South American Adventure: May 2012

Saturday, May 26, 2012

Like a litter box, but for humans...

Aka: Volunteering to build an eco-toilet

So we finally found another organization to do a little volunteering along our travels. As I wrote in one of my recent posts, we have been trying to figure out what the next step should be on this epic journey, so we happened to be lazing around this small ex-fishing village, Taganga, and I saw an advertisement for a local non-profit organization. The organization is called Mission Gaia and it is basically a new non-profit organization that does great things for the local community, it`s children, and the environment. I emailed the director to find out some more information and it turned out that they were in the middle of building an ECO house...and desperately needed some assistance!

Basically, Taganga is a fishing village that has gone bad. It started, I think, as a a stopover for international tourists coming from beautiful Tyrona National Park before they went back to Cartagena and has turned into a development nightmare (like so many places we have seen down here). Really, the major problems here are the lack of potable water and lack of a sewage system. What ends up happening is that someone builds a new hostel/hotel/restaurant for tourists and instead of sewage system they just build a septic tank. Here this basically means a concrete container to store all the waste. These containers are made in typical South American fashion and end up cracking or breaking, then spilling all the contents into the soil. Nasty. Of course, this goes directly into the groundwater, so the groundwater gets contaminated. You get the picture.

The idea was to create a working model house for sustainable growth, development, and construction techniques that the community can use as an example for the future. Basically, when we got there they had already built the house out of adobe and all local products that they found around the area (good idea, but it rained a TON one night and one of the walls started "melting"! oops, guess they got the recipe a bit wrong...). Our task was to make the outhouse, structure and all. We were making an example of a "dry toilet" (Of course this sounds gross. We actually saw one and it didn`t smell at all...check it out online if you`re interested).

The first day we showed up it was total chaos. We arrived and there were no other volunteers (there was supposed to be a team). Nothing was prepared. Or organized. There was no plan. Yeah. Talk about the opposite of how we work. Oh, and how things should work to be effective and efficient. So after spending a few hours debating what the structure should look like, how it should be built, etc. We finally got started. Kind of. Right after starting we found out that the foundation that had been laid a few months ago was already caving in. Great...time to re-lay a new foundation. Now we know how to mix and lay concrete, oh, and place rebar (by hand, of course) in the foundation. Of course, this was going to set back building the structure by a few days. Oh, unless we organized things differently of course.

To make a long story short, as nice as the Director of the organization was, Lisa and I basically took matters into our own hands for a lot of the project. I mean, c`mon, after they explained things to us it really isn`t that hard. Think about it, a 4 ft by 4 ft bathroom structure made out of wood, covered in natural cactus and mud, with a plastic bottle roof. Done.

Anyway, overall we had a good experience helping out, Lisa didn`t cut any fingers off on the jigsaw (her first time), and I got my fill in of hands-on work for a little while. Pics below!

After the local guy poured the concrete.... totally level as you can see!

The 1 bedroom house (we didn`t build this)

Just building the structure... drills are cool

Please don`t fall down

Scott & Alecio with their machetes!

Lisa with an electric saw....scary

Added bonus...the bathroom has a great view of the ocean

Everyone lending a hand :)

The pictures of the final project are TBD. Basically we could`ve finished everything, were it not for a little lack of organization...ha. I guess lesson learned for us. In the end though, I think we did help out a lot, which is all you can ask for!

Colombian coffee plantations and evil spirits

We heard about a supposedly beautiful organic coffee growing region located in the mountains about 1 hour from the coast and decided it was time to head up away from the humidity to enjoy some of that Colombian coffee, do some mountain biking and see some great sunsets.

After taking an old ghetto shared taxi (aka from about 1960 with no shocks or door panels), we got up there just in time for another beautiful sunset over the valley and ocean. We decided to camp for a few nights, relax and do some hiking. We spent the first day hiking to a small coffee plantation and to some natural swimming pools and waterfalls (boy are we out of shape, btw). The water was COLD! What a change! The coffee plantation tour was given by a 12 year old girl and was so interesting. Did you know the reason the coffee beans are brown is only because they are toasted? I didn`t. Also, all of the premium first (and second) quality coffee is sent to the US and Europe, and the Colombians are left to drink the bad remainder of the crop?! That must be why all they drink is instant coffee instead of the real thing!

The next day Scott went on a 7 hour long downhill mountain biking excursion while I got a massage... My massage was well, interesting. I would call it more of a spiritual massage than a deep tissue or Swedish (typical) massage. We started off sitting on a rock, holding hands (that`s right), and practicing breathing for about 10 minutes. We then moved to our flat rock which was used for sacrifices in the past and has a very "spiritual" presence. Hector then proceeded to remove the "evil" spirits from my body while spastically shaking my butt. He literally was jiggling my butt for what seemed like an hour (maybe I have a lot of evil spirits in my butt!)... I was trying to hold back laughter while he was making sounds like a bee and jiggling away. Meanwhile it started to drizzle, then rain, then pour.. so after 20 minutes of my so called massage, I had to run in the pouring rain into a cabana and start the process all over again. I could go on but you wouldn`t believe how strange this experience was... but for $15 for an hour of entertainment and laughs, totally worth it.

Beautiful sunset from our home for 2 nights in Minca

Sunsets never get old

The coffee plantation was originally from the 1890`s and all the equipment is original. Crazy. The machinery is all powered by hydroelectric electricity from snowmelt in the Sierra Nevada mountains. It is a crazy coffee factory, being so old.

Machine used to toast the beans

The coffee bags

Winning, winning!!

Beautiful View on the bike ride

Out of the way horsies

Yeah, we rode through a bunch of rivers. We rock!

Not hard at all. These ancient acquducts are used to transport water all over the jungle. Easy to ride on too.

Guess how you get a mountain bike up about 2000 feet from where you`re staying? Of course you load it, and yourself on the back of a motorcycle and hold on for dear life. I wish I had a picture of this...it was extremely ridiculous. Anyway, as you can see the mountain bike ride was great, beautiful, and fairly challenging! We went down about 6,000 vertical feet through jungle, coffee plantations, banana farms, over aqueducts, and finally to the sea. Ya gotta do these kinda things to keep your sanity around here! HA!

Saturday, May 19, 2012

Just when you thought it was perfect...

After spending a week up in the desert, we decided to add a little palm tree and humidity to our beach life. Ya gotta change things up around here so we dont get bored :) We decided to head down to Parque Tayrona to do a little hiking and spend some time on the beach, but before we decided to head into the park we stopped at a little beach spot called Casa Grande to relax for the day. This place is run by a very kind Colombian family, it`s clean, and let`s be honest it`s beautiful. We set up our tent about 10 feet from the water and 6 nights later we were still there!!! We spent our days swimming in the waves, drinking coconuts right off the palm trees, and walking on the sand. It was incredibly peaceful and relaxing. (Cuz life is stressful down here for us...right?!)

Scott even surprised me one day with a manicure and pedicure on the beach. Its been 5 months since my last one... so it was thoroughly enjoyed!!! I even let the woman paint a flower on my toe... its like I am in high school again.:) ¿¡Porque no!?

After 6 nights there we decided we should motivate and head into the park, so we packed up our house and off we went. We were greeted with a lush rainforest trail with all sorts of lizards and crabs. We hiked about 45 minutes until the trail opened up onto the beach. The ocean was stunning, with huge boulders and crashing waves. We found another amazing patch of sand and set up our tent. We spent 2 nights there relaxing in the park, hiking to different beaches, and swimming in the ocean. Every afternoon there were crazy thunderstorms which was a refreshing break from the humidity and in some ways very romantic.

The first night we were peacefully sleeping when all of a sudden we were woken up to the sound of horse hooves. Scott and I both abrubtly sat up inside the tent to a white horse about 4 feet from our tent and trotting straight for us! Luckily, Scott yelled loudly and at the last minute it veered away from the tent. Maybe horses sleep walk too!?

So after 2 weeks of camping we decided we needed a cold A/C room and a nice bed to sleep in. We spent a few nights in Santa Marta (not that cool, but we had some great meals and caught up with the family!) and then headed to Taganga. Coincidentally we ran into Timi from our Bolivian Salt Flat tour in Santa Marta. Small world!

The view from our bed.... now you know why we stayed here for 6 nights

Morning Walk

Our humble beach abode!

Our friend, Lore Ley, just opened a surf school here!!

A coconut a day keeps the stress away

Rough life at Casa Grande

Check out the moon over our tent

Kinda creepy pretty amazing

Decisions, Decisions

View from the mirador in parque tayrona

stunning beaches

so creepy

Horses get hungry too (a horse trying to steal these guys delicious fresh chocolate bread!)

Arrecifes beach

Sunset

The beaches in Parque Tayrona

Hiking in the park

So beautiful, I cant believe this is all real

Another scenic part of the trail

Pure Bliss

Postcard perfect! terry.. this is what is waiting for you in colombia!

Scott loved these birds! And the caiman in the lagoon too....

Another amazing sunset... back to civilization, kinda

I have no more words

Pucker Up Fishy!

Up next...volunteering and helping build an Eco-house in Taganga, Colombia...stay tuned!

The tip of the continent...and finally...!

First of all. One quick aside. Colombia has no "u"s in it. Yep, none. Only "o"s. Now that we`ve got that clear...And how the heck has it been almost a month since we`ve posted?? Time flies when you`re out of internet range.

Even though our adventure is far from over, we have successfully traversed the entire South American continent. We made it from the most southern point, Cape Horn, Chile, to the most northern point, Punta Gallina, Colombia! I can`t believe we`ve done so much traveling. Also, another milestone just passed...5 months of traveling away from the US.

Before you check out the pictures below, it turns out that it`s pretty difficult to travel for this long. Of course, we miss all of you guys...our friends and family...but it`s also just taxing going from hostel to hostel every few days (not to mention finding these places that are in our limited budget and actually clean!), dealing with some of the South American attitudes (ie: lack of service or care at all for customers...we have so many freakin examples...like the bus ticket guy who I approached, asked for a bunch of information about the schedule, fares, etc. and he looked directly up at me, then proceeded to start a call on his cell phone. Come on.), and of course the budget. The never-ending part about having to be cheap to travel for this long. One of the ways that we`ve dealt with it is to camp. We`ve logged over 45 days of camping this entire trip. Crazy! And we didn`t even bring a tent down here, we had to buy it. It totally saves money and to be honest it is a lot cleaner than a lot of these super cheap places too. The second thing that we`ve been doing has to do with food. We`ve been cooking whenever possible and that definitely makes it cheap. Tonight, for example, we made pasta with fresh tomato sauce, garlic, sauteed onions, and broccoli. It cost us less than $5 for both of us. Done. We`ve also been splitting meals a ton. Turns out, we don`t really need two totally meals. Yep. Lastly, alcohol. Expensive. For special occasions only now! (kinda...). Of course, there is the once-in-awhile special occasion that we have to splurge on...see below.

So back to the awesome things we`ve been able to do since Cartagena...

One of the major things that I`ve been wanting to do down here is get some good kitesurfing time in the warm Caribbean water. It`s mostly off-season down here, but there is just ONE area where the wind blows all year long. The northern tip of Colombia has two spots, one called Cabo de la Vela (literally Cape of the Wind) and Punta Gallina (the far northern tip of the country, named "Chicken Point"). So what did we need to do? Figure out a way to get up there!

I got in touch with a kitesurfing instructor here named David of Kiya Kitesurfing. He was awesome. He decided to drive us up north to check out these two spots, and boy we were in for a treat, including a whole different culture.

Northern Colombia is home to the Wayuu people, who live in a completely different way than the rest of the country. It`s basically a huge desert up North, but completely beautiful, serene, and peaceful. There`s some interesting stories up there too, as the territory basically used to be controlled by the drug traffickers. With the drug cartels gone (since about 10 years ago), the locals don`t really have any way of making money. We were hooked up with an organization that ran a hotel (ha, barely..see the pictures below!) that we stayed in. This organization is great, it is a non-profit that is helping to expand tourism and trade within the local Wayuu villages up and down the coast. For example, lobster is plentiful here, but there`s no means of distributing it to the major cities down South, so they`re setting this up. They`re doing it all in a sustainable way. Very interesting. Life up there is really different too. Life is VERY simple up there, and super relaxing. It`s basically eat, sleep, and tend your goats (or in our case, kitesurf!).

Oh, one more thing. This place is remote. It`s about a 10 hour drive directly from Cartagena, then imagine yourself in a small fishing boat braving 15 foot waves. Headfirst, into the wind. When they told us to put on the lifejackets at the beginning we thought they were crazy, but after the huge waves that were trying to sink us, we thought thought we were crazy for getting into the boat!