Cartagena

Cartagena de Indias, on Colombia's Caribbean coast, is a beautiful, historic port city. It's also run-down, filthy and full of people trying to sell cocaine to tourists. In other words, it's an authentic tropical conurbation, not a sanitized tourist town. I've wanted to visit Cartagena ever since reading James Michener's Caribbean, which contains at least one chapter dedicated to what was once Spain's most important New World seaport. Founded by the Spanish in 1533, Cartagena grew into a walled city protecting a fantastic natural harbor. For hundreds of years, as the conquistadors subdued and "developed" the South American interior (the conquest and plunder of the Incan Empire but one example), the city served as the gateway to the Spanish colonies. Shiploads of African slaves were unloaded as galleons full of gold sailed for Europe. The arrival of these treasure ships often depended on their ability to evade or outfight the English, Dutch and French privateers prowling the Caribbean.

Today in Cartagena, palms still toss their fronds above the old city walls, while obsolete cannon litter the cobbled squares. Despite a hundred-year run of hard luck, much of the historic city has been restored, and Cartagena claims a proud (and economically crucial) place on the Caribbean cruise circuit. Inevitably, the tourist veneer has worn thin in places, and sometimes only a block separates serene plazas full of pigeons and cafés from the gritty hustle of real life. It's the kind of duality I love and live, working in tourism and traveling for a living. Everyone complains about how touristy everything's become, but walk a few blacks away from the main square and there you are: eating the daily special in a crowded hole-in-the-wall instead of paying for a view and a bad chef salad. The historic center is an alluring mix of cobbled streets, tree-filled plazas, colonial architecture and balconies dripping flowers into the lanes below. I spent many hours wandering, absorbing, reading the paper and slurping down fresh juices. It's easy to understand why Cartagena is one of the crown jewels of the Caribbean, with so many layers to explore, and so much beauty and history to offer.

Staying outside the city walls in the aging neighborhood of Getsemaní offered up a different side of the city. A gushing guidebook author might describe this barrio in terms of "faded splendor", but I'm afraid that even down-at-heel would be generous. It's a total sh##hole. The colonial blocks of yesteryear are crumbling, unchecked, into the dirty streets, where taxis careen madly between the echoed cries of coffee-sellers. I hadn't been there ten minutes before a ragged old gentleman short on teeth but long on eloquence introduced himself to me as The Boss. Laying a conspiratorial hand on my shoulder and lowering his voice, he laid it all out. "Whatever you want, I can get it. This is my street: they all know me." He gestured toward other dealers lurking in broad daylight between piles of rubbish and the doorways of cheap hotels. "Anything, the best coke, hookers, just tell me. I'm the boss." I let him know with a firm friendliness that he would definitely be my first choice, then beat it back into my guesthouse. I ended up having a great time in Cartagena. Between the mellow old town vibe and the coarse pleasures of the living city, there was no lack of diversion:

Plaza Santo Domingo, 2:30 in the afternoon. Framing a steeple in my view-finder, I saw them coming out of the corner of my eye. Two friendly, twentysomething locals? Or two dudes with a scam? I had the time and decided to find out. What would it be - the tour guide pitch, a hotel, a tour company? Here's how it went down:

Hello, my friend, how are you? Where you from? Boston I lied. (It saves a five minute geography lesson on Vermont.)
Great! I love Boston, I have many friends there.
Yeah, it's a great city, lots to do. What are you guys up to?
Nothing, man, nothing. Listen, there's a party later. It's at the Banana Bar, you want to come? It's for the university. There's going to be lots of girls there. A lot. You like girls? It's going to be crazy!
OK, party promoters. Hadn't expected that.
Of course I like girls I said. You know Snoop Dogg? They looked at each other. Yeah! Snoop Dogg - a rapper. We know Snoop Dogg.
He does a show called Girls Gone Wild. You guys should check it out.
Yeah! Snoop Dogg!
OK. We talked about Snoop Dogg and the Banana Bar. Were could it go from there? Suddenly, the lean-in.
Listen, amigo, this is Colombia, we have the best shit. You want some? The best coke man. . .
Here? Now? In the square? All I could do was laugh, and suddenly I had a great idea to turn the tables.
I don't take drugs, amigo, but thanks. Can I talk to you guys about something? A flicker of doubt as they glanced at each other. I don't take drugs because I'm a Mormon. I'm a member of the Mormon church, and I really want to tell you about it.
Faltering smiles and a few steps back. I close the gap by walking towards them and reaching into my bag.
Have you heard of the Book of Mormon? I have one right here I want to show you. . . Are you a friend of Christ?
Retreat! Retreat! They were falling over themselves to get away.
Thanks, but we're busy, very busy. See you later! I followed for a few steps, just for the effect.
I want to help you!

Obviously they knew just enough to be scared, but their fear blinded them. I wasn't wearing slacks, a short-sleeved button-up or a name tag, and I wasn't tag teaming. But they still ran. . .

Bells in the Palace of the Inquisition

A Day in Quito

The Virgin of Quito (I'm pretty sure there are others.)

Laid low in Quito, recuperating from a mysterious internal ailment, listening to Hot N Cold by Katy Perry blast over the speakers of an internet place downtown. Kind of an annoying song but the video's kind of funny. Speaking of music videos, here are five of my all-time favorites:

Sledgehammer by Peter Gabriel (Visual innovation over a great rythm section.)
November Rain by Guns n Roses (I still get emotional. . .)
Sabotage by The Beastie Boys (Absolute classic!)
Nuthin But a 'G' Thang by Dr. Dre (Watch it at least three times.)
Go With The Flow by Queens of the Stone Age (GO GO GO!)

Nuthin' but a we thang: Rafael Correa y Hugo Chavez

It's a Saturday in Ecuador's capital, and whatever excitement was generated by Hugo's visit here yesterday has faded. That's right, the Venezuelan president came to Quito to meet his Ecuadorian counterpart. He also gave a taxi an oil change, using a new blend developed by a Venezuelan petrochemichal concern. The headline in El Comercio (Ecuador's main paper) read "Presidents Correa and Chavez sign 13 agreements." This issue also carried stories on rock climbing in and around Quito, "Some of the President's Pearls" (a list of 75 demeaning or insulting terms Correa has used in his weekly TV addresses over the past year) and gave extensive coverage to the new Miss Ecuador, Lady Mina from Guayaquil. There was also an interesting article entitled "La Unase arrested 92 people for kidnapping last year." La Unase is a national anti-kidnapping and extortion force. The article ran through the problems of abduction in Ecuador (55 people so far in 2010), most of which are cases of kidnapping for ransom. Several tips were given on how to avoid becoming a victim: get to know your neighbours; if you're a person of means, don't show it and keep a low profile; get an alarm system and CCTV; vary the routes by which you commute between home and work; tell your kids not to talk to strangers or give out addresses, names of parents, etc.

The humble humita

I hit the streets early, and after walking for 45 minutes gave up on getting a decent cup of coffee. I ducked into a dark doorway and sat down to humitas and coffee, a very popular Ecuadorian breakfast. Humitas have a lot in common with the tamale, their culinary second cousin, but humitas are much simpler and just as tasty. Cornmeal is mixed with butter, eggs, and a little mild cheese before being wrapped in a cornhusk and steamed. The result is a moist mouthfull of cheesy corn: dense, cakey and very sustaining. Give me more! Tragically, the horrendous cafe pasado distracted from the heavenly husks. This is a type of super-concentrated, low-quality drip coffee that looks like old motor oil and is definitely NOT safe for kids. I was served a mug of hot water and instructed to add some of this "concentrate." I gagged my way through that cup of convulsions and got the hell out of there. If anyone thinks it's easy being a coffee snob, IT'S NOT!

Here are a few more observations from yesterday's notes:

-In the main tourist office, amid postcards, maps, and bookshelves full of coffee-table tomes on Quito and Ecuador, I found "Meet Your Ideal Man After 40." I'm not sure what that has to do with tourism but I thought it was kind of neat.

-At the Palace of Government, a few hours before Chavez showed up, I watched a color guard flanked by armed riot police receive dignitaries on the ancient stone portico, while a few feet below a barber calmly gave a trim in one of the alcoves.

-Just saw an old lady put FOUR large spoonfuls of sugar her coffee. A sweet tooth or a cry for help? (Suicide by diabetes?)

-Talked to a friendly butcher about the huge pig's trotters I've been seeing everywhere. The word is that they're amazing in the pressure cooker.

Some shots from Quito:

Try and count the churches, I dare you

Grilled plaintains. They're amazing.

On the Road in Colombia

A bus ride in Colombia is rarely boring, with the exception of the night buses (when you feel locked inside a cold, dark, quiet crypt-on-wheels.) Even after five weeks in Colombia, almost every ride offers up new novelties, wonders and the chance for a conversation. A recent ride in the South, from Popayán to Ipiales, took eight hours and traversed at least four different climates. We left Popayán, a beautiful old whitewashed town famous for the upcoming Easter celebrations, and sped southward. The climate in Pop is extremely pleasant, up in the mountains around 5000ft - warm days and cool evenings. But by the time we stopped for lunch we had descended through a series of valleys, and stepping off the bus the heat hit me like a hammer. I sweated through lunch and dozed as we started to climb again, entering an arid landscape of high, humpy mountains covered in sparse scrub and cacti. The sun was strong but the air was cool and dry. I alternated between listless staring, listening to classic rock on my iPod and reading a book about the Sicilian mafia (several hundred pages that can be summed up in two words: extortion and murder.)

This particular route has a bad reputation in Colombia, cutting through territory controlled on and off over the years by FARC, the most infamous guerrilla group. They're responsible for many of the hostage-taking headlines that have contributed to the country's tarnished security image. Towards the end of the journey we neared Ipiales, even higher and cooler than Popayán, only a few miles from the border with Ecuador.

A small man sitting beside me struck up a conversation. He must have gone up to Pasto (the next city north) to do some business for the day, because he was all duded up like a slapdash Mr Potato Head of casual formal. Brown shoes, dark slacks heavy on the pleats, a plaid shirt under a paisley tie and an oversize beige blazer. After making small talk, during which he advised me to tell people I'm from Argentina instead of the US (too much of a target), he started in on a familiar line of questioning. Is San Francisco a country or a state? It's a city, I said, in the state of California. What about Houston? Also a city, but in the state of Texas. I ran through the whole United Sates equals fifty states thing. He nodded slowly. But Boston's a republic, right? No, a city in Massachusettes. Huh. He asked me about Obama, about the population, whether we grew potatoes, the climate. I enjoy these conversations of genuine interest, and it makes me realize how confusing all the names and words flashing on the news must seem. I also wonder how many Americans can name three cities in Colombia. I thanked him for our chat. Later, in the plaza, a soldier frisked me for the first time in Colombia. Maybe the FARC situation is heating up again. . .

Here are a few of my favorite roadside shots (donkey cart, where are you?)

Goat truck

Working a potato field near Ipiales

Hitching a ride on the Panamericana

Boiling tar in Boyacá

Ucumarí (or Up The Valley)

Ranchland at 10,000 feet

Hoe them taters!

A chiva (traditional Colombian transport)

La Pastora

A few days ago I left Manizales with a sassy Atlantan named Marydale. We'd shared a few beers and philosophical ramblings and are headed in the same direction, so we formed a little team. We were headed to a Parqué Ucumarí to do some exploring via Pereira, another city in the Coffee Zone. I had the window seat on the bus out of Manizales, and laughed out the window as she was hit on by a drunken local across the aisle. Poor guy had very few teeth and kept slurring the word hermosisima (very beautiful) over and over again. Not sure why, but she didn't find it as funny as I did. We stopped in Santa Rosa de Cabal and took another bus up to some hotsprings, which were amazing. Arriving in Pereira that evening, we caught a cab to a hostel, owned by friendly Juan who filled us in on everything involved in visiting the park and staying at the refuge there. Here are a few excerpts from my journal:

3/15

Into the valley of the Río Otún. Woke up excited and not just for the coffee. Marydale whipped up a nice omelet with broccoli, onions and cheese. Supermarket for some snacks and a bottle of rum, then the chiva up the valley to El Cedral, beyond the pretty village of La Florida. On the mirror of th bus was a simple message: If you're going to sleep, do it in the back. At the end of the road started hiking up the valley through birdsong. . . to the red refuge at La Pastora. caretaker Rainer is a fantastic host. . . we followed along as he showed us the way to a waterfall across the valley. . . picking huge blackberries along the way in a stony pasture where cows grazed under blowing clouds. He was on his way to the river to catch trout - we'd shown up without a reservation and he was improvising dinner. . . the meal was one of the best I've had in Colombia. . .

3/16 "Up the Valley"

After an early breakfast and a bowl of hot chocolate we struck out up the valley. . . climbing up up up. Dense, humid forest gradually gave way to small, isolated trees as the valley opened and we ascended through pastures. Here, five hours' walk from the nearest road, small farms appeared. We had entered the world of potatoes and cattle, where hardy homesteaders scratch out a living raising beef and hoeing the hillsides. The wind blew down from the páramo, hidden behind high cliffs, as clouds charged up the valley. Cascades cleaved the mountains and water rushed and roiled everywhere. . . dozens of tributaries feeding the froth of the Río Otún, falling away dwon the valley.

After almost five hours we settled for a rock, enjoying a few breaks of sun during lunch. . . a view over pastures and streams. . . content with a great day with laughed about nothing and sang a little Rolling Stones as we stumbled back down the rocky trail. I stopped for a few "macro moments", trying to capture a few of the dozens of flowers brightening the landscape. Fifteen minutes from home, the sky opened up and we got a genuine soaking, threading our way through wet rocks and horseshit to the shelter of the refuge and another delicious dinner.

3/17

Breakfast and farewell. Rockhopping down a trail in a forest of simple composition: wet, brown earth, colored here and there by rust-orange seeps; a dark green tangle of fat leaves and branches dripping moss and ferns; a milky gray sky whose luminescence hinted at a star burning somewhere above the clouds. Over a carpet of fuscia-tinged petals washed fom the canopy, we hurried to catch the bus. . . arriving just as the clouds let go and rain ran in rivers across the dirt.

Back in town, drinking a strong coffee after lunch, we met Alvaro, a businessman from Bogotá. He described his condition with one word: bored. He was waiting for his wife and gestured disgustedly towards the downpour: "Nothing to do." We told our story and explained we were on our way to the Éxito to buy some vegetables and rum. "Here," he said. "Try this." His drink tasted like cherry Kool-Aid and cheap vodka. What was it? "I don't know, I told them to give me something strong. I'm really bored."

In the taxi, our driver mentioned the recent elections for the house and senate, asking us "Do you have corruption in the United States like we have here in Colombia?" Yes, we said, but it's different. We'd heard of politicians buying votes and were curious about the price. "About fifteen dollars." Wow. His next remark revealed a divide: "If you sell your vote, you sell your conscience."

Back at the hostel. . . we celebrated our return to dry clothes and a bathroom with and impromptu cocktail. I heated water and lime, pouring it over local rum and a dash of sugar. Stir and serve. How civilized!

Los Nevados

Manizales is famous as a center of coffee production, buit it's also the gateway to Colombia's most-visited national park: Los Nevados. This basically means the snow-covered ones, and the park includes a few volcanos over 17,000 feet, some long dowmant and some tragically active. In 1985 Nevado del Ruiz erupted and over 20,000 people were killed. The high-elevation landscapes of the park are lunar: dunes of sand and ash, old flows from past eruptions, extinct cinder cones, snow and ice. All visitors must be accompanied by a guide, and the distance from town and logistics make visiting independently difficult. So I did something I usually avoid - I signed onto an all-inclusive, day-long tour.

We headed up into the hills early in the morning stopping for breakfast and enjoying the scenery. We were given an orientation talk at the park entrance, where we picked up our guide. Higher and higher, climbing through different slimates and zones of vegetation. Manizales sits at 2150m (7000ft) by the end of the day we would hike up to 5125m (16800ft.) Ten thousand feet in a few hours. The landscapes blew my mind with their starkness, and the physical experience of altitude made for a slow plod up the last leg. Standing up on the shoulder of Ruiz made everything worth it: the views were incredible. The rest of the tour wasn't bad either, with a fish lunch and a trip to the hot springs at El Otoño.

Extinct cinder cone on the flank of El Ruiz

The glacier-crowned summit of El Ruiz above volcanic desolation

While sipping coca tea, the milk donkeys arrived

Wow, cool. . .

Zona Cafetera

Two decades after seeing my first Juan Valdez commercial and twelve years after coffee became one of the lights of my life, I found myself in a jeep tearing down a valley in Colombia's coffee zone. Our guide, Viviana, chattered away and gestured at passing palms, birds, plots of plantains and the impossibly steep slopes covered in coffee trees. It was like entering a temple. Is this how believers feel when they arrive at Mecca, Varanasi, Rome or Jerusalem? All joking aside, it did feel like the successful conclusion of a long pilgrimage. . . I love coffee and was glad to finally be on a finca, one of the traditional farms where coffee has been grown for generations.

I visited Hacienda Venecia near Manizales, right in the heart of coffee country. This area in the mountains of central Colombia produces most of the high-quality export crop. Soil, weather, water and altitude combine to create ideal conditions for Coffea arabica, the premium variety prized for its mild, complex flavor and cousin to the low-grade robusta. While the cheaper robusta can be produced in huge plantations at low elevations (Brazil leads in production), arabica grows best between 1000 and 2000m elevation (about 3000 to 6500 feet.) The elevation requirements mean fincas in amazing settings and the zona cafetera is gorgeous. Mountains everywhere: steep, riddled with valleys and covered in a lush, green mix of farm and forest. Colombia has the highest number of different bird species in the world, and many call this region home: providing a colorful, melodious compliment to the coffee trees and scenery.

The story of coffee is fascinating, but far to much to relate here. I wanted to get a up a few words and representative photos. It was a great time out on the finca, seeing everything from the nurseries to the maturing trees to a few ripe cherries to the processing plant. And of course sampling the finished product. . .

Premium grade café pergamino beans, green and roasted

Coffee trees cover the hillsides at Hacienda Venecia

These green beans will ripen to red or yellow in a few months

Coffee seedlings at the nursery

Medellín

Afternoon in the Parqúe Bolívar

The first thing I did when I got off the night bus from Cartagena to Medellín was take off my down jacket. The overnight buses here are modern with roomy, comfortable seats that go waaay back. But getting on one is like stepping inside the polar enclosure at the zoo. I learned the hard way on my first night bus. Riding from the high mountains down to the steaming coastal plain, I was looking forward to the heat and wearing nothing more than a T-shirt and a fleece. I thought it strange that the Colombians on the bus all had parkas and thick wool blankets (weren't we hours away from devastating 90/90 heat/humidity?) I spent a long, sleepless night on that bus. There's no crueler irony than looking out the window at bananas and coconut palms, people in shorts and flip-flops, while literally shaking and shivering inside an air-conditioned hell. Add to that some mindless romantic comedy dubbed in Spanish and you'll understand why I almost reached for the little red hammer.

One day in Medellín and I wanted to make it count. I had a short list of recommendations from my buddy Jeff, who visits his grandparents here yearly. After checking into a hostel and a few cups of Colombian, I got moving again. I made it two or three blocks before I stopping at a fruit stand to buy spears of green mango doused in salt and lime juice. While sitting on a bench eating the mango I tried to remember what I knew about the city.

Many people old enough to remember the 80's, or who have seen the movie Blow, would think of murder and cocaine. Medellín's most infamous son, Pablo Escobar, ruled the global cocaine trade from the city until his death at the hands of the police in 1992. Known for years as the Murder Capital of the World, with 17 murders a day at point, things couldn't be more different in 2010. It's a dense, complicated history, well worth checking out, but the bottom line is that Medellín is a Colombian success story and the most forward-thinking city in the country. Escobar's death precipitated the demise of the Medellín cartel, and ten years later when Alvaro Uribe was elected president change began to quicken. He's widely credited with cleaning up the coutry as a whole, plowing massive amounts of money (some from the US) in the military and police, coming down hard on guerrillas and paramilitaries. The city of Medellín has struggled to redeem itself ansd change its image, adopting the slogan Quality of Life and borrowing hundreds of millions of dollars to build the metro. After three weeks in this country, it was amazing to step onto a clean, modern train car and listen as a recoreded voice called out the stops. The above-ground train system links most of the city, but the real coup is the two cable car lines that link the mountainside barrios with the valley, opening up downtown employment to remote neighborhoods. Plus the view from the cars is fantastic as they swoop over rooftops.

Bandeja paisa

I wanted to check out the downtown parks and I had to eat some typical, regional food. Medellín is the capital of the mostly mountainous department of Antioquia, home of the proud paisas (as the people here are known.) The food is known for is portions and heartiness, and I promised Jeff I'd eat one of the most classic examples: bandeja paisa con chicharron. After reading the paper in a park and beating off a few bums and would-be tour guides, I strolled up Calle Junin and scouted the eateries. I settled on one with a simple menu painetd on the wall and explained my mission to a petite waitress who was more than happy to help. Bandeja means platter, the first clue that I was about to take down a mountain. When she brought it out, I immediately understood why no mere plate could countain this meal. Red beans cooked with pork, a huge mound of rice, some tasty carrot and potato salad, a fried egg, a handful of french fries and a whole fried plantain, split down the middle. Perched on top was the chicharron itself: deep-fried pork belly. And a large cup of mazamorra, a corn and milk drink. All this for 5100 pesos ($2.75.) I got through it somehow and immediately sought the shade of a bench in the Parqúe Bolívar to recuperate.

The tinto cart

While there I fought off the efforts of bums, a mentally-disturbed evangelizer, an amateur pimp and a shoeshiner who tried to shampoo my sandals. All this in the shadow of the beutiful cathedral where pigeons flocked around one of the more impressive Simón Bolívar statues I've seen. People lounged on benches under the trees and there was no shortage of small-scale commerse. I drank a few small cups of tinto (black coffee) and chatted to the peddlers. Most were pushing modified shopping cards, loaded with cigarettes ($1.50/pack, 15 cents/single) and thermoses, and often tiny packets of gum and candy. I told one I thought the idea would work in Central Park, and he said Why not?

Later that afternoon I took the metro to Acevedo and switched to the Santo Domingo cable car lined. The perspective was totally different from the air, showing off Medellín's beautiful mountain valley setting. In the distance, the tall buildings of the center were a small island in the red brick barrios spilling down the steep hillsides and filling the valley below. From the cable car, many layers of life were revealed: secret gardens of ferns and flowers bloomed on rooftops; laundry flapped in the breeze; children played in courtyards and alleys; and higher up houses gave way to banana trees and gardens. Coming back down at sunset I explored the Santo Domingo neighborhood, full of vendors, bars, chicken joints, taxis and small shops. An open-fronted corner bar caught my eye and I ended up spending an hour with Horacio, the friendly bartender. He talked at lightning speed, encouraged by my interest in paisa life, and told me about places I should see, foods to try, the local mentality, etc. He instructed me in the ways of aguardiente, a typical clear liquor, cheap and with a faint anise flavor not unlike Sambuca. He gave me his number should I ever come back to Medellín, and I definitely hope to, given the people, the food and general good vibe.

Volcano/Roadblock

Roadblock in Lomita Arena

A funny thing happened on the way to the mud volcano. I was on a bus full of tourists, mostly foreigner backpackers, out of Cartagena bound for Volcán Totumo. About an hour out of the city on the main coastal highway, we came to the crossroads village of Lomita Arena and a lot of commotion. A couple police vans were parked along the side of the road as cops milled around, radios in hand, looking calmly but warily in the direction of a large crowd in the middle of the intersection. Men and teenage boys were shouting, whistling and clapping at a line of vehicles backed up behind a makeshift roadblock of tires, logs and lumber. Our bus pulled off into a gas station parking lot and the guide told us we had to get off and change buses, skirting the roadblocks by foot to another bus waiting to take us the remaining few miles.

Our tour guide said nothing else, and the long column of foreigners shuffled sheeplike through the shouts and whistles. Far from being tense or violent, the atmosphere was almost festive, and clearly we were providing a lot of entertainment just by being there. The same question pinballed through our group in English, German and Spanish: What's going on here? There was one way to find out, and I decided to end the zoolike standoff by going over and talking to a few young guys in the crowd. Here's the gist, condensed and translated:

Hey man, what's going on here?
We're protesting to the government!
There's no electricity for four days!
No power?
No, nothing, we can't keep food cold.
Most of our group was already on the second bus, so I wished them luck and started walking to join the others. Another voice shouted out.
This is the reality of life in Colombia!
More shouts and laughter.
Colombia, Colombia!

I told the others on the bus, but none of were too surprised. The Caribbean coast is one of the poorest areas of Colombia, and any busy ride to or from town centers or national parks revealed slums stretched along the highway. Block and mortar cobbled into one-room hovels, shallow lagoons of floating trash, scavenging dogs. Water and basic sanitation? One can only guess. . .

Highway to Heaven

We were being ushered onto an old American school bus, modified for public transport and common in many parts of Latin America. Upon boarding, all fears caused by the ramshackle appearance of the bus were allayed by a large sticker: GOD BLESSES THIS BUS. Phew. . . no problem then. Mostly used on shorter, local routes, these transportation workhorses connect communities and are the most visible forums of religious expression and iconography outside of churches. Particulary in Guatemala, the epicenter of Catholic chicken bus culture. A look around the brightly painted interior and fringe-curtained windows revealed much of religious signifigance. A calendar bearing an image of Christ on the cross, several different images of the Virgin Mary, crosses here and there, and the ubiquitous slogans: GOD Everything is Possible; Jesus Christ, King of Kings; God is Love. I looked toward our driver, bouncing in a lawn chair bolted to the floor (better air circulation in this tropical climate.) He did seem at peace with the rough road and roaming donkeys, and I started to make plans for my own van this summer.

Mud is fun

One story has it that some time ago the volcano was menacing the local populace until a Catholic priest came and drowned the lava with holy water, turning it to mud. Another story tells of tourism founded of "mud therapy" as tourists flock to bathe in the curative mud, which contains sulphur, phosphorous and magnesium. In reality, I and everyone else I talked to came to Totumo simply because we heard it was "fun" and a "cool thing to do." Personally, I was on the fence until I asked myself the question When will I get another chance to jump into a mud volcano? Certainly not at the one I often visit in Yellowstone, which averages 184 degrees F.

It was a good time, the mud the consistancy of gritty pudding, and thick enough to produce an incredible bouyancy. I've no idea how deep it is, but "standing" up straight I never sank lower than my sternum. It was hilariuous watching people try to move through the muck, as everyone reverted to kind of childish glee, splashing each other and scooping up handfuls. When we finally got kicked out we walked to the shore of a huge lake not 100 yards away, where men standing in wooden canoes were casting nets in the shallows. A fleet of washerwomen stood ready in the knee-deep water. At first I tried to wash myself while avoiding the skeptical stares of the women. Finally I consented, and she did a hell of a job scooping water and scrubbing out my hair and ears. She told me to lay on my back and made a gesture I didn't understand. There was a sudden grab, yank and. . . she was holding my swim trunks in her hands, plunging up and down in the water, washing out the mud. All this was done with the calm, stern authority common to any woman who ever changed a diaper. She tossed me my shorts and moved on to the next one. Later, she found me for her dollar-fifty tip.

Friday Night in Santa Marta

Back in Santa Marta from the little beach town of Taganga, I performed my evening ritual. Showering at dusk has become a habit, washing off the heat and dust and preparing my pores for the cool onshore breezes coming off the bay two blocks away. I stood on the upstairs patio and leaned over the rail. The Dole Chile was at the pier; I could see the bridge over the housetops, and cranes unloading containers to be trucked to the inland plantations and filled with fruit.

No shortage of movement in the street below. Motorcycle taxis and police vans zoomed past an old man shuffling behind a coffee cart. Black with sugar, the fuel of Colombia. The steady cries of "Tinto. . . tinto. . ." interrupted by the raised hand of a at a tiny wooden table on the sidewalk. The old man filled a plastic cup for 10 cents and shuffled on, leaving the woman to sit and sip, pausing now and then to rearrange her few cell phones, wiping them with a red cloth. The tinto man and the call desk: two staples of the Colombian street. The scene was completed by a few men down the block in plastic chairs, gathered around a table full of empties. I've used this particular lady's services many times myself, sitting on a plastic stool while she dialled, waited, and. . . "Uno momento." The phone is passed, a conversation completed, and a few coins passed. Much more personal than a gray steel payphone.

Hectór filled the doorway of the restaurant across the street. A young waiter who'd taught himself some English, he'd promised this morning to play me some of his favorite reggaeton. So popular throughout the Caribbean, I'd never taken to the thumping beats and aggressive vocal style. He was sure I hadn't heard the right stuff and wanted to bring me around. When I asked him if he liked any English music, he glanced around the restaurant and lowered his voice. Shania Twain. I stifled a laugh and nodded politely. But tonight, he looked both ways and strode up street, past an impromptu shoeshine, pack of dogs in tow.

I felt a little worn but wanted to take in some of the street scene, and besides I had to go to the bank. I also wanted to revisit an arepa cart I'd discovered. The night before, a little bit lost, I stumbled across a flabby, frowning woman. One hand on hip, the other fanning a charcoal fire with a scrap of cardboard. I had to stop.

Arepas may be the national dish, little discs of cornmeal mush and cheese, grilled or fried, with many regional variations and fillings. I'd given up on them in Boyacá, where the arepas are thin, oddly sweet and as dry as the landscape. Here on the coast, I felt I had to give them another try. I was motivated by memories of tortillas in Central America. Had I visited Nicaragua first, I would have sworn them off. What a shame that would have been, because the steaming, toothsome tortillas of Guatemala are solid gold.

Up the street to the bank, music blasting from every door, window and passing taxi. I stood in the square fronting the Iglesia de San Francisco. Spinning in a circle here was a kaleidoscope of Friday night street life. Collared shirts hurried home after the working week, grabbing an empanada on the way.The street market up Calle 13 was pumping full throttle as lights came of and fuses popped. The booth selling new and used blender parts was doing a brisk business. The evening liquor market was coming to life: padlocks were pulled off and panels slid aside, revealing stacks of rum, whiskey and cheap white aguardiente. Right next to a church where evening mass was being sung. People strolled, chatted, and bargained. Beers were opened and fresh, sweet limeade was ladeled into plastic cups.

The bright lights of the liquor market fascinated me. Mothlike, I drew closer. That's when I almost walked right into him. I hadn't noticed him at first. He'd staked a prime location next to the market, but a little to the side at the entrance to booze row. The Professor. The thousands of watts bathing hundreds of bottles had almost drowned his small cart in the foreground. As my eyes adjusted, I saw a small man hunched over a smoking cart with faded blue and red letters. Arepas El Profesor. He wore the loose white shirt of a short order cook. Unmiling, he worked his grill, lifting his head only to scan the crowd for potential customers. His movements were intense, quick and purposeful, birdlike. One hand fanned the charcoal while the other slid the grill back and forth. Then the cardboard square was exchanged for a flattened spoon. Fresh banana leaves were pulled from a bag while thick round patties crackled and hissed. Engulfed in a cloud of smoke, full of the scent of toasted cornmeal, I was transfixed.

I love street food, I always have, and I marvelled at the professor's system. The raw mush is hand-shaped into thick patties, placed on small squares of banana leaf. Grilled on these durable leaves, the cornmeal cakes don't scorch or burn. The leaves char and blacken, shielding the arepas and producing the perfect balance of crispness and color. Flip, hiss, slide, smack. Our eyes met briefly, recognition passed, and all I could manage was a muttered "Una, señor."

It took time to win him over, but two arepas and a few subtle expressions of pleasure softened him. I ventured small talk. I told him I was traveling American and that I write about food (both true.) I produced my notebook. I talked up the coastal version. I asked about the recipe, knowing all the while that removed from the moment they could never be replicated. As I jotted down his remarks, the tall liquor tout at next stall grinned in a wolfish but winning way. The professor kindly allowed me a photo and I thanked him.

The notes had barely left my hand before the friendly wolf launched into his pitch, which began with Amigo! and ended with very good price. He held a small stick, which he waved and tapped to draw attention. He also used it as a pointer while discoursing on the merits of this or that rum. I bargained him down on a small bottle and waited while he hit his neighbors for change. Most of the booze vendors were middle-aged women who seemed greatly amused at my presence, so I grabbed the wolf's stick, waving and tapping, whistling at passerby. "Señor! Rum, rum, rum! Whiskey, whiskey, aguardiente! Best price!" The ladies cracked up and started ribbing the wolf. Still trying to find a 10,000 for me, he tapped a girl of about twenty on the shoulder. Here's your change amigo, 10,000 pesos, take her! More laughter as the girl stamped her foot. I smiled and said 8,000. The wolf pressed a bill into my hand, the girl's eyes widened in mock fury and I walked away to the sound of shouts and laughter. Colombians are friendly people.

Back on the patio, the Dole Chile was still being unloaded. I squeezed a lime into a glass of rum and chatted with a Dutch couple and Tony the Finn. We talked about arepas, South America and hammocks. They were comparing notes on Venezuela when I excused myself and went to bed. Drifting off under the fan, listening to the night noise, the last thing I heard was "Tinto. . . tinto. . "

Sierra Nevada del Cocuy

Laguna de la Plaza (14,000')

La Sierra Nevada del Cocuy, Colombia's rooftop range and "premier mountaineering destination." With peaks topping 17,000 feet and all the trimmings, it was one of a handful of places in Colombia I knew I had to experience. It was awesome. Glaciers, snowfields, wild geology, plumes of whitewater thrashing the mountainsides, lakes all over and mysterious, dense clouds that churned up out of the valleys, like beer suds overflowing a glass. In all directions, páramo cloaks the flanks of the sierra. Found only the northern Andes, this is a unique ecosystem, an arid world occurring over 9,700 feet, composed mainly of brown grasses, shrubby trees and the wondrous, Seussian mascot of the park: the frailejón.

Frailejones in bloom

We took an early morning buseta from Villa de Leyva back to Tunja, where I had a brief conversation with a grim-faced bus agent. Bus to El Cocuy? Yes. How long? Eight hours. Green pastures of holsteins gradually gave way to brown grass and cactus. After passing a few barrels of boiling tar, donkeys pulling carts, hundreds of political advertisements and a goat tied to an old truck axel, we rattled along a canyon bottom for the last few hours and into the town of El Cocuy. The guys at the camping store in Bogotá warned me to take everything I needed because the town was so small: No hay nada allá. Those guys must eat sushi every day, because Cocuy is a normal Colombian town with the same food, stores, beer and bread I've found everywhere else. There's plenty of fresh milk and cheese, a bank with an ATM and machine gun nests in front of the police station. (Apparently one of the paramilitaries had a prescence here not too long ago.) The pretty cathedral fronts a plaza containing a diorama of the national park. It's the kind of small town where very traditional-looking men in woolen ponchos and hats can be seen eating an ice cream cone at 7 in the morning - and starting in on the beers at 10.

There's a popular six-day trekking circuit that circles the main range, but the rangers told us it was closed. Still plenty to do, so we hopped on the milk truck that leaves the plaza every morning at 6am. The back of the truck is flatbed with high, wood-slat sides and a roof. Along with a few tanks, sacks of feed and fertilizer and locals heading for the hills, there's plenty of room for a few backpackers. It's the only "public" transport that services the park, as it swings high up into the hills where few cars go. Along the way, men, women and kids wait by the side of the road with all sorts of containers. The truck stops, fresh steaming milk is poured into the tank and the bucket man calls the amount to the driver. They all know each other up there, and sometimes there are just a few pails on the bank, the farmers busy off moving cows or tying up a goat somewhere. We didn't see any other vehicles, just plenty of folks traveling by foot or on horseback.

We jumped out at the start of the circuit with no real plan. We decided to just start hiking and see where it took us. On the way up the scenery had been getting gnarlier, and suddenly we could see big jagged peasks, and glaciers. We walked down into a valley where we had a chat with the Herrera brothers at their farm, the last house on the trail. An hour later we passed a sometimes-staffed refugio, owned by the park with bunks and food. It was only midmorning at that point so we kept going. It ended up being a pretty burly seven hour day, and the altitude made the going tough. We gasped up a crack in the mountain to the top of clouded-in Paso Cusini and tried to catch our breath. A bunch of guys from Madrid passed us going the other way with a guide, encouraging us to try and make Laguna de la Plaza, the high lake we were heading for. We wished them well and stumbled down rocky switchbacks and out of the clouds.

Wondering how much further at 14,000

The rest of that day was a push to the lake. Our map was terrible, but the trail was clear and well-signed, so there was nothing to do but go on. Clouds were all around but on the move, revealing floating peaks, dropoffs, ravines, and looming rock walls. Down to a river and up a series of benches, skirting a bottomless chasm and past a set of caves. When the lake finally came into view, I was amazed both at the stunning surrounds and how absolutely wiped out I felt, though S was holding up fine. We set up the tent, took off our boots, changed into comfy camp clothes and I passed out. The hike and the altitude caught up with me, and I fell into my bag as the clouds came down and a light rain started to fall.

The Pyramid dwarfs our tent at Laguna de la Plaza

We camped at the lake for two nights, exploring the area and just digging the mountian vibe. After some tomato soup and crackers and good sleep, I woke up the next morning to a clear sky and some mind-blowing mountain vistas. The lake sits at the backside of the glacier-topped Pan de Azucar, one of the most famous mountains in the park. Looming over our campsite was El Pyramid, while a series of sloping shelves forms the western shore. Wild mountains everywhere: in the distant north was a black, serrated knife ridge and off to the south, cliffs and a deep valley leading up to more peaks. Before deciding to camp a couple nights and head out the way we came, we'd played with the idea of trying the circuit anyway. We were very lucky we didn't hike further, because the weather taught us a sobering lesson.

Taking advantage of the blue sky, we decided to follow the trail a ways north, across the shelves and ledges across the lake. What looked flat from a distance turned into huge shelves up close, broken up by ledges and cracks, rising and falling from 10 to 60 feet. Yesterday's signs had given way to a scattering of cairns that proved difficult to follow. After two hours, we were lunching at the north end of the lake when I turned to look back toward our campsite. The mountains and sky beyond were gone. Suddenly, thick clouds had just turned up out of nowhere, and they were moving fast. We tried to make it back but the clouds caught us. Before long, we were inside the cloud as droplets condensed on my eyelashes and hair. Visibilty fell from 100 yards to 50 to 10. Peering into the fog, looking for cairns. . . suddenly the rippling water was ten feet away, and we were able to use the lake to find our tent. The next 14 hours we were captive in the tent, but a least I could make coffee.

We spent five days in the park. When we woke to clear skies after The Fog, we packed up and hightailed it back over the pass. We stayed at the Herrera's little farm that night, in a little room with chickens pecking at the door. No electricity but Señor Herrera invited me to the cook fire and we talked about mountains. After a predawn hike to catch the milk truck again we spent our last two nights in a little cabaña at the other end of the park, staring up at snow-covered Ritacuba Blanco. Great little cabin, shared with a very chill guy from Colorado we'd seen around. We played hearts in front of the fire after delicious, hearty suppers. (Thanks Mercedes!) The days were spent watching sheep and one morning we climbed up to snowline, face to face with the mighty Blanco.El Cocuy was a major highlight, and I'd love to come back and do the circuit someday. With a guide.