Month 1 Recap

This first month has both flown by and dragged on. It’s hard to believe that it has been a month since we first landed on Colombian soil, but we spent a good bit of time killing time on the coast so that our schedule would align with our friends and allow us to meet up in Cartagena. It feels great to be back on the road again after nearly a full year of hard-work!

 Where We’ve Been     

• 5 days in Cartagena

• 7 days in Taganga

• 3 days in Tayrona National Park 

• 4 days in Palomino

• 4 days in Santa Marta

• 4 days in Minca

• 4 days in Medellin

Highlights

• Picking coffee fruit from the plant and seeing the entire process from start to finish at La Candelaria in Minca

• Experiencing the daily life of a family on a coffee farm; enjoying the company, food and coffee away from modern conveniences

• Tubing down the Palomino River

• Seeing the snowcapped Sierra Nevada from Palomino Beach

• Seeing Cartagena’s colonial architecture and charm for the first time

• Revisiting Cartagena to meet up with friends from Brasil and Australia

• Soaking up the sun early in the morning at Tayrona

• The Dreamer Hostel in Santa Marta---a hostel with a real hostel feel…and a pool!

• Friendliness of Colombians

• Cable car over Medellin… seeing the city from a different perspective

• All kinds and variations of arepas…the staple of our Colombian diet!

  

Not So HIGHlights…

• The hike up to La Candelaria in Minca with all of our gear in tow in 100+ degree temps

• The cost of the bus from Cartagena to Medellin

• Mama Waldy Hostel in Cartagena---we had planned to store our bags here while we spent a couple of days on Playa Blanca and Islas del Rosario, but they didn’t store bags! Also staff was either not there or extremely unhelpful!

• First stomach bug of the trip (post to come)

• Colombia beaches---reality didn’t live up to expectations

Those dolla dolla bills y'all(The Budget)

We were slated to be $200 under budget for month one, but $70 per person bus tickets from Cartagena to Medellin killed that. We still ended up slightly under budget for the month, but we will definitely have to save on accommodation and do some volunteering to stay under budget so we can afford the big ticket items like Machu Picchu and Salar de Uyuni….oh yeah, and that small event known as The World Cup. 

Coming Up...

We are planning on spending the next couple of weeks in central and southern Colombia before heading into Ecuador. We will meet up with friends in Bogota, and hopefully Cali as well.