Curaçao Drinking in Curaçao

In order to skip the dangerous Venezuela, we found the cheapest flight to Guyana would go via the Dutch island of Curaçao. We decided to spend a few days there to do a few dives and drink the famous liqueur. We also discovered that the main town, Willemstad, is a UNESCO world heritage site!

We didn't get any diving photos, so here's one of a beach instead

The dives here were great - we were collected by the guys that run Scubaçao (unfortunately not pronounced Scuba-Cow) and driven around to the dive sites. It made a nice change to be able to just walk off the beach and dive straight away without having to take a boat. The visibility was amazing, around 30m, and there was plenty of healthy coral, lots of different fish and even some turtles. The best site was probably the one called 'Tugboat' - named after a tug that sunk there when a ship dropped an anchor on it. It is now home to several schools of fish and was fascinating to swim around.

The colourful waterfront in Willemstad

When we weren't diving, we walked around the old city, which was founded in 1634. It spent much of its life as a slave trading port, and there are a couple of good museums dedicated to that awful subject today. The slave trade, the proximity to Spanish-speaking Venezuela, its status as part of the Netherlands and today's tourism has led to an interesting mix of cultures. The local language, Papiamentu, is a combination of Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch and English and we found it strange to be able to pick up words of it here and there.

The Queen Emma floating bridge across Willemstad harbour

Willemstad is now home to a unique floating bridge across the harbour entrance, which swings open when a ship needs to pass. Often, those ships are cruise ships, and the island is full of people supping cocktails made from the local blue curaçao liqueur. From our experience, it's used to make rather sickly blue-green cocktails that pack quite a punch.

Cocktails!

We're now recovering from our hangovers and flying back to the mainland, to Guyana.

San Andrés Island - Colombian by Name not by Nature

We had always wanted to go to a Caribbean island as part of this trip, but were horrified by the price of the flights to most of the islands from Colombia. However, on reading about the little island archipelago of San Andrés, we realised we might be able to manage our Caribbean island after all.

The San Andrés group is made up of three islands - San Andrés, Providencia, and Santa Catalina. While located in the Caribbean some 700km from Colombia and closest to Nicaragua, the archipelago is actually officially part of Colombia. Flights here from inside Colombia are thus domestic flights, and far cheaper than to anywhere else we'd looked at in the Caribbean. After learning that the islands are also renowned for their diving and snorkelling, we decided to fly out from Cartagena and spend a few days there.

San Andrés island

We booked these flights a couple of weeks in advance and although we'd heard the best things about Providencia, we chose to visit only San Andrés, the largest of the three islands. This might sound counter-intuitive, but we had done some research into dive centres and discovered a couple of highly rated ones in San Andrés, while those in Providencia sounded less promising / safe. San Andrés island itself we had heard was far from paradisical, but as we were going mainly for the diving we thought this would be fine. We also didn't much fancy the 4 hour choppy catamaran ride over to Providencia!

Our flight was full of holidaymakers, mostly Colombian but a lot from the rest of South America too. Especially Brazil, for some reason. San Andrés is a tiny island, only about 10km long, and as our taxi drove us through the main town after landing we noticed that it was indeed pretty ugly. A rapid boom in tourism had indelibly marked the place. Concrete 1960s style buildings everywhere; big hotels, casinos, and souvenir and duty free shops lined the streets. We stayed at a nice place just out of town, about a half hour walk from the centre and away from all the noise.

Holidaymakers on one of the least busy San Andrés beaches

San Andrés and its two sister islands are part of a huge marine protected area of 180,000 km² called the Seaflower Biosphere Reserve. It is recognised by UNESCO as one of its World Network of Bioreserves and is home to one of the largest coral reefs in the world. So a great place to get some more diving experience! We booked through a dive centre called Karibik, run by a friendly German instructor called Christian. For our first three days on San Andrés, we dived twice each day, visiting several different dive sites. It was a new thing for me to just do some fun dives rather than a course, and I have to say, I panicked a little when I first got into the water again - all the equipment felt completely different and unnatural - but once I got underwater it was fine. Christian was a great instructor to dive with - he always let the group dive for as long as possible and shared his air with whoever got low first to allow the rest of the group to continue longer. Most of the dives were 55 - 60 mins, a lot longer than the dives I did in Taganga.

The diving was pretty nice: highlights included the 'Blue Wall' site, where we saw several reef sharks, and a site on the first day where we saw the biggest eel I have ever seen! Sadly we didn't have an underwater camera to capture this, but the monster's head was at least a foot across. It was like some huge underwater serpent in a Disney movie! I had no idea Moray eels could get so enormous. We also enjoyed the coral, which was varied, quite colourful and seemed in good condition. One of the dive sites had what was like a forest of coral, with structures that looked similar to ferns and huge leaves. Really pretty. Plenty of fish too, though fewer and less varied than we had anticipated to be honest. Unfortunately, this is probably a result of overfishing around here.

Palm trees lining the coast road. Note the gorgeous colour of the Caribbean Sea
 in all of these photos!

On our third day of diving, rather than returning to the dive shop in town between dives as we had been doing for the other two days, we spent our break at El Acuario, a small cay that is one of the most popular spots for mainstream tourists here. This gave us our first glimpse of how most tourists spend their time here. The tiny island was absolutely crowded with people, both in the sea, lying on the beaches and spilling out of the one café. It's called 'El Acuario' (the aquarium) because some marine life can be seen while snorkelling there, particularly stingrays. However, the way the stingrays were treated was horrendous! A stingray would be attracted there by feeding it, and then would be captured and held still while tourist after tourist took turns to have their photo taken holding it. So completely opposed to anything we've ever been taught about how to treat marine life (NEVER touch anything). It was quite shocking. Sadly, all the tourist agencies here advertise the stingray tours as an 'amazing, once-in-a-lifetime experience'. There are similar manta tours. We couldn't quite believe these activities were permitted at all, let alone promoted.

On our last day, we didn't do any diving and moved to stay for one night in the south of the island. This was a whole different world from the unpleasant main town - older, more traditional island architecture, cleaner, quieter beaches and a higher proportion of native (i.e. not Colombian) people living there. We had a nice walk around the south coast, happy to be away from most of the tourists. That evening we had dinner in town, and then got a taxi for the 8km or so back to our accommodation in the south. This turned out to be one of the best things we did. The taxi driver was a native islander, speaking Creole English, and it was fascinating, if sobering, hearing his story and the history of the island and its original inhabitants.

One of the quieter, beautiful southern beaches of the island

The San Andrés archipelago was first settled in the 17th century by English Puritans, and later pirates (again English). The English also brought in African slaves. While it later became a possession of the Spanish Crown and then in 1822 officially part of Colombia, no Spanish settlers ever came there and it retained its English-Caribbean flavour. The Colombian government also initially made no attempt to make anything of their island territory, and the islanders were left alone for years. Things only changed when in 1912 Colombia adopted a new policy of 'Colombianisation', enforcing Spanish language, religion and culture on the native San Andrés people.

An even bigger change came when in 1953 the Colombian government declared San Andrés a free port. This led to a huge influx of Colombians looking for a new life in paradise, and a massive construction boom in the 1960s. To give some idea of the magnitude of the change, in 1952 San Andrés had around 6000 inhabitants. In 1973 it was 23,000. Today, it's 80 or 90,000, and the population is still growing rapidly. Land that used to be agricultural has been replaced by housing, lagoons have been filled in and replaced by the port and airport, self-sufficiency has gone in favour of imports from the mainland, and there is a huge problem with rubbish and pollution of the water supply.

Don't think this boat will be going anywhere fast! Horses and an old boat, near
one of the native islanders' houses in the south 

The two taxi drivers we spoke to over the next two days both told us that they did not feel in the slightest bit Colombian. Most natives are descendants of the original English settlers and African slaves. They have names like Williams, Robinson, McDonald or Smith, speak Creole English and are devout Protestants. They resent the way that Colombians are coming in, treating the land how they feel, enforcing their own culture and traditions and not respecting those of the local people. One man we spoke to, a Mr Williams, even asked us to please go and speak to our English government and ask them to come and take back their rightful territory! The other taxi driver told us, with real sincerity, that 'God sent the Colombians to San Andrés to punish us for our sins.' Native people feel the Colombian government simply does not care about San Andrés, other than the revenue it brings in from tourism.

To summarise, we had a great time diving round San Andrés, but as part of our visit, we became more aware of the controversial and sad history of the island and the challenges its people are facing.
Unless things change, it doesn't look like the remaining beauty of San Andrés, its outstanding marine environment and unique island culture will be preserved much longer.

Injury, Illness and More Diving

When we last left you, we'd planned to be heading off into the jungle for four days to trek to 'Ciudad Perdida' ('Lost City'). However, a couple of days before we were to leave, we were struck down by both injury and illness. I managed to hurt my foot once again - tripping on a loose paving stone in Santa Marta left me with a big cut on my toe and an inability to walk comfortably. Not ideal when preparing for a long, hard trek. Jo, meanwhile, was feeling a bit unwell and this worsened for a few days. Aching joints, mild fever, fatigue and a small rash pointed to zika. This is currently all over the news in Europe at the moment, possibly leading to babies born with microcephaly. Luckily, the other symptoms are generally mild, although don't leave you ready to hike. Therefore, we cancelled this plan and spent the time resting and recuperating in an air conditioned room in Santa Marta.

The town hall in Santa Marta

A plaque for Símon Bolívar in Santa Marta's cathedral

Santa Marta doesn't have much in the way of sights, which was perfect to ensure that we didn't venture out too much. We always try to see as much as we can of a place, so it was something of a blessing that there wasn't much here when we needed to rest and recuperate. We did visit the excellent Museo de Oro (Gold Museum), full of artefacts from the ancient Tayrona culture and information on the history of the city. The cathedral was the first resting place of Símon Bolívar, the Liberator of much of South America from Spanish colonialism, before his body was moved to his birth city of Caracas in Venezuela.


After a few days, we felt we needed a change of scenery and went for a couple more restful days in the hills surrounding Santa Marta. We stayed at a hostel/farm a short bus ride outside of the city, followed by a bumpy motorbike ride up a hill. We relaxed by the pool here while feasting on locally grown chocolate, coffee and honey. We also exerted ourselves more on the last day to climb the steep path up to a viewpoint over the whole of the surrounding countryside, with the city in the distance.

The viewpoint near Finca Carpe Diem

We had been filling up time before returning to Taganga for some more diving and to meet up with our friends from home - Ralph and Shehnaaz. We all stayed in the same hostel as last time, which has a terrace with a perfect view over the bay for sunsets. The main reason we'd returned was for diving. The other three successfully completed their PADI Advanced Open Water course with the same instructor as before - Reto Müller. I had already completed the next certification up, so just joined them for some fun dives. Unfortunately, the visibility was often not great for much of it and the currents were quite strong. This made the conditions quite tough, which I guess is a good way to learn!

Wearing diving t-shirts at Casa Baba

While Ralph and Shehnaaz have continued on to the northernmost point of South America, Punta Gallinas, we are returning to Cartagena to then fly to San Andrés. This is a Colombian island in the Caribbean Sea, close to Nicaragua and supposed to have excellent diving.

Learning To Dive In Taganga - Terrifying But Amazing

In our last post we were watching the world go by in sleepy Mompox. The past few days have been quite different. We went from Mompox back up to the Caribbean coast, finally ending in the village of Taganga. As you may or may not be aware, Mompox is a little off the beaten track and quite challenging to get to or away from. Our journey up to Taganga took 7 or 8 hours, involving a (stiflingly hot) minivan, ferry (which had recently capsized and tipped several lorries into the river), and local bus. We made it though!

Beautiful sunset in Taganga, taken from our hostel roof terrace

Taganga is the kind of place we might normally avoid: its draws include drugs, prostitutes, partying and hippies. It reminded us a lot of a backpacker beach destination in south-east Asia (Koh Tao, Sihanoukville). However, it also happens to be one of the cheapest places in the world to do diving courses, along with Koh Tao in Thailand. Kev is already qualified, having done his Open Water certification in Thailand and his Advanced in Indonesia, but I had never done any diving before. This seemed a great opportunity to give it a go and see why Kev loves it so much.

Okay? Okay - diving in Taganga

We had done some research prior to arriving in Taganga and already booked the diving with an instructor called Reto Müller, who is originally from Switzerland. Reto is a freelance instructor in Taganga and we liked all the reviews we read about him, particularly those mentioning him being good with nervous people (i.e. me!).  We met Reto at the roundabout in Taganga at sunset when we first arrived, along with a group of fellow divers and hangers-on. This was to become a theme - every day we'd go there to watch the (very pretty) sunset, meet people and discuss the day's adventures over a beer or two. The other theme was Café Bonsai, the best café in Taganga, in which Reto was a regular and reserved a table every lunchtime for all his friends and dive students. It was great to have these social activities each day and the chance to compare experiences with others. One day Reto even put on a BBQ for at least 10 people!

Argh, a shark!

My first experience of diving, the pool session, didn't go too well. I was in a group of 3 doing the Open Water course, along with Kev who was having a skills refresher in the pool too. I found the explanation of all the equipment too fast and a little overwhelming, and was slow to grasp the skills that the others seemed to be taking to like fish to water. It was stressful! The worst thing was the mask clearing, i.e. letting your mask fill with water and learning how to expel it. I found that when I had my nostrils in water, I kept trying to breathe through them... not the best idea, and it usually resulted in me panicking and coming to the surface coughing and spluttering. Reto in the end left me to sit on the bottom practising breathing and getting used to being underwater. This in fact helped quite a lot; by the end of the session I still couldn't clear my mask but at least felt much more comfortable and less panicky underwater.

A tiny fish hiding inside the coral

After this first experience I was quite disheartened and spent a long time dithering over whether to give up or give it another go. I was lucky in that Reto had offered to do the pool session again with me the next day, but this time it would be just me. While feeling that maybe diving was not for me, I was eventually convinced by Kev to make the most of this opportunity to have a go one to one with the instructor. And this time things went much better! I didn't panic, I completed all the skills, and even got quite good at clearing the mask. Reto seemed as pleased as me and said I was ready to start the open water (sea) stuff the next day. I was very grateful to him for giving me the extra time.

On the boat - diving properly! - with Reto (right)

Diving in the sea properly was a whole different experience to the swimming pool. In particular, I had to get used to trying to control my buoyancy. This isn't that difficult in the pool, but when you're down at depth and the pressure is changing, it's more challenging. Just inhaling or exhaling can have quite an effect! The first two dives, down to 12m, I spent mainly bobbing up and down like a yo-yo. On the second day in the sea, we went down to 18m. I had felt nervous about this, as 18m sounds pretty deep, but in fact it felt much the same as 12m. I couldn't believe we were that deep really! I was a little disturbed by the odd booming noise in my ears that would seem to get louder and louder and then vanish; eventually I realised this was just a boat going by overhead...

Lobsters

By the second day in open water, I was quite enjoying myself, while still screaming a little inside (being able to breathe 18m underwater still doesn't seem quite natural)! It was pretty amazing to be swimming along just above the sea floor, passing beautiful coral, fish and other marine life. Among the highlights were several lobsters and several seahorses, plus an eel and (I think) a nudibranch. While I'd seen seahorses before, snorkelling in the Galápagos, now I had time to stop and see them properly, rather than having to come to the surface for air after a few seconds. I was starting to appreciate the advantages of diving.

Coral and a fish (fish identification isn't my strong point yet!)

Kev spent the time in which I was learning to dive to do his Rescue Diver course, the next major PADI course after the Advanced. This seemed to consist mainly of him and his fellow students towing their (big) instructor around on the surface, as well as dragging / carrying him to shore and providing emergency oxygen. It looked exhausting! Kev also had to learn how to deal with panicked divers underwater, e.g. people attempting to swim rapidly to the surface, or flapping arms and legs wildly, or trying to grab his mask or regulator. While it was very physically demanding, Kev said he enjoyed the course overall and gained confidence in his ability to help others (and himself) underwater. And now I have a certified Rescue Diver to dive with!

Not sure what this is - possibly a nudibranch?

Having completed our diving courses, we wanted to spend a couple of days around Tayrona National Park, a coastal park where the beaches back onto tropical jungle. It's a large area reaching nearly as far as Taganga, and we had in fact already been diving at the edge of Tayrona (one of the options to get into the park properly from Taganga is by sea in a speedboat - 1.5 hours of bumping, Reto told us!). Diving in Tayrona is quite different to hiking though, and we wanted to experience more of the park on land.

Arrecifes Beach in Tayrona National Park, with jungle behind

There are several basic lodging options in the Tayrona Park itself, but instead we opted to stay just outside, at the Posada Seineken, a set of wooden cabins run by a friendly Colombian family. It was a good place to relax, with a lovely garden, hammocks everywhere and pets including a cat and two rabbits (I was happy)! While we were only 50m or so higher than Taganga, the climate here was quite different. Cloudier, with a few outbursts of torrential rain, and most importantly, noticeably cooler. This was a welcome change from the relentless heat and humidity of the past couple of weeks.

View of the sea through the jungle

We had a long day trip to Tayrona, the entrance to which was just 500m down the road from where we were staying, and had a great time. We hiked along well maintained paths through the jungle, with occasional glimpses of the stunningly blue Caribbean sea and gorgeous beaches. The park is very popular with Colombians and gets very crowded in high season; now is low season but it was still quite busy, especially at the beaches. We stopped at Cabo San Juan, probably the most famous beach, to have a dip in the sea and cool down from the hike.

Climbing the original steps built by the Tayrona people, in Pueblito

Another of Tayrona's highlights, other than the beaches and rainforest, is archaeological. A steep climb up a hill from Cabo San Juan takes you to Pueblito, the remains of a settlement occupied by the Tayrona culture between about 400-1500 C.E. It is mostly overgrown but you can still see terraces, platforms that were probably open air temples, and flights of stairs. The hike up here was crazy - the 'path' takes you up through a load of huge boulders, which you have to sort of scramble up, at times aided by a rope. An hour of this was quite tough! We were rewarded on the way when we saw a whole troupe of monkeys though, and Pueblito was well worth the effort too. Instead of returning to Cabo San Juan, we followed a different path and eventually came out on the main road, where we could catch a bus back to our starting point.

A large train of leafcutter ants

We are now in the colonial city of Santa Marta, adjacent to Taganga, spending a couple of days in a nicer hotel with air conditioning and a (very small) pool. Our plans include more diving and possibly a trek to Colombia's famous Lost City. But we will have to see, as Kev has injured his foot and I am ill once again due to some dodgy food...! Onwards and upwards.

Life in Argentina

Argentina is an expensive country. We had been forewarned of this, but hadn't quite realised quite how much the high inflation is affecting prices. The prices quoted in guidebooks bear no resemblance to current ones - 25% is the inflation rate most quoted, but on average most things have tripled or even quadrupled in price since our book was published two years ago. A lot of places have prices written in pencil so that they can be changed often enough!

Life here happens at its own pace. A case in point is the afternoon siesta, which typically runs from around 1 until 4, but varies massively from place to place. One shop will be open at 2.30, but the next door one might not open until 5. The cafe after that might open at 3 but only on Sundays, and when you turn up it doesn't actually open until half past because the owner has overslept.

Spiral staircase (with stuffed eagles!) at the Museo del Hombre y del Mar, Puerto Madryn

Service in bars and cafes also occurs in a relaxed manner  - it's perfectly normal for the staff to serve you, then disappear for an hour somewhere. In one restaurant, the sole member of the waiting staff disappeared over the road for a fag, leaving the manager to wait tables. At another one, all of the staff spontaneously decided to clean the outside windows, while completely ignoring the customers. We are learning that this is just the way things work here - 'mañana' ('tomorrow!') is the mantra, and we just have to accept that things will happen when they happen. In fact, it's a refreshing change from the fast paced, supply on demand lifestyle we've grown perhaps overly accustomed to at home.

Another peculiarity of this country is its 'artesanal' products. Everything is 'artesanal' in Argentina, for example in Puerto Madryn we have sampled their tasty artesanal beer, bakery products and chocolate. It ostensibly means craft, or homemade, but we have even come across artesanal fish and artesanal laundry!

Slightly scary Jesus statue en route from Puerto Madryn to the Ecocentro

One of the lighthouse paintings at the Ecocentro

We have recently spent a lovely few more days in Puerto Madryn. Kev went diving with sea lions, which he enjoyed - spotting a nudibranch was a highlight as well as the sea lions. We visited the Museo del Hombre y del Mar, a museum mainly concerned with natural history, but also with some interesting history about the native peoples of Patagonia.

We also walked a picturesque 5 km along the coast to the Ecocentro, a modern centre concerned with marine life of the Patagonian sea and emphasising conservation issues. Together with science it had a second focus on art, with a beautiful exhibition of paintings of nearby lighthouses, as well as a thought provoking sculpture of a whale made entirely of litter that had washed up on the shore. It also had a cafe with excellent cake and beautiful views across the bay back towards the town.


Our next stop is Trelew, where we look forward to exploring the neighbouring Welsh villages (and associated teahouses).