12 Days In Guatape

As I write the first draft of this post, I’m sat on a 16-hour night bus north to Santa Marta, Caribbean Coast. Everyone is asleep and the Colombian woman sleeping next to me has her head tilted my direction and is breathing on me; I don’t think she brushed her teeth. Lushhh.
This is another lengthy post, so at the bottom I’ve separated the “what else” section for those who want to read more. I wrote so many notes in my journal, it’s difficult deciding what to include on the blog and what to leave out. But I’m still enjoying the process of writing and can’t wait for the day I look back on this post and relive the experiences I had. Maybe even with some hindsight of knowing how it contributed to wherever I am when I read it back.

Guatape was a different experience entirely, and although I really enjoyed the adventures, I never felt quite as comfortable as in San Carlos. In fact, after the first few days, I wanted to go AWOL. There were a few reasons for this, one of them being a dishonest volunteer opportunity which turned out to be different to what was advertised, for the worse of course. It would be unfair to go into detail here, but if my ex-hostel manager is reading this, #NotSorry #FixTheAd

I never really put my finger on the other reasons, Guatape itself was beautiful, I just never felt as settled there. There were certainly more positives than negatives. Like everywhere I’ve been so far, it’s the people that really make the experience, not the place. And, it did have San Carlos to compare against, which was always going to be hard to beat.
Frank, a fellow traveller I met in San Carlos and again in Guatape, had been travelling, volunteering and working for around three years and said his experience in San Carlos was probably the best of his whole journey. I’m determined to find something and might just have the answer, more on that later.

My initial thoughts on Guatape were mixed. It was beautifully colourful, had lots to offer in terms of bars, cafe’s, restaurants (and even a “discoteq”), and best of all, the town was surrounded by and overlooked open lakes, making it feel a naturally tranquil environment, shame its artificial.

On the other hand, for the first time in weeks I was seeing English signs above shop fronts, typical tourists (like me…) everywhere with their backpacks, shorts and huge (and unnecessary) cameras. This mixture of environment should make for a different experience.
Lets review high and low-lights of the Guatape chapter.

Highlights:

1. Renting a motorbike and driving through empty, open roads surrounded by stunning cliff-views to la cascada secreta (the secret waterfall). I think my ride to the waterfall was probably one of the happiest moments I’ve had since I’ve been out here.
Just a week ago, a fellow-travel friend, Aleah, advised me to start a list of things I miss/appreciate. There are currently five things on that list: good chocolate, beer on tap, good espresso coffee, watching football and driving. Good chocolate really isn’t available here and neither is tap beer so far, although Colombian bottled beer is pretty good! I did recently manage to find a great coffee place in Guatape, but surprisingly most cafes offer cheapo filter coffee, despite the fact some of the best coffee in the world is grown here! Sometimes football is on in the bars, but it doesn’t have that Saturday match day feeling like back in England, and I still can’t understand the commentators….

That leaves driving. For some bizarre reason, despite not having ridden a geared motorbike for about 10 years – I had a strong urge to hire one and ride the winding, beautiful, adventurous roads of Guatape and beyond. Well, on my second to last day in Guatape, that urge became reality. There I was, driving by breathtaking scenery, I’d (almost) mastered the clutch & gears when, I had a sudden realisation – this happens every week or so and goes something like this: how lucky am I? Here I am, riding through Colombia without a care in the world, without any commitments or strains holding me back from doing whatever the hell I want, and this is probably just the beginning of a life-changing journey. Just when I thought things couldn’t improve, the sun comes out from behind the clouds and warms up any exposed skin (of course there was no skin exposed as I was wearing full leathers… sorry mum…).
This was the only time I’ve ever seen a road-sign which states you still have ‘X’ miles to go, and been genuinely excited about the fact it isn’t closer.

Jumping down the waterfall was exhilarating, this time I did it feet first. We had to swim upstream to find it so couldn’t take many pictures unfortunately! Perhaps I should have kept that Go-Pro I won at a security conference…

It was 16:30 when we returned to the hostel. I had rented the bike until 18:00. As I sat outside looking at the bike parked up, I couldn’t tolerate the thought of the bike sitting there for 90 minutes unused when I’d paid for the full day. It was now throwing it down with rain, but it didn’t matter. Waterproofs on, earphones in, & I was off with no destination in mind. It was immensely fun, I had no care in the world about how wet I was or how dangerous it might have been. It was just exhilarating to ride the countryside listening to your favourite music with no end-destination. I returned the bike at 17:55 only to be told I needed to fill up the tank, I told a slight porky and said I already had… My contingency being that I didn’t understand what she said to me (despite her speaking in English, not Spanish…)

2. Renting “water bikes”, as the Dutch call them, buying wine and food for a picnic and water-biking to an island to eat, drink and laugh.

A funny thing about Guatape, there are a lot of what to appear to be homeless dogs. They will follow you anywhere if they think there’s a small chance of food or affection (mostly food I think…). They would follow you on long hikes, to your hostel, anywhere.
One day on a random walk I had three dogs following me, it reminded me of the grand theft auto game where you could nod at gangstas in the street and they would follow you around as part of your solid crew. Just me? Oh.
The group’s favourite Guatape stray was what I can only describe as the world’s fattest beagle.

One dog decided to jump on one of the water bikes and spent the next two hours with us – very odd but like most dogs, entertaining company.

3. Climbing Guatape’s Penol rock – only 650 steps to the top. Seems like a lot but truly breathtaking 365 degree views once you make it – well worth it Although, I’ll never buy another cerveza con mango again. The beer with mango is pretty good, its the ton of salt they sprinkle around the top of the glass I don’t like which then gathers at the bottom of the glass, making every sip more salty. WHY WOULD YOU RUIN A GOOD BEER WITH SALT???

On the walk back to the hostel we were feeling confident. We decided to walk the alternate 10k route back for a challenge and were told by a French couple that it only takes 2 hours. 2 hours and 5k in, we’re a little tired and aggrieved to say the least. Soon after, we take an opportunistic tuc-tuc after bartering with the driver for what was probably 50 pence. Every little helps…

4. Buying beer from some guy’s house window, literally, once all the bars were closed. The same night we ended up singing Oasis, Wonderwall to some local Colombian who offered to play it for us on his acoustic in the early hours of the morning, amongst other random music. I love strange moments like these.

5. A swim in the lake at 2am after celebrating both Halloween and Anita’s birthday.

I had to go back to the hostel to fetch swim-wear as I was wearing no underwear that day, to the group’s surprise (disgust?). It was far too bright for skinny-dipping… Surprisingly, I didn’t get that cold-water-shock-gasping-for-air sensation when I jumped in, it was somehow pretty warm, I didn’t want to get out. Maybe it was the alcohol – I did drink a lot of £1 rum & cokes. I know I go on about the price of alcohol here but it’s AMAZING!
We only realised how dirty the water was the next day, a mercy, faded orange colour, nice. YOLO right?

Low-lights:
1. bike trip – On the way back, it turned out I didn’t master the gears after all. We had to suddenly stop for a lorry up a steep hill, I thought I was in 2nd gear so changed down one, I ended up changing down to neutral and when I accelerated I made a lot of noise but went nowhere, obviously. My balance was going and it was too late to change up into 1st gear so I tried to put my foot down but the bike was too heavy, over I went (luckily to the pavement side). A police officer kindly helped me pick up the bike, a few tiny scrapes but no serious damage – this time I make sure it’s in 1st gear…

2. Being told off by an angry hostel night-shift employee. Obviously he was speaking Spanish so I understood about 5% of his angry rant. I didn’t need to understand anything, I knew which rule I was breaking. It’s probably best I don’t elaborate here, ask me for details.

3. Almost losing all clothes when the bus pulled away with my large backpack in the luggage compartment… It was one of those moments you see in a film; there I was, sprinting alongside the bus banging on the window like an idiot. Luckily he stopped, I re-established my cool composure and, as you do, walked off as if nothing had happened…

4. Having to say goodbye to so many great people. This seems to be getting more difficult for me, not easier. Meeting people on your travels is such a different experience to making new friends at home. Here, you already have so much in common, you spend an huge proportion of your days and nights together and share so many experiences. Within a week or even a few days you can build a solid connection with someone. I can’t wait for the moment I can meet up with some of these people later down the line.
The hardest goodbye yet was Aleah, it was much more difficult the second time, we’d spent almost three weeks together by then and experienced a lot of high’s.

5. Being told off by the hostel owner for helping myself to a beer from the bar fridge – I was going to pay! Fair enough I guess although I was a “member of staff”. Apparently we couldn’t call ourselves volunteers as volunteering is illegal in Colombia… news to me…

Where next? – 24 hours in El Poblado, Medellin.
In order to go anywhere in Colombia, Medellin seems to be the hub of the spokes.
Before I set off travelling I organised two volunteer opportunities in Colombia, two weeks at Spanish Adventure in San Carlos, and three weeks teaching English at a language exchange village just outside Colombia’s capital, Bogota. I left just under two weeks between the two for some flexibility, which I ended up spending in Guatape.

A few days before I was due to hit Bogota, I thought it would be sensible to check in with the host to make sure I was still on their radar. Good job too – the host had to cancel due to extenuating circumstances. I was kind of relieved, the majority of travellers I had met who had been to Bogota had mostly bad things to say – awful weather, incredibly over-populated, traffic everywhere etc.
Maybe this was a blessing in disguise. I took to Workaway and filtered on “Colombia” and “last minute”. There were around 20 results, I sent emails to about seven of them and out of the three that replied, one said I was welcome to join their project. Here’s a snippet from the advert:

“Want to experience life in the world’s highest coastal mountain range? We are a group of French seeking experienced, high spirited, hardworking fun volunteers to help above Minca on a finca (farm) just an hour from Santa Marta. Enjoy volunteering with the beautiful views of the mountains and jungle, glittering Santa Marta at night and the beautiful Caribbean Coast from 1200m high! Come make a difference :)”

At first I was uneasy about the idea. Yes, it sounds like a perfect secluded getaway in a jungle, but I had grown so close to travellers from San Carlos & Guatape that I was tempted to travel south just so I was going in the same direction as them. Having asked the opinion of a small sample of family and friends, including my 12 year old brother, I decided to take a risk and choose the more adventurous option – after all, that’s why I did this in the first place.

The project needs help developing their website along with assistance with their guest relations and tours – free tours for me, I love free! I also asked if I could spend time in their bar, which should help improve my social skills with strangers and I may even make a few amigos and learn more Spanish.
They usually require volunteers to stay for at least a month; I wanted two weeks, we met in the middle at three. If all goes well, expect a wild blog post three weeks from now. If it doesn’t go so well, expect a hilarious blog post. If it goes terribly badly, please play “Oasis – Stop crying your heart out” at my funeral, that’s a guaranteed tear shedder. I think funerals should be a little brighter, they are a celebration of life after all.

Back to Medellin it was, this time in El Poblado, Medellin’s party-zone. I enjoyed more wine, beers, pizza and coffee, all much more expensive than what I’m used to, but still cheaper than the UK. Really great vibes walking round at night; live music, lots of decent crowds and of course, lots of reggaeton.

For the first time on my travels, I accidentally bumped into people I’d previously met travelling. Okay it was just a few days since I saw them, but nonetheless it was great seeing Nienke and Sterre again (the Dutch “”water-bike” girls). Even if they did mistake me for a homeless bum sat on a park bench. I know I need to work on my dress sense and perhaps shave once in a while but come one guys.
That brings me to the bus ride, I managed some sleep after all. Two hours to go. Let’s hope there’s Wi-Fi in the jungle so I can actually post this…

I’m going to skip the travel tips for this post, but thought it might be a good idea to list some things I’ve learnt during my stay here:

– If I feel down, misplaced or generally more negative than usual, I probably just need more sleep.
– As part of my volunteering, I read a book on Facebook Marketing and posted my first ever Facebook advert campaign. I got no ‘volunteer points’ for this but did learn a lot, should be a useful skill for the future.
– There’s no good without the bad (i.e, saying goodbye is only so hard because you’ve built a strong connection with someone) – Oliver
– Every now and again, look above head level and appreciate where you are, or you’ll start to take it for granted – Aleah. I find this tricky because I’m always looking for money at ground level, found 20,000 COB last week!
– Getting things off your chest, despite them not being perfectly worded or well-timed, is better than saying nothing.
– Don’t ever try and video-record your surroundings when riding a motorbike

I realise this is another long post, so, if you want extra reading, see below for my “Que mas?” (what else) section:

– I got burnt, again. I keep expecting my skin to build a pigment tolerance against the sun. Getting there slowly and I’m probably the most tanned I’ve been since falling off a rope-swing into a muddy river when I was 12. No fake-tan stories here, sorry.

– Guatape had an excellent 11-aside asto-turf football pitch. The standard of football was really impressive, from the academy to adult level. Often when walking back from bars I would sit for 15 mins watching them play. I thought I was a half reasonable player at times but I wouldn’t get a sniff even in the under-12’s. When Guatape is such a small place it’s amazing to see such great talent.

– It turns out Colombian’s take Halloween pretty seriously. Us however, we did not:

All kids were dressed up and demanding candy, there was even a Halloween dog asking for treats.

– Colombia has some beautiful creatures. Checkout this huge, incredibly colourful and detailed butterfly moth thing.

– I had some of the best coffee since I can remember, my first experience of being a “regular” since coming to Colombia and when my Venezuelan friend wasn’t around (he spoke awesome English), I was forced to speak in Spanish to the other staff which was great! I even got on their Facebook page!

– I worked as a waiter, a kitchen assistant and a receptionist, all for the first time. The kitchen could be fun, I learnt how to properly peel garlic and ginger, how to prepare chicken satay, and how to wash dishes at the speed of sound. The restaurant was much better, waiting on customers could be overwhelming but generally I had great conversations, received tips (I know right!), and was even invited to stay in a Colombian man’s apartment in Medellin – still not sure if he was hitting on me or just being really, really polite. Either way I wasn’t used to it.
Reception was a mare, I worked a 9 hour night shift on a Friday evening (definitely not as advertised…) whilst all my friend’s and the guests went out to get smashed. I spent this time sleeping, reading and manipulating the hostel booking system to remove drinks I had on previous nights (jokes). Thankfully, one of the other volunteers, Nienke, kept me company for an hour or so to save me from absolute boredom and fear of missing out (FOMO).

– The breakfast shift was my favourite. I was given no training or detailed guidelines on what to do on the shift, the chef spoke nil English and the hostel was full. You can imagine how this went down. Despite being run off my feet for the whole shift, there were no complaints and I felt I managed alright. Until, I was told off because I gave out 3 bottles of water without writing them on a guest’s tab. Around 20-30 breakfast’s were served, around £75 revenue, and I, as a volunteer doing my first breakfast shift, was being told off for losing the hostel less than 1% of that revenue. I acknowledged my mistake and decided that this is just the cost of hiring volunteers and not giving them adequate training or instructions, rather than having permanent and trained staff. If I was going to be grilled any further about this or have the water put on my own tab, I had a good argument in my back pocket. I can be an ********.

– I wrote a list, a few pages of recommendations to improve the hostel experience for both guests and staff/volunteers. I phrased these as “suggestions” rather than complaints and the hostel manager seemed mostly appreciative, that said, not one of was implemented during my stay. I was given 10 volunteer “points” for my efforts, the equivalent of 10,000 COB, the equivalent of £2.50. Clearly my efforts were worthwhile but I maintain all belief that I had good intentions.

– I found many more bars with urinals next to the bar or generally in plain-sight. Clearly this is the norm for Colombia.

– One day when I was sat in the square drinking beer, a local who called himself Rolando sat down and introduced himself as a freelance tour guide. He thought he recognised me from a brief chat a few days earlier. It wasn’t me. After being extremely friendly and offering to take me to the best beer & coffee places in Guatape and even to Medellin, I was a little suspicious when he used his leg to “accidentally” pull a chair with my bag towards him. Soon after he realised I wasn’t going to buy him anything and he wasn’t getting my bag, he left. This was so far, my only experience at a potential theft of my things, despite so many other travellers telling me of their horror stories. There was still time, I suppose.

– One day working in the kitchen was particularly memorable. A huge bang came from the cooking area, nothing had blown up, but, an industrial sized extractor fan had fell out of its holding onto the hobs. It was huge and looked incredibly old, as though it had been slowly coming loose for months or even years and had finally given way. The electric wires were burnt to a crisp. The chef asked if I could fix it because I used to be an “IT Engineer”. No love, I replied, as I returned to my dish washing duties with a slight smile on my face.

– A few days before Frank was due to leave for a normal life in Spain, we went for churros con ariquipe (caramel filled doughnuts – amazeballs), beer and live music before retiring to a park bench with cans of beer, chatting for hours. Frank is abnormally positive and wise for his age, I had a strong feeling I’d miss that guy.

– One night out in the discoteq with the group, a really drunk local kept throwing his arms around me “amigo, amigo”. I’d never seen him before in my life. I tolerated for a few seconds but realised he wasn’t getting bored so started to push him away but he kept coming back. This went on for a few seconds before I had to be more stern. I knew the Colombian’s had less care for personal space, but when drunk (male) strangers start shouting and heavily touching you for no reason, what are you supposed to do?

Well, that’s all. I’ll upload this when I can but have little faith that Sierra Nevada has decent internet… Hasta luego