Panama City

I guess you need to watch out for runners and body builders?

Panama City from the view of Panama Viejo, or old Panamanian Ruins

Friday of last week Stewart and I took a taxi to the Bogota airport, and boarded another jet aeroplane bound for Panama City, Panama. You dont truly appreciate the beauty and speed of modern air traffic until you have traversed these massive distances by land, a point especially true down here where they dont have interstates! A mere hour after taking off out of Bogota, we were descending into the Panama airport, a jouney that would surely have taken 2-3 days by land.


Panama city, home of the panama canal, is perhaps one of the most cosmopolitian cities in all of central america. On every street corner you are just as likely to find a Thai, Chinese, Greek, Indian, Turkish, or American restaurant as you are an "authentic" Panamanian. High rise towers straddle the pacific coastline, Donald Trump has his own resort, and AARP rated it the #4 place to retire. A lionshare of the international influence comes from none other than the US. I feel that few people realize what a profound impact we have had on this country and its culture.







After backing the Panamanian independance from Colombia in 1903, the panamanian ambassador to the US unilaterally represented Panama in a closed door treaty that gave the US sovreignty to all of the canal zone. The rest of Panama did not learn that we owned a portion of their country (splitting it in two) until we actually had soliders on the ground. This was the case until massive nationwide protests in 1979 forced Jimmy Carter to renegotiate the treaty, allowing them to have the Canal back in 1999. Then in 1989 with Norriega in power we went to war for one day to oust him, killing 2,000 civilians and wounding 20,000 others. This was actually the 4th time we had intervened militarily in Panama since 1903. US military presence contributed 300 million dollars annually to Panama, almost 1% of their GDP, and now the vast military bases sit empty and out of place throughout their country, like vestiges of a colonial past.



As the door to the plane opened it filled the cabin with a warm salty air, a veritable salvation from the past 3 weeks of cold mountain air. I inhaled slowely and deeply, infusing my lungs with the heat and excitement brought about a change in climate. Panama was also the flattest piece of land we had seen in a long time, meaning less walking up and down in thin air exhaustion.

A mile long causeway constructed by the US military to transport two giant 14" guns to the islands protecting the Panama Canal in 1914.

Our first night was spent in the Voyager International Hostel, which came highly recommend by the lonely planet. However, our taxi driver informed us that the Hostel had moved, and as we crawled up the small stairwell to the 3rd story apartment complex, we knew that this was not the same one seen by LP authors. The "hostel" was literally a converted large 4 bedroom apartment, except that in rooms meant for 2 people, they had somehow sqeezed in 10 bunkbeds. I was also firmly convinced that my "mattress" was actually a large covered piece of packing foam. I set about the next morning procuring another dig, and stumbled upon the cheapest, nicest hostel in all of central america. "Luna's Castle" is located in historic Casco Viejo in a turn of the century victorian mansion. This 10 dollar a night hostel was started by 3 guys from San Francisco who graduated together in 2004. With a million dollar view overlooking the Panama City Harbor, and right across from the presdents residence, this is truly a gold mine.

View from our Hostel

The historic center of Panama City stands in harsh contrasts to the Burger Kings and high rises just across the bay. Almost every single building is over a hundred years old, most pushing 200, but somehow it all fell into disrepair for the last 80. UNESCO declared it a world heritage site and so a renovation effort has begun over the last 10 years, followed by the security brought by the new presidencial residence. The narrow allyways are now home to boutique ice cream shops and 5 star restaurants where 10 years ago they were whore houses and drug dens. All of this renovation and construction also meant that Panama city was one of the most expensive places we have been to date, and so we needed to move on to save a little of money!

The next day we went out to check out Miraflores Locks of the Panama Canal. As I rode the bus out past the maze of ex-US military barracks, I got to sit next to one of the tram operators that helps pull the boats through the locks on trains. He said that when the US left, life working at canal changed dramatically. Predictably the panamanians had a hard time keeping up with the quotas formerly set by the US, and despite now charging 200 to 300 thousand dollars per boat, all of the workers salaries were cut in half. Stewart and I watched a movie in the Miraflores Locks visitor center while waiting for the boat to come, and we both noticed that this was the first building in Panama we had been in with building code items like emergency exits, fire exstinguishers, exit signs, and emergency lighting. And then we realized it was built by the US...

Even though it was built a hundred years ago, it is still an amazing feat of engineering watching a giant cargo ship get lowerd 60 feet in a matter of minutes. I think that when the locks were first built they were large enough for any ship to date, but now it looks as if the boats themselves are built to fit inside the locks, as there is only 1-2 feet of clearance on each side and not more than 10-20 in the front and back for these half mile long ships.




Also of interest in Panama City were the ruins from the original city built by the Spanish in the middle of the 16th century. Panama City was the first city built by the Spanish on the Pacifc coast, and was preceded by Portobelo on the east coast. The object of these two cities was to facilitate the gold trade/theft out of Lima, Peru. Naturally since boats between Spain and this part of the world only came once or twice a year, these two cities ended up sitting on a LOT of gold waiting to take it back to Spain. This was too much of a temptation for English Pirates, and so both cities were sacked on multiple occasions.

Bogota

View overlooking the City of Bogota

Bogota's iglesia de San Franciso

Sunset Bogota Colombia

With Stewart on his way south to indulge in Colombia's number 2 agricultural export (coffee), I headed back east towards Bogota to get a head start on checking out Colombia's capital city. I came into Bogota on a Tuesday night, giving me 2 full days to explore before our flight left for Panama city. We chose to fly as opposed to drive to Panama because it is not actually possible to drive from Colombia to Panama without a really intense 4 wheel drive vehicle, a week a free time, and a machine gun toting guide. So we chose to fly.

Between Colombia and Panama is an area known as the Darian gap that isnt actually patrolled or controlled by either country. It is an area of lawlessness and drug smuggling, where the government is more inclined to bomb any potential trouble than send in police. It is also home to some of the most undisturbed rainforest in either country. While sad we could not partake in this adventure, it was for the best.

Bogota would be our third week straight of transcending the South American Andes. From Cajamarca to Quito, Medellin to Bogota, we had been at high altitudes and low temperatures forever, and Bogota was no exception. I don't know what possessed ancient tribal leaders when they decided to place their capitals in environs where it routinely got into the 50s at night, when they had ample gorgeous beaches. I suppose it might have been the disease, but nonetheless it had been a chilly three weeks. I say this mostly to prove the point that the image of south America as being a hot humid place is not entirely true.

Bogota is situated on the edge of a mountain that runs the entire length of the city and directs the sprawl out to the west. Much like Medellin, it is a cleaner more well designed city, although it lacks the sexy metro. It too was dangerous several years ago, but it is quickly coming around to realizing that things must be done. Our Hostel for instance had two doors, one to let people in and a second one behind bars so that the hostel staff could get a good look at you before they let you in. The second door would not open until the first was closed, kind of like an airlock to the outside world. I was told that this was less and less of a necessity, but still used occasionally.

As I left my hostel to grab a quick bit to eat, I ran into none other than Ross from Finn McCool's in Quito. The coolest place to hang out in all of Quito by far is the Irish Pub in the Mariscal called Finn McCool's. Run by an incredible Irish couple, Lee and Ursula, this place truly is special to me, and all the people there are some of the nicest I know. Ross was a bartender there when I was working in Quito last semester, but his visa from Ireland had run out three days before and so he moved to Bogota to start anew. Ross and I met up with some people he had been hanging out with from Bogota, and as it turned out one of them had a way to sneak into a show that night in Bogota. Taking him up on the offer, we slid by security and got to party with Chic Bogotaians while I noodeled out to band called Bomba Estéreo. The second band that came on and led us late into the night (5am ish) was a Colombian version of the Talking Heads, all decked out in white suits. Suffice to say that it was INCREDIBLE! And to top it off everyone had cast aside their salsa upbringing and were dancing similar to a good phish show! I was in heaven.

I wonder what a full service bathroom is like!

The next morning I took a walking tour of Bogota, starting out at the Plaza Bolivar or central square. (side note: if you ever find yourself in a south American city and are lost, just ask for the directions to the plaza Bolivar and nine times out of ten this will be the central square) After an unintelligible 2 minute oral history from a drunk street bum wanting money, I decided to hack it out on my own.

Iglesia de San Francsico, Bogota Colombia

Iglesia de San Francisco, Bogota Colombia

When Stewart arrived the next day, we hit up the museum scene around Bogota. In addition to great infrastructure, cleaner living, and gorgeous people, Bogota also has one of the most amazing collections of free public museums I have found to date. Highlights were more Botero paintings, a photographic exhibition by photographer Carlos Domenech, and last but not least: an exhibition in national police headquarters on the 499 day hunt for Pablo Escobar including the jacket he was shot in.

Machine used by P. Escobar to pack brick of Cocaine. The white horse was his symbol for quality.

Pablo Escobar's Mobile Phone or "Celly"

P. Escobar's silver plated 9mm's

The jacket P. Escobar was wearing the day he was shot by police

Although sad to leave Bogota and Colombia so soon, it was time to move on, and so we headed to the airport on Friday to catch our flight to Panama and warmer weather.

Where do I begin! Medellin, Bogota, and Panama

First off I just would like to express my sincerest apoligies for not updating the blog in over a week and half. I kind of feel like I let everyone down on the job, but I do have some honest excuses. I was a little burnt out from blogging every other day for the first half of March, I mean, these things can take 3-4 hours to put up and most of the time I am doing it on a circa 1995 computer with half the keys that stick or are in the wrong location. Sometimes the connection is so bad that I will type for 2 minutes and then have to wait for a minute for the words to materilize on the screen (mistakes and all). Second and more importantly: the past week has been what they call "semana sante" or holy week on account of Easter. They really, really, really take their easter seriously in all of South America and Central America; everything was simply closed from this past Wednesday until Monday of this week. Internet cafes, restaurants, stores, everything was closed for almost the entire week; it was absolutely unbelievable. Then on Monday when they were finally open again, I took the Panama Railroad north to Colon and Portobelo where there was no internet to speak of. I am now in Bocas del Toro Panama and I am back up to bloggin. I am going to spend the next day or two filling you in on what I have done over the course of the past week and half...

Medellin, Colombia, Mid March 2008:

After a grueling 33 hour bus ride from Bogota, Stewart and I arrived into Medellin, Colombia. There are monumental differences between Ecuador, Peru, and Colombia. Get this: they have... ... TRASH CANS! This simple act of defiance against the gods of dirt is the first step towards general public cleanliness, better infrastructure, and a better living conditions for the people of Colombia. You dont belive it until you see it, but it is totally the norm in other countries to take whatever trash you have and leave it where you stand. In Quito Ecuador's beautiful manicured public parks, infinite piles of trash dot the lush green grass from where people have picknicked every Sunday. I suppose that the trash, like the dirt, is such a part of their daily lives that they see no difference in it or a verdent lawn. However in Medellin the winds of change are blowing, and fortunately not pushing along much trash as they do!

Medellin is also home to Colombia's only, and as far as I know South America's only Metro! Begun in 1984 and finished in 1995, it is an elevated, beautiful, state of the art, light rail. Ripping through the city on the way to our hostel in a hugely spacious modern metro, while admiring the green grass of highway medians, (this was the first median, or highway for that matter, I had seen in South America) we might have just as well hopped a concord to France for all I knew.

It is hard to believe that a mere 15 years ago this city was the de facto kingdom of Pablo Escobar and the largest cocaine cartel ever.

Stewart getting his new balances shined

As Stewart and I went out that night, we also experienced several other firsts for South America. I will preface this by saying that usually when definitive gringos such as myself and Stewart go out in Ecuador or Peru, my pasty white skin, random pimple, blond hair, and unnaturally tall physique is a definite chick magnet. It is the one chance that I get to stick it to all the unbuttoned shirt, tan, cut, and sexy latinos prowling my own country stealing my women. I will not go into the specifics of why they view white men more affectionately down here (meal ticket ahem...) but sufice to say that it exists. This was NOT the case as Stewart and I went out and partied with the whos whos of Medellin in Zona Rosa. The only gringos who partied here were broke backpackers which had left an indelible impression upon the members of the opposite sex. To top this off we were competing with bankers, stock brokers, and buisnessmen much more relatively affluent here than I could ever hope to be.

So we had to be content to drink our beers and look (stare), which was more than fulfilling for the short duration we hung around. After a good dorm room bed sleep accented by our neighborrs partying till 5 in the morning on account of St. Patricks day, we woke up fresh and tired to hit the streets of Medellin for a little cultural infusion.

I have one name for the art of Medellin: Botero, Fernando Botero. This Medellin native has made a name for himself over the last half century, prolifically painting and sculpting his way into veritable stardom. His 80 or so 4x life size bronze statues litter the city like they had been thrown from a seed spreader. His paintings practically fill up 2 or 3 large musuems here. So see Botero we did, and we saw, and we saw, and we saw. Using a palatte of simple colors with straigtforward delinitated accuracy, he paints figurative portraits of people. Their faces all potray the same umimpassioned ambivilant gaze that peers at you through small beady wide eyes. And their bodies... well every one of his characters is bulbously fat. I mean, every one of his subjects look like they could spend a couple years on the Subway diet and still stand to loose a few L B s.

The first few Boteros were dramatically intriguing, and I spent a good deal of time looking and analyzing his work. However after literally 300 plus works I saw of his, I became a little disengaged.


The next morning I took advantage of the public transportation, and for a 1 dollar ticket I was able to take the metro all the way to the top of one of the hills overlooking Medellin via a brand spakin new cable car that they had put in. As our ski-lift style cable car crested the first hill, I looked down and saw one of the shanty town suburbs that surrounds Medellin. It was here that I realized that even the best city in South America is not immune to the scourge of poverty where the less forturnate are pushed to the fringes. They are forced to live in mud walled homes with patched together tin roofs; this was the South America I knew. While Colombia might have smaller shanty towns than their neighbors to the south or the east, the towns still exist, and the people that live in them have the same impovrished life.






I found more homeless people sleeping in the streets, taking advantage of the peace and quiet of Samana Sante.




Also got to checkout an open air market they have in the Plaza Bolivar, items of interest were pigeon houses up in the trees and a man selling snails.





While Stewart chose to go check out the coffee region south of Medellin for a few days, I elected to get a head start on Bogota and came back from Medellin mid way through last week. We were scheduled to fly into Panama last Friday, and this gave me a few days to check out this incredible city as well.

I will put up more about Bogota and Panama tomorrow!

Till then take care

Merrill

Quito to Bogota to Medellin

The city of Medellin

*I want to preface this blog by saying that my spell checker is working and I was an art major, not an english major, ahemm*

Unfortunately, Stewart and I had to break our pact of using only bus, car, train, and foot to make it back to the U.S. of A.

Three weeks ago while planning the immediate stages of this trip, we flipped on the news one day to see that Colombia had bombed a FARC military headquaters located inside Ecuadorian territory. In a typical melodramtic childish Chavez/Correa overeaction, Ecuadorian and Venezualan governments (Chavez tends to stick his nose into everything down here) responded by saying it was an incursion into Ecuadorian Sovreignty, warranting complete and total retaliation if nothing was done by Colombia. Ecuador and Venezuela both claimed to have sent troops to the border, but Colombia's President, Alvaro Uribe, kept his wits about him and didn't respond in kind.

Admist all of this turmoil, Stewart and I decided that crossing the border between two possibly warring countries by land would not be the best course of action. This combined a history of kidnapping gringos in the south of Colombia was enough to convince my mother to buy a plane ticket to get us into and out of Colombia. And so we were off into cold pre-dawn air of Quito at 5:00 am Thursday morning to catch a 7:00 flight to Bogota Colombia. Out flight on Copa airlines would take us swiftly out of Quito and rush us northwards at astonishing speeds compared to the busses we have been on for the past two weeks. The flight called for us to land in Panama City (not the one in Florida, but the one in Panama), and then back down to Bogota in time for lunch. However, like too much of the culture here in South America... It was delayed. It was delayed on the prettiest, warmest, most cloudless day I have seen in Quito. Eventually we were off, headed towards the capital on the western mouth of the Panama Canal.

After boarding the Boeing 737-800 and falling asleep before take off, I woke up sometime mid cruise and had a weird realization. I no longer felt like I was in South America, but could have just as easily have been on a flight from Atlanta to Dallas. The nuances of air travel: the smell, the beeps and noises, the view 30,000 feet off the ground, lack of leg room, and bad on-board meals; are in fact fairly universal, but are something I had come to associate with American culture and American flights. For the 90 minutes I was flying from Quito to Panama, I felt absolutely at home in this tin can of culture flying across the sky.

I had read that Panama City is a rich cosmopolitan meca, second only to Hong Kong, which was dearly confimred as we deboarded the plane. Crossing the terminal to our subsequent gate, we passed three, thats right THREE Lacoste stores in the span of 500 meters. A prada store, thousand dollar watches, diamond jewlers by the dozen, etc. Void of fulfillment from my 8 dollar excuse of a sandwich, out of Panama city we ran back down south to Bogota, where we were safely on the ground by 1:30 or 2. Stewart and I had heard that Medellin was the capital of night life in Colombia, and as this was our only weekend we would spend in Colombia, we beelined to the bus terminal from the airport to catch one to Medellin and hopefully be there by the evening...

A side note about Colombia: After reading the state deparments warnings about travlling in Colombia, and knowing that much of the US's supply of cocaine was still produced here, and that as little as 15 years ago the government was in a veritable war with jungle seperatist guerillas, I was understandably apprehensious about what I would find. I stand corrected, for Colombia (from the two days I have spent here) is one of the prettiest, most well developed, least impoverished, and nicest places I have been so far. Their country believes (for the most part as you will read later) in infastructure as the route to buisiness confidence and sucess. They believe in simple things (for the most part) like cleanliness. Obvious international influences are evident throughout city planning, types of food, punctuality. All of this is said in the most part purely relative to other latin american countries I have seen. And the people (specifically the girls/women) are absolutely, hands down, by far, the most gorgeous women I had ever seen. Taller, fairer complextion, curvaceous, and confident sums it all up nicely.

At approximately 3:15 in the afternoon, we left the Colombia bus station headed west bound towards Medellin, with an expected arrival time of 1:00 in the morning. Things were rolling along smoothly, cruising on a beautifully paved two lane highway between Bogota and Medellin while watching the sun set over the mountains surrounding Bogota. One item of notice along the trip was the huge abundance of honest to goodness 18 wheelers traveling the same winding road we were on. In the states we learn from an early age to loathe and fear 18 wheelers, destroyers of pavement, harborers of dirty truck drivers, and general nuisance to a kinder gentler population. However here, they represented the movement of goods for trade and buisness, they represented progress, they represented money for masses. I saw very few in Ecuador, and even fewer in Peru. A second item of notice was that it was still clean! Although the affluence dimished as we pushed our way into the countryside and out of the city, there was still a higher standard of upkeep maintaind by the country people.

Stopping for dinner about 10:00 that evening, we were exicted to almost be in Medellin maybe in time to catch some late night clubbing. For the record I am not what you would call a "clubber;" I was merely trying to immerse myself in the culture. However, as we climbed back onto the bus and out on the road, the trouble soon began. At 10:30 PM, in the dense jungle and rolling hills three hours outside of Medellin, in the pouring rain and pitch dark of night, our bus came to a sudden and complete stop behind a train of cars and trucks. It was here that we would remain, in the exact same spot, for the next 18 and half hours. We came to find out that as the rain fell throughout the day, it had turned a hole hillside into soft red mud that eventually caved under its own weight and covered our road with 8 feet of mud for 200 meters. The road was a great road with concrete gutters and asphalt, but is was only two lanes wide, and it was the only road connecting cities the size of Dallas and Denver. Apparently the Colombian road crews do not work at night, so we were stuck at 10:30 p.m. in the middle of nowhere until daylight broke. Curling up as much as I could in my green bus seat with plastic head covers, I threw on the Ipod and called it a night.

As dawn broke over the steaming fertile green hills of nowhere Colombia, I looked out my tinted window to recognize the same rotten barbwire fence, the same rock, and the same little stick on the road I had been staring at for 7 hours. It was now 6:00, 7 hours and 30 minutes since the bus stopped, on a trip that was supposed to take a total of 9. Around 7:00, two eighteen wheelers rolled through the opposite lane with a bulldozer and a backhoe, and a couple of dump trucks. I thought, I sure am glad that they didnt risk driving on the road at night, who knows what could happen! It is totally fine that the entire economic machine between Colombia's 1st and 3rd largest city has been shut down for 10 hours.

Whats even better is that Stewart asks them how often this happens, figuring that this is just a hazard of traveling during the rainy season. They said they cant remember the last time there was landslide like this. Ouch. Maybe every 5 or 6 years they get one that closes the road for more than an hour or two. What good luck on our part, and this is our 2nd land slide in as many weeks to boot.

What followed has proved to be very typical of the fatalistic optimism/unpreparedness endemic to culture down here. At 9:00 am we were assured by the police that the road would be open and traffic would be moving by 11:00 am, so Stewart and I waited in the bus as opposed to walk the 4 miles up to the landslide and try to hitch a ride from the other side. At 11:00am we were assured again by the police with the confidence indicative of a german engineer that the road would be open by 1pm, they had just had a few small set backs. At 1 pm they didnt both to answer us. At 3pm they said it might take a little longer than expected... Really? I am so glad they came to that conclusion. Finally at 5pm our bus driver brokered a deal with a driver from "the other side" to trade pasengers, and we would get on their bus which would go back to Medellin, and his passengers would come get on our bus and go back to Bogota. He takes us as far as he can to the landslide, but we still have about a mile left which we have to do on foot.

So here we are: a random assorment of 35 men, women, children, old ladies with flowering suitcases, old men in shirts with pearl buttons, and babies hugging the hips of their mothers, all walking down the road by ourselves in the middle of the jungle of Colombia next to a 10 mile long string of 18 wheelers. We had all become better friends in the last 26 hours we had all spent on a bus together with nothing else to do. We are carrying cardboard boxes containing who knows what, bags of fruit, rolling luggage, random electronic appliances, and in our case, huges backpacks. The sun was setting and the road was increasingly covered in mud. Soon after we left we passed the group from the other bus, which put a pep in all of our steps as we rushed to catch our last hope out.

After this motley crew crossed the monstrosity of dirt and rock that had postponed our trip, we arrived at the other bus only to find it full of people who were trying to get to Medellin as well from various cars and trucks. They had beat us there, and paid the driver who seemed to have convienantly forgotten about the deal he made with our driver a mere 30 minutes prior. Meanwhile our bus was steaming towards Bogota with his passengers he had managed to unloaded. Chaos insued.

The daylight waned until it was now dark, and the construction crew pulled out a bunch of portable lighting. I stepped back for a second and surveyed the scene: 30 angry passengers standing in front of the only bus left in this makeshift town, screaming in the air and yelling at the bus driver. To complement our mob, there were another 50 of 60 rugged looking travelers/thugs loitering dangerously close to our bus, who also needed a ride out of town. The light from the construction crew casted dark shadows across peoples faces, provided just enough distant illumination to make sure you still had your bag in your hand. Bordering the whole scene were Colombian Army Soliders decked out in fatigues and holstering M-16s to prevent people from trying to cross over the lanslide, and the noise from the backhoe drowned the air in thunder.

I felt like I was standing on the roof of the American Embassy in 1975, north vietnamese bombing the city, and hords of south vietnamese (colombians in this case) all clambering to climb abord the last helicopter (bus) out of Saigon (jungle).

After an hour of haggling we finally convinced the driver to let us board and stand in the aisles while he made the 3 hour voyage back to Medellin. However apparently it is against the law to have passengers standing in the aisle in these types of buses, which would not have been an issue were it not for the 3 police checkpoints that stood between us and freedom. Our solution: he would turn off all the lights in the cabin at each checkpoint and we would duck between the seats while the police shined lights in to check that there were no aisle passengers.

Medellin at last!

Blog point:

1.) Today I saw a portable public phone station... The station was in fact a 50 year old man, and out of his pockets drouped 4-5 long thin metal chains. Each of these chains was attached to a cell phone, one of which was being used by a younger man.

2.) People here loooove grease in their hair, just like many places throughout south america, and as a result the back of every seat on bus here has some kind of plastic cover to protect the seat from getting filled with head grease. The problem is that they missed a key step in this process of cleaning off the plastic periodicially, so when you go to lay your head down on the bus you are greeted by a nice semi-opaque layer of brownish hair grease. Initially this was discomforting... Never to fear, I have found that if I simply do not bath but every now and then, you stop worrying about the hairgrease because you have your own little layer of filth to protect you from the outside world of other peoples filth. It really is a much easier and more cost effective alternative to cleaning that we should look at in the US.

3.) I wont go into details, but I can check off "getting intestinal parisites" from my list of things to do in life.

Till next time

M3

Bogota and Medellin

I just wanted to throw this post up real quick in case anyone is getting a late start checking the site on a Saturday morning. After leaving Quito and flying through Panama to Bogota, we arrived Thursday into Bogota about noon. After that we took a 3 oclock bus from Bogota to Medellin (the capital of Pablo Escobars coca empire up until 1994) that was supposed to get there 1 AM Friday morning, but due to landslide we didnt get in until 12 oclock last night (hence no posting). Will reveal all the details and more later today so stay tuned!

M3

Chachapoyas... Chachapoyas... QUITO! 44 1/2 hours

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday March 7th-9th 2008 Chachapoyas to Quito

Monday- Wednesday March 10th-12 Quito

Did you know your weight is less on the Equator? So a ticket to Ecuador might be a cheaper alternative to Jenny Craig!

This is a dead mature adult specimen of the Candiru fish, native to the Ecuadorian Amazon. When younger it is known to swim into the urethra of humans while in the water, then extending sharp spines into urethral walls, whereby surgical removal is the only possible remedy.

We spent the night in Chachapoyas in a hotel named Las Orquidias, or the Orchids, suitably named after seeing one of the most varied and colorful display of Orchids in Kuelap that morning. Tired, sore, and road ragged, we decided to stop in Chachapoyas for the night (Thursday). We would thus begin our journey the next morning, possibly finding a bus to Jaen, the first stop we would need to make to get back to home sweet Ecuador. Rising to the familiar small town sound of roosters Friday morning, we dropped by the hostel office and talked to the friendly, yet freakishly tall 6 foot Peruvian owner about the best way to go about making our way north to Ecuador from Chachapoyas that day. To our surprise and luck, this burly bald yet amiable local had done the exact same trek into Ecuador through the least used border crossing of Peru. He proceeded to pull out a dry erase board a draw out a map with destinations, times, and prices to reach Ecuador, this was in fact the first dry erase board I had seen in south america, ever. See picture below.

"How to get to Ecuador from Peru" by: friendly hostel owner

Unfortunately, the first thing he explained to us was that it was going to be impossible to leave that day, Impossible? Nothing is ever impossible in South America? But he was right because as he explained, the only road out of town to the north was closed each and every day from 6 in the morning until 10 at night for road construction! It had been like this for a year, and was scheduled to be like this for a year more... So our only option was to leave either late in the evening arriving into noteworthy dangerous Jaen in the middle of the night, or to get up before the sun rose. We elected for the safer morning route, and thus spent a whole day blogging, studying, eating, and generally resting for the first time since we left Lima a week prior. Chachapoyas, named for the same civilization that had lived in the Kuelap fortress, is a delightful city of probably 20,000 people with a temperate climate and seas of steep green hills that hem in a weathered mix of colonial and utilitarian architecture. One of the tourists who had picked us up from hitch hiking (after our car broke down) the day prior was a construction worker from Spain. If you think it is cheaper traveling on the dollar down here, imagine the Euro! We had a beer with him that evening, and realized it was the first time we had meet another gringo really since leaving Lima, and I would be lying if I didn't say it was tad bit refreshing.

After a full day of recuperating in Chachapoyas, and a pisco sour at a local establishment playing five bad 1980's music videos on repeat, we decided to call it a night. Waking up the next morning at 3:30 AM in complete darkness due to a city wide power outage, we loaded our packs and headed downstairs to catch a previously arranged 4:00 car ride to the town of Bagua Grande 3 hours away. Now the way that most of the long car rides work around here is that there is a fixed price (in this case 25 soles 8 USD per person) and the more people a driver can pack into a car, the more money he makes. Stewart and I, and another person from our hotel made 3, but that wasn't enough for this enterprising driver. So after we were loaded the car, he goes down the local taxi cab hang out, and picks up the drunkest (it is now 3:45 AM), dirtiest, foulest smelling excuse for a man that he can find, and throws him in the back next to me. For two hours we rode through bumpy dirt roads in the dark early morning hours along a road that was under construction. The construction, as I now came to understand, was because they had carved the road into the side of a mountain, but they had not removed all the rock and dirt that still hung over our heads as we barreled down the hill. All the while the people in the cab remained in a semi comatose sleep deprived state, apart from the odorous man next to me slurring out drunken obscenities at Stewart and I because we were not up to date with all of Peruvian current events. What does this man do for a living you might wonder? He was a surgeon... At least now I know where rock bottom lies if I ever get there in my future career endeavors.

6:00 AM we arrive in Pedro Ruiz still in darkness and change cabs for the remaining hour to Bagua Grande, happily loosing our overserved comrade. From here I will list out the times and places visited on our trek north with interesting tidbits:

7:00 AM Arrive in Bagua Grande, catch cab to transfer station for busses to Jaen.
8:00 AM Depart in packed car for Jaen, rolling through rice paddies, hotter temperatures, and rice paddies.
9:00 AM Arrive in Jaen, city of 100,000 and considered dangerous at night. Catch motorcycle taxi to place where cars leave for San Ignacio. Eat cup of red Jello from child street vendor for breakfast.
9:30 AM Depart Jaen for San Ignacio in car packed with people, still not having seen pavement since we left Trujillo the previous Sunday.
12:30PM Arrive in San Ignacio, getting hotter and thicker on our way down from altitude. Take another motor taxi to where cars leave for Las Balsas (different from Las Balsas crossed between Celendin and Leymebamba).
12:45PM Leave San Ignacio in shoddy car for Las Balsas down muddy horrible excuse for a road.
1:00PM Blow out tire on horrible muddy excuse for a road, Stewart and I get out and change tire with driver
3:00PM Arrive Las Balsas, now almost 12 hours after leaving Chachapoyas. This is the littlest used border crossing between all of Peru and Ecuador.

We arrived into Las Balsas, named so because of the balsa wood boats that were used to cross the river before they built a bridge. Rolling into this "international crossing" At once I knew we were in the hinterland, or boonies, yet again, for I could count the buildings on each side of the river with two hands. The most remarkable, and typical South American randomness about the border crossing itself, was that the horrible, single lane dirt road that lead up to the crossing was followed by a state of the art enormous bridge capable of supporting many many tons more that either dirt road was capable of doing. Painted no cross yellow lines, with white side markers and reflective flashers on perfect asphalt for 50 meters only highlighted the irony. There were no guards on either side, people walked freely back and forth, and long bamboo poles served as the only gate.

The town of Las Balsas, wooden slatted truck in background

We walked into the Peruvian customs office/shack to get our passports stamped, and the customs officer dressed in a soccer jersey and umbros said they get about 30 to 40 people to cross the border each day, very few of whom are backpacking gringos.

Closed Ecuadorian customs office

Now finally reaching Ecuador, we crossed the bridge and walked up to the customs office only to be greeted by a closed sign and giant steel drop down doors. WHAT? The border closed? How could an international border crossing be closed at 3:30 in the afternoon? It didn't take long to figure out what was going on, because as we rounded the corner to the only store/restaurant in this one road town, there were all 6 employees of the customs office drinking beer. They told us that the customs office was closed on account of their need to drink beer at 3:30 in the afternoon while on the job, and to go back to Peru and come back in an hour. So Stewart and I went back to Peru, ate some lunch at the only place on this side of town, watched some direct TV in a restaurant with only 2 walls and dirt floor (S.A. randomness), and went back to Ecuador, where we ourselves stopped by at the cafe where the customs officers had been and got a beer. Stewart and I, beer in hand, walked over the customs office and got our passports stamped by another soccer jersey, umbro sporting customs official.

Chillaxin in Las Balsas, drinking a beer and waiting for the customs officials to open the office.

At 5:30 PM we caught the only means of transportation out of town: an open air, wooden slatted seated, 30 year old bus with what had to of been solid metal pipes for a suspension system. For 2 and half hours we climbed back out of the canyon along yet another horrible road. This time due a rigid suspension and rutted excuse for a road; Stewart, I, and our bags spent half the time in our seats and half the time shooting up or falling down in the immediate foot above said seats.

8:00PM Arrive in Zumbes, Ecuador. We ate dinner, watched part of Waterworld (best movie ever) in Spanish, flirted with local 5th year medical student at internet cafe.
10:45PM Leave from Zumbes, Ecuador for Loja, Ecuador along yet another really junky dirt road (no sleeping).
5:45AM Arrive in Loja, eat breakfast at all night diner, and buy ticket for Quito at 8:00AM. Now having passed the 24 hour traveling mark
8:00AM Leave from Loja and begin what was supposed to be a 14 hour bus ride to Quito.
10:45 AM Get the bus stuck, more like buried, in a pile of soft mud left over from a recent landside. Have to call bulldozer to come pull bus out of mud.

Here our bus lies, I venture to say that even the infamous Sewanee Fire Department in all of their machismo power could not pull this one out.

11:30AM After blocking up the only road north from Loja; we are back on the road.
2:00PM Pass Cuenca, Ecuador, 3rd largest city in Ecuador; see asphalt for the first time in over one week. Glorious, Glorious asphalt, oh how I love you.
3:30PM Blow out tire, stop thirty minutes to replace.
5:00PM We are the first vehicle to arrive on the scene of a small rockslide. Between us and the other side are several giant 6' wide 3' tall boulders. It is now getting dark, and raining (this is why I don't have any pictures) and the unfallen rock still hangs unnaturally on the ledge over our heads. The 20 or so Ecuadorian men on our bus, Stewart, and I spend one hour pushing this boulder 2 feet so that the bus can fit through between another boulder. By now there is a line of cars a mile long behind us, and the unfallen rocks stay unfallen.
6:30PM Back on the road
12:30AM Arrive in Quito!!! 44 1/2 hours after we began traveling. Eat Shwarma at Indian food place. Go to bed!

The "real equator"

This is where I have spent the past three days: catching up with friends, doing the things I forgot to do while I was here, taking a break from the road, and planning our next leg, Colombia! One of the things I never did was go to the Equator, or Mitad del Mundo, which you can see the pictures of down below. The giant monument was built by the Ecuadorian government to mark the spot where a French cartographer calculated the Equator to be in the late 18th century based upon star measurements and the like. When the GPS network was defogged in the mid 1990s, they proved the actual Equator to be 30 feet or so north of the French measurement, still pretty damn impressive if you ask me.

Giant Monument built by the Ecuadorian government, but 30' off of the actual equator.

We leave for Colombia tomorrow by plane at 7:00 AM, which is the only flight we are going to take in our journey. The plane ticket was bought two weeks ago when it looked like Colombia and Ecuador were going to go to war, and we had fears of kidnapping/hijacking and the like on the road. They are no longer going to be going to war. From Bogota we are catching a bus tomorrow to Medellin, once the capital of Pablo Escobar's cocaine empire, now one of the safest cities in Colombia.

Twelve easy steps to removing the head of your enemies and shrinking it to a size no bigger than a tennis ball to wear around your neck.

Chao,

M3