Colombia

We arrived into Bogota from Havana quite late but were immediately struck by how advanced the country felt versus where we'd just come from. It was very easy to grab a taxi and get to our hostel located in the central artsy, student area of Candlearia. The first night we didn't sleep at all due to a noisy hostel and a bed big enough for 1.5 adults just about, not 1 normal sized person plus a giant as we are! Anyway Yon found out there was a bike tour leaving about 10 minutes after I'd got up so we headed straight out...error! After about 15 minutes on the bike I was doubled over, nearly passing out and nearly being sick- mainly I think this is due to altitude sickness as Bogota is very high above sea level, but probably also because I'd had no water, no food and no sleep! I had to head back to the hostel and lie down- this basically wiped me out for two whole days so technically I still haven't been to Bogota!

Things got better after a 9 hour bus journey east to a small town called San Gil. The place is well known for several adventure sports and activities on offer. The town is a very sweet, very hilly little place with a beautiful central square and cathedral. Our first full day was full of firsts for Yonna....the local indigineous delicacy is fried ants with big bottoms, so obviously Yon had to try them! Next up he very impressively faced his fear of heights head on and went paragliding over a huge canyon near San Gil. He was scared but absolutely loved it and photos look amazing. I wasn't there to witness it as I went on my own seperate way to a ranch about an hour outside San Gil in the hills, for a day of horseriding. My 100% Spanish speaking guide brought my lovely little horse around equipped with a proper western saddle and I hopped on. These small South American horses just loved to gallop and we were soon galloping through the beautiful scenery of fincas with banana, coffee and yuca crops growing. After 1.5 hours we reached a waterfall where I swam before taking the horses back to the ranch. It was a brilliant, if a little scary at times, experience :-)

Next we took an overnight bus to Santa Marta in the North. We had been warned that they like to freeze people with aircon on the buses so wore all the warm clothes we have brought, which aren't many. After a pretty much sleepless night we arrived in the large city and found the second bus we needed to take us up into the lush rainforest hill town of Minca. Once we got off this rickety jeep, pretty exhausted by this point, the locals pointed out the direction of our hostel. We followed their points and came to the bottom of another hill....turns out this was a pretty big one with killer steps all the way up to the top where our hostel was. After a very tough climb with our bags we were rewarded with an incredible view through the thick rainforest and into the valley of Santa Marta and the sea beyond it. The hostel was set out for the sole objective of chilling out, with rocking chairs, hammocks and lots of areas to sit and watch the rainforest scenes. We spent our first night in a treehouse room- all we could hear were the various insect calls, birds and the unusual call of howler monkeys. Before we went to bed that night I opted for a rainforest massage- it was an incredible experience out in the forest and pretty unusual with the chap massaging and performing reiki whilst making vibration noises and speaking to me in a voice that reminded me so much of Puss in Boots in Shrek! I really had to hold in my laughter. Despite this, I got up the next morning to attend his yoga lesson on the forest balcony which was great.

After yoga, we trekked down the hill again and paid a couple of guys on motorbikes to drive us up into the mountain coffee farm, La Victoria. It was set up by the British in the 19th century and is now German owned, staffed entirely by fairly paid Colombian families. We had a private tour around the factory which still uses the original machinery and only water pressure to power every machine and every part of the process. The bean picking is of course done by hand and the lady showed us how the three qualities of bean are established by their weight- the best quality sinking in the water. The beans are then deshelled, cleaned and graded all using water pressure- just amazing! We got a cup of freshly brewed espresso and I have never tasted coffee so good! Our next stop was some natural pools and waterfalls before we found a man on the side of the road cooking up hand made chorizo- delicious. We made it back up to our hostel to spend the night in a cabana- a traditional wood and mud hut in the jungle.

The next day we took the realtively short trip along the coast to Cartagena. Its popularity with toursits meant it was super busy and the prices were double what they are in Bogota, the capital! On our first full day we headed into the old walled town which is beautiful. It's full of brightly painted Spanish colonial churches and buildings, all with balconies and gorgeous flowers flowing over them. On our last day we opted for the tour out to a mud volcano- this was a very surreal experience indeed. First you walk up a rickety wooden staircase that's barely attached to the side of what looks like a giant ant hill. As soon as you get to the top, you look down into the volcano to see people flapping about in a massive mud bath about 4 meters below you. It looked absolutely disgusting and as we were queueing to take the even more rickety looking wooden ladder down, I was seriously considering opting out. But down I went and it felt as disgusting as it looked! The mud is made up of decaying organic matter deep below the surface that is then pushed up like lava in a normal volcano. The mineral rich gloop is of course meant to be brilliant for your skin and some people were lying in it for ages, putting it in their hair and everything. I however got in and waded to the exit ladder (which is pretty hard as the mud is so dense you float) as quickly as possible. You then crawl up and a chap rubs off the excess mud and seems to be enjoying it a little too much. Then you go down the other side of the volcano and walk to the thermal lagoon to wash everything off. It was a cool experience but not one I'd repeat in a hurry!

We decided that we couldn't face the 20 hour bus journey back to Bogota from the north, so opted for a 1.5 hour flight instead. We've just arrived back in the capital to have one night's rest before we fly on to Quito, Ecuador, tomorrow :-)

Cuba

Where to start with Cuba- what an incredible place full of life and colour as well as frustrations and confusion for a traveler. We arrived late into Havana airport after a long day of traveling from Leeds to London to Cuba, via Canada. As soon as we hit the highway in our taxi, we were excited to see the old classic American cars that are so synonymous with the country. Our taxi driver searched through the maze of small streets in central Havana before finding our casa particulares, essentially someone's old colonial house that they rent bedrooms in and without doubt the absolute best places to stay in Cuba. This casa was run by a lovely lady called Maritza who mothered us throughout our stay in Havana. We spent our first day walking around the city- seeing the Parque Central, the long Malecon road alongside the coast and went to buy some cigars from a cigar factory...obviously! Havana is an incredible mix of architecture but much of it is in disrepair and under scaffolding as they try to restore many buildings to their former glory. We were staying in the locals' area, away from tourist hotels, so got a good feeling for how normal Cubans live...basically loudly! There is always music blaring out of houses and people sitting on their doorsteps chatting and laughing. Everyone has a ready smile and an 'hola' to offer.

On our second day we took an open top bus tour around the city, which is spread across three main areas. We saw the revolution square with a huge image of Che and Cienfuegos's (another revolutionary) faces and jumped off the bus in old Havana. This area is the nicest to walk around as a Cuban non-profit is working hard to restore the buildings, squares and streets. It was New Year's Eve so we were trying to scope out the best place to see in midnight and 2015. Turns out that Cubans spend NYE with their families in their houses rather than partying on the street, however we found out that there were some things happening for tourists around the old town. As night fell, we had a meal (typically lacklustre as Cuba is not the place to go for good food!) near the central park, smoked a big fat cigar, drank Cuba Libres and wandered to the old town. We drank in the new year listening to a Cuban band and watching a couple of small fireworks that had been let off. Then the real fun began....it is customary for Cubans to throw water off their balconies at new year to expel bad spirits- this has obviously turned into trying to soak tourists walking the streets below. All done in good humour, many people succeeded and we reached our area of town wet through. This is when things turned a little sour....we needed to cross a couple of streets to get back to our casa, however locals had taken to throwing glass bottles from their windows in this area. We had to hide under the awnings with a couple of locals until there was a break in the glass throwing and we dared sprint across the street one by one. Not fun, pretty scary and reminiscent of (although of course nothing close) Sniper Alley in Sarajevo!!

The next day we tried to learn about the revolution in the 50's that saw Fidel Castro take power and hold it, with his brother Raul, to this day. The museum of the revolution was mostly in Spanish and full of propoganda but we managed to piece some together. Cuba had been colonised by Spain and many of its people enslaved but in the early 1900s the tide was turning across the colonised states against the occupiers. America assisted Cuba in gaining its independence from Spain, however in doing so Cuba became a dependent state on the US. Despotic puppet leaders were placed in power and Cuba became the playground of the American mafia with its close proximity to Florida. Che Guevara, who had been imprisoned in Mexico for his anti-government activities in Guatemala, met Fidel and Raul Castro in Mexico City and their shared hatred for the US and Socialist ideas led them to hatching a plan to start a revolution in Cuba. This is certainly over-simplifying things but they sailed to Cuba and over a number of years of guerilla warfare, overthrew Bastista and starting ruling the country. They gradually turned the country into a socialist state of government run companies and this is where Cuba remains today. It is truly as if time stopped in the 50's which is why a lot of tourists like coming to Cuba...there is still very much a feeling of community not yet eroded by the distractions of the internet (which is only available in small designated centres with supervision) however you do feel, especially for the young people, that they are being denied the opportunities that come along with computer literacy and access to the web. Crime is low and the signs of capitalism are non-existent- some small private businesses have only recently been permitted by Raul Castro e.g. small restaurants in someone's front room, a little shop out of an open window. This is nice and quaint for a tourist but means that the Cuban people have to deal with inefficiently run government businesses for all their basic needs- the 'supermarkets' have huge queues of people trying to buy basics which are kept behind counters and handed to customers by attendants. You can't help question whether Cuba has been protected by Castro for its own good and therefore avoids some of the problems of the Western world, or if its people have been unfairly held back...whatever your view it is all on the brink of change with new open talks with the States.

The next day we experienced one of the biggest frustrations of Cuba that makes backpacking quite challenging. The tourist bus company, Viazul, only runs very few buses between cities everyday and tickets are never available on the day. The only other option is to take a collectivo- a classic car shared with whoever else you can find going to the same place. We shared our first journey with two German chaps and arrived in the South coastal town of Cienfuegos. It is a typical, pretty little colonial town and was nice to walk around and people watch in the central plaza. The day after we ventured to nearby El Nicho waterfalls with our new German friends. After a short hike we came upon beautiful blue pools with a small waterfall that was lovely to swim in, before walking further up through the jungle to find a huge waterfall and yet more crystal natural swimming pools a little higher. That night we bought tickets for a concert in the 19th century theatre in the plaza- obviously we couldn't understand a word that was being said or sung but the small fat chap on the stage seemed very popular with the locals. The music was good but slightly ruined by the guy's singing so we were pleased when it was just an hour long! We ventured on along the coast to Trinidad the next day with guess who...the Germans.

Trinidad was a slightly bigger colonial town and was very picturesque. We did a photo walking tour to see the sights and met some nice people at our new casa with our new Cuban mother, Georgina. We ate at the casa every night- more lobster than I have ever eaten in my life for about 6 pounds each! We went on a catamaran the next day to a little island about 1.5 hours from the coast and snorkelled in the clear water. We saw some pretty nice fish and had lobster paella watching hermit crabs and an iguana roam on the beach. The next day we chilled at the beach near the town and that night went to a local salsa night- there were hundreds of people there and a packed dancefloor. I did a tiny bit of dancing but decided it was definitely best left to the experts!

We had been told that the best beach in the Caribbean is up in the North of Cuba on an island called Cayo Coco. We took the long trip up there in a collectivo with an Israeli couple on their honeymoon. All the hotels up there are ludicrously expensive all-inclusives full of Canadian and Spanish tourists. We however were staying in a hotel 2km away from the beach and 10 times less the cost....never has it been truer that you get what you pay for!! The hotel was being refurbished and basically operated as rooms for the construction workers. The restaurant was their canteen and was laughably filthy....we had to laugh it was that bad! We spent one day on the 'best beach' which was beautiful with poster-perfect clear water but, unsurprisingly, was very busy with tourists and sunbeds. The next day we took advantage of the all inclusive hotel nearest us and hid the fact we didn't have wristbands to get food and drinks :-)

The next day we set off for our favourite spot, Santa Clara. Having figured out the bus system by this point, we actually managed to book tickets and only had to wait 4 hours for the next bus! Santa Clara was less touristy and felt a lot more authentically Cuban. We sat in the central square and watched the local people come and go, as well as a mini goat and cart wheeling children around the square again and again. Che is credited with having liberated the area and this town, so there are hundreds of images of his face and a large memorial in his honour. We visited the memorial and saw his pen and watch, amongst many other ordinary belongings of his. By this point we had also figured out that the best food was to be found in the 'peso restaurants' that the locals frequent. These are restaurants that quote the menu in the local currency rather than the dollar-pegged CUC that's only for tourist use. As a result we had some pretty nice food in Santa Clara.

We left Santa Clara and headed back to Havana and back to Maritza so we could do a few things we hadn't managed before and ensure we were there for our ongoing flight. We visited a couple of sights but most importantly managed to go to a baseball game, the number one sport in Cuba. It was between the highest ranked team, Industriales and an away team Matanzas and was absolutely amazing. Yon had to give me a quick lesson in baseball to be able to follow it and I got quite into it. We were adopted by some hard core Cuban fans in front of us who kept snatching photos with passing Cuban celebs (including an olympic high jumper whose name you'll have to ask Yon) and for some reason, several photos with us! It was a perfect way to end our time in Cuba and by the time we got to the airport to get our flight to Colombia, I genuinely felt an ache that I would miss this confusing, frustrating, friendly, unique country.