2017-01-12Cartegena, Columbia

Old Town 

El Viajero Hotel

If you like Romancing the Stone this is the place for you. Usually I don’t like large busy cities, but I am wiling to make an exception for this one. There is an old-time beauty everywhere you look. People are having a great time singing and dancing and eating and drinking at the many open air restaurants. Some right in front of ancient churches. 

We arrived last night and hit the streets. When we saw all the seats right on the square we just had to sit down and have a cold one. The people watching was extraordinary. The music was loud and had a nice Caribbean beat and everyone pulsed and swayed in time with it. 

This place is not cheap, but it is not expensive either. This morning I got up with the sun and had the Old City to myself. What a treat! When I got back to the hotel Kim was sitting at a table and we both knew that two nights would not be enough. 

Leticia, Colombia

Eco-Hotel, El Refugio de la Floresta 

2017-02-11 

This was our last night in the Amazon. In a few hours our flight leaves for Cartegena. We had breakfast and walked down by the warf taking pictures along the way. Then we went to an ATM changed money and bought a new pair of underwear for me to sleep in. 

We also stopped at a travel agent to compare prices with what we had paid, by booking online versus booking once we got here. I winds up that we would have saved hundreds of dollars, and had a lot more flexibility and adventure. Of course that is hindsight. If I came back, and I would love to do a month in just the Amazon, that is the way I would do it. It would be a long slow boats up river, and jumping on a tour when I needed to experience more. 

In the end I am really happy with what we did as it worked out perfectly. I wish that we were going to spend a lot more time here. I also feel much better prepared to return.

You can see the Amazon River in the distance. Cartagena here we come. 

2017-02-09
Exhausted we returned home and slept like stones. The next day we loaded into a very full boat for another tour. First we went to a place to see colorful parrots who seems to love to pose with people. Their size made them a little intimidating, but they were quite tame. 

Next we looked at some gigantic Lilly pads. Our guide floated Kim’s camera on it just to show us how solid it was. I thought why doesn’t he use his cell phone, but said nothing. 

Off we went to our next location where they let us pose with all kinds of small animals. My favorite was the three toed sloth, which hugged us like a baby, but the boa was a close second. 

Again we were off to the the Island of Micos. An island filled with small monkeys who just loved to jump on all of the tourists. What a delight. They seemed to get a kick out of jumping from tourist to tourist. At times it got a little overwhelming, but everyone including the Micos monkeys seemed to have a good time. 

The trip home was less of a delight as I was squezed in by some very large over weight Colombian men. Nancy fed us a nice fish dinner, we looked at each other’s photos and then fell asleep with big smiles on our faces. 

2017-02-08Back at home I couldn’t imagine how it could get and better, but the next day began with our official tour. A tour boat arrived at 8 am to take us to Maharasha, an eco village in the jungle. 

Our boat pulled over to a flooded piece of land and we were to to get out and walk for about an hour. I was happy that Feliz had loaned us a pair of rubber boots. Kim was a little less happy as hers had a big hole in one. Slowly we sloshed along through the jungle in two foot high water as our guide Nikoli pointed out ant trails and spiders and fruits and medicine. 

Arriving at Maharasha we were told we had 4 hours to enjoy the place on our own. We kayaked, went fishing, spotted birds, swam in a pool filled with Amazon water and ate a typical meal. 

Probably the highlight was when a large caiman approached the walkway and they decided to feed him with what looked like a slab of ribs on a string. He quickly snapped it up. Later we found a family of pacas? They looked like giant rodents. We petted them and fed them bananas. Wow, it doesn’t get any better than this, or does it?