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The South American Odyssey
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The South American Odyssey

A 147-day adventure by The Craze for Travelling Read more
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    The last of the parade

    February 12, 2018 in Colombia ⋅ ☀️ 26 °C

    It was sad to see the organizers push the last 15-20 groups to run instead of dance and sing because they were getting late. The parade had started 1.5 hours late but managed to finish just 30 min behind schedule. Still, some of the participants managed to stop by and dance a bit before they were rushed on.
    After the parade we went to a local restaurant for dinner. From there, we went back to our hostels. There was no party in the hostel for a change 😉 After a long time, the sleep time started early 😊    Read more

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    Raspados seller
    Raspados sellerNiceeee2

    Tuesday of Carnaval

    February 13, 2018 in Colombia ⋅ 🌬 28 °C

    This the fourth and the last day of Carnival. The parade for this day is at a different venue. The parade starts at 4 pm and is on the Carrera 54.
    We were there at 4 pm. There are no tickets for this event. There are no stands either. We found some good places to stand in the shade. While we were waiting, a Raspados (shaved ice sweet. Chuski for those who are familiar with it from India) seller passed by. We stopped and tried the refreshing sweet.
    The parade started with some Cumbia dancers and we thought that this parade would be similar to that on the other days, but it turned out to be quite different...    Read more

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    Joselito se va con las Cenizas

    February 13, 2018 in Colombia ⋅ 🌬 28 °C

    Joselito se va con las Cenizas (Joselito Leaves With the Ashes)
    This the fourth and the last day of Carnival. It is marked by the death of Joselito. As a closing way, the burial of Joselito Carnaval is carried out, which symbolises the end of the festivities. On this day, many funny burials of Joselito are carried out across the city. This character symbolises the joy of the carnival. It is said that this character "resuscitate" the Saturday of Carnival and "dies" the last day, tired and drunken, to again resuscitate the next carnival. In this way, thousands of Barranquilla persons go out on the streets to cry the deceased with play-acting. Joselito Carnaval may be either a real person or a dummy, and it is used to be transported either within a coffin or stretches decorated with flowers and surrounded by its crying widows – these crying widows may be men disguised as women –. In addition to widows, there may be seen other characters as priests and orphans. It is uncertain of this character's origins.Read more

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    Enacting Death of Joselito

    February 13, 2018 in Colombia ⋅ 🌬 27 °C

    A lot of the groups were play acting the death of the character representing Joselito. Everyone around would start crying and beating their chests. Then a priest would come and help resurrect the Joselito. It was a fun evening.
    The last of the groups passed by around 5:30 pm. After that, we walked around in this region of the town and found a good place baking fresh pizzas. We sat out in the open having freshly baked pizzas and a variety of local desserts.    Read more

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    Barranquilla Zoo

    February 14, 2018 in Colombia ⋅ ☀️ 29 °C

    We had one more day of stay booked in Barranquilla, so we decided to spend the day to plan what to do next and also visit the local zoo, quite near our hostels.
    We woke up and got ready by 11 am and then walked over to the zoo about 3 kms away. The entrance was 15000 COP per person, a not so small amount. There was a huge variety of animals but the enclosures were very small and cramped. There were animals from all over the world from lions to elephants to pumas and Iguanas.Read more

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    Bus to Soledad
    Bus to SoledadSitting in the front of the packed busBus terminal at SoledadEmpty bus back to Barranquilla

    What to do after Barranquilla?

    February 14, 2018 in Colombia ⋅ 🌙 25 °C

    After the zoo, we decide to go back to Hristo and Maria's hotel to decide what to do next. We had 8 more days before I would need to reach Quito in Ecuador for my return flight back to Europe. With the limited time we had, we had 2 options - either continue further North along the coast to Santa Marta and from there do the 5 day trek to Ciudad Perdida (The Lost City) and then use the next 3 days to reach Quito (still some 2000 kms and a tricky border crossing away) OR start moving towards Bogota and visit the other planned towns and cities on the way over the next 8 days and then I catch a flight from there to Quito directly.
    We came back and debated on it for quite some time since the Ciudad Perdida was very tempting option while the other one was a safer (to reach Quito) and more varied option. Finally, we decided to go for the latter option. We decided to go to Bogota with stops at Mompox and San Gil on the way.
    Now, the next issue was how to reach Mompox. We figured that there were quite a few bus stops in Barranquilla and all of them were quite far from the area we were staying in. We checked with the person at the reception of the hotel and found that the buses to Mompox leave from the satellite town of Soledad some 20 kms away. When asked how we reach there, he said that we could take a taxi. There was a taxi driver waiting at the reception and he tried to hard sell his services to Soledad but we wanted to check other local options to reach there so we politely refused. Just outside the hotel was a bus station, Hristo went there to find out how to reach Soledad while I went to a shop nearby to recharge my prepaid SIM. After asking around from the locals, Hristo figured out that the bus tickets were 2000 COP per person irrespective of the length of the journey. There were 2 kind of buses, the municipality run ones needed a card with ample tickets charged on it. These didn't accept cash or any other form of payment and the card could be bought at certain locations in the town. The other option were the private mini buses that accepted only cash. We decided to go for the latter option but didn't really know if the buses from this stop would go to Soledad and if so, what number? The locals also didn't seem to have a clear idea about it. Each told a different number. A young guy was standing at the stop and overheard our conversation and mentioned that the bus to Soledad would go from Carrera 54 a few blocks away. A few others around also agreed, so we decided to walk there.
    We found the bus stop and took the bus to Soledad. Its a pretty broken down mini bus fully packed. One by one we managed to find places to sit along the route. It took almost an hour to reach the bus terminal at Soledad. The bus dropped us about 700 mts from the terminal and we walked the rest.
    The bus terminal was like all the other bus terminals we had seen in South America. For once, it was not a private one with only one bus operator like in Carthagena or the bus terminal where we had got off in Barranquilla. There were many operators with buses going all over the country and even to Venezuela. There were 3 operators selling tickets to Mompox, all had their buses at around 8 am in the morning. The price of 50000 COP per person, was the same for all of them so we booked ours via Berlinas, the same one we had used to come from Carthagena to Barranquilla.
    After booking the tickets we went back to the main road nearby where we had been dropped on our way here. We found a bus going back towards Barranquilla and took it. This one unfortunately went only till Barrio Abajo, so we had to walk the last 5 kms back to our hostels. At the hostel, it was time to pack up after having it as a home for almost 8 days :)    Read more

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    Leaving early towards Soledad
    Leaving early towards SoledadUnitransco bus to MompoxHuts on hillocks

    Off to Mompox

    February 15, 2018 in Colombia ⋅ ⛅ 11 °C

    Finally on the morning of the 15th Feb, we were off from Barranquilla towards Mompox.
    Hristo and Maria called for a taxi to take us all to Soledad to the bus terminal we had checked on the evening before. The bus was at 8 am but since the bus terminal was about 25 kms from the Barranquilla town center, we started early around 6 am. On the way, they picked me up from my hostel and then we were off. We reached the terminal around 7:15 am. Here we tried to find out our bus number and the stand no. It took us about 20 min before we figured that there was only one operator having buses from Barranquilla to Mompox and all the others were reselling their tickets. In any case, the price was the same, so it didn't matter to us. We eventually found that Unitransco will be our carrier. The bus started at 8 am and soon we were asleep to make up for the early morning.
    About 3 hours later when I woke up, we were deep into the wetlands. The vegetation was quite different than what we had seen till now. All the huts were built on the small sand hillocks I guess to avoid flooding during the rain season. It was quite green in some places while quite sand and desert like in other places.    Read more

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    Magdalena wetlands

    February 15, 2018 in Colombia ⋅ ⛅ 11 °C

    Around 11 am, we reached the real interiors of the Magdalena's wetlands. There were remains of the river's changed course. There were tributaries, remains of the lakes and marshlands. At some point of time, there were no roads coming this deep into the wetlands. Now a days, there are bridges across the streams and tributaries and one can reach Mompox all the way by road transportation.Read more

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    Santa Cruz de Mompox

    February 15, 2018 in Colombia ⋅ ⛅ 12 °C

    Mompox or Mompós, officially Santa Cruz de Mompox, is a town and municipality in northern Colombia, in the Bolívar Department, which has preserved its colonial character. The city was founded on May 3, 1537 by Alonso de Heredia, brother of Pedro de Heredia, as a safe port on the Magdalena river. Santa Cruz de Mompox became quite prosperous as a port for the transportation of goods upriver into the interior. A royal mint was established here and the town was famous for its goldsmiths. This prosperity had begun to wane in the nineteenth century, but continued until early in the twentieth century when the river shifted and sediment accumulated on this arm of the river, at which point Magangué became the favored port.
    Santa Cruz de Mompox is known for the preservation of its colonial architectural features, as expressed by the mixture of its Spanish and Indian styles. UNESCO named the historic center of Mompox as a World Heritage Site in 1995. Today, most of the colonial buildings are still used for their original purposes, which provides an excellent example of a Spanish colonial city. Of particular note is the wrought iron work decorating doors, railings and window grills along the streets.
    Our bus reached Mompox around 2 pm. As soon as we stepped out of the air conditioned bus, we realized we were stepping into a furnace. It was around 40C in the sun. We could feel the blast of hot air on our faces. We didn't have a place booked so we took our bags and started walking towards the riverside in the hope of finding some place to stay on the way.    Read more

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    Santa Barbara churchAuto rickshaws seem to be popular here

    Pueblito Magico Mompox

    February 15, 2018 in Colombia ⋅ ⛅ 19 °C

    Our offline map on Maps.me was showing some hotels near the river and we planned to walk around and find a suitable place for a suitable price, but as soon as the cold from the ac in the bus started wearing off, we could feel the extreme heat. Instead of all of us walking around in the heat with all our bags, we decided that Maria and Hristo would leave their bags with me near the Santa Barbara Church and look around.
    While waiting for them, I too searched around on booking.com to find something suitable. After about 15 min later when Hristo and Maria came back, we figured they too had seen the hostels that were on booking.com but the prices were cheaper if we booked through booking.com. So, we did our booking online at Pueblito Magico for 75,000 COP for the 3 of us in a dormitory and then walked the 20 mts to the hostel.
    Here, again we had issues with our booking. When we reached there, we were told that there were no beds available in the dormitory and that the only accommodation available was a private room with an attached bathroom, that would cost us 125,000 COP for the 3 of us. We were not happy about this and showed them the booking to which they replied that it takes a while to update on booking.com. We had already made up our minds to stay only one night in Mompox as it was too hot here, so we didn't want to spend any more time looking for a place.
    After a bit of haggling, we negotiated the stay for 100,000 COP for the night.
    Based on our prior research, we had figured that the only things to do and see in Mompox could be done in one day - half a day to go around the town and half a day to go to the lake Pijino nearby. It was almost 3 pm by the time we resolved the issue of stay. While we were checking in, we saw a board offering the boat trip to the lake Pijino at 3 pm. On inquiring, we found that there was only one trip to the lake per day and that too only in the afternoon. Not wanting to stay till late evening the next day, we asked if we could join the trip for the day. The person at the reception called the tour operator and told us that it was possible but that we would need to hurry as they are already ready to go and were waiting for us.
    We rushed into our room and started unpacking to get our needed things together for the boat trip, that's when the attempt of theft happened!!!
    I was in the toilet outside of the room to fill my water bottle. Hristo was in the room and was going to the bathroom attached to the room when this guy at the reception came in to call us for the boat tour. He came and stood inside the room near the beds. Hristo told him he'll wash his face and come and started entering the bathroom. As soon as he turned to go to the bathroom, the guy put his hand inside one of the day bags that was on one of the beds. Fortunately, Maria, who was in the bathroom washing her face came out and saw his hand in the bag. He immediately withdrew his hand from the bag. She called out at him but he acted as if he was straightening the bed sheet and didn't understand anything she was saying. He still didn't leave the room, while Maria continued shouting at him. Neither Hristo nor I figured what was happening since we had not seen it happen and were rushing to get ready. By this time, the lady owner of the hostel came and Maria told her to make sure that nothing gets stolen from our room which we had to leave unlocked so they could put in the extra bed. We couldn't understand why Maria was saying all this. It was only when we were on the boat and had the time to listen when Maria told about the incident in detail. Luckily, we always carried our expensive things in the day bag, with us, so we weren't too bothered of any theft after we had left.    Read more