When we returned from the Galapagos and I downloaded my photos there were 1,313 of them. I managed to get that down to 500 or so, but we decided that the few I posted in the last update didn’t really do the trip justice.
So we put together a little slideshow with a few more of the photos and some of the video footage we took. Hope you like it!
The Galapagos islands are famous for their wildlife. And now, having visited we understand that the reputation is well deserved. With marine iguanas so numerous and unafraid that you have to consciously try to avoid stepping on them, it feels like you’re in a zoo but without the cages.
Many thanks to Rachel from Think Galapagos who went above and beyond to help us find the perfect trip for our little family. When you plan your visit to the Galápagos, please contact Rachel and she will take excellent care to ensure that your trip is extraordinary.
We enjoyed 8 days aboard a small sailing vessel aptly named the Beagle, whose crew plied us with abundant and tasty food while we toured the islands. Here are some photos from the first part of our trip.
The Beagle is a twin-masted sailing ship. There were 13 guests, 4 crew, and a naturalist guide.
We took our meals outside where we could enjoy the scenery.
Yellow puppy went with us, although he spent most of his time in our cabin listening to his favorite music.
We visited lots of great beaches, but mostly for wildlife watching. We didn’t have much lounging around time ashore.
There are some things here I didn’t expect to find, like pink flamingos and penguins.
This owl was peering out at us from a cave on one of our hikes.
There are several types of boobies, including this red-footed one.
We were told to stay six feet away from the wildlife, but the wildlife apparently weren’t given the same instructions.
We got to enjoy a little sea kayaking
A sea lion pup playing with an iguana’s tail. The iguanas didn’t really seem to mind.
With our somewhat scary encounter with the armed, uniformless men behind us, our next stop was to be the Tatacoa Desert, an arid but beautiful landscape in Southern Colombia. We decided to take the more direct route in which turned out to be an interesting drive along an old railroad bed that included train tunnels and bridges!
Quinn got a kick out of the fact that we were driving through train tunnels
The Tatacoa desert was nice, but this landscape was actually pretty limited in extent. To be honest it doesn’t compare with the landscapes of south-eastern Utah.
Even though everyone says Colombia is completely safe now (the ministry of tourism has adopted the tagline, “The only risk is wanting to stay”), there are still a few hot spots in the country where the FARC continue to intimidate the local people. Tourists, we had heard, are never targeted, but we wanted to make sure, since the area we wanted to visit next was in the middle of the area where the FARC are still active.
We asked at a couple of police checkpoints, and in both cases were told, “It’s a little complicated.” Sounded to us like, “It’s dangerous, but we don’t want to tell the tourists that.” We were heading to an archeological site known as Tierradentro, where there are 1000 year old underground tombs to explore. The police told us that it was definitely safe as far as La Plata, and that we should enquire further there.
We stopped at a military post near La Plata, and the soldiers there told us that there was no problem. So we pressed ahead and enjoyed a day off from driving in a tiny town in the mountains exploring the tombs.
The buses in this part of Colombia appear to be hand-made from truck chassis.
Quinn had a good time climbing down into the old tombs.
Some of them still bore their original paintings.
We at lunch at a restaurant down the road from where we were staying. Quinn played with the owners’ kids (and puppy) and we ate for $5 for all three of us.
In the afternoon I went for a hike to the top of a nearby mountain while Quinn played with his new friends.
After another long day during which we covered less than 100 miles, we re-emerged onto the Pan-Americana (the Pan-Am highway) at Popoyan, from where headed south to the Ecuador border. The roads remained slow and winding, but the scenery was beautiful. We spent the night at the famous Santuario de Las Lajas, a spectacular cathedral built over a river canyon in commemoration of a sighting of the Virgin Mary in the rocks there.
Our next driving day featured lots of mud.
The cathedral at Las Lajas was spectacular.
Surprisingly, Quinn agreed to pose for us on a llama.
And this llama agreed to pose for us
Ipiales, on the Colombia-Ecuador border, is famous for Cuy, roasted guinea pig. We didn’t try any, but we did take a picture!
We crossed into Ecuador the next day and were greeted by two wonderful things: Diesel costs $1.03 per gallon and the roads are beautiful! Heaven!
We’re staying at Finca Sommerwind, relaxing until our flight to the Galapagos. The German owners are great, and we’ve met several other overlanders here.
The farm is outside of town near a lake.
On a clear day we can see snow on a nearby peak – which also happens to be the highest point in the world that the equator passes through.
The aging Kenworth shuddered to a stop in front of us amid groaning steel and the venting of high-pressure air. A kid, no more than 14, stood in the middle of the hairpin turn holding his hand up to tell the driver to stop. Another truck crept down the hill, its engine howling in low gear and its trailer taking up both lanes of the narrow mountain road. As it passed, the Kenworth revved its engine and with more shuddering and copious amounts of black smoke pouring from its exhaust began lumbering through the turn.
The kid ran alongside, shouting to the driver to throw a few coins his way for his help in avoiding a horrible collision. No pesos were forthcoming, and the traffic continued to inch its way up the mountain.
Creeping up the pass
You know it’s going to be a long day when Google Maps says it’s going to take 6 hours to cover 89 miles. Surely that can’t be right, you think. But you know better. Heck, it might take longer.
The pass we were crossing started at less than 2000 feet and topped out in the fog at over 12,000 feet. With nothing more than a sign advising drivers to “revise los frenos” (check your brakes) the road began its plunge down the other side of the ridge. None of the truck drivers that we saw were actually stopping to check their brakes.
One benefit of going 10 – 15mph is that it gives you plenty of time to enjoy the scenery. You just have to pretend you’re breathing clean mountain air instead of the exhaust from the truck in front of you.
The Colombians apparently recognize that a road between two major cities with an average speed of 15mph is detrimental to productivity. They’ve embarked on a project to improve it that involves viaducts spanning valleys hundreds of feet high and thousands of feet across. It makes the Glenwood Canyon section of interstate 70 in Colorado look like a good project for a civil engineering intern.
A partially completed viaduct
A section of the new road
Having blown past Google’s time estimate for our journey, we found ourselves driving in the dark and looking for somewhere to park for the night.
On this side of the pass some of the viaducts had been completed, and we found a likely spot on one of the bypassed sections of road. We backed down the road as far as we could to get out of sight of the highway and settled down for a restful night listening to the growl of engine brakes from passing semis.
At 3:30 the next morning, just as I was beginning to hope it would be light soon so I could stop not sleeping, someone knocked on the door of the van. “Como?” “Que?” I said in my best drowsy gringo Spanish. I heard someone say something about “casa rodante” (mobile home) and “documentos.” We looked outside and saw that they weren’t wearing uniforms but were carrying guns. Not good at all.
Not wanting to unlock any doors, I dressed and clambered into the driver’s seat where I rolled down the window part of the way. One of the men smiled and stuck his hand through so I could shake it. He explained that he was associated with the military and doing security patrols.
Before I could ask what happened to their uniforms, he started peppering me with the standard questions. “Where are you coming from?” “Manizales.” (the previous significant town on the road you’re on that a traveler might logically have been) “Where are you going?” “Ibagué” (the next significant town on the road you’re on). “What are you doing here?” “Turismo.” (Be careful with this one. It’s the right answer, but as we found out in Africa, “Tourist” sounds a lot like “Terrorist.”)
With that, he thrust his hand back through the window so I could shake it again and bid me a buen noche. Not bloody likely, I would have thought, had I been British. Instead, I said, “Vamos a dormir otra ves.” I realized later that since I screwed up the verb conjugation I said, “Let’s go to sleep again.” He just laughed and walked off, and I reinforced the image of the idiot gringo tourist. With deception skills like that, perhaps I should try my hand at terrorism.
After a fun day at the science museum, we drove to a small town about 2 hours outside of Bogotá to do some volunteer work. What San Javier lacks in size it more than makes up for in hospitality. Angela and her mother run a community center there and we spent some time repairing and upgrading the computers in their computer lab. They fed us and made us feel very welcome. We gave lots of tours of the van, and a local businessman gave me a beer while we discussed solar power systems – he had spotted the solar panel on our van.
Our campsite in San Javier
Us with Angela and her mother at the community center.
Back in Bogotá, we were able to get together with some relatives on Jen’s side of the family. On our way in to town we got to experience the best of Bogotá traffic, sitting in a cab for more than an hour before we finally got out and walked. We had a very nice visit with them and they were kind enough to let us stay with them in the city.
After leaving Bogotá we headed for the Zona Cafetera, which is where the bulk of Colombia’s coffee is grown. We had hoped to make it to the town of Manizales in a day, but we found out that the road had been damaged in a landslide and was closed. The local police pointed us to an alternate route that would add 2 hours to our journey. The first part of the detour was great – a brand new, four lane highway. When we got to the point where we needed to veer off the highway, we were in for a change.
We spotted an old, faded sign indicating the town we were headed for. We took the indicated left turn, but it was just a retorno, taking us back in the other direction on the highway.
We drove for a few minutes, when I spotted the back of a sign that was pointed the wrong way on the road. I looked back at it, and sure enough it indicated the town we wanted. I backed up to where there was a dirt track leading off the highway into the forest. Within 5 minutes we had gone from doing 90km/h on a four lane highway to creeping along in four wheel drive. It took us about 40 minutes to go the 15 km to the road that would take us back to our original route.
Off a four lane highway and onto this. Colombia is truly a land of contrasts.
We weren’t able to stay in the Zona Cafetera for as long as we would have liked, since we had to be in Quito in about two weeks for our trip to the Galapagos Islands. But we did get a chance to see a nice ecological park. We also enjoyed some time at a very nice hostel/campground where we met a few other overland travelers.
We rode the chairlift up into the park.
There were lots of birds on offer, especially hummingbirds.
Japanese coffee buyers had donated a Japanese garden to the park, complete with bonsai trees.
We got to see a handful of the thousands of species orchids in Colombia.
Quinn took some photos too.
We had a good time talking with other travelers at the hostel.
And Quinn had a good time in the pool the next morning.
For fans of pictures of Quinn, we put together a slideshow of him feeding pigeons in the Plaza de Armas in Bogotá.