Equador, Colombia And Panama city
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Jesper
27 Mei 2016 | Panama, Panama-stad
The week before my first steps on Ecuadorian territory I was traveling around like a headless chicken, to see as many highlights as possible. This, however, still had to go faster to be able to leave the South American continent a little bit on schedule
For this reason I immediately surpassed the largest city in Ecuador, Guayaquil, to travel eastwards to Cuenca, yet another colonial city founded in 1557 by the Spaniards. This should be one of the most remarkable cities of Ecuador, but where I suffered from the "temple-sick syndrome" years ago in Thailand, I currently have synonyms of an overdose of colonial cities. After walking around for several hours through the narrow streets along the more than a dozen ancient churches, and only being the slightest bit impressed by one of them, I quickly visited a vantage point before returning to the bus station.
After I took my 6th night bus for the last nine days, I could finally check in at a hostel once again. The rooftop restaurant of the Secret Garden hostel which is located in the middle of Quito's city center, provides panoramic views of almost all must sees in the city. After consuming a delicious breakfast with superb views and wifi connection, I sent out some messages and immediately got a response from Steffie that they were also awake and that they would come up to the roof. 7 years ago when we visited the beautiful Dutch party island of Terschelling with the guys from Groot-Ammers, we met Steffie, Carmen and some of their friends. Since my Facebook post about Machu Picchu I already received messages whether I was following them, and that we had to meet somewhere to retrieve some old memories.
The ladies still had to arrange some things for their visit to Colombia and I wanted to visit an area outside of Quito so we postponed the beer-drinking to the evening.
The Equator has given Ecuador its name, and the monument that is dedicated to this is located approximately 25 kilometers north of Quito in the village of Ciudad Mital del Mundo (city of the center of the earth). A centimeters wide yellow line indicates the center, this line also passes through an ugly 30-meter high building with a large globe on top of it, which houses museum. This by-the-way is not the correct location of 0 degrees North and South latitude. In the area of the line defined in 1736, there are a number of older ruins found which are built on the exact center of the earth.
The next day I fast visited some other sights of the capital city. The Bread Loaf mountain houses a church which is basically the Statue of Liberty of Ecuador. The religious building is located in the lowest floor of a structure that must indicate Maria. The mother of Jesus has a long steel chain with an alligator in her hands, quite strange!
After visiting the site I heard that it was not very smart to walk up to this viewpoint since a slum is built on the mountainsides of this mirador, besides people just living their daily lives, it was in my opinion not that dangerous!
After a quick visit to the ancient cathedral, whose towers can be climbed, it was about time to travel in 7 different buses to Colombia.
The border crossing from Tulcan to Ipiales was until years ago known as one of the most dangerous border-crossings in South America, for this reason I wanted to make sure I got here before sunset. This didn't really work out and two hours after it got dark I was the only tourist at the checkpoint to receive an exit stamp from Ecuador. The piece of no-ones-bridge which connects the two countries was characterized by people who looked poor and apparently were quite interested in some European money. A few minutes with loud music in my ears, looking forward and ignoring them brought me to the Colombian side, where I could take my last bus to the center of Potosi.
In this border city itself is absolutely nothing to do and the only highlight of the region lies approximately 20 kilometers to the east.
The Las Lajas Cathedral is built over a river, with its magnificent architecture and beautiful surroundings it is well worth a visit!
The next city on the to do list was Cali, an ugly city with not much going on. In addition to that, it was Sunday and the streets were deserted. The lady at the bus station probably tried to explain me that one can walk from the bus-station to the city center at pretty much any day, except on Sundays. A statement which I interpreted the other way round, fortunately I only saw some weirdos whom as it seemed intended little harm with me. During a great breakfast which costed me less than a euro for scrambled eggs, fried bananas, 2 cups of coffee and some bread, I was instructed by a Colombian who had lived more than half his life in the United States, that I should leave this part of the center as soon as possible. Since some Colombians seem to like a stiff drink on their day off, they might take their chances on innocent tourists.
From the riverside promenade I contacted Carmen and Steffie again to visit the best zoo in the country, to end this great day by enjoying a drink in a city park with stunning views and surrounded by just locals around us.
Afterwards I continued the journey to Bogota, the capital of the until recently drug autocratic country. I already left the city center within 2 hours to visit the salt mines which are located one hour outside of Bogota. In these mines there is a very impressive -200 meters underground- Roman Catholic church. The tunnel leading down to the cathedral represents the suffering of Jesus at the end of His life, and has 12 stations (unlike the official Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem, which has 14) indicating different times during the agony in the Palestinian-Israeli city. The cathedral itself consists of three halls symbolizing the birth, life and death of Jesus. In addition, there is a very impressive three-dimensional representation of Michelangelo's "Creation of Adam".
A third night bus in a row brought me to Medellin. It is clear that the inhabitants of this until 1993 by Pablo Escobar and crew terrorized city do their utmost to brighten up the place its image. Two Teleferico lines opened between 2004 and 2008 are just the beginning to connect the poorer sections with the center of this very "tranquillo" city. Especially line K gives good views of the slums.
Unfortunately, a terrible downpour -which was also my first shower of the past three days- shortened my visit to Medellin and made me leave early in the direction of my first luxury vehicle mode in recent weeks, departing from the José María Córdova airport, destination Cartagena.
Since almost all hostels are located in the same district of Cartagena, and there is no public transport from the airport to the centre, I directly addressed the first other people with big backpacks. Funny enough these were also Dutch and they had booked a hostel close to mine, besides that, Jeroen and Rogier were also up some for some beers that evening to celebrate the birthday of the Dutch King! Since I was till exhausted from the previous days, I decided not stay up too late, and made sure that we could leave early the next morning to get weird stares on the Colombian streets, obviously they are not that used to people totally dressed in orange here.
I was quietly hoping for a repeat of Queensday 2012 in Cairns, Australia, unfortunately there were less fellow Dutchies around. Still had a good time with the guys, and already had a culinary preview of Cuba in the "La Casa del Habana" Cafe. For us instead of Orange-Bitter and croquettes, Havana Club mixed cocktails and Cuban cigars.
Santa Martha is a city near Cartagena (only 4 hours away), and is mainly used by travelers as a base for the nearby Tayrona National Park. A lesser known and visited place in the area is the historical Ciudad Perdida. From Santa Martha they organise four day hiking tours to this lost city which is 600 years older than the more famous South American rival Machu Picchu. Several people, including the Australian Kate and Pru from the Ocean Diamond cruise already told me that it was definitely worth a detour and to sacrifice a couple of days to visit this place.
Where the lost city in Peru has an average of 5,000 visitors a day, I shared the paths to the Colombian version that day with only 19 others.
At the time we left the booking-office we immediately lost our guide, which quickly turned into jokes that we just paid 200 euros per person to get lost in the city instead of going to visit the lost city.
In areas where at the heydays of Colombian drug economy a lot of coca plantations were located, nowadays the local tribes live again. The government tried to stop the trading of drugs by spraying all crops that were associated with the narcotics, since this spraying method was not allowed in the national parks, many coca farmers moved here to continue their profiting activities. Through various deals between the government, the drug lords and the original population, the Arguacos, Koguis and Wiwas eventually retrieved their lands. These tribes often live in accordance with their usual habits, with between them a different version of implantation of "new" habits and luxury items. For example, the Wiwas choose to use the comforts of both worlds. They buy clothes in the cities, but still keep old customs, compared with the Koguis, whom make everything themselves and live shielded from the outside world.
The trip literally lead through the rainforest, so at times we were startled by heavy showers. Not that that made much of a difference from the normal circumstances, the high humidity made sure we were constantly soaking. Together with the English Sam, Tam, Sammie, Hannah and Peter, the German Thorsten And the French Diane we formed the English-speaking group. Where in the other group that we encountered very often, the Dutch with about 5 of them were very well represented.
After being on the liana infiltrated roads where Indiana Jones and Lara Croft would feel most comfortable for about 2 1/2 days, we finally caught the first glimpse of the stairs that lead to the Ciudad, after which 1,200 steps brought us to the original entrance of the city.
Back in the days the visitors were first placed in a spring for a certain time in order to remove all their negative energy. The Tayrona were -and the three aforementioned descendant tribes are- a very peaceful people, this is still to be seen in their lack of violence and the absence of negative words in their mother tongue.
An additional set of stairs brought us from the entrance of the holy place to the place where the more senior elite had accomodation. Here the throne of the leader can still be found, and a slightly higher placed viewpoint gives an excellent overview of the holy place. A bit higher on the mountain there is a military base established, the present soldiers apparently do nothing more than chilling-out and give strange stares at tourists. The military presence is mainly due to a few years ago abducted group of tourists. Several leftist groups were striving for a greater vote in government -and even independence-, as part of this campaign there were eight tourists of mainly European descent kidnapped in 2003.
The last one and a half day in the jungle was on the same paths and in the same camps where the mattresses were still too thin, which unfortunately
couldn't make this amazing experience any better.
In Santa Martha I stayed in the same hostel as Hannah and Sammie. Before we could get our big bags from the office where we booked the tour, I had to withdraw money to pay for the hostel and my laundry. On the way from the ATM I fIgured that I had forgotten my keys and thus could not get my stuff out of the locks at the tour operator. Hannah would already continue and I would meet her at the office. After picking up my keys and once more being on the road, I heard about 50 meters behind me for the umpteenth time if I wanted to buy marijuana or cocaine. After a foolish look around I kept on walking until I suddenly heard someone running towards me. At the moment I turned around, I saw two hands flying through the air, and a leg which was clearly aiming for my knee coming up to me. The moron who was clearly wasted, was apparently unable kick anyone else but himself on the ground. After hesitating for a moment and realising what was going on, I started a mad-mans sprint, stupidly enough towards one of his buddies who was waiting with wide open arms -and for whatever stupid reason a clown nose- for me. Fortunately enough Casper Boelens' excellent rugby trainings made me able to pass him unscathed.
After I shared the experience with Hannah, and having gathered our belongings, we saw the two men still standing in a side alley. With a number of faster than average steps we came across a number of police officers. Because Hannah's Spanish is a lot better than mine, she explained them my story, unfortunately this led to -except for a hilarious explanation of clowns nose (including an extensive imitation of a clown)- nothing, the police shrugged their shoulders and continued doing nothing.
In the evening I realized that it was Sunday, and that the English-speaking man in Cali probably wanted to warn me for this kind of experiences.
Fortunately enough I left the country the next day. A Copa Airlines flight transported me with a short stopover in Bogota to Panama City.
From the airport I again took some money-saving local transport into the city. Big downside was that my bag full of foreign currencies, camera, mobile phone, laptop, passport and bank cards and I were dropped in a dodgy neighborhood. After again letting my legs walk slightly faster than normally I arrived in Panama Viejo (Old Panama). Because of a huge lack of time (my layover was only 8 hours), I only went for a cup of coffee on the fourth floor of one of the colonial buildings to see the old city at once.
With it's lengthy boulevard Panama City reminded me especially of Qatar's capital Doha. In this Middle Eastern city also a lengthy stroll along the sea should be made before one can go from the renovated old town to the meningitis-causing skyscraper section.
In this financial center, I was planning to visit the Hard Rock Hotel's rooftop. Unfortunately due to the early time, this bar was not open yet. Eventually I only did some walking around and snapping some pictures of the bizarre architecture -including the 360 degree rotating F & F Tower- before I returned back to the Tolcumen airport.
The following country to check off was Cuba, I spent the following two weeks completely closed-out from the outside world together with no-one less than my sister Mirjan and her boyfriend Serge.
More about this soon!
Once more an excuse for the horrible English used. I mainly use Google Translate to convert the text from Dutch to English, and besides reading through it twice to get the biggest mistakes out, I am not that motivated to put much more effort in it ! Deal with it ;)
Adios!
Jesper
For this reason I immediately surpassed the largest city in Ecuador, Guayaquil, to travel eastwards to Cuenca, yet another colonial city founded in 1557 by the Spaniards. This should be one of the most remarkable cities of Ecuador, but where I suffered from the "temple-sick syndrome" years ago in Thailand, I currently have synonyms of an overdose of colonial cities. After walking around for several hours through the narrow streets along the more than a dozen ancient churches, and only being the slightest bit impressed by one of them, I quickly visited a vantage point before returning to the bus station.
After I took my 6th night bus for the last nine days, I could finally check in at a hostel once again. The rooftop restaurant of the Secret Garden hostel which is located in the middle of Quito's city center, provides panoramic views of almost all must sees in the city. After consuming a delicious breakfast with superb views and wifi connection, I sent out some messages and immediately got a response from Steffie that they were also awake and that they would come up to the roof. 7 years ago when we visited the beautiful Dutch party island of Terschelling with the guys from Groot-Ammers, we met Steffie, Carmen and some of their friends. Since my Facebook post about Machu Picchu I already received messages whether I was following them, and that we had to meet somewhere to retrieve some old memories.
The ladies still had to arrange some things for their visit to Colombia and I wanted to visit an area outside of Quito so we postponed the beer-drinking to the evening.
The Equator has given Ecuador its name, and the monument that is dedicated to this is located approximately 25 kilometers north of Quito in the village of Ciudad Mital del Mundo (city of the center of the earth). A centimeters wide yellow line indicates the center, this line also passes through an ugly 30-meter high building with a large globe on top of it, which houses museum. This by-the-way is not the correct location of 0 degrees North and South latitude. In the area of the line defined in 1736, there are a number of older ruins found which are built on the exact center of the earth.
The next day I fast visited some other sights of the capital city. The Bread Loaf mountain houses a church which is basically the Statue of Liberty of Ecuador. The religious building is located in the lowest floor of a structure that must indicate Maria. The mother of Jesus has a long steel chain with an alligator in her hands, quite strange!
After visiting the site I heard that it was not very smart to walk up to this viewpoint since a slum is built on the mountainsides of this mirador, besides people just living their daily lives, it was in my opinion not that dangerous!
After a quick visit to the ancient cathedral, whose towers can be climbed, it was about time to travel in 7 different buses to Colombia.
The border crossing from Tulcan to Ipiales was until years ago known as one of the most dangerous border-crossings in South America, for this reason I wanted to make sure I got here before sunset. This didn't really work out and two hours after it got dark I was the only tourist at the checkpoint to receive an exit stamp from Ecuador. The piece of no-ones-bridge which connects the two countries was characterized by people who looked poor and apparently were quite interested in some European money. A few minutes with loud music in my ears, looking forward and ignoring them brought me to the Colombian side, where I could take my last bus to the center of Potosi.
In this border city itself is absolutely nothing to do and the only highlight of the region lies approximately 20 kilometers to the east.
The Las Lajas Cathedral is built over a river, with its magnificent architecture and beautiful surroundings it is well worth a visit!
The next city on the to do list was Cali, an ugly city with not much going on. In addition to that, it was Sunday and the streets were deserted. The lady at the bus station probably tried to explain me that one can walk from the bus-station to the city center at pretty much any day, except on Sundays. A statement which I interpreted the other way round, fortunately I only saw some weirdos whom as it seemed intended little harm with me. During a great breakfast which costed me less than a euro for scrambled eggs, fried bananas, 2 cups of coffee and some bread, I was instructed by a Colombian who had lived more than half his life in the United States, that I should leave this part of the center as soon as possible. Since some Colombians seem to like a stiff drink on their day off, they might take their chances on innocent tourists.
From the riverside promenade I contacted Carmen and Steffie again to visit the best zoo in the country, to end this great day by enjoying a drink in a city park with stunning views and surrounded by just locals around us.
Afterwards I continued the journey to Bogota, the capital of the until recently drug autocratic country. I already left the city center within 2 hours to visit the salt mines which are located one hour outside of Bogota. In these mines there is a very impressive -200 meters underground- Roman Catholic church. The tunnel leading down to the cathedral represents the suffering of Jesus at the end of His life, and has 12 stations (unlike the official Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem, which has 14) indicating different times during the agony in the Palestinian-Israeli city. The cathedral itself consists of three halls symbolizing the birth, life and death of Jesus. In addition, there is a very impressive three-dimensional representation of Michelangelo's "Creation of Adam".
A third night bus in a row brought me to Medellin. It is clear that the inhabitants of this until 1993 by Pablo Escobar and crew terrorized city do their utmost to brighten up the place its image. Two Teleferico lines opened between 2004 and 2008 are just the beginning to connect the poorer sections with the center of this very "tranquillo" city. Especially line K gives good views of the slums.
Unfortunately, a terrible downpour -which was also my first shower of the past three days- shortened my visit to Medellin and made me leave early in the direction of my first luxury vehicle mode in recent weeks, departing from the José María Córdova airport, destination Cartagena.
Since almost all hostels are located in the same district of Cartagena, and there is no public transport from the airport to the centre, I directly addressed the first other people with big backpacks. Funny enough these were also Dutch and they had booked a hostel close to mine, besides that, Jeroen and Rogier were also up some for some beers that evening to celebrate the birthday of the Dutch King! Since I was till exhausted from the previous days, I decided not stay up too late, and made sure that we could leave early the next morning to get weird stares on the Colombian streets, obviously they are not that used to people totally dressed in orange here.
I was quietly hoping for a repeat of Queensday 2012 in Cairns, Australia, unfortunately there were less fellow Dutchies around. Still had a good time with the guys, and already had a culinary preview of Cuba in the "La Casa del Habana" Cafe. For us instead of Orange-Bitter and croquettes, Havana Club mixed cocktails and Cuban cigars.
Santa Martha is a city near Cartagena (only 4 hours away), and is mainly used by travelers as a base for the nearby Tayrona National Park. A lesser known and visited place in the area is the historical Ciudad Perdida. From Santa Martha they organise four day hiking tours to this lost city which is 600 years older than the more famous South American rival Machu Picchu. Several people, including the Australian Kate and Pru from the Ocean Diamond cruise already told me that it was definitely worth a detour and to sacrifice a couple of days to visit this place.
Where the lost city in Peru has an average of 5,000 visitors a day, I shared the paths to the Colombian version that day with only 19 others.
At the time we left the booking-office we immediately lost our guide, which quickly turned into jokes that we just paid 200 euros per person to get lost in the city instead of going to visit the lost city.
In areas where at the heydays of Colombian drug economy a lot of coca plantations were located, nowadays the local tribes live again. The government tried to stop the trading of drugs by spraying all crops that were associated with the narcotics, since this spraying method was not allowed in the national parks, many coca farmers moved here to continue their profiting activities. Through various deals between the government, the drug lords and the original population, the Arguacos, Koguis and Wiwas eventually retrieved their lands. These tribes often live in accordance with their usual habits, with between them a different version of implantation of "new" habits and luxury items. For example, the Wiwas choose to use the comforts of both worlds. They buy clothes in the cities, but still keep old customs, compared with the Koguis, whom make everything themselves and live shielded from the outside world.
The trip literally lead through the rainforest, so at times we were startled by heavy showers. Not that that made much of a difference from the normal circumstances, the high humidity made sure we were constantly soaking. Together with the English Sam, Tam, Sammie, Hannah and Peter, the German Thorsten And the French Diane we formed the English-speaking group. Where in the other group that we encountered very often, the Dutch with about 5 of them were very well represented.
After being on the liana infiltrated roads where Indiana Jones and Lara Croft would feel most comfortable for about 2 1/2 days, we finally caught the first glimpse of the stairs that lead to the Ciudad, after which 1,200 steps brought us to the original entrance of the city.
Back in the days the visitors were first placed in a spring for a certain time in order to remove all their negative energy. The Tayrona were -and the three aforementioned descendant tribes are- a very peaceful people, this is still to be seen in their lack of violence and the absence of negative words in their mother tongue.
An additional set of stairs brought us from the entrance of the holy place to the place where the more senior elite had accomodation. Here the throne of the leader can still be found, and a slightly higher placed viewpoint gives an excellent overview of the holy place. A bit higher on the mountain there is a military base established, the present soldiers apparently do nothing more than chilling-out and give strange stares at tourists. The military presence is mainly due to a few years ago abducted group of tourists. Several leftist groups were striving for a greater vote in government -and even independence-, as part of this campaign there were eight tourists of mainly European descent kidnapped in 2003.
The last one and a half day in the jungle was on the same paths and in the same camps where the mattresses were still too thin, which unfortunately
couldn't make this amazing experience any better.
In Santa Martha I stayed in the same hostel as Hannah and Sammie. Before we could get our big bags from the office where we booked the tour, I had to withdraw money to pay for the hostel and my laundry. On the way from the ATM I fIgured that I had forgotten my keys and thus could not get my stuff out of the locks at the tour operator. Hannah would already continue and I would meet her at the office. After picking up my keys and once more being on the road, I heard about 50 meters behind me for the umpteenth time if I wanted to buy marijuana or cocaine. After a foolish look around I kept on walking until I suddenly heard someone running towards me. At the moment I turned around, I saw two hands flying through the air, and a leg which was clearly aiming for my knee coming up to me. The moron who was clearly wasted, was apparently unable kick anyone else but himself on the ground. After hesitating for a moment and realising what was going on, I started a mad-mans sprint, stupidly enough towards one of his buddies who was waiting with wide open arms -and for whatever stupid reason a clown nose- for me. Fortunately enough Casper Boelens' excellent rugby trainings made me able to pass him unscathed.
After I shared the experience with Hannah, and having gathered our belongings, we saw the two men still standing in a side alley. With a number of faster than average steps we came across a number of police officers. Because Hannah's Spanish is a lot better than mine, she explained them my story, unfortunately this led to -except for a hilarious explanation of clowns nose (including an extensive imitation of a clown)- nothing, the police shrugged their shoulders and continued doing nothing.
In the evening I realized that it was Sunday, and that the English-speaking man in Cali probably wanted to warn me for this kind of experiences.
Fortunately enough I left the country the next day. A Copa Airlines flight transported me with a short stopover in Bogota to Panama City.
From the airport I again took some money-saving local transport into the city. Big downside was that my bag full of foreign currencies, camera, mobile phone, laptop, passport and bank cards and I were dropped in a dodgy neighborhood. After again letting my legs walk slightly faster than normally I arrived in Panama Viejo (Old Panama). Because of a huge lack of time (my layover was only 8 hours), I only went for a cup of coffee on the fourth floor of one of the colonial buildings to see the old city at once.
With it's lengthy boulevard Panama City reminded me especially of Qatar's capital Doha. In this Middle Eastern city also a lengthy stroll along the sea should be made before one can go from the renovated old town to the meningitis-causing skyscraper section.
In this financial center, I was planning to visit the Hard Rock Hotel's rooftop. Unfortunately due to the early time, this bar was not open yet. Eventually I only did some walking around and snapping some pictures of the bizarre architecture -including the 360 degree rotating F & F Tower- before I returned back to the Tolcumen airport.
The following country to check off was Cuba, I spent the following two weeks completely closed-out from the outside world together with no-one less than my sister Mirjan and her boyfriend Serge.
More about this soon!
Once more an excuse for the horrible English used. I mainly use Google Translate to convert the text from Dutch to English, and besides reading through it twice to get the biggest mistakes out, I am not that motivated to put much more effort in it ! Deal with it ;)
Adios!
Jesper
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Je kunt nu ook Smileys gebruiken. Via de toolbar, toetsenbord of door eerst : te typen en dan een woord bijvoorbeeld :smiley
