FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX: Chicamocha National Park

Chicamocha Canyon

This post could also be titled Airports and Airplanes, a little more on that later!

It was an early start today as Avianca had kindly changed our originally booked direct flight to Medellín to a connecting flights which departed earlier. We were picked up at 0700 for our excursion to Chicamocha National Park enroute to Bucaramanga Airport.

When Australians hear National Park, we think a nature preserving area. However, in this case, the park was more of a recreational park which was built on the slope of the Chicamocha Canyon! They had mini recreations of a village to depict the culture of Santander, ziplines, pools, cable cars and more. Unfortunately some of the activities ruined the landscape. We got on the cable car as soon as it operated. Let's pause for a moment here, we have to confess that we did wonder about Colombian engineering and was somewhat relieved when we found out it was built by the French. Anywho...the 6km cable car ride when down into the canyon and back on to the other side which was pretty cool.

A Colombian road stop

First views of the Chicamocha Canyon

The cable car had good ventilation. Phew!

The bottom of the canyon

Cortado de leche. Sooo sweet. The 5 of us could only eat 1/3 of that tiny cup

Arequipe. Like soft chewy caramel

Village like recreation around a square, with souvenir stalls, restaurants and cafes

Andy said the coffee was good and he was right. I chose the frappe version today

A monument at the top of the hill

By this stage we were very hot and none of us could remember the significance of the monument. Oops

The vista was stunning though

Typical food of the area for lunch. Dried meat, grilled chicken with arepa, rice and cassava

After lunch it was a 2 hour drive to Bucaramanga airport where check in and security was quick. Surprisingly at a small regional airport, there were 2 priority pass lounges. Granted they were tiny, but it meant that we could take 2 kids in as guests in one, deposit them there and take then 3rd with us into the second lounge. Winner!

Our first flight was initially delayed by 30 minutes which became 45 minutes, and then an hour. After we boarded, we stayed on the tarmac for about an hour and a half. As everything was only announced in Spanish we didn't know what the reason was. In the end, we missed our connecting flight. We had to fight off hordes of pushing Colombians to work out next steps at the Avianca counter. Fortunately we had longer legs and got there first. Avianca had put us on a flight about an hour later. Sweet. Or so we thought until that second flight was ALSO delayed! And we sat on the tarmac again for another 30 minutes. This time on the runway presumably waiting for air traffic. By the time we landed in Medellín, it was well past midnight and we got to our hotel room at 0130am.

At this point, we were grateful that we didn't have to worry about transport to the hotel, that we didn't get stuck in Bogota and that ALL our suitcases made it. The local contacts looking after us in Colombia were also super helpful. They made sure our pick up and hotel were aware of the delay, and even tried to find out what Avianca was doing with the second flight on our behalf. 10/10 for service. Our guide, Pablo, was sympathetic and kind despite having to be at the airport at an ungodly hour just to take us to our hotel. He pushed back our start time for tomorow's activities so we could sleep. Zzzzz....

And for those interested, our hotel in Medellín was Hotel Poblado Plaza.