The Hilton, it is not...

We stayed at the Explora Hostel in the big city of Bogota for seven nights. The hostel itself was great, but seven days in Bogota was about five days too many. It's a big, busy, dirty city, in our opinion. Some may enjoy the "art" that adorns almost every empty space of exterior wall, but to us, it was just a mess.

Bogota, we gave you a chance, but first impressions rang true. You are not for us!

20km (13 mile) hike to Colombia's highest waterfall

They say to get an early start if you're going to visit Colombia's highest waterfall, but it was still after 10:00am by the time we found our way to the small bus terminal at the corner of Calle 6 and Carrera 15 beside the police station.

Chorrera waterfall (Cascada de Chorrera) is located off the road leading to the town of Choachi, only about 30 kms (18 miles) from the center of Bogota.

Change of plans...

We got up yesterday morning all set with a plan to go for a hike to Colombia's highest waterfall. But we made our way down for breakfast to see that it was raining!

So...change of plans. I went to the front desk to see if we could stay here yet another night.

Enough of Bogota...we needed some country fresh air!

We've seen almost all we want to see in the big city of Bogota, but we're booked in at the hostel here until Saturday morning. And we needed to get some fresh air and see some countryside. So yesterday we took a short bus ride to the little farming town of Guasca...only 50 kms (30 miles) from the hustle and bustle, yet rarely visited by tourists.

I figured out where to catch the bus at the corner of Calle 72 and Carrera 13 and we walked part of the distance before flagging a taxi.

"Watch your camera, this is a dangerous place!"

We've been trying to figure out our plan between now and the evening of December 14th when we fly back to Mexico City.

We're in Bogota now, but our flight leaves from Medellin. We had wanted to get up to Bucaramanga, but that's still 400 kms (250 miles) north of here and then it's not easy to get to Medellin from there. Buses don't go anywhere fast here!

Interesting day exploring Bogota, Colombia

We've booked in for yet another couple of nights at the Explora Hostel in Bogota. It's a little pricey at 75,000 pesos ($33.75 CAD) per night, but the room is decent,we have a private bathroom, it's quiet at night, and it's well located in the downtown area.

We had breakfast at the hostel. For 4,000 pesos ($1.80 CAD) you get coffee or hot chocolate, a little bowl of fruit, two eggs, bread, butter, and jam. For 1,000 pesos ($0.45 CAD) more, we substitute a corn arepa for the bread.

November Expenses

We'll do another update mid December after our Colombia trip is over to be able to show you what it cost in total for the entire six week trip. In the meantime, we'll continue with our standard monthly report, detailing what we spent during November.

We spent a total of $2,175. All figures are in Canadian dollars. (For USD perspective, you can take about 25% off!)

Back to the doctor!

The reason we came to Bogota a few days early is because I (Kevin) have had a very bad rash and itchy, blistering skin for the last two weeks or so. I would show you a picture or two, but it's nasty. So I'm not going to. Use your imagination.

Originally, this started small, on my right calf, and left forearm and it simply got a little bit worse every day...for the last two weeks!

Travel day! Villavieja to Bogota, Colombia

We were up a little late again yesterday morning. Because of the itchy rash, I haven't been sleeping much and so when I am actually sleeping in the morning, Ruth just allows me to sleep. That's all fine and dandy, but we should be getting up earlier on travel days.

We paid our bill at the hotel in Villavieja. Nice friendly little town and we would have liked to have stayed longer if it hadn't been so darned hot!

Amazing scenery at Colombia's Tatacoa Desert (part 2)

We're in Bogota now (that story will come tomorrow morning!), but we still wanted to continue this morning's post. So you might want to read that first if you haven't already. It's available here...

http://www.travelwithkevinandruth.com/2015/11/a-bumpy-ride-to-colombias-spectacular.html

Okay...so if you've read that part we can now continue with our desert tour!

A bumpy ride to Colombia's spectacular Tatacoa Desert (Part 1)

The only reason we came to Villavieja was to see the Tatacoa Desert. But during the day from 10:00am to 4:00pm, it's too hot to do anything else but laze around. So other than going for breakfast, that's exactly what we did until about 3:00pm.

At that time, we walked down to the central plaza and made arrangements with a "moto-taxi" to take us into the desert.

Travel day! San Agustin to Villavieja, Colombia.

You never quite know what to expect on a travel day. Sometimes everything goes smoothly, and other times it does not.

Yesterday was a "does not" kind of a day!

The odd statues at San Agustin, Colombia

Yesterday morning, we walked down to the main road and took the local bus to the archaeological park. It's only a 3 km walk, but we decided to take the 1,200 peso ($0.55 CAD) bus.

We had already paid the admission fee via the park passport we had bought during the tour yesterday.

Busy day, including Colombia's highest waterfall...

Yesterday morning we were sitting at the table here at the hostel, having a hot chocolate and just finishing up writing the blog when the girl from the hostel comes over with a guy who does jeep tours of the area. We had wanted to do one of these tours because it's the only way to see some of the sights we wanted to see.

But he was leaving right then! In fact, the jeep was waiting outside with four other people already in it, and he was looking for two more passengers to fill the vehicle.

Not many birds, but lots of butterflies!

We came to San Agustin to visit the archaeological park here, but we heard rumors that it was to be closed on Tuesday. It's supposed to be open every day of the week, so we figured that the only way to find out for sure was to walk on over there!

The main part of the park is 3 kms (1.9 miles) from town, so if it ended up being closed at least we would get a walk out of it!

Travel day! Popayan to San Agustin, Colombia.

Had to get up fairly early yesterday to get to the bus station at a decent hour. We had read that the road between Popayan and San Agustin is in pretty bad shape at some parts, and that the 135 km (84 mile) journey would take 5 hours.

Got up, went out to get some take away breakfast stuff, stopped at the BanColombia ATM to get some more pesos then back to the room to grab our bags. As we left the hotel, we flagged down one of the thousands of little yellow taxi cabs, and paid him 3,000 pesos ($1.36 CAD) to take us to the bus station.

No better, but no worse...

Went for a walk around town yesterday morning. Stopped into a place for breakfast and ended up having lunch. We weren't really presented with a menu, and by the time we finished talking to the guy about what to have we ended up with plates of rice and meat again. A little expensive too...with the hot chocolate it came to 24,000 pesos ($10.92 CAD) for the two of us.

Too funny. I know that's still dirt cheap, but it's more than we have paid at other places.

A visit to a Colombian doctor...

Not for Ruth this time though. Fortunately, her kidney infection from a week or so ago seems to be all better.

This time, it's my turn.

About five or six days ago I noticed a rash appearing on the left side of my right calf. I've had this twice before in the past couple of years, both times while in Mexico. But this time it got much worse.

Travel day! Buga to Popayan, Colombia.

Yesterday was a travel day, and while some travel days go smoother than others...this was one of the worst. Not terrible, really...just not one of the better travel days we've had.

At least we woke up to some sunshine and blue sky.

The bus terminal in Buga was located just over 1 km from our downtown hostel, so we decided to walk it.

Six miles in the Colombian jungle

Yesterday, we signed up for a guided tour to a waterfall done through the Buga Hostel where we're staying. There is a local guy, Pipo who runs inexpensive tours to several nearby locations.

There was one other couple who went with us, Courtney and Joel from Florida. The five of us met in the lobby here and then walked a few blocks to take a local bus into the countryside.

Exploring the city of Buga, Colombia

Went for a walk around the small city of Buga, Colombia yesterday. Population here of about 98,000 people. It's not on the international tourist trail at all. Most people head straight to the city of Cali, about 70 kms (43 miles) away.

But in doing the research, we couldn't find much of interest to us in Cali, plus we've had several locals tell us it's not the safest city. So we are going to skip it.

Travel day! Filandia to Buga, Colombia.

We paid our bill at Bidea Hostel in Filandia. 186,000 pesos ($88.35 CAD) for three nights. A little overpriced compared to some of the other hostels we've stayed at in Colombia. Two things that typically have bothered us about these hostels...the kitchen facilities available to the guests have been substandard in our opinion, and they seem to have a massive shortage of hooks and hangers in Colombia, because none of the hostels that we have stayed at have enough of them!

Seriously, for something so simple...buy some hooks for the walls and put up some shelving in the rooms! And yes, we did mention this to the young owner before we left.

The fascinating scenery at Valle de Cocora, Colombia

This area is why we came to Salento to begin with. Of course we had seen pictures on the web while doing our research for this trip, and that was the instigator to come here. But pictures never do it justice, and that's certainly the case here. Being there in person is far better.

Ruth had not been feeling well last week, so we never made it there on our schedule. But we weren't leaving the area without seeing the giant wax palm trees! So we hung around a few more days until Ruth recovered. Yesterday, was the day...

Nice lookout tower...but it's closed.

Supposed to be breakfast included at this hostel, but as we watched the girl put it together yesterday morning we realized there wasn't much for us. Sure, coffee and tea, but we had already made our own hot chocolate anyhow. She brought out a big plate of chopped up papaya, and there were a couple of bananas and some bread and jam. That's it. Of course we couldn't eat the bread...so we left for our hike still a little hungry.

We stopped at a bakery. It's common in this area to get "pan de bono" which is a really soft cheese bread made with corn flour. It's really nice actually!

Travel Day! Salento to Filandia, Colombia

We really enjoyed our stay at El Mocambo farm hostel near Boquia, Colombia. It's a beautiful, tranquil spot. But, we had to move on...mostly because we couldn't extend our stay there, otherwise I think we probably would have!

El Mocambo has a shuttle service to bring you in to Salento at 8:00am, so we were up at 6:00am yesterday morning in order to get packed up and have breakfast before we left.

The town of Salento, Colombia

Yesterday, we relaxed for the morning and then went into Salento in the afternoon. This morning we are checking out of where we are staying and they only accept cash. We stayed two days more than we planned, plus we have to pay cash at the next place we are staying too so we had to find an ATM.

Otherwise, our cash supply would have been running low.

Hike to a waterfall

Ruth doesn't like being cooped up, so despite the fact that she was not feeling 100%, she wanted to get some fresh air. So she said she felt well enough to try the hike to the waterfall, and if we had to take our time and rest along the way, then so be it.

She did come for breakfast and get some food down, so that was a good start.