Month: March 2019

We spent a few days in Santa Fe and really enjoyed the city. The weather on the first day was miserable, but it was also the first day of March Madness (Thursday), so we found a sports bar and managed to enjoy ourselves though many hours of basketball and chatting with folks at the bar. Before leaving town on Saturday we checked out the extensive art gallery scene and the downtown plaza. Both were nice, though it was still pretty windy and chilly for walking around.

On Friday we checked out Bandelier National Monument, our third trip in four days on our new National Parks Annual Pass. This also fully realized our $80 investment ($35 for Grand Canyon, $20 for Petrified Forest, and $25 for Bandelier). Everything for the next year just maximizes the investment. We’ll be using the pass a lot as we road trip through the US of A.

Speaking of our road trip, here’s the basic plan: Santa Fe, Taos, Silver City (Gila National Forest), Phoenix, Los Angeles, Palm Springs, Tucson, El Paso, Marfa (Big Bend National Park), Austin, Houston, New Orleans (first weekend of Jazz Fest), Birmingham, Memphis, Midway (Drew’s uncle’s place; potentially go to the Kentucky Derby), Chicago. That gets us to the beginning of May. We’ll then head back to Chicago, likely taking a northern route through the Dakotas (the only two states I haven’t visited). We’ll probably go to Badlands National Park and Glacier National Park and Boise.

OK, back to Bandelier National Monument. The site preserves the homes and territories of Ancestral Puebloans of the Southwest. The structures at the site are dated between 1150 and 1600 AD.

We did two hikes. On the first, we followed Frijoles Creek up the aptly named Frijoles Canyon.

The first set of ruins shows the foundations of houses built away from the cliff walls. This was actually the third phase of construction. The first phase was making homes out of alcoves in the cliff walls and the second phase was extending homes from the alcoves.

You can see the many natural alcoves in the cliff walls.

We climbed a ladder into one of the alcoves. This one was quite small.

Here’s some of the second phase: dwellings built out from the alcoves.

We came to the Alcove House, a large alcove and dwelling located 43m above the canyon floor. We took four ladders to climb up to the house.

The Alcove House coming into view.

Leena reaches the Alcove House.

Here are a couple of looks back up at the Alcove House.

For our second hike, we took the Falls Trail which follows Frijoles Creek downstream deeper into the canyon and ends at Upper Frijoles Falls.

You can see a bit of Frijoles Creek in the bottom left foreground, and the muddy brown river in the distance is the Rio Grande.

The waterfall is about 80 feet high.

We stopped at a viewpoint of the Frijoles Canyon as we left Bandelier.

 

On our Grand Canyon visit, we sprung for an annual pass to National Parks, Forests, and Monuments. It was $80; a one-day pass to the Grand Canyon is $35. Our next stop was Santa Fe, and Leena saw that the interstate passed right through Petrified Forest National Park. Well, let’s start getting some return on that investment!

It was a great way to break up the drive. I can’t say I knew what to expect for the park, but you see pretty clearly that when a forest becomes petrified, there’s no forest still around. But there are old logs strewn all over the place. Except they’re now rocks.

Our trail map/guide book described the area as a badlands, pointing out that badlands are not only found in South Dakota, and are not just a Bruce Springsteen album. Now, I took a star off my review of the park because they described Badlands as a Springsteen album. Any fan knows it’s the first song on Darkness on the Edge of Town. Duh.

Some of the colors are striking.

One of the logs/rocks forms a natural bridge over an arroyo. It was reinforced with cement many years ago, though the park now states that they’ll let it collapse naturally when the cement fails.

We did a handful of short hikes. One went down into the canyon shown here.

The rock erodes quickly when it rains, and is described as elephant skin when dry. The clouds threatened, and there was a short shower just after we finished this hike.

Our last short hike took us along the rim of another canyon.

I visited the Grand Canyon on a family summer trip in the summer of 1983. I’m pretty sure I have the year right, meaning I was 11 years old. It was incredible, and we even did a helicopter (or small plane?) tour.

My second visit was when Leena and I moved from Chicago to San Francisco. Because it was February, we basically traced Route 66 to Los Angeles before heading north up the I5 in California. That took us within an hour of the Grand Canyon so we made the side trip. We drove along the southern rim and though I again remember being in awe of the place, I also remember pulling off one of my better driving maneuvers. Our rig was a U-Haul truck and we were towing my car on a trailer. I managed to head down a dead end lane without a turnaround. I had to back up and swing the car perpindicular into a short driveway to turn around. Traffic stopped so I had the pressure of an audience. A couple of guys jumped out to help spot me. I nailed it on the first try. I have to thank my brother David for this – he insisted on teaching me how to back up up and steer with an axel. He taught me first on a riding tractor pulling a grass catcher, then later on our station wagon towing a camper. It’s counter intuitive: you have to steer the car a bit one way to get the trailer going the other, then steer the other direction to catch up and follow. Thanks, brother.

Anyway, where was I? Oh, the Grand Canyon. It’s still incredible, one of those sights in all the world that completely amazes me. I joke that “Grand” may be selling it short. Pictures can’t really do it justice, but I think we have quite a few worth sharing. We again visited the southern rim, and got it on a partly sunny day. We parked at the visitor center and hiked a few miles west along the rim. For the last seven miles we alternated between hiking and shuttle buses.

Leena found the canyon and helpfully pointed it out.

You can see the famous Bright Angel trail in this one. Someday…

As you get further west along the south rim you get some glimpses of the Colorado River. Though it looks small, it’s about 100m wide.

 

After Spring Training with friends in Phoenix, we started a road trip through the Southwest. We drove to Sedona for the day and did several day hikes. Our first stop was at the Oak Creek Vista where we got a look at the canyon formed by Oak Creek.

After a couple of miles of switchbacks we reached the floor of the canyon and followed the creek downstream. We stopped to hike the Midgley Bridge Trail.

Here’s Midgley Bridge spanning a tributary that joins Oak Creek.

Our next stop was the Sugar Loaf trail which took us on a loop with a side trek up Sugar Loaf hill, pictured here.

Some views from the trail.

Our last stop was at the Cathedral Rock Trailhead. We hiked the Cathedral Rock Trail for a short distance and then took the Templeton Trail for a couple of kilometers.

Here’s a look up at the Cathedral Rock formation.

We returned to the Cathedral Rock trail and I took it to the top. It’s a somewhat technical trail where you have to get on all fours to get up and over some of the sections. I suppose you’d call it some minor rock climbing. Leena opted out because going down something like that would be very difficult with her knee (old soccer injury to the meniscus).

As I made my way up, the sun moved behind the rocks. The picture reminds me of the total eclipse we got to see last summer in Oregon.

Here’s another angle.

At the end of the trail it just drops off. There’s a sign just in case you don’t notice.

The view in the opposite direction.

The impressively tall Cathedral Rock.

This is the same view as the Templeton Trail, but from the elevated position of the Cathedral Rock trail.

A look back at the Cathedral Rock formation on the way down as the sun moved further behind the rocks.

We stayed in Bogotá for two nights at the start of our stay in Colombia and an additional four nights at the conclusion. We flew in from Cancún after our stay on Isla Mujeres and went to a supper club promoted as an AirBnB experience. There were nine guests and two hosts. Wine flowed and we tried aguardiente, a Colombian anise-flavored liqueur. We had some appetizers before moving to the dining table for dinner. Wine continued to flow, and the host brought out two microphones for some karaoke. People got pretty into it. The party finally broke up between 1 and 2a.

We took a funicular up Monserrate, a peak overlooking Bogotá with a church on top (of course). Bogotá averages 2640m above sea level (8660 ft) while Monserrate rises to 3152m (10341 ft).

It was a mostly cloudy day, and Bogotá is generally smoggy, so the pictures reflect that. But you still get the scale of this city of 8m residents.

After enjoying the setting for a while we decided to head down. It was Sunday, so it was crowded, and the line for the funicular was estimated at two hours! We decided to take the trail down. It’s a short trail, but it descends over 400m, so it’s very steep. We took some more pictures as we descended and you can see the city a bit more clearly through less smog.

On our second swing through Bogotá we took a guided walking tour through the heart of the city, a neighborhood named La Candalaria. Our guide was a Colombian historian with lots of great information. I even took some notes on my phone.

Before getting into history, we talked about the climate here. With its location just 5 degrees from the equator, but at an elevation of 2640m, Bogotá enjoys temperate weather all year round. The temperature averages about 16C (61F) and the highest temperature recorded in Bogotá is 25.6C (78F). Yes, it’s never hit 80 degrees F here.

New Granada, comprised of present day Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador and Panama won independence from Spain in 1819, Bolívar became the president of the newly named country of Gran Colombia. He remained president until his death in 1830. After his death, Venezuela and Ecuador separated to become sovereign countries. No blood was shed. The present-day flags of Colombia, Venezuela and Ecaudor are all very similar. The yellow represents gold, the blue represents the sea, and the red represents the blood shed to gain independence.

Panama, incidentally, declared its independence from Colombia in 1903 with the backing of Teddy Roosevelt and the United States as the US took over construction of the Panama Canal.

We visited the site of the assassination of Jorge Gaitán on April 9, 1948. He was a far-left presidential candidate; Colombia has never had liberal leadership. He was gunned down in the street outside his office while giving a speech to his supporters. A riot broke out. The assassin was killed and his body desecrated to the point that he could not be identified. There are three primary theories on who was behind the assassination: 1) the conservatives who feared losing the presidency, 2) the center-left who thought Gaitán too liberal, and 3) the CIA.

The assassination started a period of violence in Colombia, giving rise to paramilitary (conservative) and guerilla (liberal) forces. The Cuban revolution inspired Communist forces as well, but they have never succeeded in taking power.

We learned about present-day Colombia. It’s famous for three “C’s”: coffee, chocolate, and yes, cocaine. But the top exports actually start with two other “C’s”:

1. Crude oil
2. Coal
3. Flowers
4. Coffee
5. Gold

A city of 8m residents is a lot of responsibility for one mayor, so the city is politically divided into 21 neighborhoods each with their own mayor. La Candalaria is the smallest with just 27k residents. In contrast, our guide lives in Suba which has 1.5m residents. Colombia has a population of about 47m people. About 85% are of mixed race, with another 10% of African decent and 3% indigenous. The African population is the third highest outside of Africa, after the US and Brazil. The population is 95% Catholic, 3% agnostic/atheist, 1% Jewish and 1% Muslim.

We stopped to try chicha, another Colombian drink. Chicha is an indigenous drink made from spit out corn kernels and water. This is then fermented. We got to try some. It smells like sour stale beer and tastes like sour apple cider. Honestly, it’s not bad! We tried some at 4% ABV. A long ferment can make it as strong as moonshine. The guide was impressed that everyone tried it before learning that the corn kernels in chicha are now hand mashed. No chewing involved.

The tour continued into an area of La Candeleria famous for its graffiti and street art. Our guide told the story of a prominent graffiti artist who was killed by the police about a decade ago. He was caught doing his art, and the police shot him in the back as he ran away. About a year later, Justin Bieber visited the city. Accompanied by a police escort, he made his own graffiti mural depicting the Canadian flag amidst a cannabis leaf. The case caused a lot of introspection in the city, and policies towards graffiti have dramatically shifted. It’s now tolerated, and even celebrated as part of the city. There are several thousand graffiti artists here and many are trained in graphic design and art.

We visited an art museum with a gallery of paintings by Fernando Botero, a prominent Colombian artist. He donated all of the works with the stipulation that entry be free and that they cannot be displayed outside of Colombia. In his works, Botero distorts the human (and other) figures, intentionally changing proportions and making oversized bodies. His version of the Mona Lisa was on display.

Since Colombia was colonized by the Spanish, much of the architecture has Spanish influences. And Spanish architecture, in turn, has Moorish and Islamic influences. The water garden at the entry of the art museum is very similar to Islamic water gardens we saw in Marrakech.

The tour continued to the main plaza of Bogotá, ringed by a church and government buildings for Congress, Justice, and the city government.

The tour concluded at the Gabriel García Marquéz Center. Marquéz was a Colombian author who won the 1982 Nobel Prize for Literature. We saw some dancers performing.

After all that walking and learning, it was time for a pint!

We took a day-trip from Bogotá to visit Lake Guatavita and the town of Guatavita La Nueva. It’s a circular lake at the top of a symmetrical mountain, and it looked to me like a small version of Crater Lake in Oregon. I guessed that it was also a collapsed volcano that had filled with water.

However, though that was a common theory, it’s now believed that it’s a sinkhole that developed when underground salt deposits dissolved.

The local indigenous tribe, the Muisca, hold the lake as a sacred place. We learned from our Muisca guide that the tribe’s succession of kings comes from the son of the current king’s sister (i.e. a nephew). The successor spends his first nine years in a cave with his mother, then the following nine years in relative isolation in the cave. After that, the to-be king is stripped naked, covered with gold dust, and enters the lake to wash off the gold dust and emerge as the new king. Gold and other treasures were thrown in the lake during the ceremony. When the Spanish arrived in the 16th century, they learned of the ceremony and thought the lake was the entrance to El Dorado, or a mythical city of gold.

Multiple efforts to extract gold from the lake were made over the years. The Spanish made the Muisca dig down a side of the mountain encompassing the lake in an effort to drain the lake and retrieve the gold. Though they were successful in extracting some gold, upon smelting it back in Spain the ore was found to be at least half copper and not very valuable. A subsequent British effort involved building a tunnel through the mountainside to again lower the water level. The effort went bankrupt and the head of the venture had to remain in Colombia until his death rather than return to Britain and face his debts. The tunnel eventually collapses leaving a gap in the hillside that further lowered the water level. Erosion is slowly filling the gap back in, and the water level has been rising, though it’s still way below its previous levels.

Though it’s hard to see in our pictures, we’re looking across the man-made gap here. The water level was once near the top of the hillsides you can see.

Here are a couple of panoramic shots that show how elevated the lake is compared to the surrounding land.

After visiting the lake we went to the town of Guatavita La Nueva, or New Guatavita. The “New” is because the old town was flooded and completely destroyed. Well, not quite completely. The only remaining artifact is the cross that was atop the church at the highest point of the old town.

I commented that the new town looked exactly like the Pueblas Blancas we’d seen in Spain. All of the buildings are white with red tile roofs. Well, there’s good reason: the new town was designed by the Spanish.

There’s even an old bullfighting ring, though bullfighting is now illegal.

We were able to step inside the bullfighting ring.

And this is what it looks like it you stand in the center of a ringed building and take a panoramic shot around it. (This is most of the way around.)

After three nights in Salento, we took a willie (Jeep) to the nearby town of Filandia. The folks in Filandia think their town is better, though the folks in Salento say the same. They’re both nice mountain towns centered around a traditional central square. The church on the square in Filandia:

We hiked about 90 minutes out of town to see a double waterfall. The first half of the hike was on paved roads, then we followed dirt roads. We passed lovely scenery and plenty of animals including bunnies (not pictured) and a pig.

We finally came to a property that fronted the creek that had the double waterfall. We paid a small entrance fee and hiked the last 10 minutes down a fairly well maintained but steep and somewhat muddy and slippery trail.

The double waterfall:

The main channel on the left:

Right as we arrived, a group of six came walking up the creek in knee-high boots. Their guide was very surprised to see anyone else at the waterfall. We chatted with the guide and he convinced us that the path in/out that they’d taken, on the other side of the creek, was much easier. He also offered us lunch and a tour back at his coffee finca for about $2.50 each. Even though we had to start by carefully crossing the creek in just sneakers (we did not have knee-high boots), we trusted him and followed him and his group out.

Well. It was not easier. We went up just as steep and muddy and slippery a bank as the other side, though there were some ropes to use for balance and leverage. But then we started following the creek upstream and it became clear why the guide had brought a two-foot machete.

This is looking ahead at the “trail” with the muddy creek at the bottom of the slope.

There’s a trail in here somewhere.

We continued along the steep and muddy banks of the creek for almost an hour. The footing was dicey and we had to cross the creek another four times. It was also super muggy. When we finally got to the finca, we opted out of the coffee tour (we’d done one just two days before) and instead did our best to clean our shoes in a sink behind the house.

Yet, the guide’s wife made a wonderful and hearty lunch (delicious carrot soup, salad, chicken, rice, fried plantain). We chatted with them on the front port he after lunch while enjoying their coffee and making friends with their small dog Quito.

They told us that a willy would be by after dropping kids off coming home from school and we caught a ride back to town when it came by.

Filandia also features a mirador, and theirs is topped by a 27m fall circular building that you can climb to see the view in every direction. It looks like a spaceship on the horizon.

We headed over and took in the views of Filandia and the surrounding countryside.

Finally, a couple of shots from a street in Filandia with a sign stating Calle del Tiempo Detinido, or the Street of Stopped Time.

We took a bus from Medellín to Salento, a town of about 7k residents in the Andes mountains. The ride was brutal! Though it’s not very far – 292km – it took about nine hours. The road had numerous areas of construction, at times reduced to a single lane that wasn’t paved. We had to wait a few times for more than 20 minutes for traffic in our direction to gain the right of way.

That said, Salento is lovely. We enjoyed a break from big cities (we’d most recently been in Bogatá, Cartagena, and Medellín) and took advantage by trekking every day.

(Note: I put our trek through the Valle de Cocora in its own post.)

First up was a trek to the Don Elias coffee plantation. We left town across the “big yellow” pedestrian bridge. (It’s not so big.)

We hiked for about an hour enjoying the beautiful vistas.

We took a tour of the Don Elias finca. It’s a small coffee plantation, and completely organic. Banana trees help soak up extra water. They also plant blackberry and bamboo plants on the elevated side of the property. These help filter water running into the finca from other fincas that use fertilizers.

Here’s a look down the hill of the finca.

We continued hiking past the plantation per a map provided by our hostel. We went down the hill and crossed a river.

We followed the river upstream to the town of Boquia. Buses run every 20 minutes up the hill back to Salento. We caught a bus for a 10-minute ride that cost just 1200 pesos each (a little less than $.40).

Back in Salento, we hiked steps up to a mirador (viewpoint) overlooking the Valle de Cocora.

Speaking of miradors, I have a song for them.

To the tune of Beck’s “Loser”:

Soy un mirador,
I’m a viewpoint baby,
Why don’t you come see me.

I’ve gotten to sing this plenty on our travels. It never gets old. Just ask Leena.

Our guide at Don Elias encouraged us to go play Tejo that evening after dinner. So we found a Tejo spot recommended by our hostel and gave it a try. In brief, it’s a thowing game perhaps a bit similar to horseshoes. The target is a metal ring embedded in clay. Triangles of gunpowder a laid on top of the ring. You throw a small disc-shaped stone. You get 1-point if you’re the closest to the target (but nobody hits it), 3 points if your throw explodes the gunpowder, 6 points if your stone embeds in the clay inside the ring (a bullseye), and 9 points if you both explode a target and hit a bullseye. The first player to 21 points wins.

The target.

Getting ready to throw.

Exploding the gunpowder is the best part, but you really need a direct hit on the white triangle that compresses it against the metal ring. We had a few with soft fizzing explosions (those still count for three points), but the really direct hits let out a bang like a gunshot. We also each managed a few bullseyes, though we never managed a 9-point throw. Hitting the target directly enough to set off the gunpowder always resulted in the stone disc bouncing away and not embedding anywhere in the clay. For us, at least. We enjoyed a couple of local beers (Aguila) and played for about an hour.

The following day started with showers, so we postponed our hike in the Valle de Cocora. The weather cleared by late morning, so we took the bus down to Boquia to chase a waterfall.

The trail passed through a 100-meter long cavern.

Sunset falls over Salento.

We did a day hike from Solento through the Valle de Cocora. That translates to the Valley of Wax Palms. We put it off a day due to some rainy weather, and were glad we did. We took a 30-minute “willy” (aka a Jeep) ride from town to the trailhead and started the hike about 8:30a. The weather was lovely.

The hike is a loop. We started heading up valley and by following this creek which we crossed about 10 times, all on swinging bridges. Note the knee-high boots. We each rented a pair for the day at a cost of 5000 pesos, or about $1.60. I used the largest size they had – 43cm – though my US shoe size of 13 translates to 47.5cm. It was a very tight squeeze! Leena, on the other hand, used the smallest size and had boots that were a bit too big. I guess we’re both outliers.

Here’s a look at the wax palms. They grow extremely tall, and this is one of the highest elevations in the world where they’re found. The hike tops out at 2860m / 9383ft.

The first third of the hike went through open fields and farmland populated by cows and horses.

We could see lots of wax palms on the ridge as we looked to our left. The last third of the hike comes down that very ridge.

The trail continued to follow the creek and we were soon surrounded by lush forest as we continued to criss-cross the creek on swinging bridges. There were also plenty of muddy sections, so the boots – as recommended – were a very good idea.

We took a left turn and started a steep climb to the top. We got a peek at a peak across the valley along the way.

I sat down for a rest at the side of the trail and heard a low buzzing sound. I looked over and saw a hummingbird land on some naked branches just a few steps down the trail. I got a picture just as it took off. In a blur, of course.

The trail came out of the forest near the top. Some horses were grazing in the field.

When we reached the top, the tallest peak across the valley had a lovely cloud swirling about it.

Some more hummingbirds visited as we took a break and enjoyed the views at the top. There’s a hummingbird sanctuary that you can visit by taking a side trail off the loop though we skipped it.

A look down the valley, a view we’d enjoy for the rest of the day as we hiked back down to complete the loop.

Wardrobe change! I brought my flip flops in the backpack and changed into them at the top, giving my cramped feet some much-needed relief. The rest of the trail was a simple dirt road used by both hikers and mountain bikers, so the boots were no longer needed.

Some serious height on some of the wax palms.

The completion of the loop is just beyond the cluster of buildings in the center right of the frame.

Towards the end, there was a section where we could leave the road/trail and wander through a field of wax palms.

Oh, hello lovely white horse.

We finished the hike around 1p and took a willy back to Solento. As we had a late lunch, a storm moved in. It was a doozy! Thunder and lightning right on top of us, a heavy downpour, and even hail for a few minutes. Even the locals at the restaurant were astounded by its strength. We met some fellow travelers the next day that came off the trail about an hour after us and were caught in the downpour on the willy ride home. A tree came down across the road and they had to wait for it to be cleared.

We took a willy ride that afternoon to the nearby town of Filandia. The storm cleared out and made way for a stunning sunset.

We made a day trip from Medellín to the resort town of Guatapé. It’s a beautiful lake region that features a large granite rock, called La Piedra de Peñol, that seems like it was just dropped in the middle of everything. You can’t miss it.

Better yet, you can climb it! No gear required thanks to the staircase to the top.

You get an update on your progress every 50 steps. There are 707 steps total to cover over 200 meters to the top.

As you might imagine, the views are great in every direction.

We then visited the town of Guatapé for lunch and had a couple of hours to wander. It’s such a lovely and colorful town!