Drogas son malditas

after the bordercrossing i went from ipiales to Cali. and stayed in Cali for about 2 days. actually in Cali is absolutely nothing to do. the city centre is nice, but easily doable in about 5 hours. the most fun stuff in Cali is happening in the outskirt of the city. but hey i`m kinda short in time. the only thing that i regret that i didnt took a salsa lessons in the salsa capital of Colombia. I only want to learn the step, other people already said to me that i had the swing :D.

after Cali i went to Bogota (so right now i have been in all capitals, yess). the zone of candelaria is reallyt interesting with the beautiful palaces and the colonial houses. well because of miscomunication i didn`t see my friends from bogota. but instead i met another one on my bus to Cartagena (like quito, bogota is cold :P). Colombia is now one of my favourite countries. they are really working hard to polish up their bad image and right now definetly much better for travellers.

The big walls of Cartagena is really amazing. despite all of the afford to made such huge walls the pirates still able to breaked through. but the pirates of carribean feeling is still present. also the small streets with the colourful houses and the balconies are really beautiful. i really want to live / build equal houses, really love it. and maybe if the heat is not to opressing i could definetly live in cartagena. because not so far from cvartagena there is a chain of island with turqoise water, white sand and palm trees. spent amazing days in islas del rosario and snorkelling in Playa Blanca was absolutely the bomb.

Not far from Cartagena there is Santa Marta/ Taganga, the sea is really tranquille and it`s where i spent the last days of my trip. basically it was lying down on the beach, swimming and drink fruit juices. just trying to enjoy of the beautiful carribean as long as it last. the beautiful sunset was also an unforgetable memory of the place.

the following story is not suited for persons under 18 / parents advise is obligatory.

the magical last night in Colombia was a blur.... luckily i didn`t hurt myself. typing this page is still a bit hard for me. well i`ll uncover a bit of it in the end of the page. but the details i will tell you when i come back home ;).

here come the story:

well i`m not talking about the ¨Polvo Colombiano¨ or ¨yerba Jamaicana¨ or ¨pastilles de amsterdam¨ because you could get it everywhere in the world. But it`s something that`s closer to the magic mushroom in holland. It`s a halucinogenic flower that was also used by the shamans, and native to colombia (and it`s legal i heard) . well the guys in the hostel who went to the Lost city picked some of the flowers and made a brew of it. the final product is a tea that has similar taste with the chinese jasmin tea. 2 cups were supposed to be sufficient to feel any effect (the 3rd cup was suicidal). well after a while i started to get a really dry mouth and starting to feel really drunk and very very sleepy, when i decfided to go to bed. and after that well... sequence of things that might be happened or maybe only happened in my head. the effect last for really long time tho because it was about 2 days ago and im still feeling really weary (or maybe it was also the bus trip, Santa Marta - Caracas). I think the shamans were really strong men to handle the effect. luckily i didnt see anything scary, because other guy seen things like tentacles and stuffs. well that was once in lifetime experience because i don`t really like the side effects.

abrazo

Ch´

In rapid stream as rio Napo..

almost one month that i havent wrotten anything about my trip. well 2 things: times and the internet accomodation. went from town to town and from city to city until i stoked down in a little town named perucho where i stayed for one week to work in the ecological farm. in perucho there wasnt any internet cafes or anything only green hillside, lettuces, mandarines, avocados, coffees and sugar canes. anyway it was a pleasant week on the farm, because after that we went to the oriente to dos some work for the Bolsa amazonica. AHORITA, i'm in Cali; Colombia. so i'm going to sum up my trip to ecuador in one breath.

first, i was riding wave in montanita. a beautiful place were the wave was nice but also fill with sandflies (i still has some kind of skin rash not sure from what, bust suspected it was sandflies). after montanita i went north to Puerto Lopez where i took a tour to Isla de la Plata and seen alot of boobies. blue footed, red footed and nasca. the same ones as in Galapagos. besides birds i also saw some coloured fish. after Puerto Lopez i went to the capital of ecuador, Quito. probably the cheapest and the most beautiful capital in SA. went to the (slighly off) monument of the ecuator but also to the biggest artisan market of SA in the town of Otavalo. after that i went to the farm in Perucho. one week i learned about weeding, cultivating, irrigation and did some trekking to maybe one of the most beautiful farm in the surrounding area. learned alot but i regret that i wasnt helped the community significantly. but the people in the farm and the friends of michael did enjoy my cooking, so on the other hand it was a pleasure to stayed in the farm.

after one week in the farm, Michael was needed to do some work in Amazonia and thus we went to the oriente with Coca as starting point. it was here where Francisco orellana started his trip to explore the gran amazon river. but we were in Coca to helped with the refining of amazonian fruits in to juices, pulps and mermelade. after Coca we went to Tena were we met a group of ladies that recycled old papers into arts (and everything was ecologicaly done). from Tena we went to el chaco where we visited a mushroom farm and ate a delicious ceviche de hongos.

all of these businesses were in line with my interests and i really learned alot from this trip. and also with my background of bio chemistry i could explained the people in the farm how everything worked in the microscopic level. so it was kinda interchanging of knowledge and culture (indonesian food ;) against Ecuatorian).

my stayed in Ecuador was pleasant and it is definetly a country where i want to visit again. definetly i want to go back to perucho and maybe to have some adventure in Amazonia (Coca to Belem; Brasil).

abrazo

Ch'