A few years ago when Skyler first proposed this idea of leaving our jobs, packing up everything, and traveling the world for a while, that was my first question. For our friends brave enough to ask, it’s their first question too. I thought it was something only rich retired folks could do. Fortunately, I was wrong. By staying close to the ground and traveling like a local — using public transportation, staying in family owned guesthouses, eating at local restaurants — traveling was often cheaper than just our monthly rent back in Atlanta.

From the beginning, we’ve been reporting our expenses in each country. The idea was to share with our readers how accessible and downright affordable so many countries are to travel in. So, for my fellow budget nerds, straight out of my fancy-pants multi-tabbed Excel spreadsheet (Skyler is still teasing me about how much I love my RTW Spreadsheet), here is a summary of everything we spent in 13 months of travel.

397 Days, 5 Continents, 20 Countries = $46,157.77. $58.13/person/day.

Spending per Segment (for 2 people)

So if you exclude our transportation expenses (see below), we spent less than $50 per person per day!

Airfare and International Overland Transportation

By the Numbers

• Most expensive segments of the trip: African Safari and Galapagos cruise. Also, arguably, our most awesome and memorable segments of the trip. Other expensive countries to note were Singapore and Germany, hence our short stays there.
• Least expensive segment of the trip: Not counting our 2 days in Romania, it’s the 41 days we spent in India, spending just a little over $25/person/day while doing a LOT of moving around and splurging for our anniversary (see below).
• Most expensive flight: Mumbai, India to Livingstone, Zambia on Kenya Airlines at $837/person.
• Least expensive flight: Phuket, Thailand to Bangkok, Thailand on Air Asia for $40/person
• Most expensive hotel: ITC Mughal in Agra, India, an $85/night treat to ourselves on our fifth wedding anniversary.
• Least expensive hotel: Green Inn in Chiang Khong, Thailand. A private room (with TV!) for just $6.67/night prior to catching the slow boat to Laos.

Budgeting Tips

• Save up your Skymiles. Primarily thanks to all the traveling I did for work, we had a decent bank of frequent flier miles and hotel points to use at various points on the trip. Our initial flight from Atlanta to Bangkok was paid entirely with Delta Skymiles. We used Marriott points when in expensive cities, or just when we needed a break from cheapie rooms. We’re big fans of our Chase Marriott credit card, which includes 1 free night a year as part of the low annual fee and doesn’t charge international transaction fees.
• Travel slow. You can find affordable places to stay, things to do, and places to eat just about everywhere. The biggest hit to your budget will be how much moving around you do. Traveling fast also wears you down, causing serious travel fatigue.
• Become a “Temporary Local.” By traveling slow, you can rent an apartment, take public transportation, get to know your corner grocer, find the best noodle shop, be invited to play chess by the old guys at the park, maybe play some street cricket with the local kids. It’s culturally enriching and just so happens to save you money!
• Limit your time in expensive countries. We focused our itinerary on places where we knew our money could stretch. Australia, Japan, Chile, Western Europe — we’ll catch you later!
• Stay flexible, track your spending, and don’t be afraid to splurge. We hadn’t originally planned on going to Africa or the Galapagos. But by tracking our expenses, we realized we were under budget and could afford it. Sure, we spent as much in 3 weeks in Africa as we had spent in the 3 months before that. But it was totally worth it.
• Save up for re-entry. You probably don’t want to come home running on budgetary fumes. We set a stash of our trip fund aside to cover our expenses for several months when we returned home. We didn’t want to feel forced to take the first job opportunity that came along if it wasn’t a good fit.

It was posts like this on other blogs that helped us realize taking some time off from the rat-race was totally do-able. We hope others find this helpful, informational, inspiring, or, at the very least, convince you that we aren’t spoiled trust-fund kids!

Curious about our spending in a specific country? Click here for a list of our budget reports on each segment of the trip.

We don’t want to complain, though, because Aruba has gorgeous beaches with some of the most beautiful water we’ve seen anywhere on Earth.  Our resort beach had friendly flamingos on patrol.  And for our last dinner of the trip, we caught the bus down the island for some fresh seafood and local beer at a little waterside shack.

Zeerover’s isn’t exactly a secret — it was packed when we went — but with good reason.  Here’s the set up: you walk up to the window, order shrimp and fish by weight, the lady scoops out your fresh caught order from the cooler, they throw it straight into the fryer as you grab a picnic bench, and your seafood comes out in a big greasy basket.  Shrimp, fish, plantains, local Balashi beer, and sunset views by the water.  It was a quiet, bittersweet meal because we knew we would be back in the U.S. within 24 hours, trying to cobble life back together.  But it’s hard to be sad at a seafood shack in Aruba after you’ve traveled for 13 months.  We felt sad, grateful, but also ready.  It was time to go home.

We discussed the very best places we visited in South America, the experiences that really left an impression on us and have boiled it down to a workable, fun two-week itinerary.  In short, you’ve got to do Machu Picchu and the Galapagos!

Day 1:  Catch a Friday night flight into Lima.

Day 2:  Spend the day in Lima wandering the catacombs of the Monastery of San Francisco and eating lots of good food.

Day 3:  Catch a morning flight to Cusco.  Spend the rest of the day acclimatizing in Cusco.

Day 4:  Relaxing in Cusco, taking in museums, shopping, walking the large central square, and drinking coca tea.

Days 5-8:  Hike the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, a truly unforgettable experience.  You can read about our hike here.

Day 9:  Fly to Quito and overnight in Quito. If you aren’t on a strict timetable, buying a last-minute Galapagos cruise in person here will save you hundreds of dollars.

Days 10-15:  Fly to the Galapagos and board your cruise!  Get ready for swimming with sea lions and other up-close wildlife encounters.

Day 15:  This should be a Saturday, and it’s time to go home!

Day 16:  Rest at home.

If you’ve got an additional week, we’d recommend flying into Cartagena, Colombia for a taste of this city’s beaches and colonial charm. If a long weekend is all you have, Cartagena is the best destination for that — JetBlue and Spirit both offer inexpensive service there from several U.S. cities.

Ancient ruins, a scenic hike, amazing wildlife encounters, and a luxe cruise — sounds like a killer vacation to us!  So what are you waiting for?  Start brushing up on your Spanish skills and go!

We’re continuing to post our spending numbers as a resource for other travelers. Here is a breakdown of what we spent for two people over 41 days in Colombia — traveling through Cali, Manizales, Salamina, Medellin, Cartagena, Santa Marta, Costeño Beach, Palomino, and Riohacha.

The currency in Colombia is the Colombian Peso (COP) and the exchange rate was roughly 1920 COP to $1 USD in January/early February 2014.

Daily Spending

Here is a breakdown of our daily spending:

This works out to about $88/day for two people.

A few notes on our spending:

• Major activity expenses included my trek to Ciudad Perdida ($156 for only me), tickets to the big concert at the Feria de Cali ($72/person), entrance to Tayrona National Park ($20/each), a bullfight, a salsa show, and various entries to museums and other cultural sites.
• We averaged about $29/night on lodging. We paid as little as $18/night for nice private rooms with private baths in small towns like Salamina, Pasto, and Buga. On the coast we paid significantly more for significantly less (it was high season) — $60/night in Cartagena and slightly less elsewhere along the coast. We used AirBnb to rent rooms in apartments in both Medellin and Cartagena and got a lot more bang for our buck than staying in hostels or guesthouses.
• We spent about $30/day on food and drink. Not too many guesthouses in Colombia include breakfast so this is for 3 meals a day for 2 people, plus snacks and drinks. We did a lot of menu del dias for lunch and ate a lot of pollo asado (rotisserie chicken) for dinner.  Arepas, plantains, rice, and beans definitely get old after a while.
• Transportation includes inter-city buses and taxis/metro rides within cities. Buses are really expensive in Colombia — about 3x what they cost in Ecuador. In many cases, it’s actually more economical to fly. For example, we flew from Medellin to Cartagena for just $40/each on LAN. The bus was $75/each and took 12 hours. Tip: Look at the local versions of websites for the major airlines or use a consolidator like despegar.com for the best rates. You may have to go through a local travel agent to actually book the fares, since most websites only accept Colombian credit cards. And yet another reason that Colombia is awesome — they have the most honest taxi drivers on the planet. Everyone either used their meter or charged the official published fare.
• Miscellaneous expenses include the usual: toiletries, a haircut, postcards, laundry, a few small souvenirs. Another tip: bring your own sunscreen and contact lens solution if you can, those items are both 2-3x the price of what they cost at home.
• No immigration fees/visas are required for US citizens. However, there is a $38/person exit tax on all passengers departing by plane who stay for 60 days or less. We were also charged a smaller local airport tax at the airport in Riohacha. Neither of those were included in our airfare.
• This includes only our spending in the country. It excludes our airfare/train here and upfront costs like immunizations, travel insurance, etc.

Colombia is definitely a budget friendly destination, but in all honesty wasn’t as affordable as we expected. It was easily more expensive than Ecuador and Peru, perhaps because we were there in the December/January school holidays. Either way, Colombia is awesome and will only get more expensive in the coming years as it becomes more popular.

Curious about the costs of the other countries we have traveled through? Click here for our other budget updates. And get excited — a comprehensive summary of what it cost us to travel the world for 13 months will be coming your way soon. Spoiler Alert: It’s not as expensive as you might think.

Stretching east from Cartagena, Colombia’s northern coast spools out like a ribbon of white-sand, blue-water beaches until it dries up near Venezuela.  Colorful local buses clanking down a narrow two-lane highway link secluded beaches together.  We spent about two weeks meandering our way down this highway, the perfect end to our round-the-world trip.  But first, Jordan had to play Indiana Jones.

Jungle Booking It — a hike to the Lost City

With just a month left in our trip Skyler decided to spend a few days in the hammocks of our hostel in Santa Marta polishing up her resume and sending out applications. I decided to disappear into the jungle.

I spent 4 days hiking to Ciudad Perdida (the “Lost City”), a place that was never lost to the indigenous people of the Sierra Nevada mountains and was discovered by outsiders when grave-robbers found it in 1972 while searching for gold. Those grave robbers had good reason — even though Colombia is full of gold and emeralds, the indigenous culture is not materialistic, and the dead are buried here with all of their possessions. Due to it being in FARC-controlled territory, the Lost City has really only been safe for tourists for about a decade.

It was a difficult hike — much tougher than the Inca Trail in Peru that we hiked a few months before  — over 44 km with lots of steep climbs and descents and multiple knee-deep river crossings. The most difficult part of it for me, though, was the heat and humidity. Each night we would arrive at our camp — simple A-frame buildings with hammocks and mosquito nets strung up side-by-side — soaked in sweat. Each morning, my fancy quick-dry gear was still soaking wet. The saving grace was the beautiful natural pools at each camp formed by bends in the river that we followed. Draped by jungle vines, waterfalls, and giant boulders, the cold water was the perfect end to each day’s hike.

We reached the city itself on Day 3 (alternatively, the 5 day version which costs the same price reaches the city on day 4). Since I had booked through Wiwa Tours, an agency owned and operated by the indigenous people, I was fortunate to have an indigenous guide showing us through his sacred city. Ciudad Perdida was built around 800 AD, making it 650 years older than Machu Picchu.  It’s also far more remote and the ruins are more spread out — 169 terraces connected by tiled roads, now mostly covered by the jungle. It was covered in thick fog while we were there, adding to the mysterious atmosphere.

Although the city itself is no Machu Picchu, it was a fun and challenging 4 day hike in the jungle. If you’re reading this and thinking about doing it yourself, I have a few tips:

• The clothes you hike in will never dry overnight. I recommend saving a clean, dry set of clothes to sleep in.
• Despite the heat during the day, it gets quite chilly at night. Each of the camps gave us smelly blankets but I also recommend packing a jacket (I didn’t and really regret it).
• The food was plentiful and mostly quite good, but was a little carb-heavy for me. Pack some nuts or other high-energy snacks to supplement.
• You could get by without bringing any extra money — plenty of snacks and all the water you need is provided. But, there are little stores along the way and at each camp selling sodas, beer, candy, etc. None of it is especially expensive. And you definitely deserve a cold beer at the end.
• I didn’t sleep especially well in the hammocks, neither did most of our group. We were all happy we decided on the 4 day trek instead of the 5 day for that reason alone.
• Especially on the 5 day trek, there is lots of downtime. Bring a book and a deck of cards.
• Each of the basic camps along the way was well equipped and had clean western-style toilets, showers, and awesome swimming holes. A huge difference from the nasty Inca Trail toilets! Evidently we have our American tax dollars to thank for this. The facilities on the trek were all built with funds from the US Foreign Aid office. We even met a Peace Corps volunteer working out there.
• I went with Wiwa Tours because it was the only agency owned and operated by the indigenous people of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. One night, we stayed at a camp where our guide lived with his family and we met his wife and kids. The other groups all seem to have similar experiences, though, and all charge the same price regardless of if you choose the 4 or 5 day option (600,000 COP as of January 2014).
• I booked the trek in Santa Marta the night before I started, no need to book in advance.
• You’ll be tired, sweaty, dirty and smelly when you get back. We splurged on a nice private room with AC at the Dreamers Hostel (has a pool!) in Santa Marta. It was an excellent decision.
• Don’t forget bug spray. You can buy super-intense 50% DEET spray here in Colombia, but keep it in a plastic bag because it eats through everything.

And now back to Skyler…

Amor on a moto

While Jordan was off in the wilderness, I decided to explore Minca with our friend Sally one day.  Minca is a dusty one-street mountain town near Santa Marta famous for a nearby waterfall and coffee farm.  Sally and I wandered around and visited a shop selling chocolate made on premises and grown up the hill, but we’d come for coffee!  The coffee finca, however, was a two hour walk uphill from Minca.  Our only other option was to take one of the moto taxis driven by local teenage boys.

We negotiated the price, climbed on, and they rocketed off.  My driver, as he gunned us up twisty dirt roads, kept turning around to shout back compliments and questions in Spanish in true Colombian style:  “Where are you from?  You are so beautiful!  Do you have a husband?  Do you have a boyfriend?  Yes, a husband is different from a boyfriend!  Would you like a boyfriend?  How old are you?  I’m 21, no, 25!”

All the while I’m holding on to this boy for dear life, yelling at him to keep his eyes on the road, but I think it came out as “Our eyes are in the street!”

Reply: My eyes are on you!

Me: I know!

We got there, somehow, safe and sound.  The coffee was excellent.

The more the merrier?

Tayrona National Park is one of the crown jewels of Colombia.  A beautiful beach awaits at the end of a two-hour hike through jungles, palm groves, and coastline.  We heard people swooning over it, talking about nights stargazing and sleeping in hammocks.  While Tayrona has luxe and expensive Eco-huts, there are also three main campsites for us budget travelers.  We chose to camp on Cabo San Juan, the site farthest from the entrance and situated on a breathtaking beach.  We’re thinking, this is going to be great!

The day started on a promising note, as a friendly Colombian family picked us up inside the park entrance and gave us a lift down to the start of the trail, saving us an hour and a half of sweaty work.  We set off for Cabo through truly stunning scenery, and even spotting a monkey and a curious red squirrel.  We arrived around noon, ready to claim our hammock and relax on the beach.

The supremely uninterested man behind the help desk told us that we had to come back at 2 to see what they had available that night.  We turn around to see the beautiful beach jam-packed with what must have been the entire population of Argentina.  Uh-oh, did we just hike for two hours merely to be stranded without a place to sleep tonight? Two hours later, commence vicious scrum for remaining accommodations — no more hammocks, and no more tents with mats, we were lucky to get a tent requiring us to sleep on the hard ground.

Due to the crowds, there was a line for everything, for the bathrooms, and especially to get (overpriced, warmed over) food.  In a stroke of penny-pinching genius, we had brought our own food, feasting on tuna, crackers, fruit, and PB&Js whenever we wanted.

The park was still lovely, and a worthwhile stop, but one night was more than enough.

Coconuts for the taking

Our next stop was Costeño Beach, a secluded place about half an hour east of Tayrona.  The bus dropped us off and it was another 30 minute walk through palm groves to reach the only place out there:  Costeño Beach Eco Lodge and Surf Camp.  Isn’t it hard to believe this beautiful stretch of Caribbean  beach is so entirely deserted and undeveloped?  And what luck:  the day we arrived, the owner’s Irish uncles had decided to roast an entire pig for dinner that night!

There’s not much to do on Costeño beyond surfing, sunbathing, collecting fresh coconuts in order to hack them open for their innards, and walking down to a beautiful freshwater lagoon.  And that’s sort of the point.  It’s one of those places that we ask ourselves:  Wonder what this place will look like in 10 years?

Palomino dreamin’

Tucked in between the ocean and the Sierra Nevada mountains, we actually liked this beach even better than Costeño!  While still off the beaten path, Palomino has some options when it comes to sleeping and eating, the beach is prettier, and there’s an excellent tubing trip nearby.  We had to do it, so one day we grabbed some inner tubes, hopped on back of a moto (not another one!), hiked through jungle for half an hour and finally came upon a pristine river.  We floated down the mountain in cold, clear water through the jungle with exotic birds flitting by, including floating through an entire group of hummingbirds at one point!  The river ends spectacularly at the Caribbean Sea, and from there it’s a quick walk back down the beach to town.

Many of the beachfront restaurants in Palomino have excellent juices and seafood.  We had fresh juices on the beach every afternoon (maybe with a little local ron (rum) added in) and ended every day with freshly caught fish with plantains, rice, and plenty of lime.  We stayed here for four nights and could have lingered and lingered….

Alas, this was the last leg of our trip.  Unbelievable!  Colombia, with its festive spirit and friendly people, ended up being one of our favorite countries of the entire trip, and we left it with a heavy heart.

Next, it was off to our surprise final destination, where we socialized with flamingos and ate baskets full of shrimp.  Stay tuned ….

Cartagena’s got a vibrant Afro-Latin-Carribean vibe, the result of disparate people and cultures thrown together through Spanish colonization, piracy, and the slave trade and left to stew for a couple of centuries.  It’s a lot like St Augustine, Florida, another Spanish colonial town with a fort and located close to the beach, but Cartegena feels more wild, more vibrant and colorful.

Cartagena’s got three general areas where you can spend your time.  There’s the Old City, romantic old colonial buildings still nestled within 16th-century Spanish fortifications; the funky up and coming Getsemani neighborhood; and the beaches and high rises along Bocagrande, along with the beachy islands nearby.

The Old City is made for wandering around as dusk turns into night — the old streetlights come on, horse-drawn carriages clip-clop through the narrow streets, and every few blocks it seems there’s a picturesque square where you can stop for a drink or a coffee.

Getsemani is a bit scruffier and rough around the edges.  It’s got most of the bars and nightlife, but it can also offer a glimpse of non-touristy Cartagena.  We wandered into Plaza Trinidad one Sunday night and it was one of the best experiences we had on the Caribbean coast.  Kids were running around the square, families strolled by, and vendors sold snacks as everyone hung out and talked with their neighbors.  A horse pulling a simple buggy loaded with local kids went in circles around the square, a pint-sized driver at the reigns.  Then, suddenly, a dance party breaks out on the square and everybody — locals, tourists, kids, old folks, get down and boogy!  I love this town!

Although we stayed in Bocagrande, we didn’t explore the beaches around Cartagena.  From what we saw, the beaches here are nothing spectacular and we’ve got some unspoiled, beautiful Caribbean beaches to share with you (posting soon!) just a few hours east of Cartagena.  The best part about staying in Bocagrande is we were right down the street from my favorite Colombian restaurant Crepes and Waffles (yes, it’s really Colombian!).  They do yummy salads, such a nice break after all that starch, and they have a great version of limonada de coco –– lemonade with coconut, a refreshing Cartagena specialty.

All this charm comes with a price tag of course.  Cartagena is not a budget destination, but there are ways to save your pesos.  Instead of shelling out $10 for a sunset cocktail at the famous and famously expensive Cafe del Mar situated on the old city walls overlooking the water, you can grab a seat right next door to the cafe on the wall and buy a few beers from the wandering vendors.  There are tons of expensive seafood restaurants, but La Mulatta in the Old City ($8 set seafood lunches!) and the Blue Lagoon in Getsemani ($10 for a huge plate of fresh ceviche) each offer stellar seafood at reasonable prices.  Still, Cartagena would be a great place to splurge.

We’re already planning a post-employment Jordan and Skyler seafood-feasting, mojito-drinking, beach-lazing, Sunday-night-dancing Long Weekend in Cartagena!

Pablo took us to Plaza Bolivar and said he remembers when this part of town used to be absolutely forbidden if you didn’t want to get kidnapped or killed.  Now, it’s filled with statues donated by Medellin’s most famous artist, Fernando Bolivar, and families stroll through the park, eating ice cream and posing with the art.

People from Medellin will be quick to tell you that their city is the only one in Colombia with a metro system (an above-ground subway).  As opposed to the subway in every other city I’ve ever visited, the metro in Medellin is absolutely spotless.  People do not throw their trash on the rails, they do not scrawl graffiti in the cars.  People here take a tremendous pride in this civic accomplishment, a symbol of their renaissance, and they take meticulous care of it.  Just for kicks one day, Jordan and I rode the metro to where it connects to a cable car system that goes up the mountain into what used to be Medellin’s worst neighborhoods, where even the police refused to go.  Through a security-minded president nicknamed “The Iron Fist” and a philanthropic mayor who’s built schools in those slums, this and other parts of Medellin are now safe to visit.

Any visit to Medellin would not be complete without the gut-busting lunch known as bandeja paisa.  Chorizo, morcilla (blood sausage), chicharron (fried pork belly), minced meat, beans, rice, arepas, plaintains, avocado, and a fried egg to crown the entire caloric heap.  It’s a heart attack on a plate and it is delicious.  We got our fix at Restaurante Hacienda, a place on a pedestrian street with pleasant open-air seating where the staff dresses in traditional costumes.  Don’t let that last bit put you off — the food here is the real deal.

Right next door to the restaurant is El Astor Tea Salon, where we got an amazing slice of Colombian wedding cake, a local specialty.  It’s a rum-raisin cake, something I do not normally like, but this was flavorful, moist, and really wonderful.  Their chocolates also looked to-die-for (the place was started by a Swiss couple, so you know it does good chocolate!)

I can’t honestly say Medellin was my favorite city in South America, but it’s a real success story, with wonderful people and great food.  It deserves the second chance it’s working so hard for.

We had a lot of expectations about visiting Colombia’s La Zona Cafetera (coffee country).  My coffee nerd husband, who spends his mornings carefully weighing and grinding his beans before hand-brewing a single mug of coffee, was especially excited. We assumed, for example, that visiting the premier coffee growing region in a country renowned for its coffee would be similar to a visit to Bordeaux for oenophiles or touring craft breweries on the West Coast — drinking the best of the best at the source.

Not so.  Sadly, the best of Colombia’s coffee is exported abroad, leaving Colombians with inferior product or even (gasp!) instant coffee.  We’ve been told that Colombians actually prefer the instant stuff because they think this is what people from rich countries drink.  I’m skeptical of that claim, but even if it’s true, they’re a decade or so behind the times.  At trendy coffee shops in Atlanta, for example, you fork over $5 for a single origin, shade grown, organic, blah blah fancy-pants Colombian coffee.  Most of the coffee on offer from all the little corner shops and street vendors here is called tinto, served in tiny shot glasses with lots of sugar out of giant percolator-type machines for around 500 pesos (25 cents).  It’s uniformly awful.

Despite the disappointment, we did tour Hacienda Venecia, a coffee farm near Manizales (which saves some of the really good stuff for tourists like us).  We walked through their coffee fields and processing facilities, learning about the coffee process from planting to harvesting to roasting to drinking. At the end of the tour we could drink all of the coffee we wanted for free.

We stayed at a wonderful and quiet little guesthouse, The Secret Garden, out in the countryside about 5 kms from a suburb of Manizales.  It’s run by a young American couple — Daniel is half Colombian and half Ecuadorian and his wife, Eliesha, cooked wonderful breakfasts and dinners for us every night.  It’s the sort of place where you can easily spend an entire day on the porch hammocks, reading, looking at the view, maybe taking a walk down some of the flower-lined country lanes to watch the fireflies come out at dusk.

And even though it was out in the country, getting to the big city of Manizales, as we did one day to catch the local Feria festivities, was really pretty easy.  First, you catch the local bus, the chiva.  Brightly painted and packed to the gills, we squeezed in next to babies and big piles of bananas for the bouncy ride to town.  You can take the chiva straight into Manizales or you can get off at the square in Villa Maria, a suburb, and take the brand new cable car into town.  The cable car opened the week we were there and there was constantly a long line of locals who wanted to hop on and have a ride just for fun!

We caught a horse parade in Manizales, bet 50 pesos on a guinea pig (and won!), and on our walk back to the Hostal, participated in the local game, tejo.  Tejo is similar to the game of cornhole that we normally play at football tailgates and it works like this.  There’s a metal ring in the middle of a board covered in mud.  The ring is lined with gunpowder charges.  Players drink copious amounts of aguardiente and beer and then throw a large heavy stone at the board, hoping to hit the inside of the ring and make the gunpowder explode.  I’m happy to report that at the “mini-tejo” bar we went to (meaning we threw from a distance of 8 meters as opposed to 18 meters as required for regular tejo), Jordan, myself, and our new friends Pat and Karen all got an explosion.

Meandering back after mini-tejo, we came upon where the real tejo players congregate.  We could hear the bangs and smell the gunpowder as we walked up.  We watched for a while, and then the players noticed us, and pulled us in.  One guy (who goes by Gaucho, his tejo “sobre nombre” or nick name), bought us a round of beers, another guy took Pat and Jordan to the back and showed proper tejo technique, and the friendliest one-armed man I’ve ever met bought us a whole bottle of aguardiente.  We cheered the guys on (“Go Tamale!”  “Nice shot, Caballo!”), giving out high fives and fending off additional drinks.  This truly local place — full of heavy drinkers, large projectiles whizzing through the air, and constant explosions — gave us a great insight into Colombian culture and hospitality and was one of the best nights we’d had in a long time.

Five Colombians in a room invariably turns into a party. — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Music, in fact, was the whole point of our first stop in Colombia: Cali.  The self-styled salsa capital of a dance-crazy country, we were here for the very height of the fever.  We were in town for Feria, the week long fair between Christmas and New Years marked with parades, parties, concerts, and general mayhem.

A promising start

Our very first day in Cali is a strong contender for best-first-day-in-a-country superlative (yes, there will be superlatives in a later post!).  After eating a huge breakfast at the brand new Cali Marriott (so new, in fact, we watched them building the terrace outside the dining room over our eggs and coffee), we headed out for a look around town.

After meandering through Cali’s handsome, tropical main square and buying some guarapo — freshly squeezed sugarcane juice with lime — to beat the heat, we stumbled upon another party in a church square.  We had found the Feria’s El Dia del Pacifico, a celebration of Colombia’s Afro-Carribean population along its Pacific coast.  Kids in traditional costumes danced to music with a beat that lived somewhere between Africa and Spain, and vendors were selling all manor of coastal goodies.  Still full from breakfast, we sat down to share a bowl of sancocho, a soup with seafood broth, plaintains, and yucca.  The Colombians sitting across from us clearly thought we looked thin and starving (why, thank you!) and kept feeding us bites of coconut rice, tostones (fried mashed plaintains) and fresh fish from their own plates.  Like everyone else we have met in this friendly country, they seemed delighted that we were there, and wished us a hearty “Bienvenidos a Colombia!”

Stuffed from our unexpectedly huge lunch, we rested for a while before meeting up with our Swiss friends David and Claudia, a fun couple we’d met in Arequipa, Peru.  We started the evening with some beers and dinner at las tascas, little food and drink vendors that take over a public park for Feria.  Then, the highlight of the evening: the Superconcierto!  Don Omar and Marc Anthony were playing to a packed stadium for the Feria’s headliner music event, and we had tickets.  We showed up to find the party already in full swing, people standing on their seats, shaking their hips, and belting out the love ballads.  Vendors don’t sell beer and hot dogs at the Superconcierto — only entire bottles of rum and lechona — stuffed roasted whole pig!  What a great country!

Parades and La Ruuumba

We got a bit of a slow start the next morning, but we needed to be up in time for the Cali Viejo Carnaval-style parade.  People in the parade deck themselves out in fantastic costumes and elaborate face paint and strut their stuff while the onlookers have a massive shaving cream war on the sidelines.

You can’t go to Cali and not try your hand, just a little, at la rumba (the dancing).  Feeling quite swish, Jordan and I went to a nightclub one night at the top of the Torre de Cali, the city’s tallest building, once again bought a half bottle of rum (it’s all they had!), and watched the most impressive display of dancing I’ve ever seen.  We watched professional dancers move their feet so fast they were a blur, float across the dance floor, and generally do things with their bodies that left these gringos with their jaw on the floor.  In between the pros, the spectators took the floor, and these people were amazing, too!  As one cab driver told us when we expressed our amazement at how EVERYONE in Cali is an incredible dancer, “It’s in our blood!”  Well, whether it’s in our blood or not (it’s not), I dragged Jordan out for a dance or two before we retreated back to our table.

Meanwhile at the Plaza de Toros…

Speaking of sangre (blood), another integral part of Feria are the daily bullfights.  I opted out of this spectacle, not having the stomach or desire to go.  Jordan went, though, and here’s his report:

On Sunday afternoon I met up once again with David and Claudia and hopped into a cab down to the Plaza de Toros. The atmosphere of the bullfight was just like in the movies. Men wearing Panama hats and ponchos, guzzling water (or perhaps aguardiente) out of leather canteens. Elderly couples keeping score with pad and pencil while listening to the play-by-play on a small radio. It felt like going to my first baseball game, only we were the only gringos in the crowd. A brass band played Spanish marches as the action unfolded while a snare drum and bugle announced the beginning and end of each round. Three matadors faced two bulls each. Since my Mom is reading this, I’ll leave out the gory bits, but you can read about how a bullfight plays out here.

Matadors are the ultimate showmen. Playing up the crowd, staring down the bull in their elaborate gold-shouldered costumes. The matador who received top billing was Juan Jose Padilla, a Spaniard who wears an eye-patch and whose nickname is “The Pirate.” I thought it was part of his elaborate act, fighting the bull with just one eye and waving around his skull-and-crossbones flag during a sort of victory lap. Later, I found out he was involved in a brutal accident (don’t click on that link if you are the least bit squeamish) that cost him one eye and half his face. Remarkably, he returned to the ring just months afterwards. Bullfighting is brutal and bloody. Catalonia banned it in 2010 to much controversy locally, and Ecuador has banned the actual public killing of the bull at the end of a fight. I wouldn’t go again. But just like a baseball game, I enjoyed the atmosphere more than the game itself.

New Year’s Eve

After nearly a week straight of shaking hips, pressing crowds, shaving cream fights, and parties on every corner, we were ready for a rowdy New Year’s Eve.  We got dressed in our best, made sure we had plenty of pesos, and headed out into a city that was deader than disco.  We walked to the tasca-park — deserted.  We headed over to the main nightlife drag — it was silent and so empty we walked right down the middle of the street.  It was downright eerie.  Where was everyone?  Turns out that while Christmas Eve will find the city heaving with partiers out making merry at bars and restaurants, New Year’s Eve in Colombia is a strictly family holiday.  People stay in, cook a big meal, and dance in their houses till early in the morning.   All we knew is that we were hungry and every single door we passed was dark.  “Wait,” Jordan said, “there’s a Domino’s around the corner from our place.”  Desperate times, desperate measures, and we hustled to the Domino’s only to find the workers locking up as we arrived.  In the end, we went back to the hotel, got into our PJs, and dined on room service hamburgers and a bottle of wine as we watched a very drunk Kathy Griffin harass Anderson Cooper on the CNN New Year’s Eve show. It was actually kind of intimate, cozy, and certainly a memorable way to say goodbye to our year of traveling and welcome whatever comes in 2014.

Gringo Town

The town of Cuenca is a clean, charming little place without much to do other than marvel at all the elderly white people — this place is chock full of retired American expats.  With so many signs and conversations in English, we felt like we were in an old Spanish town in the US sometimes.  Still, a nice change from Quito.  As Jordan said, “At least I don’t feel like I’m about to be stabbed every time I step out the door.”

The alliterative highlights of Cuenca: cookies and Cajas.  

One day we wandered into a side entrance of the Todos Santos church and found a treasure:  a bakery filled with goodies homemade by nuns!  Incredible chocolate truffles, alfajores (caramel cookies), and cakes.  Sisters, shame on you for baking such sinful sweets.

We worked off some of those calories with a morning hike at Cajas National Park outside of town.  One of the TripAdvisor reviews calls it “Wales on steroids.”  Never having been to Wales, I can’t comment on that, but it does feel like the sort of damp, windy place where you might run across people named Catherine or Heathcliff.  Criss-crossed by rivers, lakes, and waterfalls, it is undoubtedly beautiful.

Smokin’

There’s a good reason why some locals know the stretch of the Pan-American highway between Quito and Cuenca as Volcano Alley.  This long, fertile Andean valley is surrounded by nine volcanoes.  Nine!  Two of them, Cotopaxi and Sangay, just so happen to be among the world’s most active volcanoes. So of course we decided we needed to get as close as possible to the summit of Cotopaxi, Ecuador’s highest active volcano.  We didn’t do the two-day climb to the top, but we did trudge up through a sudden snowstorm to the refuge perched nearly 16,000 feet in the sky, the highest elevation we’ve ever been to.  Cotopaxi, with its textbook cone shape, last blew its top in 1904, and our guide said it’s due any day for its next eruption.

Purple drank, vol. 2

Our next stop was Otavalo for its famous Saturday market.  Our love of markets is well documented on this blog, but Otavalo left us underwhelmed.  Maybe we’re getting weary, but more likely it’s that the local Otavalo market is no longer local.  Those llama ponchos and cheap tchochkes aren’t for Ecuadorians.  We did really enjoy Otavalo’s beautiful main square, which was even better all decorated for Christmas, and eating at the local pop-up food stalls at night.  That’s where we discovered colada morada, a delicious local holiday drink made with purple corn, juice and spices, served hot with chunks of fruit inside.

Christmas in the cloud forest

The undisputed highlight of our time on mainland Ecuador came right at the end, at Christmas.  We splurged on a few nights at El Refugio Cloud Forest Lodge, a remote lodge in Ecuador’s Intag cloud forest reserve, nestled among beautiful hills and abutting a gurgling river.  Beautifully decorated with local furniture and handicrafts, the lodge is owned by Peter, a kindly, avuncular retired American schoolteacher.  He’s joined on the property by a lovely Ecuadorian couple, Oswaldo and Lupe, who act as caretaker and cook, respectively.  An enthusiastic bird watcher, Peter was there during our stay and kindly offered to share his hobby with us, an invitation I bet he later rued.  We are terrible bird watchers.  We have trouble seeing the birds, even with Peter saying, “Right there!”, we make too much noise or get too close and scare them off.  We did take a trip to an adjacent property to watch the Cock of the Rock birds, showy red animals with a protuberant head that scuffle every day for bragging and mating rights.

When not offending ornithologists everywhere, we did a whole lot of relaxing.  We splashed in beautiful thermal springs fed on volcanically heated water with local families, read on the porch, took walks along the river, ate lots of Lupe’s delicious food, and drank cup after cup of coffee grown and roasted on the farm.  It was a quiet, relaxing, and beautiful place to spend Christmas.