Playa Blanca...Does it get any sweeter?

After spending the majority of this trip in and around the mountains, we arrived to Venezuela and Columbia dreaming of beautiful Caribbean beaches. We got lucky with Venezuela in Morocoy and were hoping that Columbia would be able to compete. Tayrona was beautiful, but we thought we would press our luck and look for a tropical beach near Cartagena.

We found it!!

We spent a day talking with the tour office and haggling with boat operators trying to figure out the best way to get to Playa Blanca on Isla Baru from Cartagena. In the end, we boarded a tour boat that sailed through Islas del Rosario and made an afternoon stop in Playa Blanca. Given our negative experience at La Boquilla, we wanted to have a way out if we found the place to be completely dodgy.

Luckily, plan B was completely unnecessary...Playa Blanca was absolutely what we had been looking for! Crystal clear water and a long white sand beach bordered by shady palm trees. All of this tropical beauty was topped off with palm huts to hang our sleeping bags aka hammocks. We were even more pumped when we found a place that let us tie our hammocks up and gave us a place to store our bags just as long as we ate our meals at their restaurant (surprisingly at a super reasonable price).

We settled into a daily routine ultra-fast. Wake up when it starts to get too hot to sleep, breakfast, swimsuit and sunblock up, walk the distance of the beach, settle into our books in the shade during the really hot part of the day, one last swim (otherwise known as a shower) before the sun got too low, sunset beers, dinner, back to the hammock.

We ended up spending 5 days on the island and would have spent more had we come prepared with more money, clothes, and most importantly shampoo and conditioner. Probably best we ran out of money or we might have scratched Medellin and Bogota.

Estamos en Cartagena

We spent the day exploring Old Town and then checked out a fishing town called La Boquilla. Some douche bags tried to charge us over $20 U.S. dollars for 4 beers. We threw 10,000 pesos at them (the equivilant of $5 U.S.) and walked away. Tomorrow, we plan to go to Playa Blanca and Las Islas del Rosario. We're really hoping to find a chilled out spot with a good beach...maybe even descent snorkeling...keeping our fingers crossed!

Parque Nacional Tayrona

We spent about a week in Venezuela and decided we needed to move on because the cost of living was well beyond our means. In a two day journy from Tucacas, we crossed the boarder and landed in Santa Marta via Maracaibo, Venezuela and Maicao, Columbia.

While in Santa Marta, we were able to witness a cruise ship make port and over-run Santa Marta. Now, we see why Latinos seem to think it's super easy to charge tourists an exhuberant amount higher than what a product is worth.

Anyhoo, after piddling around Santa Marta and Taganga for a few days we made our way to Parque Nacional Tayrona...named after the indigenious Tayrona Indians. Supposudly, this place is home to some of Columbia's most beautiful beaches.

After a short jeep ride and a 45 minute hike from the park's entrance we arrived at Arrecifes beach. While it's prohibited to swim here because of dangerous ocean currents, we did find a great place to park our backpacks and hang our hammocks.

We walked about 20 minutes further to a beach called La Piscina. We figure this place got its' name from the rock wall formed about 300 meters off the shore...both of us were not exactly sure where these huge rocks came from...maybe some volcanic activity. It's actually a very cool natural phenomenon...these huge rocks form a type of barrier reef which make this beach relatively calm compared to the surrounding beaches.

Another 20 minutes further was Cabo San Juan...a popular camping spot for hippie backpackers. We could totally see why. Apart from the fact we're in Colombia and any form of authority was left at the park entrance, this part of the park rented hammocks in a hut on a bluff overlooking two sides of the point...what a view! We hung out here until it looked like the sun was heading home for the evening...and we decided to do the same...back to Arricifes.

On our walk back through the palm groves we witnessed a pastel tropical sunset accompanied by an almost full moon rise. Life was good...

Colombia...con mucho gusto!

Cayo Sombrero aka Lake Havascrew

We made our way safe and sound from Caracas to Tucacas via Maracay, Venezuela. Socialist propoganda, black marketed U.S. dollars, and inflated prices aside, Venezuela seemed much like any other third-world-esqe latin american country. That was until we found ourselves on Cayo Sombrero in Parque Nacional Morocoy...

We had befriended a group of three Californians traveling through Venezuela the previous day and had decided to pool our funds for a lancha (small boat) out to one of the supposedly more beautiful islands off the Venezuelan coast. While we knew it was popular among national tourists we had no idea what lay ahead.

When we arrived in the morning we were greeted by beautiful, palm shaded, crystal clear, tranquil waters. To top it all off, we thought we had found a part of the island that would remain mostly untouched for the day.

As the morning wore on, more and more wealthy Venezuelans pulled up in their boats. By noon, the beach which we thought would be our own little tropical paradise looked like "The Channel" at Lake Havasu...nobody was topless, but there were loads of beautiful latinas romping around in their g-strings accompanied by blasting regaetone.

We actually really enjoyed seeing how the more wealthy end of the spectrum lives. One of the Californians we had met was a medical student volunteering in Merida, Venezuela. To our surprise, he informed us that breast augmentations and nose jobs were the most common surgeries in Venezuela.

I guess after traveling on the lower end of the socio-economic scale for the last 6 months, it's easy to forget that there's always a more affluent side of the coin.

Venezuela...a la orden!

We flew from Santiago, Chile to Caracas, Venezuela via Lima, Peru. We ened up getting bumped from our connecting flight in Lima because a bird flew into the plane's engine. Good news - got to spend the night at the Sheraton all expenses paid and we both got a $300 voucher for Taca. On top of being spoiled for a day, we were able to fly first class from Lima to Caracas...WooHoo!

This is one way to keep people from parking here...

Valdivia, Chile

Gone Fishin'

The good thing about Pucón, Chile...a river runs through it. After a day of cycling through Pucón and it's surrounding area we decided to scratch a hike up to the crater of Volcan Villarica and take this opportunity to try our hand at fly fishing. Our guide warned us that it wouldn't be likely to catch any fish our first time out, but, nonetheless, we decided we wanted to give it a shot.

We woke up early and geared up in our waders...personally, I found this to be the most exciting part. Hugo, our guide, thought we would have a better chance at catching something while trolling down the river. He set us up to troll while we were enroute to the spots where we would actually fly fish. On the way to the first fly fishing spot I caught a baby arco iris trout. The day was off to a great start.

We stopped a little way down the river and Hugo instructed us on the proper form of fly fishing. Surprisingly, we caught on (no pun intended) pretty quickly. The nice part about fly fishing is that the motion of the pole and line while standing in the river is totally meditative...we weren't worried about whether or not we would catch a fish.

After a bit of practice, we hopped back in the boat and headed to another fly fishing spot. This time while enroute, Brandon caught a full size rainbow trout. What can we say...lady luck was on our side.

At our second stop, we fine tuned our fly fishing technique by using longer lines. Apparently, Brandon really had the hang of it because he reeled in ANOTHER full size trout. We didn't get a chance to figure out what kind of trout it was because it jumped off the hook right before we could get it in the net.

Total fish count for the morning...five. I think we've found another hobby.

We're going going, back back, to Chile Chile

We saw Harmony and Ryan off at the Mendoza airport hopped a bus to Santiago, Chile. From there, up to Valparaiso and then back down to Patagonia.

Tasting in Maipu

Finally, the Semana Santa (week before Easter) rush was over and we were able to make our way to Mendoza to see where all of this delicious wine was being produced. We ended up staying in a posada about 30 minutes outside of the city of Mendoza in a town called Maipu. This was a much welcomed change from busy Buenos Aires. The posada was a great find...14 hectacres owned by a helpful Belgium guy and his girlfriend, complete with a small vineyard, olive orchard, and guard dog named Tommy.

Our first full day in town, we decided to rent bicycles and taste at a few of the local family run wineries...by the way, there are tons! The ride was beautiful and each stop had something different to offer.

The first bodega (spanish for winery) showed us the old facilities from where they made wine back in the day.

The second bodega was a French owned and had been revived after 30 years of abandonment. The sommelier here was very educational and the wine was fantastic...apparently, the French have a knack for this kind of thing.

Our last tasting stop for the day was the Tapaus distillery. The actual building and facililty we absolutely gorgeous! It was interesting to see that no part of the grape goes unused. After the wineries are done with the skins and seeds, the distilleries used these parts to make their product...liquor. After the tour, we also were able to try a bit of grappa (a popular liquor down here) and some other flavored liquors.

After a full ride and an afternoon of wine and liquor, it was time to get some lunch. We cycled back towards our posada and had lunch at Domaine Du Mont. This was a beautiful colonial house just recently purchased by a Canadian family. The food was great and Harmony was finally able to get a taste of that purple drink.



While cycling was fun, we wanted to get our taste buds on more wines. Hence, we rented a car the second day so that we could cover more ground and visit more bodegas. We made an effort to taste at a couple of the larger wine producers in the area (i.e. Norton), but unforntunately reservations were required. This actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise because instead of being herded around in a large group, we were able to visit more family run wineries and get spoiled with personalized tours and tastings. We were even able to help label and seal a couple bottles of wine at a small artisan winery. I think we all agreed that the smaller bodegas were much more beautiful and it was a pleasure to taste great wines at a ridiculously low price. To top it off most are only available in the region if not only sold from the bodega.

That evening we had an appointment to ride some horses with Cesar the gaucho. Once again, we hadn't had time to squeeze in food with tasting so we stopped by the market and grabbed some snacks and beer for a pre-horseride tailgate. Cesar turned out to be a great guy and we had a wonderful ride through wine vineyards and down a riverbed while watching the sunset. Not a bad way to finish up a great day!


The following day was to be our last with Harmony and Ryan. We decided we could all use a little R & R after a seriously jam-packed two weeks. A day at the Termas Cacheuta hit the spot. The facility was complete with massages, mud, lunch buffet, and thermal pools all situated in a canyon overlooking the beautiful Rio Mendoza.



It's going to be hard to get back on the backpacker trail after being spoiled with great food, wine, and especially great friends for the last two weeks.

The Matt & Erin Bodega

Mendoza, Argentina