Scuba Diving in Colombia

After our jungle tour, we spent one more night at our hostel in Manaus before heading North to Peurto La Cruz, Venezuela on Saturday night. In the jungle, we met an English couple who were thinking of going to Colombia as well and we said they were more than welcome to come along with us through Venezuela. In addition, two other British travellers joined us, so our group was up to 6 for our epic bus journey to Santa Marta, Colombia.
Apart from dabbling in the black market to take advantage of the fantastic exchange rate ($1US=5bolivars, whereas the offical rate is 1 to 2.2), our Venezuelan experience was more expensive than anticipated, but we made it through safely. We left Manaus 6pm on Saturday and arrived in Santa Marta at 2pm on Tuesday. Epic it was!

Looking towards Taganga from the rooftop terrace of our Hotel in Santa Marta

After this huge journey, we were pretty keen on just relaxing for a couple of days and enjoying the Caribbean sea, sun and breeze. The breeze is more of a strong wind at night, and it is hard to keep drinks from blowing over whilst outdoors.

They bay where we spent our beach days.

We spent 3 nights in Santa Marta and two days in Taganga at the beach. Taganga is a little fishing town 5km north of Santa Marta where there are an abudance of cheap diving schools. We certainly wanted to take advantage of this, and luckily our group of 6 all had our open water diving certificates so we got a great price for our advance open water.

Our dive squad on the last day of fun dives.

The course included 5 skill dives: advance buoyancy control, drift/current dive, deep dive, navigation and night dive. These we did in the span of two days and than today celebrated with 2 fun dives just enjoying the scenery of fish and coral.

A tardé ser in Santa Marta Bay

On our first night in Santa Marta, we enjoyed a spectacular sunset and also met a local who I shall quote. "What are you doing in this dangerous country? If you don´t be careful, you might fall in love with Colombia." That about sums up how dangerous it really is. The major cities and highways are well monitored by the police. On the highway, the number of check stops is almost irritating, but really it is nice to know how well monitored everything is and helps us feel safe. Most of the people are very friendly and welcoming and we are looking forward to the rest of our time in this country.
Perhaps this week we will go on a 6 day trek to the Lost City of the Tayrona Indians. Would be a little Indiana Jonesish.

Amazing Amazon Adventure

I am having a hard time deciding where to begin this tale, because it is one of epic porportions. For the mere 30 hours we spent in the Amazon Rain Forest, we saw a lot of wonderful things.
In the end, we decided to fly Manaus from Belem, and though it caused some minor headaches, the extra doh we spent was justified with the week we saved. Had we hopped on the boat, we would not be arriving in Manaus til Monday (at the earliest).
We arrived at 3am and proceeded to kill some hours in the airport until the busses started. During this time, we also were harassed by some persistent scammers regarding cheap accomodations and jungle tours. Fortunately, Lonely Planet gave us the heads up on these touters, so we told them off and boarded a bus at 7am.
Being that we hadn't slept much the night of travel, Tuesday was a write-off, where I chose to sleep and Matt chose to read. The next day was similar, though we managed to venture to the docks and make a brief appearance at the market. Bustling, of course, being an International Port. Also, that day we booked an overnight adventure into the Amazon, which starts a new chapter of this post...


We rose at 6:30am to eat some breakfast and get our overnight bags together quickly before departing from the hostel at 7am. From there we took a relatively nice bus on not such a nice road east of Manaus to a small village. From there, we boarded a boat and motored our way through the maze of rivers and flooded forests. We are in the midst of the rainy season right now, so the rivers are 8-10 meteres deeper than they are in August. This is makes accessing parts of the jungle easier by boat having flooded much of the forest. Unfortunately, many birds who have made their nests too low lose their homes, and often times their young. Rather depressing, I know.

Panaromic of Lodge from Tower

Same Lodge, minutes later during a down pour

Arriving to the jungle lodge, we set up our hammocks, ate a basic lunch and enjoyed the tranquillity for a couple hours. This included a stroll through the jungle on a trail not far from the lodge and some lazing in our hammocks.


Just before 2 in the afternoon, we set out by canoe into the flooded forest. The best word we can find to describe this is 'magical.' The only sounds that could be heard, were birds singing (including toucans, macaws and woodpeckers), our guide, Francisco, paddling and the occasional fruit plunging into the water from the treetops above. Sometimes red howler monkeys can be spotted, but we were not so fortunate. We did see plenty of large spiders though. Some seemed even too big for birds to enjoy.


As we bushwacked our way out of the magestic 'floating forest' we set some fish traps. We used the low branches as a secure anchor for the line, and used chicken as the bait. We would later return to find that 2 of our 6 traps had large fish on them, that we would enjoy that night with dinner.


Following the trap setting, we went out into a more open part of river and tied the boat down so we would not get taken with the slow current. Here we would fish for Piranhas using chicken as bait as well. These fish are vicious, and to fish for them you need to be not only aggressive, but timely too. As you feel them nibbling, you need to yank hard on the line in hopes of hooking them. Our boat managed to catch 10 piranhas, with one whole chicken. Matt and I seemed to feed them more than catch them, and only caught one each. Francisco caught 4 as did Simone (the German girl in our group).

The ripples in the water are from some grey river dolphins.

After tossing what remains of the chicken into the black waters, and seeing it vanish and a dance-like fashion, we collected our traps and fish and headed back to the lodge. We arrived just in time to climb the tower and watch the sunset. We manged to spot some grey river dolphins in the glassy water that reflected the colorful sky.
Dinner included the usual rice & beans, along with some fried fish that we had caught. Not a lot of meat on the piranhas, but tasty anyway.

(This story is so big that Mitch had to take a break and I will take over from here)



After a delicious Piranha dinner, we relaxed briefly in our hammocks until nightfall and then headed out in the same canoe with now a small motor on it to go alligator and caymen spotting. In the darkness of night we coasted along the water for about half an hour with only the glow from the distant Manaus and lightning on either side of us for light. When we reached our destination, Francisco pulled the motor in and paddled through the bushes flashing is light on and off for brief navigation, completely eliminating any night vision one might have achieved. All the while we are being brushed by branches and ducking under bushes that only hours ago we had seen covered in spiders (very hard for me, but I managed). Closer to land, he would leave his light on longer to look for the glow of eyes. I of course wanted to see a 23 foot long caymen swim by us, maybe touching the boat with its giant tail, but alas, he found a 3 foot caymen and barely failed to catch it.


Later, he did manage to catch two baby caymens which we were able to hold and inspect, all the while they emitted calls that Francisco indicated were for the mother which if it came around we would have to climb the tree next to us. Exciting maybe, but I got the feeling he was bluffing as there was no severity in his voice or urgency to return them. Later we saw more eyes on land which he whispered was a small species of jaguar, but I sadly only managed to glimpse the eyes. Still, a very neat experience!
We headed back and immediately fell asleep in our hammocks as we had a 5:30 morning for another boat trip,this time just in front of the camp to spot dolphins. We did indeed see a couple swimming up and down, and were close enough to hear them breath in and our and watch them jump slightly out of the water. These were gray dolphins and were of course very cute. We did not swim with them though and the rain began so we headed in for breakfast.


After breakfast, we took another short boat ride to the beginning of our hiking route. It was raining at the beginning but let up soon after. The jungle was again phenomenal. Within ten minutes we found a tree whose bark is used for malaria medicine and another whose is used for vicks vapour rub. Later we found another tree that when sliced with the machete leaked natural milk that was very sweet and the indians would feed it to children for a treat. We spotted two species of frog, one of which being the poisonous tree frog.

Later yet, Franscisco captured the Crab spider which is a ten legged tarantula and the largest spider in South America. The spider has fangs that can pierce sneakers and emits an itching-burning powder which our guide calmly ignored while showing off the fine specimen. No big deal but he held it two inches away from our faces for a photo opp... I did my best to pretend I was relaxed. Later we continued to find more tree bark that is used for scented candles, other that can be used for clove flavouring, and a thick vine that contains very filtered and drinkable water.

Later yet we found an incredibly large, brown mass on the side of a tree that when gently cut with the machete produced millions of ants covering the nest. Apparently these ants eat a poisonous vine and their insides act as a natural bug repellent. So you put your hand on the nest and within seconds it is covered in tiny ants, letting your entire hand be covered to the wrist, you then pull it away and squash the ants, rubbing them up and down your forearm for bug protection. NEAT!

After this point the rain really really really started. I was soaked right through to the bone and ever step was like I was walking in a puddle due to the amount of water that leaked down my jeans into my socks. An hour later we reached the boat and motored our soggy bodies back to the camp where we rested and pseudo dried before attempting another go at the flooded forest (as per my request) before we left as I still so badly wanted to see monkeys or a snake. Sadly, neither were present and we only managed a quick glimpse of tucans again and saw many many larger spiders.

On our way out from the lodge, the rain had subsided, so the lot of us were able to enjoy a near dusk boat ride along glassy waters. We managed to spot even more dolphins then in the morning, including one pink river dolphin!

Alright, that is the best we can do to share such an exciting and memorable experience. Thanks for reading!

Jericoacora and Beyond

Well once Mitch and I were all rested up and recovered from our week of partying and consequential colds, we set out to explore the glories of Jericoacora. Turns out Jeri, being the isolated and touristy town that it is, is quite able to charge absolutely rediculous prices for most tourist attractions, so we (or rather our wallets) decided that we didn´t really need to rent quads or dune buggies or surf boards and that we could find plenty of entertainment without such things. We were quite right. After our first hike of the rolling grass hills that were rather reminiscent of Scotland, we decided to hike the wind-blown-smooth sand dunes adjacent to Jeri. Our first day turned out to be much more of a mission than we expected as the dunes were not large nor far apart but were however separated by very warm, stagnant waters and dense shrubbery. Not so ideal for flip-flops, but we trecked on with the top of our chosen sand dune set firmly in our minds and were very pleased we did. Our dune turned out to have a steep slope on its far side that was just begging to be leaped off, a request we couldn´t help to oblige to. After numerous jumps we sweatily battled out way through yet a thicker bog that did not look nearly as treacherous from the top of the dune and eventually made it to the glorious ocean that we thankfully and immediately jumped in to both clean and cool off.
Our next adventure involved renting horses from a group of horse handlers we had passed many times on our way to the beach. Being the second cheapest tourist experience aside from the free hiking we smugly rode off on our tiny mares with our thick and thrifty wallets and set off for the beach. Well neither Mitch nor I had been on a horse in years and it appeared the horses could sense this as they mostly did as they pleased. Each time I would try to get my cream-coloured mare to do more than a snail´s pace she would veere off to the left or just stubbornly continue at her snails pace. Mitches grey-spotted mare would give him a small run but his saddle could not stay on her sadly malnourished back, so it appeared we were to stick with walking and mostly to where the horses wanted to go. A little bewildered at the complicated nature of our horses and their inability to walk much faster than we could ourselves, we were still pleased with the great bargain we had found; that was until we saw a group of other riders heading the opposite direction. Their horses we magnificent and large and strong and fed and, best of all, running! Oh what fun they must have been having! We thought, perhaps our horses didn´t want to head away from the stall where we rented them, so back we head. I was indeed able to get some runs out of my horse and began to feel like quite the cowbow. She even went where I wanted! Mitch however could not stay on due to the wobbly saddle and we head back to trade in his horse so we could set off on a wild running horse adventure. He did manage another horse but the second saddle was also not quite up to par and our legs we beginning to feel the rubbing a little too much so after one run we went back to take a sabbatical from our cowboy careers after one hour.
The remainder of our days involved more sand dune jumping off of a far closer and bog-free dune, poker and partying with yet more Isrealie friends and beautiful ocean sun sets. To stay in shape Mitch continued the daily push-up and sit-up routine and added in some morning runs which apparently could not be early enough as he would come back quite overheated each day and in desperate need of a cold shower each time. Being the gym man I am myself, I opted to hit the gym for another fantastic four hour gym session. I had a great time representing Canada´s strength and thoroughly enjoyed teaching all my fellow gym mates how to properly do the exercises I was doing which had them all enthralled. I even had one 51 year old man who spoke English quite well ask if I was from Cirque du Soleil! A truly great time and I was sad to say goodbye to them all as we were leaving the next day.
6:00 we are half an hour early at our pick up destination. Well time passed and passed and no truck was in sight. Mitch opted to check the next block over just incase we had the pick up spot wrong but to no avail. Around 6:30 we caught the tail end of a truck leaving nearly full of passengers and thought the worst. We thought we had missed it and were fuming. We sat for an hour and a half in front for the company office where we bought the ticked just running through all the things we were to say. So very very angry. We were set that we were not to pay another penny and that they were going to pay for our next night to stay and so on and so forth because we were wronged! Luckily, before any store property has been set aflame, an emplyee arrived and explained the truck was delayed due to high tide. Turns out a 4x4 ride out of town can´t always be on time due to the changine tides. We were a little less disgruntled, but were not totally relieved until we were on the truck and on our way. The ride was beautiful and we were very glad we had not paid outrageous amounts for a dune buggy ride for the same seeing as how we got the identical experience through everyday transport. After two more two hour waits to transfer buses we arrived in Belem at 3:00 PM.
Our next mission is to find our way to Manaus. Boating up the river seems long and over crowded so we very well may fly. We´ll keep you posted!

Photos: Close up of Pedra Furada; Matt dune jumping; Blonde Zohan on a horse; Our road travelled from Jeri

Jericoacoara

Alas, after so much partying during carnaval, Matt and I both came down with sickness for the past week. As much of a bummer as it is being ill, it made sense after 6 days of strange sleeping patterns and so many people around. On the positive tip, we haven't been spending much money as we spent the better part of last week sleeping, playing cards and relaxing to the max.
Our bus ride to Fortaleza was as pleasant as a 23 hour bus ride can be. Despite the sniffles and coughs, it passed fairly quickly and we were in a cheap Pousada before long. Fortaleza is the capital of the Ceará state, and it is a lovely place too. We only spent two nights, but from what we saw it was a very scenic metropolis stretched along the Atlantic coast. There, Matt was able to bargain himself a decent hammock and rope, and we were able to get funds for our time in Jeri.
We have been here in Jeri(coacoara) since Sunday night and it was quite a neat journey from Fortaleza to here. The first 5 hours of our trip were on a luxury coach to Jijoca. In Jijoca, we tranfered onto a 4x4 bus/jeep for the remainder of the journey. We drove along roads made of sand, parts of it flooded out, and along a pylon marked road on the beach to Jeri. Upon arrival, we were greeted with people trying to recruit people for their pousadas and/or apartments. After a bumpy ride, we both needed to void the bladders pretty badly, so just went with the first guy who got our attention. Turns out we got lucky! We scored an apartment for the two of us with a private bathroom and basically our own kitchen for the cheapest we have paid yet! We got a deal because we have planned to be here for at least a week, and probably will stay a few days longer even. This way we can actually enjoy some of the activities the beach town has to offer. The backdrop is sand dunes, which seem inviting for some sandboarding, and the waves on the north side seem surfable, but surf board rentals are seemingly scarce. Today was our first day actually being active again. After a hike to the lighthouse and Pedra Furada (Arched Rock), Matt went to the local gym for 4 hours!!! I think he was missing it a little. I went for a beach run last night, so opted for a nap.
But basically we have been in recovery mode after the madness in Salvador, so not much more to tell other than we are in our last week of brazil it seems. Soon we will be Peru bound, on a boat on Rio Amazonas.
Until next time...

Photos: Matt and I in Fortaleza; Our apartment in Jericoacoara; Pedra Furada down from the lighthouse