La Playa de Belén

I'd heard about a small town named Playa de Belén (Bethlehem Beach) in the north east of Colombia towards the Venezuelan border. The wasn't a great deal of information about it on the Internet and just by looking at a map it's hard to figure out just how long it will take or how many buses you will need to catch! Haha.

Colombia feels like the most mountainous country I've been to. The buses are just awful and it's rare to go on one that people aren't vomiting. It's that windy! Add to that the fact that most roads are literally one lane either way and you have a complete tranportation nightmare on your hands. 

So we left Barichara on a mini bus back to San Gil (vulture town). Then we got a van to Bucuramanga (a mother and daughter on the bus literally threw up the entire journey). Next we got a bus up the straightest road in Colombia (the mother was on the bus and still throwing up) to a town called Aguachica. At Aguachica we took a mini van to the town of Ocaña. The road was a long winding road through the mountains. It took an hour and a half for just over 60km. Overtaking the odd truck on a blind corner and what have you (and no seatbelts of course). Once in Ocaña (after 5pm) we were informed that there were no buses to La Playa de Belén until the following morning. Greeeeeeeat.

Booking.com listed two hotels in town. The first was expensive and I walked into the second to see the woman shaking her head before I even opened my mouth. We found something dodgy down the street and after some harassment the guy agreed to 50 pesos (25 bucks) for a private room and not the original 70 he suggested. 

Then dinner. Nightmare in Colombia as always. At the bank I asked a guy '¿Puedes recomendar un lugar para cenar?', his response was something along the lines of I can't speak your language. Umm ok, but I thought I was speaking Spanish. His friend laughed and then he pointed us to a 'restaurant' on the corner which turned out to be a fried chicken joint. Hmm. We ended up eating a questionable pizza elsewhere. 

Best thing about this town was we left the following morning and were able to pick up a giant marshmallow from the dude.

When we finally arrived in La Playa (the beach) which by the way is at least 12 hours from a beach, it looked like this...

It was not possible to book anything on line so when I saw a sign for tourist information I thought well that's lucky. Off we go, only to be informed by a neighbour that it wasn't open since the girl running it was at university that day. Of course. 

Off we went to find something ourselves. On the way we saw one of the only 'post offices' I've encountered in Colombia. I wanted to post something to my brother but noticed that I hadn't seen a post office. A quick Google search reveals that Colombia doesn't really have a postal system! Not sure how this is possible but they have this thing called 4/72 from what I've read just takes your postal items and your money and rarely delivers a thing. Haha. And there's zero post boxes in the entire country. ZERO.

We stumbled across this little B&B I think called Mamacriss just a block down from the church. It was a quirky little place unlike anything I'd seen in South America. This is it from the outside.

And here's some shots inside. 

Next mission was lunch. There's about three restaurants in town but of course they don't open everyday. The Ocaña Tourism website lists all three if anyone is looking. This is apparently the most reliable. We got lunch for 9000 pesos each I think ($4.50).

After lunch we set off to be tourists. The entrance to the cemetery is in the plaza itself but it's actually quite a walk up a hill complete with the Virgin Mary and painted tyres.

The view from the top is incredible. 

A bit higher up we got to the cemetery which according to the sign was famous for its 'beautiful architecture' which I'm still confused about. Cool wall though.

And this was the view down the other side. 

Then we went off to visit a reserve containing lots of the strange rock formations. One the way we saw Virgin Mary on top of a rock...

After a ten minute walk we arrived at Los Estoraques, a unique natural area apparently.

Inside the park was another sign....saying it was closed due to rock falls and to enter at our own risk. Of course! And it's apparently been closed for years. Yep there's not much information on the Internet clearly. After such a headache trying to get there we weren't turning back though!

Not that much risk of falling rocks at this point at least. 

We walked for a while until we found steps cut into the rocks. There was actually a sign here saying the path was closed so at that point we turned back. 

We went back to town and stopped in the bakery. I saw some extremely strange coloured bread. I asked them why it looked weird and basically I was looked at like I was weird. So I purchased it and left. No idea what the deal was but everyone seemed to be purchasing it. People were leaving town with bags of it! And, no it wasn't good. It tasted like a dry cake. How do you even make bread look like this??

And here's me walking home from the bakery with the only other people in town. The army. About 50 of them complete with extremely large guns.

Later that day we wanted to go up to Los Pinos (the pines) since everyone in town had asked if we had been. There's supposed to be a good view of the town. We purchased some beers for the journey and the lady from the bed and breakfast nominated the locally intellectually handicapped boy to be our guide. Excellent. So off we go along all these trails past people's farms. 

It got a bit confusing and I said to Spaghetti O that it was lucky we had our new mate Diego with us. Next minute he was waving goodbye and walking off in another direction. Haha. After that we were basically lost and trespassing so we decided to turn back. 

Back in town we got talking to some of the soldiers. We asked what they were doing and were told everything was 'tranquilo' in the town. They asked if I was scared and I said I wasn't until I saw them walking around with enormous guns. They said they were there for the election but some further research suggests that the North Santender region has had some troubles before. Glad we read that after we left though. I'm pleased to report we have not yet be kidnapped or murdered. 

Sucio San Gil and Bonito Barichara

San Gil is dubbed the 'adventure capital of Colombia' so I figured it was kinda going to be like Baños in Ecuador. We didn't plan to do any adventure sports but I figured since it was apparently a tourist town it would be nice. How wrong we were. It was absolutely filthy. There was vultures all over the street. The traffic was insane and it was just an unpleasant place in general. We were going to stay there a few nights but we decided on just the one and escaping the next day to another Heritage Town. 

We got the bus out to Barichara in the morning and there was an extremely  annoying obese Colombian man trying to talk to us the entire journey. He was just a compulsive talker. I'm all up for practising my Spanish but as soon as they start asking the usual inappropriate questions such as are you married, do you have children, where is your partner, then I'm out. 

Luckily we soon arrived at the gorgeous town of Barichara where literally nothing was happening. 

We walked the five minutes over to our hostel Artepolis and were extremely happy with its picturesque location... and their pet goat.

There's not much to do there but there is a walk you can do to the next town called Guane (even tinier) along the 'Camino Real' which is a road originally built by the indigenous and later used by the Spanish. It's been restored in recent years for tourism purposes so we went off to find it.

We asked a few people for directions and I felt slightly confused since they were saying a lot of 'derecho, derecho, derecho'. Derecho means right in Spanish but I'd also learnt at school in Bolivia that it meant straight. I was outraged by this possibility and dismissed it immediately as nonsense since I heard people using 'recto' which is also straight.  Spaghetti O didn't believe me until the next guy said the same thing while pointing straight up the road! It is true. What a language. No wonder I'm struggling! 

Here's the start of the trail in Barichara.

It's advised to do the trail from Barichara to Guane since it's more downhill in this direction. It's actually kinda hard to walk on because of the cobblestones anyway so it took us a while. Not that I paid any attention to time but let's say two hours.

We were walking along the trail enjoying the scenery and next minute this guy was crossing our path.... Eek!

When we made it to Guane there was even less going on than in Barichara but it was super cute. They even have a tiny archeological museum. This is it...

I'd read that the chicha (generic term for fermented beverage) was famous. Chicha is made of all sorts of things depending where you are. We probably drank the most in Peru which was made of purple corn. But it's all homemade so it tastes different every time. There were about five shops and restaurants in the plaza with signs saying 'hay chicha' which basically means they have chicha. Great! Easy! So after the third shop says no I figure we're never trying it. Haha. 

Lucky number four said yes and we were blessed with a plastic cup of thick sweet liquid. It sat on the table and looked at us for a while but eventually we finished it. The flavour was that typical fermented flavour, but pleasant enough but the texture was probably the killer for me. Haha

While sitting there I also noticed a frog in the courtyard. It was huge! Look!

After the chicha, a beer and cuddling some kittens I found at the restaurant we got the hourly bus back to Barichara and wandered round a bit more.

I saw this in the plaza so I asked Spaghetti O to take a photo. This is such a typical Colombian scene! 

Villa de Leyva

Next stop on the tourist trail was Villa de Leyva which is one of seventeen towns listed by Colombia as part of their patrimonial heritage. Jardin which I blogged about previously was also one and we hit a few more too. 

Basically it's a small town with cobblestoned streets just like this. Very cute. 

They also boast the largest plaza in Colombia. When we arrived it was packed due to the elections that day. Also worth noting is the fact that it is illegal to purchase alcohol for about 48 hours surrounding the election. The night before I was extremely upset when I was informed that I couldn't purchase a wine to have with dinner. 

After visiting the Rani hostel and realising it would cost us $20 each for a bed in a cramped dorm we headed over to the Everest Hostel and got a private room for $20. 

We also met the fattest dog ever.

After dumping our stuff we went out for a walk and stumbled across a kind of election party complete with a large selection of beasts being cooked. There was actually two of these fire pits that I could see....but no beer of course. 

Across the road from the original hostel we checked out we found a Korean restaurant!!! Don't think is had a name, just a sign saying 'Comida Coreana'. There is hardly any Asian food here unless you count Chifa (which is the Peruvian take on Chinese) so this was a happy day. 

The Korean lady that owned it was just lovely and the food was great too. 

After lunch we went for a stroll and found a place called 'Chocolate'. Surprisingly they sold chocolate and hot chocolate.

We went back to our hostel to chill for a bit. We met an English boy and later on we went out for an empanada. 

We asked some people when we could purchase alcohol and they indicated that it is possible if you're discreet. Haha. Great. So off we go to a shop and a lady agrees to sell us some cans of beer. Later that night we go for a wander around town and find an arepa place where we decide to eat. These kind of arepas are better since they're filled with meat. Yep I pretty much don't eat vegetables these days.

Also in Colombia since they have no tastebuds they like to mix all types of meat. There are no rules. I saw a pasta with red meat and prawns. Chicken and prawns. You name it. My arepa mixto contained beef, chicken and 'sausage' which turned out to be a slice of mortadella. Oh and cheese. And yes I'm putting on weight. 

Anyway there's other things to do in Villa de Leyva. We just didn't do them. Apparently they have some cool fossils there since Colombia used to be under the ocean but I can't confirm that. Apologies.