Tubing & Weaving

 

Don Diego River, often used as an Amazon substitute in movies

We survived another night without air-conditioning! Because of the storms overnight, young Jonah informed me that the humidity level dropped from 95% yesterday to a more comfortable 82% today. Regardless, we started our tubing trip early to avoid the peak heat of the day. By 0800 we were on our tubes and floating down the Don Diego River. The river was often used as a substitute for the Amazon as it looked similar but was much more accessible. The Lost City of Z was filmed here as was The Mission. As per our experience on the Santo Domingo River, it was quiet and idyllic and it felt like at any moment a large anaconda or crocodile or a school of piranhas would attack us...We reached the river mouth to the Caribbean Sea safely and it was an easy walk across the sand to a quiet beach. When we were ready, a boat took us back upstream.

It has been remiss of me not to have mentioned the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta earlier. It is the area that we are in currently and is an isolated mountain range in northern Colombia, separate from the Andes range. Colombia's highest peak is found here at around 5700m and it is located a mere 40km from the coast. So we stood at the beach and looked back at snow at the top of the mountains. It was surreal.

We all enjoyed our hour of chillaxing in nice cool freshwater, and it was a lovely relief from feeling hot and sticky. We saw pelicans, herons, ibises, howler monkeys, as well as caimans (mini crocs). Fortunately we didn't see the latter until after we were in the boat...

This morning's mode of transport

Getting off at the mouth of the river

And on to the Caribbean Sea

Quiet beach for now

Jonah desperately wanted my phone 

The game of writing in the sand before the waves wipe it clean

So many different birds. Because lighting you can't see the bright yellow of his top half

Boat taking back upstream

I didn't need to know that there were caimans here

It is hard to make out, but there was snow on the peaks of the mountains

Once again, 10 points to Christian for commitment!

To take a photo of this fella

Red howler, taken on my phone

It was lunch back at our hotel and then a mochila weaving demonstration by an Arhuaca lady, Rosalie. We later found out that she and her daughter had to walk 2 hours then catch a bus to get to our hotel. As per their culture, there was an exchange of gifts at the beginning. The hotel kindly provided our "gift" consisting of various items such as coffee, rice, and beans. We then hiked up to the viewpoint of the hotel and nearly died in the process. Luckily it was cool up there but we may lost weight from just sweating. 

The Arhuaco was one of four indigenous people of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. Christian translated the importance of the mochila to their culture and Rosalie then showed us how they make the mochila. Girls as young as 3 start to learn to weave. The starting material is with agave fibres, which then gets dyed with natural substances. They are allowed to work with dyed material after their first menses. When they are proficient enough, they can move on to wool. It was a lovely quiet afternoon. I would have bought a mochila but unfortunately I didn't love any of the patterns that Rosalie had. Because of the time it took to make the bags (two months on average), they cost anywhere between USD85-100.

I know I have whinged and whined like a spoilt princess...but I am glad that we came. Would I do it again? Probably not! However, overall. it was an important and contrasting part of Colombia that I wouldn't want to miss.

Walk to the viewpoint

Monkeytail plant

We made it!

It was so cool up here the kids wanted to sleep here overnight

The agave fibres

Made into twine like material

They can do this by hand or with this contraption

Rosalie showing Lara how to weave

The start of my mini mochila

Elliot helping make more yarn

Her collection of bags

This one she was making for herself and not for sale! The only one that I liked!

The end product. My mini mochila

The Tayrona National Natural Park

We are hot. We are sweaty. So this post will be written with haste.

Today we tackled Tayrona National Natural Park. The original mission was to walk the 7km trail all the way to Cabo San Juan beach. This was the beach that is the poster child of the Tayrona. However, after sweating more than we ever had in our whole entire lives, we decided to turn around when we reached La Piscina Beach. The beaches were beautiful, but not an extra hour's hike beautiful...Our jungle walk still totaled 10km. Luckily the sun did not grace us with her presence today. I shudder to think how much worse it could have been!

Our guide, Christian, was a Colombian David Attenborough. He was monkey whisperer, snacks and drinks bearer, flora educationalist all in one. He did distract us from our sweaty discomfort. He helped us spot 3 out of 4 monkey species, an agouti, as well as various birds. He also did tell us all about the geography and biodiversity of the region, as well as breeding facts of the monkeys, but an overheated Belinda could only retain so much information...

We were not ashamed to admit that perhaps one of our favourite moments today may have been the drive to and from Tayrona in the air-conditioned van. We had a late yummy lunch back at our hotel and enjoyed some family time. 

We only tackled the section on the far right

Christian showing us the plant used to make Panama hats, actually originally form Ecuador

Can you spot the monkey?

Christian was committed. He could mimic their sounds and took photos for us so we could see clearly

The cotton-top tamarin

Santa Marta white-fronted capuchin

The terrain changed constantly

The "hills" albeit small were tiring in the humidity

Arrecifes

Low GI treat for sustenance. Thank you! There was also panela lemonade

Yup that was all sweat and we weren't even halfway there

Looking more beach-like

The end of the freshwater system. There were alligator warnings

The start of the beach

Another Albany nightmare, walking across sand. 4 out of 5 don't like sand! Don't ask why we chose to go to the beach

Relieved to have shade and cold drinks

Playa La Piscina

When there are only 2 ping pong bats you improvise and use badminton bats

Or you use the bats for its original purpose

That was too much exertion. Uno is a sit down game

We have picked up more pets

Minca

Eco hotel La Jorara

The antimalarials were onboard, the eau de DEET sprayed on liberally and we were ready to take on the Colombia's Caribbean coast. Unfortunately the day did not turn out as we planned. This was the first time during our stay in Colombia where we had a subpar experience. 

Breakfast...the bad juju that was Casa Mia continued. After forcing us to choose our breakfast of choice and nominating our dining time, we had to give our orders again and then wait an additional 15 minutes. The breakfast itself though was decent.

Our guide for our time in Santa Marta and Minca was Carolina. She was no Pablo who we missed terribly. We later found out that she was still a university student and this was her second year as a guide. I won't harp on the negatives because I could do it for a long time!!! So in summary, the flow of the day really was poor. We were walking at the wrong time of day, such that some waterfalls were already packed. The place where she took us to for lunch had menu items that we could all read...poke bowl, ramen, burgers. Alarm bells were ringing. 

Other things were not entirely her fault. We were taken to another coffee processing "farm". Unlike the one we went to which was authentic and a working farm, this one was driven mostly by tourism. When we had to do a tour with 6 other tourist, we bailed. The tour was in an ugly warehouse looking building in an ugly town...

Marinka Falls was an hour trek one way. We expected to see a natural swimming area, instead it was paid entry with restaurants and concreting around the falls. The water did not look hygienic. It was rather disappointing. The walk to the falls itself was not particularly scenic. It was along a road more or less and motorcycles, cars and even small trucks drove by frequently enough to be annoying.

The only photo I took at Casa Mia

Our walk to the coffee house. The highlight was seeing howler monkeys, toucans, orpendola, large blue butterfly as large as Elliot's hand

Monkey up in the tree

Angels trumpet used by the indigenous tribes to make a drink that was hallucinogenic

Ginger shampoo

At least we got our coffee, then we bailed!

The walk to Marinka Falls

The top tier

The swimming tier

I didn't want to come to a waterfall to see pasty Europeans sunbathing on nets. Oh wait...those are my children

Iguana

Pokebowl. Don't think of is as pokebowl then it is tasty!

Minca. Yeah not a fan

By this time, we were hot and cranky. When we saw that Minca was more or less a backpacker hangout, we bailed and decided to continue to our base for the next 3 nights, Eco Hotel La Jorara. This decision was probably made against my better judgement...I hate heat, I hate mosquitos and there was no A/C. It was purely to see and experience the nature of the surrounding area. The hotel building and grounds itself was reasonably nice. The staff were sweet and helpful. The food was decent. Would have been perfect with air-conditioning!

The property had 3 Rhodesian ridgebacks much to the children's delight

The building where our rooms were

Area outside our room

Caribbean sea about 100m walk from our hotel

Relaxing?!?

Don't remember what it was called but it was nice

Coconut rice was a sweet one