Oscar's Place

So, we heard about this place. A secluded place. "You have to go there." "It's as much about the place as it is about Oscar." It's in the middle of the mountains "cut off" from civilisation... It's Oscar's place.

Oscar is a great guy who moved to the US for school and lived there for 30 years and then moved back to Minca and set up a self sufficient house using solar and hydro power. He is a very smart guy.

Oscar taking on yet another tourist "you can leave when you've beaten me" Dan has been there a month.

We arrived at sunset and the views and incredible. This was exactly the place we wanted to spend our last weekend.

The next day we went to a waterfall, primarily to cool off. Also, Sarah needed to wash her hair

We bumped into a lone horse, off to sell his merchandise at the market.

And a young boy who had a wheely bad go-kart

Then we had an incredible lunch and crawled back to Oscar's for some beers and reading time

The best thing about Oscars is the view from his bathroom. Who needs a corner wall with a view like that. You just never want to get out of the shower. Only awkward when someone doesn't know about the shower yet and decides to explore the house and peer around...

Trying to sneak a peak

There was a yoga teacher nearby so we thought, "when at Oscars..." So off we walked taking the short cut to Nelson's yoga studio, and what a place it was.

Needless to say, no matter how much Nelson told Sarah to take in the deeeeelisssssous air, nice nice nice, she just couldn't relax while the mosquito armada feasted on her head

Then we decided to have some fun with our last sunset of this amazing 6 months!

Eat your heart out DanielSon

Sarah getting in touch with her chakra

So... What a place to spend our final days of our trip. How do we some up these 6 months...

Super Bueno, muchisimas Gracias America del Sur, Tu estuviste increíble, y una boogiewoogie

 

 

Taganga and Tyrona

We arrived on the Caribbean coast with about 10 days left before we have to fly home! Therefore we decided we would turn this part of our6monthsoff into a holiday, not moving around too much and staying in one place would hopefully be really relaxing...

First order of business, a great hostel. La Casa de Felipe fits that criteria and the attached resturant run by chef Dominique is truely awesome!

Sarah enjoying the fresh fruit smoothies and one of the best stakes we have had in South America! They even had dauphinois!

We relaxed for two days, going to the beach and eating steak every night.

However with the cheapest place in the world to do the PADI open water course on our doorstep we thought it would be rude not to sign up for the three day program.

We signed up with Octopus Dive Center (yes that is how it is spelt Mum!) who were great and like a big family.

Getting ready for our first dive

Everything is A OK!

Naturals

Not quite as much as the Galapagos, but still some very cool stuff

Six dives completed, now it's onto the written test

Of course we passed, Fernando was our teacher, and if Sarah could understand the hand signals she could have had a free night dive. I wasn't even close to the prizes, but I still passed!

 

Three days of exhaustion, get us back to the beach. Tyrona national park here we come.

This is an incredible national park and we had a great time sleeping in the hammocks and chilling out on the deserted island beaches.

Our walk in took two hours and we lost about three litres in fluids, but it was amazing.

Then we arrived at this beach and we forgot how long we had been walking for

Accomodation for the night

Sarah practicing to see if it was possible to sleep in a hammock

All settled we had two days to sit back and enjoy the scenery.

Not sure what's going on near the waters edge...

 

Sarah so excited to be at the beach!!!

We had such a relaxing time at Tyrona and met some great people. However on our only night there, on what we thought was a relatively calm night, a 30 metre tall palm tree fell on a tent with a man inside. Incredibly, luckily he wasn't seriously hurt but the screams from the guy trapped under the palm tree were terrifying. At least in our group alone, there were two doctors!

These palm trees are HUGE!

The next morning

With time not on our side, we decided against the arduous hike and bus back in favour of the 40 minute speedboat. Good job we don't get seasick as it was like the captain was trying to break his PB during a mild storm. However once he moved a couple of people around to help with the areodynamics of the boat through the air things got a lot "smoother".

Next stop Minca!

 

Cartagena - a city hotter than the surface of the sun!

With time against us and the end of our trip in sight we didn't want to waste any more time on buses. It was time to hit the airports! Only problem was the weight limits on the Colombian version of Ryanair.

We have started to become compulsive buyers over the last few weeks, from purchases of hand held sewing machines ( argued by John "it will be useful, I want it") to large llama wool throws ("But Sarah we are homeless, where are we going to put it?"). Therefore our packs have escalated in size and weight from baby tortoise level to Winnebago!

Anyway, we make our flight and arrive in the Old Town which must have an invisible green house to ensure there is no air flow and the temperature is a constant 35C. Lucky our bedroom has a ceiling fan. The only problem is you either put it on full blast and then sweat from the potential danger of it coming loose from its mount or leave it on low and be cooked by the green house effect!

One positive on our first night was we met up with our good friend Elisa who was on her final night of a year long round the World trip. Did someone say Ceviche, Mojitos, and a Colombian with a crazy hat?

The following day we walked around the Old Town and enjoyed the views an the sun set. It's a beautiful city with colonial buildings and narrow streets.

Enjoying the sunset with a beer or two

 

As John was getting grumpy as he could not wear his pants for 3 days in a row in this heat, we decided to move on and take the four hour bus to Taganga. The cheapest place to dive and the start of our Caribbean holiday!

 

The Home of Pablo Escobar

After enjoying a relaxing time in Salento, we decided to take a short 6 hr "overnight" bus to Medellin! The home of the world famous drug lord Pablo Escobar. At one point one of the richest people in the world according to Forbes.

There is a great artist from Medellin, Botero, who paints everyone disproportionality, aka fat. This is his take on Pablo's murder (or suicide, if you speak to some people from Medellin).

Here are some of our other favourite Botero's

Adam and Eve

Perro

Viking (John's favourite)

Due to our over runs in other cities we were pushed for time in some of the central Colombian cities, including our stop in Medellin. We wanted to hit the Caribbean coast with as much time as possible. Therefore we could only fit in one night in Medellin, this was going to be hectic!

Day one - Pablo tour!

John really wanted to do this as he is mesmerised by Pablo! This is a guy who evaded the law for so long because no one could touch him as he was so powerful. He even held a political office at one point.

The tour started with one of his offices that was attacked by a rival gang. All his assets were confiscated by the Colombian government in '93 following his death, and this building is just starting to be renovated. Things happen fast in South America.

 

Next stop his grave - this was interesting as he killed so many innocent people, estimated to have killed several thousand people, yet there were flowers at his grave. This is because he realised he could never be truely safe in Medellin, unless he had the backing of the people. Therefore he built hospitals, houses, football pitches and tried to be a modern day Robin Hood. Taking $25m a day from the Americans and investing a small proportion in Medellin.

We then stopped off at his brother Roberto's house which is a shrine to Pablo.

Here is the first car Pablo used to smuggle drugs from Ecuador (the producer of cocaine), before sending it to the US.

One of his many jets

Us with his brother (the accountant of the cartel) with the wanted poster for his and his brothers arrest

Interesting Pablo facts:

1. About 1-2% of his gross revenue had to be written off due to; money being hidden and then lost; water damage; or rats eating it. That's about $100m dollars annually!
2. While the $10m wanted poster was out for his arrest he and his brother flew to the US in their private jet and took photos outside the White House.
3. He used to put on exhibition football games with a rival drug dealer, betting about $2m per game. They would select 11 players each from the worlds greatest teams, fly them in, let them play, fly them out, then settle up the debt; and
4. And finally at the end of our tour, his brother said he has cured HIV/Aids

Clearly his brother has been using to much of their product and is now crazy!

But Pablo is only one part of Medellin's history and we wanted to get the bigger picture, so the next day we joined the Real City Walking Tour of Medellin. We had been recommended this by everyone we know who has gone to Medellin. However our first impression of Medellin was nothing special, so our guide, aptly named Pablo, had a lot of convincing to do.

Our first stop was the tube station to get into the centre.

A great view of the city and mountains

Remember this city was more dangerous than Lebenon in the late 80's/90's. This is crazy considering that Lebenon was in civil war. However now it has been voted one of the most innovative cities in the world, and has hosted the junior World Cup and some athletics events.

This sculpture is meant to symbolise Medellin's history during its ups and downs

This large collection of pillars in the Parque de la Luz was once one of this most dangerous parts of Medellin, and is now a great place to relax. Although the lights on the pillars only began working this summer 4 years after the pillars were erected. Things take time in South America.

A great example of the South American, or more specifically this time, Colombian mentality. This beautiful building was designed and half built by a Swiss arcitect in the early 19th century. Due to pressure from opposite sides of the government the arcitect became fed up and left. Therefore the town was left to finish it itself. They didnt. They just turned an interior wall into an exterior one.

These two sculptures symbolise where Medellin was and where it is going. The bird on the left was blown up during a busy weekend at the square killing several people. The artist, Botero, wanted the remains to stay as a reminded to the people to help them strive for a better life, and so he installed another dove to symbolise this.

After 4 hours, Pedro had convinced us and we really had a great time in Medellin and as ever, wanted to stay longer. The empanadas were also incredible and helped with persuasion.

Next stop Cartagena!