Tag Archives: hiking

Our Welcome to Ecuador and Quito.

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July 12, 2018 – July 17, 2018

We had been a bit anxious about crossing the border from Colombia into Ecuador.  We had read that there could be line ups of thousands of Venezuelan refugees at the border, having walked, hitch hiked, and stowed away on vehicles across Colombia, hoping to land somewhere where they could restart their lives.  We had read accounts of it taking 8 or 10 hours to get across the border….a small inconvenience for us in light of what the Venezuelans are facing, but a daunting prospect, none the less.

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Tierradentro, San Agustin and Popayan

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July 2, 2018 – July 8, 2018

Tierradentro, meaning “inner land”, is known for its underground tombs built by a civilization that was at its height from about 600 – 900 AD.  Little is known about the people who built the tombs and many of the sites were subject to looting before the area became protected.  This part of Colombia was rarely visited by tourists for many years due to guerrilla activity and poor roads, however it is now considered quite safe to visit.

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Barichara, Guane, and Guaimaro Camp

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June 8, 2018 – June 12, 2018

We needed to fill our propane tank, and we had seen on iOverlander (we seriously use this app daily) that there were two places in the town of San Gil that other travellers had had good luck with getting their North American style tanks filled. San Gil was on our way….perfect. We tried both places, and they both refused to fill our tanks….we were not 100 percent sure why, but Derek thought that maybe they had said that the pressure levels and the fittings were different, making it impossible. We still had a bit of gas, so we decided to head on to camp and see if we had enough fuel to make coffee and dinner for the next few days.

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Canon Chicamocha

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June 6, 2018 – June 8, 2018

The main highway from the city of Bucaramanga to the capital city of Bogota is a two lane highway that winds itself through the foothills and mountains of the Cordillera Occidental, part of the Andean Mountains. Because of the large rigs, the steep curving roads and the complete lack of passing lanes, short distances take a surprisingly long time to drive. Our route for the day was only 77 kilometres but took us approximately 2.5 hours to drive.

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Finca Carajo, Bucaramanga

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June 4, 2018 – June 6, 2018

We left Mompox and headed towards the city of Bucaramanga. We had plans to camp at Finca Carajo, a small farm in a cloud forest that had a few hiking trails, and we were excited to get to some cooler temperatures. We made it to the beautiful city of Bucaramanga, where I saw that there were two routes up into the mountains surrounding the city. The recommended one would get us out of the city faster, but then showed miles and miles of curving, switched back roads. The second route would keep us in the city longer, but the mountain road looked much straighter. We chose the second route.

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Mainland Panama

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May 8, 2018 – May 20, 2018

Arriving back on the mainland from the islands of Bocas Del Toro, we were happy to see our truck exactly as we had left it.  We began the drive inland, and within minutes of leaving the small village of Almirante, a roadside police officer was signalling for us to pull over.  He approached the car, and informed us that we were speeding and this was an infraction. It looked like we had left the village several kilometres ago but apparently the speed limit here was still 40 kmh.  He asked for Derek’s driver’s license and passport.  He asked Derek to get out of the car to show him the reading on the radar gun which, was laying on the hood of the police car…70km/h!..funny, we hadn’t seen him anywhere near the cop car or the radar gun which was on the other side of the road, as we had approached.  Derek was pretty sure we hadn’t been going 70 kph anyway but didn’t say anything….it all seemed a bit fishy.

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Bocas Del Toro

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May 4, 2018 – May 8, 2018

Bocas del Toro is the name of a province in Panama, it is the name for a set of islands that are part of that province, and Bocas del Toro (known as Bocas Town to avoid at least SOME confusion) is also the name of the capital of the province.  We hadn’t planned on visiting the islands of Bocas del Toro (translates to Mouths of the Bull), but when we saw how close we were to them, we decided we had to go.

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Bernal

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Bernal is another of Mexico’s pueblos magicos.  It is a small town of about 3000 people, best known for La Peña de Bernal, which is, according to some sources, the world’s third largest monolith, after Gibraltar and Sugarloaf Mountain in Rio de Janeiro.   And Peña, for those of you who may be wondering, translates as “cliff”….nothing sexual.

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