A Caribbean Interlude, and a Mountain Retreat

Most of our trip will be in one of the three fingers of the Andes that stretch across Colombia from west to east.  For a week or so, however, we breathed the warm, humid air of the Caribbean … though to get there, we had first to traverse the reputed second “largest” canyon in the world.

From Barichara, we drove a four-hour long, curvaceous route to Bucaramanga, where we would catch a plane to Santa Marta on Colombia’s northern coast (Santa Marta is where the Spanish first landed on this continent).  It’s hard to describe the driving behaviors along the way - our drivers have all been cautious and safe compared with some daredevils on the road, especially those on motorbikes - but suffice to say for long stretches we inched along behind lines of cars stymied by a very slow-moving truck and then somehow found ourselves in front of that truck! 

The prize for the arduous journey was the views of Gran Canon del Chicamocha, an awesome geologic formation that, at 2000 meter deep and 227 km long, certainly rivals America’s Grand Canyon. Besides the scenery, what was amazing was the dozens of bicyclists pedaling up and down this gorge.  We’ve seen cyclists all over the mountains, including in and around 2500-meter high Bogota; apparently high performance cyclists (e.g., the Tour de France) come to Colombia to train.  Whoa!

Our flight to Santa Marta, through Bogota, went smoothly, and we could feel the weight of the humid sea air as we disembarked.  The moist air followed us even as we then drove to the 600-meter-high hill town of Minca.

Minca’s a backpacker town - streets crowned with 20s and 30s somethings on their journeys of discovery, trinket shops, restaurants, bars.  Not really a pretty place.  And the attractions are mostly crowded with both these travelers and Colombians on holiday, including this waterfall-cum-group bath.

The one tourist activity near Minca we did enjoy - besides our small hotel with good restaurant run by a woman and her mother and a cool, swimmable river below us - was a visit to the Victoria coffee finca, tucked along a small river in dense forest. It’s a small operation started by Brits (thus the name) nearly 100 years ago, all organic, shade grown, so self-sufficient they generate their own electricity with this ancient water-powered generator:

 

Our next stop was the nature reserve of El Dorado, one of more than 60 reserves owned and managed by ProAves, a local conservation organization.  We knew we’d be going from Minca’s 600 meters to more than 2000 meters … what we didn’t know was the state of the “roads” to get there. We’ve been on some doozies over the years, but these hit the top of the charts!  First was spur from the main road from Minca to the reserve, a 5 km stretch that takes at least an hour.  For us, it took two, because our vehicle (Toyota 4x4 like nearly all the working vehicles we’ve seen) got a flat partway up. Watching our driver (with the help of a local young man on a motorcycle who happened to come by and stopped to help) improvise a tire change, when the jack at first wouldn’t work, then wouldn’t jack the frame up high enough to change the tire, was, well, nerve-wracking and fascinating.

Two days later, we drove with a guide up to Cerro Kennedy, another 700 meters higher in the Sierra Nevada.  And, unbelievably, the road was even worse!  Here’s part of the “road:

And here are a couple of videos of the rides (warning, you might want to take some Dramamine before watching): Video 1, Video 2.

The reserve’s lodging and amenities were, well, varied but the views (including all the way down to Santa Marta and the Caribbean) were awesome as were the birds (more on those in a later post).

Our room with a view - this was a huge improvement from the original room we had, which was quite basic and a steep, dark 20-minute walk to get to coffee, food, and wifi; we were grateful for the move.

Sunrise over the Sierra Nevada

Sunset over the Caribbean

Picos Cristobal Colon and Simon Bolivar, tallest peaks in the Colombian Sierra Nevada at around 19,000 feet.