from Villa vieja and Tatocoa desert to Bogotà - Neiva, Colombia
Neiva, Colombia
Eli:
I'm going to tell you the best parts of the last four places we've been:
1. Popayán: I went to the Natural History Museum with my Mom, Dad, and Noa but not Ari because he was sick and stayed back at the hotel. I saw 100's of dead animals and bugs behind glass exhibits. I liked the bird exhibit the best.
2. San Agustín: The highlight in San Agustín was the archeological volcanic statues. Some were more than 2000 years old. Little is known about the people who built them. The house we stayed in had bottles in the walls.
3. Desert: The best part of our trip to the desert is when we left. The hotel had a swimming pool, but when you touched the walls you got green moss on your hands. The pool was refreshing because it was so hot there. We walked through the desert at night to go to a building where we could see the stars through a telescope. The walk was hard because it was dark. On the way there we took a shortcut through the desert. We climbed through barbed wire, spiky twigs, big and tiny cacti that you could easily step on and huge rocks. Our hotel wasn't exactly a hotel. It was more like shade with huts. Our beds were very uncomfortable and weird. There was a bunk bed with double beds on the top and bottom. There were so many bugs in our room. We had mosquito nets on our beds. They came in anyway. We had to tuck in our mosquito nets under the mattress. There was sand all over the beds. There were no covers but it was fine anyway because it was already way too hot.
4. Bogotá: The bus to Bogotá wasn't such a good bus ride. It was supposed to be five hours but we were going too slow so it ended up as seven hours. There were no windows you could open so it was really hot on the bus. The air conditioning wasn't strong so I couldn't feel it. The last hour someone opened the emergency exit in the ceiling for air but ten minutes later I was freezing because Bogotá is in the mountains. At the bus station, we went in a taxi to go to our hostel. It is called "Musicology." Each room is named after different types of music. For example, our room is named "Salsa." I'm not exactly sure what my favorite part of Bogotá is because I've only been here for 24 hours.
Lori:
We are in Bogotá and strangely, so happy to be here! We had not any plans to visit this city, but our time spent between leaving San Agustín yesterday morning and now leaves us all feeling like we need to clean ourselves up...mind, body, spirit and clothing! We literally just arrived at a hostel in La Candelaria Neighborhood of Bogotá. The hostel is owned by an Israeli, managed by a French fellow, and operated by an American volunteer (for tonight at least) from Eugene, Oregon. The hostel, called Musicology, is based on ecological friendliness and MUSIC. I may have more to say on that later, but for now, I can speak for all of the five Wynns that we are happy to be here after our planned five hour (turned 7 1/2!) bus ride from Neive that began at 10 am.
But first, to backtrack, we arrived in Neive yesterday from San Agustín at 12 noon. The difference in temperature was astounding. In four hours on a bus from San Agustín to Neive, the temperature changed from a mild 60 degrees to somewhere in the high 80s. The five of us then, sitting in the back of a pickup truck, traveled deeper into the desert to Villa Vieja, approximately 40 km further and 20 degrees hotter. From Villa Vieja, we carried on in the same truck along a desert road for another 45 minutes as the wind grew stronger, but with the air getting hotter, the heat became nearly unbearable. We were full on in the desert! Cacti everywhere, sand sculptures sculpted by the wind, horses, goats and dogs along the road, salamanders and tumbleweeds.
When we arrived, Jairo was there to greet us with cane juice for us to drink and a parrot named Shakira on his shoulder. Jairo is a friendly and welcoming Colombian from Cali, whom I had spoken with on the phone the day prior. He is the kind of guy with eyes that look into his soul and demonstrate kindness, a Civil Engineer, who tired from the stresses of the city, opted to move to the desert's tranquility. He showed us around the desert grounds, the fresh water pool built into stone, which was the EXACT reason we chose to come to this place. Noa would like to have a pool everywhere we go, and we figure if we are dragging her and her brothers into the ass end of nowhere, namely the hot, dry, Colombian desert, we could at least find a pool!
We set our backpacks down in a tiny bamboo hut, raised several feet from the ground, and walked to the kitchen area with hammocks, a HOT breeze, and ALOT of bugs. Jairo had cooked up hot stir fried veggies, rice and fried plantain. We had not eaten all day other than crackers and avocado that we had with us, so this was a welcome meal. We ate until we were stuffed and then went down the path to the freshwater pool.
By the time we got out of the pool, we were already "over" the heat & the relentless bugs. Jonathan and I made the executive decision to get out of this place as quickly as we had arrived. So, our plan was to head to Bogotá as early as possible the next morning. But first we were here in Columbian’s Tatacoa desert and we were going to make the most of it. There was nothing resembling civilization for miles around other than a few places similar to Jairo’s set up to accommodate travelers who have come to stargaze in this area with zero% light pollution and near enough to the equator so that both the northern and southern hemispheres' skies can be visualized. We knew there to be an observatory for such stargazing approximately four miles back down the road toward civilization. We had heard that an extremely knowledgeable university astronomy professor hangs out with his massive telescopes there in the evenings. Now, all we needed was for the clouds to clear from the sky, for the astronomer to be there that night and to figure out how to get US there.
Well, the skies did clear quite a bit, and we started walking. Within Five minutes we saw Alder, a young man who works at Jairo’s place. He offered to show us a short cut to the observatory. Within five more minutes, the sun had set rapidly. All of us, thankful for our two headlamps, including Alder, carried on. I actually thought the kids, and maybe Jonathan too, were finally going to protest all of this. It was BRUTALLY hot and completely dark. Furthermore, we had very little in the way of snacks and we knew that we were going to miss dinner by hiking to the observatory. Nevertheless, following Alder, we stumbled along, rubbing our ankles into cacti, stumbling in sandy ditches, listening to animal sounds while seeing only the eyes of the creatures when our headlamps met their gazes, and maneuvering through barbed wire on more than one occasion during the evening. Noa and Eli could be carried through, while the rest of us had to duck and climb simultaneously. There were only a few tears. We finally arrived at the observatory, tired, hungry, but not broken. We caught glimpses of the stars like none of us had ever seen before, larger and closer than ever, even without the telescopes, but even more so, and shimmering, under great magnification. We spoke with the eager and excited astronomer, all in Spanish, making the constellations a bit difficult to translate, but regardless of that, his enthusiasm for the stars and the galaxies beyond was contagious.
We had cookies for the walk back and opted NOT to take the shortcut this time, so the night hike was more like an hour and a half, but at least we could follow the dirt road without the dangers of tripping into cacti or barbed wire. We made it back, borrowed the kitchen to boil some pasta at 10 pm, mostly for Eli who had been such a trooper, and was starving. But, by the time the noodles were done, he had climbed into a hammock and fallen asleep! After the noodles were eaten, we all climbed into our mosquito nets in our hut and sweated as we mostly waited for morning to come so that we could move on to Bogotà.
Of course, the morning came, even when we thought it might not, after a restless, hot and sweaty sleep. Jonathan washed Noa’s shoes as they were accidentally peed upon in the middle of the night by a little someone who I will not name. We ate a bit of breakfast and took a truck back down to Neiva’s bus terminal (we sat inside this time!) We bargained for a good price to Bogotà, as two bus companies were fighting over us. We ended up paying $ 20,000 COP (Colombian Pesos) instead of $30,000, a difference of only about $5 U.S. But, multiplied by five people and all the buses we take, it adds up. More so, we don’t like to be taken advantage of, and furthermore, it is customary to bargain and possible to get a good 20% discount shaved off of bus fares in this country.
Noa:
On Tuesday, I went to the San Agustín Archaeological Park. The park has sculptures of humans and animals. Archeologists found the sculptures that are made out of volcanic rock. The park doesn't just have sculptures; it also has tombs in the ground. The ancient Pre-Colombians were taken from their original graves and buried in tombs with clay pots and other art. I think the human remains were disintegrated because I didn't see them.
While we were walking though the park, I wanted to hear the bamboo grow. I reached over and put my hands on the bamboo so I could have my ear close to listen. I took my hands off the stalk and I felt a very strong stinging burn. I looked at both hands and they were covered in splinters. There were about 500 in each hand!
A man was near us and he heard me crying. He told me that I would be ok. He brought me a napkin and started wiping some of the splinters out that were not fully in my hand. Later, we walked past a lady selling bracelets. She saw my hands and told me she would help me get the splinters out. She took me to her laundry stone and washed my hands with soap. Most of them came out, but there were still a lot more. She used a needle to push them out. It hurt but it made my hands feel better! Remember, never touch green bamboo!
Ari:
On Thursday morning, we headed to the Tatacoa desert from San Agustín. The Tatacoa desert covers an area of 330 square kilometers. It is a very privileged geographical location in terms of astronomy. You can see all 88 constellations and see meteor showers. It is very easy to observe the stars because of the absence of light and noise pollution.
The bus that we rode from San Agustín to Neiva was small and really nice. Four hours later, we were in Neiva. The weather changed from the low 60s in San Agustín to the high 80s in Neiva. The city had such bad air pollution, we saw people people wearing masks to avoid breathing in the nasty air.
We took a pickup truck to our hostel in the Tatacoa desert. Our whole family sat in the back. We were going fast and the hot wind didn't feel too refreshing. Once we got into the desert, there were cacti and small shrubs everywhere and we were the only ones in sight on the unpaved road. The temperature also rose to the 90s.
We arrived at the hostel 45 minutes later. The first thing we did was jump in the pool behind the hostel. We ate an early dinner and then started walking to the observatory to view the stars as the sun was setting. A man named Alder who worked at the hostel helped us get there quickly. Instead of walking along the road, he showed us a shortcut in the pitch dark, full of barbed wire that we had to climb through and cacti.
After the observatory, we walked back to the hostel. On the way back, we walked on the road because we didn't want to have to deal with the barbed wire and cacti. It was a longer walk, but more peaceful. When we were back at the hostel, we went straight to our room, but it was the least comfortable I had ever been while trying to go to sleep. There were no blankets (not like we needed any), sand all over the sheets, and I could feel the hard bamboo under the mattress.
After a horrible sleep for our whole family, we woke up ready to get out of the desert. We called a taxi to pick us up, and in 45 minutes we were back in Neiva, where we took another 7 and a half hour bus ride to Bogotá, the capital of Colombia. We are staying at a hostel called Musicology and it is like heaven compared to a sandy mattress in a bamboo house in the middle of the desert.