Up around 7:30. We asked the hostel staff about where to get breakfast, and they pointed us to where the malls are on a map, a short distance away. Ryan took control and took us in the complete opposite direction. I took over and got us to the proper spot. Very exclusive area near us, very nice, trendy, large malls and shops, outdoor cafes and such. Unfortunately there was not much open for breakfast, so after a long walk, breakfast was McDonalds.
We headed back to the hostel and talked to the girl working the desk (who speaks broke English) about paragliding. We think we got a story that we might be able to go paragliding tomorrow depending on the weather. We went back to the room and Ryan decided on a plan for today, namely Parque Explora, a science centre and aquarium near the university.
We headed to the metro system, which seems super awesome in the Medellin, and headed to the Universidad station. Really nice area here, little cafes and such, so we had a bite to eat and then went into the Parque Explora and spent a couple of hours there. Nothing super awesome, but it was fun. We heard from a worker about the botanical gardens across the street, which is free, so we headed there for a while. We then headed back to the main restaurat/party/bar area called Poblado, along Calle 10 around Parque Lleras and had supper and some beers. Let me tell you, this is a very nice area, so many shops, tons of great (read expensive) restaurants and bars, very nice.. I wasn't surprised by it, but Ryan remarked that something like this this was totally unexpected from him to find in Columbia.
After some beers, we got a taxi back to the hostel and if the weather is good tomorrow morning, we'll go paragliding.
Tuesday, October 07, 2014
Monday, October 06, 2014
Mount Monserrate and off to Medellin
Up early, about 7:30 and had breakfast at the hostel at 8:00. Yesterday we decided to do Mount Monserrate and the Gold Museum (Museo del Oro) in the morning, then take a bus to Medellin. We walked to the base of Monseratte and got our tickets for the ride up, via a funicular (cable pulled train car type of deal). The views were pretty great, but amazingly spectacular. At the top of the mountain, theres a restaurant and a church.
The cable car doesn't start operating until noon, so we took the funicular back down and headed off to the Museo del Oro. On the way there dad managed to get a SIM card for his phone/wifi hotspot, so he's internet enabled now. We got to the museum only to find out that it's closed on Mondays. Oh well!
I must say, Bogota is not quite what I expected. It's the third largest city in the western hemisphere (according to what Ryan read on the internets) which surprised me. It's doesn't have the feeling of a typical capital city, though, there are really no touts and hawkers about trying to forever sell you stuff, which is nice.
We stopped at a market and I bought a wineskin to use a water bottle and Ryan bought some things for his kids.
We went to a restaurant and had a Columbain traditional dish of yesterdays leftovers, although this guy claimed they didn't reheat the leftovers from yesterday, instead they reheated the food they made earlier in the morning.
We headed back to the hostel and got a taxi to the bus terminal and got our tickets to Medellin, about 60,000 pesos each. We had about an hour wait for the bus. It was a super nice bus, it even had wi-fi and charging stations on the bus! The bus left at 2:45.
We stopped for supper around 8:00ish. Remember Ryan getting scared by a big beetle in the sink in the washrooms at the restaurant.
The drive was pretty spectacular, especially heading into Medellin. It's more tropical (being lower elevation), and it was storming really hard, so there was all kinds of massive waterfalls along the side of the highway. I was really disappointed that it was late at night and I couldn't see much, as it looked like it would have been pretty spectacular.
We got the hostel about 1:00am. I went to bed first, I had just a sheet on my bed, which was fine, it was quite warm. Ryan was next to climb into bed and he didn't even have a sheet. He had to use his sleeping bag. Dad was last (as he had to fix his spreadsheets), and he had only a comforter, not a sheet. Haha.
The cable car doesn't start operating until noon, so we took the funicular back down and headed off to the Museo del Oro. On the way there dad managed to get a SIM card for his phone/wifi hotspot, so he's internet enabled now. We got to the museum only to find out that it's closed on Mondays. Oh well!
I must say, Bogota is not quite what I expected. It's the third largest city in the western hemisphere (according to what Ryan read on the internets) which surprised me. It's doesn't have the feeling of a typical capital city, though, there are really no touts and hawkers about trying to forever sell you stuff, which is nice.
We stopped at a market and I bought a wineskin to use a water bottle and Ryan bought some things for his kids.
We went to a restaurant and had a Columbain traditional dish of yesterdays leftovers, although this guy claimed they didn't reheat the leftovers from yesterday, instead they reheated the food they made earlier in the morning.
We headed back to the hostel and got a taxi to the bus terminal and got our tickets to Medellin, about 60,000 pesos each. We had about an hour wait for the bus. It was a super nice bus, it even had wi-fi and charging stations on the bus! The bus left at 2:45.
We stopped for supper around 8:00ish. Remember Ryan getting scared by a big beetle in the sink in the washrooms at the restaurant.
The drive was pretty spectacular, especially heading into Medellin. It's more tropical (being lower elevation), and it was storming really hard, so there was all kinds of massive waterfalls along the side of the highway. I was really disappointed that it was late at night and I couldn't see much, as it looked like it would have been pretty spectacular.
We got the hostel about 1:00am. I went to bed first, I had just a sheet on my bed, which was fine, it was quite warm. Ryan was next to climb into bed and he didn't even have a sheet. He had to use his sleeping bag. Dad was last (as he had to fix his spreadsheets), and he had only a comforter, not a sheet. Haha.
Sunday, October 05, 2014
Biking Tour of Bogota
We got up about 8:00, slept amazing!!
We had breakfast at the hostel. It was ok, not great, but it is included in the price of the room.
We started walking arounnd, dad is looking for a Claro place so he can get a SIM card for his phone/hotspot. No luck, and mostly everything is closed, as it's Sunday.
We decided to do a Bogota bike tour, so headed to where the office is, and timed it perfect. They were just getting ready to start the tour, so we joined them. A big group, probably 20-25 people.
We got a lot of history about Bogota and saw lots of different places, including park,s the bullfighting arena, the red light district, fruit markets, the central cemetery and learned about Columbia's national sport, tejo.
On Sunday's, the city closes down many of the downtown roads to vehicles and makes them bike and pedestrian friendly, which was perfect for our bike tour.
Near the start, a mass crowd was walking down the street, chanting and holding up banners. It was a huge protest against bull-fighting (and animal cruelty in general), people dressed in animal costumes, and one woman was even almost completely naked. She had only panties on. Weird. I'd put it at 5,000-10,000 people. After watching for a bit, we bypassed it and continued on the tour.
It's always interesting to hear about the history of the city on tours like this, including the very violent 1980's ad 90's, the sordid history with rebels and assassinations.
We learned about the wild, feral hippopotamus population thriving in Columbia. I guess the drug lord, Pablo Escobar, in the 80's had wild hippo's brought over from Africa. During his downfall, they escaped and took up residence in a river and now they have the second highest hippo population in the world. They don't know what to do about them, the animal rights groups get upset when they hear about killing them, but they are not native and are destroying everything.
We stopped at a bar where they did Columbia's national sport, tejo, which involves throwing heavy iron balls into a clay pit with explosive packets buried. You get points to making one of these gunpowder packets goes off. It was pretty fun!
The bicycle tour lasted over 4 hours, and we got back to the hostel around 3:00, stopping for a piece of pizza on the way.
We used the internet and lounged for a bit and argued about where to go for supper. We then headed to the trendy university area, around plazeto del Chorro de Quevedo for supper at a restaurant called Rosalita's.
It was an absolutely beautiful day, sunnny and hot. We all got sunburns.
We had breakfast at the hostel. It was ok, not great, but it is included in the price of the room.
We started walking arounnd, dad is looking for a Claro place so he can get a SIM card for his phone/hotspot. No luck, and mostly everything is closed, as it's Sunday.
We decided to do a Bogota bike tour, so headed to where the office is, and timed it perfect. They were just getting ready to start the tour, so we joined them. A big group, probably 20-25 people.
We got a lot of history about Bogota and saw lots of different places, including park,s the bullfighting arena, the red light district, fruit markets, the central cemetery and learned about Columbia's national sport, tejo.
On Sunday's, the city closes down many of the downtown roads to vehicles and makes them bike and pedestrian friendly, which was perfect for our bike tour.
Near the start, a mass crowd was walking down the street, chanting and holding up banners. It was a huge protest against bull-fighting (and animal cruelty in general), people dressed in animal costumes, and one woman was even almost completely naked. She had only panties on. Weird. I'd put it at 5,000-10,000 people. After watching for a bit, we bypassed it and continued on the tour.
It's always interesting to hear about the history of the city on tours like this, including the very violent 1980's ad 90's, the sordid history with rebels and assassinations.
We learned about the wild, feral hippopotamus population thriving in Columbia. I guess the drug lord, Pablo Escobar, in the 80's had wild hippo's brought over from Africa. During his downfall, they escaped and took up residence in a river and now they have the second highest hippo population in the world. They don't know what to do about them, the animal rights groups get upset when they hear about killing them, but they are not native and are destroying everything.
We stopped at a bar where they did Columbia's national sport, tejo, which involves throwing heavy iron balls into a clay pit with explosive packets buried. You get points to making one of these gunpowder packets goes off. It was pretty fun!
The bicycle tour lasted over 4 hours, and we got back to the hostel around 3:00, stopping for a piece of pizza on the way.
We used the internet and lounged for a bit and argued about where to go for supper. We then headed to the trendy university area, around plazeto del Chorro de Quevedo for supper at a restaurant called Rosalita's.
It was an absolutely beautiful day, sunnny and hot. We all got sunburns.
Saturday, October 04, 2014
On our way to Columbia
I met Ryan at his house about 2am. Ryan and Olga didn't understand why I was there so early, but you're supposed to arrive at the support airport 3 hours early.
We took a Car2Go to the airport and there was hardly anybody there. Another older couple came over and said he even called the airline and they told him 3 hours. Nothing was open except the self check-in terminals. I swiped my passport and it told me it needed more information, so provided the flight number and it said it couldn't find my reservation. Holy crap. I tried again, this time giving it my destination city, same result. I'm shitting bricks. It printed off a slip and told me to see an agent (which were not open yet). I sat down dejected. Ryan suggested I try another terminal, so did. This time I provided my confirmation code. Thank the gods, it found my reservation and I got my boarding pass printed.
When Ryan went through the process, the system automatically provided him an upgraded great seat near the front of the plane. He thought he was going to have to pay extra for this seat, so he overrode the default and selected a different seat at the back of the plane. His bad when I finally got through, it auto selected the same seat he was originally given, and I accepted it, no extra charge, and got extra leg room out of the deal. Ryan ended up during beside a 600 pound woman who's fat was overflowing into his seat.
We had a long superior stopover (6+ hours) in Dallas. We arrived in Bogota about 11pm, breezed through immigration and dad was waiting for us at the luggage pickup area. Ryan wasn't really surprised, as apparently Chloe let the cat out of the bag about dad meeting us down here. (Olga, don't get mad at Chloe!)
We got a taxi to the hostel (Casa Platypus), a nice hostel, if fairly expensive. Remember me trying to pay the taxi driver 200,000 pesos on a taxi charge of 18,200. The taxi driver was honest and gave me back 150,000, but kept the large to of over 30,000 pesos.
We had a beer at the hostel in our room and then to bed around 1:00am.
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Friday, September 06, 2013
Yellowknife, NWT trip, Day 7
I woke up around 7:30, the other two didn't wake up until after 10:00am. I explored the island a bit, did some fishing and gazed. I boiled some water for tea, then went to get the tea bags, and couldn't find them. As I was exploring the island, I found them. Come creature (probably a mouse) got a hold of them and dragged them into the forest and ripped the baggie apart and then ripped most of the tea bags up.
Lisa made us an awesome breakfast of eggs (mixed with various veggies) and potatoes, then we packed up our camp and headed back to town.
I mentioned that we were bucking the wind all day yesterday, so we figured we'd have the wind advantage today. Nope. The wind totally changed direction and was blowing the complete opposite, so we were bucking the wind and waves across the stupid lake again. Annoying!
We got back to the kayak rental place about 3:45 and packed our stuff up. Lisa dropped me off at her place so I could get my car and see about souvenir shopping before everthing closed at 5:00ish
I got back to her house around 6:00, got showered and then me and Lisa went to the Black Knight pub for some pub food and a beer. Back home, and we watched tv. I was sooo tired, I went to bed about 9:30, and I knew I had a long drive tomorrow.
Lisa made us an awesome breakfast of eggs (mixed with various veggies) and potatoes, then we packed up our camp and headed back to town.
I mentioned that we were bucking the wind all day yesterday, so we figured we'd have the wind advantage today. Nope. The wind totally changed direction and was blowing the complete opposite, so we were bucking the wind and waves across the stupid lake again. Annoying!
We got back to the kayak rental place about 3:45 and packed our stuff up. Lisa dropped me off at her place so I could get my car and see about souvenir shopping before everthing closed at 5:00ish
I got back to her house around 6:00, got showered and then me and Lisa went to the Black Knight pub for some pub food and a beer. Back home, and we watched tv. I was sooo tired, I went to bed about 9:30, and I knew I had a long drive tomorrow.
Thursday, September 05, 2013
Yellowknife, NWT trip, Day 6
I got up around 8:00 and went for breakfast at the Dancing Moose Cafe. Then headed out on the Ingraham Trail past Yellowknife for a couple of hours.
On the way back, I saw a wolf on the highway.
I got back to the house at noon and Lisa sent an email saying she wouldn't get off work until about 2:00. Lisa came and picked me up to take me to her work for a bit.
We were finally ready to go on the kayak trip after 4:00, so went to the kayak rental place and got everything packed away and we were off. Great Slave Lake was windy and we had to cross a bay in the kayaks, going right into to the wind whitecaps breaking on is. It was soooo hard. Arms were killing us. Once we crossed the bay, we followed the shoreline to the the Yellowknife River, bucking the wind, as usual. At least we'll be going with the wind coming back, we figured.
We kayaked to Cinnamon Island and set up camp. I made Kraft Dinner for supper and made a fire. As the night rolled on, a group of Japanese tourists showed up on a tour group, here to see the northern lights. The northern lights did show, as the night went on, they came more and more south, eventually directly overhead. They were not amazingly awesome, but it's been probably 10 years or more since I saw the, so it was pretty cool.
To bed after midnight sometime.
On the way back, I saw a wolf on the highway.
I got back to the house at noon and Lisa sent an email saying she wouldn't get off work until about 2:00. Lisa came and picked me up to take me to her work for a bit.
We were finally ready to go on the kayak trip after 4:00, so went to the kayak rental place and got everything packed away and we were off. Great Slave Lake was windy and we had to cross a bay in the kayaks, going right into to the wind whitecaps breaking on is. It was soooo hard. Arms were killing us. Once we crossed the bay, we followed the shoreline to the the Yellowknife River, bucking the wind, as usual. At least we'll be going with the wind coming back, we figured.
We kayaked to Cinnamon Island and set up camp. I made Kraft Dinner for supper and made a fire. As the night rolled on, a group of Japanese tourists showed up on a tour group, here to see the northern lights. The northern lights did show, as the night went on, they came more and more south, eventually directly overhead. They were not amazingly awesome, but it's been probably 10 years or more since I saw the, so it was pretty cool.
To bed after midnight sometime.
Wednesday, September 04, 2013
Yellowknife, NWT trip, Day 5
Up around 8:00 and had a shower and made bacon and eggs and got all packed.
After filling up with diesel, I started the 300km drive to Yellowknife. Boring drive! It started to get a bit more interesting after Behchoko/Rae-Edzo when I started to get into the Canadian shield, but still not spectacular.
The highway past that was pretty bumpy too, with parts gravel and under construction. I think the permafrost wreaks havoc on the highways, causing bumps and dips all over.
Arrived in Yellowknife around 3:00. Went to the visitors centre and the museum, which was really good and free. The museum has a 43-foot canoe built by the natives made out of moosehide, way cool. I called Lisa, she was working until around 6:00pm, and gave me her address. I bummed around the old town for a bit.
And then the unthinkable happened. I dropped my phone. Smash, the front touch screen is completely busted. Only part of the touch screen actually works, so it's pretty much useless. I just bought it in January. Horrible. Anyway, it's a good thing I didn't need it for anything, as I have my tablet that I can use for all internet related needs.
Lisa has arranged an overnight kayak trip up the Yellowknife river. It'll be me, her and another guy, Steve, who works for the military and got awesome deal on rental kayaks and equipment for us.
At 7:00, we headed to the kayak place to sign for the equipment, then went to the Bullocks Bistro for supper. The specialize in a bunch of fresh local fish (pike, pickeral, arctic char, whitefish and others). Expensive, though. I had arctic char, which was $39.00.
Back to Lisa's place and we Skyped Jen Moller, just because. Then to bed.
And then the unthinkable happened. I dropped my phone. Smash, the front touch screen is completely busted. Only part of the touch screen actually works, so it's pretty much useless. I just bought it in January. Horrible. Anyway, it's a good thing I didn't need it for anything, as I have my tablet that I can use for all internet related needs.
Lisa has arranged an overnight kayak trip up the Yellowknife river. It'll be me, her and another guy, Steve, who works for the military and got awesome deal on rental kayaks and equipment for us.
At 7:00, we headed to the kayak place to sign for the equipment, then went to the Bullocks Bistro for supper. The specialize in a bunch of fresh local fish (pike, pickeral, arctic char, whitefish and others). Expensive, though. I had arctic char, which was $39.00.
Back to Lisa's place and we Skyped Jen Moller, just because. Then to bed.
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