Birthday breakfast

A standard cheap but tasty breakfast. From L to R: Mr papaya, banano, mango, kiwi (imported from Chile) and my favorite fruit of all times níspero (heavy sweet caramel taste, typical from the coast here).

Small cloudy day

(no burning sun, soo nice..)

Central market

A visit to the central market is an adventure in itself. The most amazing fruit (see coconuts), animals and foods can be found.

Cooked turtle, fish soup, seafood rice, bean rice, coco chicken, chicken and porc rice, pork coco stew, sea bass stew and many more……. very delicious

Famous travelcook Anthony Bourdain was recently in Cartagena, look here for a nice report.

Incredibly I found (and bought) an amazing surfboard somewhere in a fishing village, surfboards are *very* scarce here..

La Guajira

Colombia’s and South America’s most northern province is a magical place. Scarcely populated, burning heat and mostly desert, historically land of fierce indians, smugglers, pirates and pearl hunters, the place is hard to get to but soo rewarding. My trip there was one of my favorites in the whole of Colombia (and one of the most photogenic places). First palms trees in Rionacha. The region’s speciality is grilled goat. I was served the biggest plate in my life with I think 1 kg of goat……………………………………. I could finish half….

From provincial capital Riohacha one takes a 4×4 to the fishing town of Cabo de la Vela. On this board it says a line from Uribe Colombia’s president: “Aqui he sentido la patria en la dimencion de su grandeza.” Here I have felt the fatherland in the dimension of its greatness..

And then at 06.00 in the morning you take another 4×4, 5 hours drive through desert to the end of the world Punta Gallinas. Here you will find your ‘I am alone on this world’ moments, here one indeed feels the greatness of nature. No tourists, no towns, no traffic, just some indians and overwhelming desert. At first you think where you have landed, a barren Mars like wasteland, desert, sand, rocks, immense heat, an emerald colored bay with huge mangrove islands on the inside of the peninsula, on the other side the turquoise warm Caribbean sea, here rough on its edges. Some indian families living in some huts and small clay houses, only at night some energy provided by engine. Who can possibly live here…? But on the second day it slowly starts to make sense: this impossible collision of elements makes for its raw beauty.

I arrived on lobster day, all people (men, women, grandma’s, children) came to sell their just caught lobsters to the owner of the place where I stayed. A total of 170 kg of lobster was collected and driven that night to the restaurants of Cartagena and Bogota. The small fishermen were paid €1 per kilo, I paid €8 for this huge lobster that was prepared straight away (yummieee) and in a restaurant in Cartagena you will be €30 lighter after ordering one. A simple but very effective business!

Sometimes one is fed up with lobster and eats a red snapper.. or catch some yourself! This group of birds were flying like crazy over the sea making the most spectacular movements as a group.

At night the freezer room with all lobsters in the freezers got an eary feeling to it… and in the middle of the night some boys brought more snapper and other fish..

And this is the end of the world, south america’s most northernly point. Excactely one year after I had been in the most southernly point Ushuaia…

The only vegetation that survives here are cactusses

These boys caught some rabbits with bow and arrow.

A bit further there’s these massive sand dunes, 50 m high, and they just drop straight into the emerald Caribbean sea – what an end to a continent!! and a great run straight down into this refreshing bath.

By fishing boat, first the fishing net has to be thrown out, visiting a flamingo colony in the bay’s more shallow water. They flew away when we got too close

It was full moon. And sitting on a rock high above the bay while the moon illuminates the waters in silver blue one just listens to this deafening silence, just the distant sound of the water movement of the bay. Its those moments that make you realize what a special place this is.

There was a big swell going on but unfortunately I don’t have a surfboard with me :( perfect lines and nobody out… an impossible rarity in this world, well it exists in Guajira…..

Here a little video.

Sierra Nevada

With Thomas, Olaf (Olafreizen.nl) and a travelbookwriter and fotographer we went to the indigenous area of the Sierra Nevada. This area is really close to the Carribean sea but it goes up to almost 6000 meters! The highest mountain so close to the sea in the world. So close to the heat but it gets really cold. Before we entered the main village we had to ask permission from the chief. This was the weirdest scene. We all entered this long indian house where only the chief sat at the end. Thomas asked him if we could enter the village and shoot some photos for the travelbook. The chief looked at up and said nothing. Silence. Thomas asked again. Silence. We were all feeling really weird now, it felt like being transported to another time. At last the chief gave permission to enter the village (the 20.000 pesos maybe helped) but we couldn’t photograph his people. We entered the village and all indians -all dressed in white clothes, made from the pointy cactus leaves- fled straight into their houses, the village was a ghost town from this point on. It really felt like being 500 years ago, a mini Macchu Pichu but inhabited.

The next day we had a nice hike through the mountains and came across some scattered villages where we could some pictures and stuff. And we came across the Waterfall! :)

This is a nice painintg in the city of Valledupar, birthplace of Colombia’s national music, the vallenato, tropical rhythms with accordion.

Carnaval de Barranquilla

Carnaval de Barranquilla is the second biggest carnaval in south america (after Rio). Its pretty crazy, here photos of the big parade with Miss Colombia, the Aguila girls (beer brand), A team, chusos sticks and felipe and me.

Mud volcano

Some 50 km outside Cartagena lies a mud volcano, 28 m high and 3000 m deep! a lot of fun. Btw you go for a clean swim in the lake afterwards ;)

Cartagena

My father has been hospitalized again… the same as exactly one year ago… i wish him well (of course my mummy too)..

At 08.45 when I go surfing, my breakfast is an empanada with orange juice.

I arrive at the surfspot after a short busride (in the background the old -left- and new city).

After surfing I have a fruit lunch from this fruit lady (€1), there’s a few fruits in there quite unknown in europe.

Some of her plates are made with ‘Bella Holandesa’, a sort of cream I guess.. things like creams or cheeses: not very recommendable here (lousy taste)

The last days the planet Mars has been remarkably bright. Hard to photograph with a small digicam.. but worth the try, at least one can see why it’s called the red planet.

Because I dont have any cool pictures or adventures here’s a pic of my temporary home.

Oh and one ‘from the old box’ ;)

It was cool that Mascha was here. We went to the great fortress San Felipe (again, my 3rd time ;) ) and spend the evening at the other end of town, sunset at Bocagrande. Oh beautiful Cartagena..

Best hamburger chain in the world: El Corral

Typical Cartagena house, colourfull, balcony, flowers

Livin legend Fidel, owner of Donde Fidels salsa bar. With Mascha, former colleague!

The heavy city walls with the new Cartagena in background

Def one of the coolest bars in the Carribean, Cafe del Mar

Bogota

Well… never thought I’d do it but one has got to try everything once right. I always got disgusted by bull fights where the bulls are bloodily slaughtered in the arena.. but when some fellow hostelers invited me I thought I’d give it a try once. What can I say. My experience was that it wasn’t as bad as I expected… Theres a lot of blood on part of the bull, he gets spears in the back and get slaughtered in the end, all very cruel – I couldn’t and wouldn’t want to do that -, but I couldn’t get rid of the feeling that condemning this and eating an hamburger afterwards and tomorrow is just hypocrite. In fact there’s a lot of spectacle , traditions and music in the stadium and somehow it’s got its gracious moments… the worse is seeing people enjoying the animal having pain. If I’m still a fervent opposer of this events, I don’t know, I’m certainly not a supporter and I don’t think I would go again. I took some pictures that I erased from my camera because I just couldn’t look at them, so bloody. I wont share them here of course.

Outside the stadium there were very agressive anti protesters, when we passed them, they were screaming: ‘you bloody Gringos!!! Killers, Go awaayyyyy!!’ Pretty intimidating but they have their reasons (they had to stay behind fences and we were protected by police).

The stadium in the middle of the city. The people who live in the flats can ‘enjoy’ the events from their windows..

One of the traditions, drinking Manzanilla, a light alcoholic wine.

Manizales

So.. im in Colombia again.. after one great month in Holland with family and friends. Hadn’t looked at the blog at all, seems that there are still quite some people looking at it every day! Cool! So.. I will improve my activity here. Lets see if we got some more pics… (and although its way too late, still happy NY everybody).

The flight was with Colombian airliner Avianca in an Airbus 330-200. Its a great company with good (!) food, nice service and all the new movies you want..

Just after I arrived in Bogota we went to the Feria (party) de Manizales, city of hills. Thomas’ wife’s (Paola) family is from there. Their son Sebastien came along as well. The first night we went out partying on the streets and the second day we had an easy bbq at her family’s house. It was a very nice weekend, on the way back we stopped at this leather sale point (Thomas bought the first coushin).

Paola’s dad took care of the bbq.

Sebastien (right) and his nephew are learning young! (Of course the bottles were empty ;) )

Sombreros. Manizales is in the heart of coffee country, that means cowboys and hats (we bought them both).

Hungry? Why wait.. ;)

A steep street in Manizales. Imagine the breaks cars must have here..