Tag Archives: mountains

Minca: Chunu’u

Colombia, Travel, , , , ,

Feb 17 – This is the laid back part of our vacation, where we eat and swim and lie around. Lots of tropical bird calls. Big decisions like what to order for supper. If anything exciting happens, I’ll let you know.

Tasty arepas at breakfast!
Sitting by the pool
Swinging near the river
Is this Albert Einstein?

In the meantime, here are some pretty tropical flowers:

Feb 18 – Today is Sunday, and we awoke to hear many children. What? It seems that on Sundays, families come from Santa Marta or other nearby towns to use the pool and resort facilities just for the day. We sauntered down to breakfast to find a long line of hungry customers waiting to be fed. Our isolated jungle respite is over. Just as well, we are moving on today.

The mountains in the morning

We walked back up the dusty road into town, where the sound of bird call was replaced by the honks of taxis and the growls of motos (motorcycles) looking to give tourists a ride to the local attractions.

We are looking for El Refugio, a place that actually comes up on our Google Maps, but we can’t seem to find it.

Look up, Karen – the little sign is right overhead!

El Refugio is a very small hostal with everything we need: air con, a pool and strong wifi. We dropped off our packs and ventured back out to find some lunch.

This little town has something for every backpacker: German bratwurst, Japanese sushi, Italian pasta and pizza, Mexican tacos and…

Marhaba means Hello in Turkish

…Turkish schwarma! I love me some doner kebab on a hot Colombian day!

As we are now on top of a mountain, we had lovely views of the sunset and the evening lights.

Another long, hot day!

Minca

Colombia, Travel,

Feb 14 – This morning we packed our gear and took a taxi into the heart of the city to hop on a van headed north. The 15 passenger van was full of young backpackers looking forward to ecotours and other mountain grooviness. Our destination was the mountain town of Minca.

As we got out of the van, the kids got onto waiting motorbikes or piled into other vans heading for waterfalls. We got out our phones and started trudging up the dirt road to find our next accommodation.

Our hostess Margarita was waiting for us, and showed us the path to our new home. The Booking.com description was correct that it was a private house with a kitchen and bathroom. What it failed to mention was that it was a corrugated metal shack in full sun, with an internal temperature over 100 degrees. No air con. Uh oh…

We were booked here for four nights, and figured we’d be roasted to a crisp long before then. We decided to walk to the little town and get some provisions.

The only super mercado had mostly beer, chips and candy bars. What to do? We found some ramen noodles for supper and some eggs for breakfast.

We walked back home and started looking online for another accommodation. We had surprisingly good wifi! Jim found a place just five minutes down the road.

The sun was going down and it was starting to cool down a little, so we decided to stay the night and move in the morning. Jim texted our hostess, who apologized for the heat and gave us our money back.

Feb 15 – So this morning we packed up again and walked further down the road to the Chunuu resort.

Here we have a pool, a Jacuzzi, a lovely restaurant, a huge suite with air con and a shower with warm water! Of course we are the only people over 30, and we hear German, French, and Cockney as well as Español. What a difference a day makes…

A Day in Erzurum

Backpacking, Travel, Turkey, , ,

2/5 – Jim decided we needed a day off before crossing the border, so we had today to explore Erzurum. Our first order of business was to find a barber (berber), as Jim has been looking for a haircut for a while. This would not normally be a blog worthy event, but the barber did something we hadn’t seen before. After cutting Jim’s hair, he lit a torch and burned the little hairs out of Jim’s ears! It was thrilling to watch, and Jim didn’t scream, so I guess it’s a viable way to get hair out of your ears…

Erzurum had a substantial snow before we arrived, and the streets were in various states of packed ice, slush or mud, which made walking hazardous. The temperature was in the 20s. We only had a mile to the city center, but it was treacherous going all the way.

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Here we are sliding down a street full of wedding shops and jewelry stores.

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Erzurum is known for wedding shops.

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Our goal was the Citadel, a twelfth century fort with a tower that afforded an overview of the city. The fort was mainly walls covered with snow.

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The views from the tower – beautiful mountains all around!

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There is also a mosque here, famous for its unusual minarets. They must be refurbishing them this winter.

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We stopped for lunch at a tavuk doner (chicken wrap) shop with only two tables. Our last doners in Turkey!

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The wraps were delicious, but the little shop had no sink. When we were done, I watched the proprietor wipe off our table with a rag, take our plates outside, wipe them with the same rag, then put them back on the stack of clean plates! There are some things we are better off not seeing…

Tomorrow, Georgia!

Antalya to Konya

Backpacking, Travel, Turkey, ,

1/9 – Well, Friday turned out to be our lucky day. We caught the shuttle to the otogar, and got on the bus to Konya with no problems. This time, the bus kept going north, and soon we were in the mountains.

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The temperature display on the bus read -11C / 12F.

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We arrived in Konya by 4pm, and took a taxi to our new apartment at the Huzur Suites. The online photos showed a new, upscale building, and we were looking forward modern conveniences like hot water on tap. What the picture didn’t show was that the hotel is on an empty street, not near downtown. We’re not near ANYTHING, and the streets are still covered with ice from the blizzard, so walking any distance will be a challenge. This is going to be interesting!image

The young desk clerk looked very nice, but had not a word of English, and no map to give us. We needed to find a market and get some provisions for our nice, modern kitchen, as supper time was fast approaching, and it was getting dark. When the words market and supermarket didn’t register with him, I tried naming Turkish supermarket chains. Carrefour? Sok? Bim? Ah yes, recognition! Bim – he pointed down the street.

We bundled up and set off in the direction indicated, taking baby steps on the ice so we wouldn’t fall. Did I mention that it was COLD? I tried to talk to Jim, but my lips were frozen. Neither of us has gloves. About a third of a mile down the road, we came to a sad little market, with no produce, meat or dairy. We bought 10 eggs in a bag (yes, a plastic bag of eggs), a liter of water, a packet of Knorr chicken soup and a loaf of bread. That will get us through supper and breakfast, and will have to do until we get better directions.

We went back to the hotel and I showed the clerk our bag. “Not Bim”, I said. He indicated that no, the Bim was farther down the road. Sigh. We’ll try again tomorrow.