice hike through the forest and crossing the river on some rickety wooden footbridges.


There's a really awesome little farm, Acaime, or actually a hummingbird sanctuary. The hummingbirds are right there next to the house so you can just sit there and watch them basically come up to you. All-right, maybe I went a little crazy with the photos of the hummingbirds being so close. I could have spent all day sitting there watching them fly around. :)
The trail then continued up the mountain, a bit steeply, to the Finca la Montaña. All worth it because of the view at the top and the fresh air.
Then back down. Hey and we passed thorough what the Valle de Cocora is known for, the 70 meter Wax Palm trees. Perfect timing to see everything and make it back in time for the last jeeps back to Salento. What a nice day. I don't care that Salento was overrun by tourists,(maybe it's a bit sad, but I'm a tourist too) it was absolutely beautiful with nice weather so I can see why everyone goes there.

This is Bandeja, a local kinda night food. Not really that tasty or that I would even get it again. I just think it's weird that they put arepas, thick flour or corn tortillas, with everything. Even to make this some kind of open faced sandwich.