Random ranting from holiday time

Sometimes London can feel like a never-ending whoosh of frenetic doing. Just go go go, rush rush rush.

Alarm beeps, hit snooze, alarm beeps again, get up, in and out of the shower, get dressed, hurry, hurry, gulp down some coffee, mind on the job already, always three steps ahead, planning the next maneuver, the mind always navigating ahead of the body, clothes, hair, make-up, perfume, bag, coat, keys, money, work pass, oyster card, phone, make bed, out the door, need to load the oyster, glance up, train coming, rush past the dawdling / slow / gawking / unseeing tourists, run down the steps, dodge the people, beep beep beep, doors are closing, leap - on the train, check Blackberry, answer emails, off the train, through the turnstyle, queue for coffee, dredge bag for pass, flash the pass at security, through the turnstyle, wait for the lift, to the desk, laptop out, plug in, boot up, enter five different passwords, set voicemail, run to meeting... a day of meetings interspersed with phone and computer, broken for the gym, email / text / talk to friends, grab a sandwich, then home, dodge people, mind ahead, what's for dinner / where I'm going / who I'm meeting, what I'll change into, time for shower, clothes, shoes, hair, makeup, bag, grab something to eat, check address of where I'm going...and go and go and go.

There's a latent tension that bubbles beneath the city like the sea of ectoplasmic slimy goop in Ghostbusters - it's true, that's why it's strongest on the underground. Seriously, people go nuts down there over having to wait for one minute for their train. I've seen it. I've felt it.

When you're in it, it feels normal. It's only when you take a break that you realise just how much the sheer force of the city's g-d up mental state has seeped into your psyche. It's the decompression period. One week off gives you a little taste of it. Two weeks, and you actually start to feel like you're shedding it.

Two months... and my mind is empty. I'm really not sure what I spend my days doing. I believe I've experienced a blank mind. There's nothing zen about it. It's just empty. I have found myself lying in a hammock unsure of how I got there and how long I've been there. It's not an unpleasant sensation, but I wonder if a more productive soul would be using this time to do something constructive. Learn a new language perhaps.

We stumbled our way through Mexico, Cuba, Costa Rica and Colombia with hi / how are you / I'm well / it's good / two beers / two coffees / one more please / two more please / thanks / no thanks / two people / a table for two / the bill / how much / I don't speak Spanish / do you speak English / that was delicious / this one / one of those please / tomato sauce / salt / glass / ashtray / lighter / water / with gas / without gas / where is the toilet / bye. Rudimentary at best, but Shakespeare compared to my Portuguese.

It's taken me over a week to figure out thank you, hi and goodbye. And I still don't know if I should be using the masculine or feminine version of thanks. At breakfast the cook said something to us and I sat there, eyebrows knitted, pondering why she would be offering cold grapes. After a protracted silence, someone else realised she was asking if we'd like fried eggs.

Stolen Brazil: Maresias & Itamambuca

I pushed up the shutter and looked out of the plane. The sun was starting to rise over western Brazil and beneath me myriad golden arteries snaked out from the central behemoth that was instantly recognisable as the Amazon. I've seen some incredible sights from plane windows and that spectacular vista was one of the best.

Maresias: blue skies, sunshine & surf

We'd traded our last week in Colombia for a week in Sao Paulo, where we planned to hit the coast. It's winter in Brazil so we weren't expecting blazing sunshine, but we were hopeful we'd catch some rays.

First stop was Maresias, where we spent four days. Heading north from Sao Paulo along the coastline in summer would make a great roadie - luxuriant mountainous jungle to the left, bay after bay of golden beaches with excellent surf to the right. Plenty of beachside campgrounds, abundant butcher shops selling meat and coal for the barbie, bakeries and juice bars in every town, beach bars selling big bottles of beer in generous ice buckets, and sashimi on the menu everywhere.

It's oh so quiet in the quiet season

I can confirm that the beach costume de rigueur for Brazilian women is the g-string. In comparison, my bikini must seem positively Islamic and Matt keeps calling me Granny-pants. Somewhat strangely to my mind (all the women from Cote d'Azur make some noise), bums are okay but breasts are kept under wraps.

Brazil: burkini optional

I seem to remember reading some years ago that Rio operated a zero-tolerance policy on its beaches to anyone with an imperfect body. Every time I had another taco in Mexico or another beer in Colombia, I'd tell Matt I'm definitely gonna get sin-binned on Copacabana. Imagine the shame! Matt thinks it's an excellent idea, and that they should introduce cordoned off areas on the beach and grade people according to their bodies, with only those with perfect bodies allowed entrance into the A pen. I pointed out that he would never have managed to meet me if he was stuck way down in the D pen.

Beaches without borders are nice, aren't they Matt?

Maresias was great. Matt surfed, I lay in the sunshine and we ate barbecue. Those were the highlights. Aside from the cool, relaxed vibe, one thing I noticed about the Sao Paulo coast is that everywhere we went there was something in the air. Everyone seems to smoke weed, everywhere, all the time. Maybe that explains the laid-back atmosphere. 

After Maresias, we headed further up the coast. Itamambuca is another surf beach but instead of being a town, it is a kind of gated community that is called a "condominium" in Brazil. We thought Maresias was quiet, but Itamambuca was virtually deserted. Every restaurant in town was closed, all the houses were empty and we were the only guests in our hotel. The hazards of travel in the off-season.

Pousada Todas as Luas: sans kid on a trike

It was a bit like The Shining, but without all the creepy stuff and in a jungle paradise rather than a bleak snowed-in outpost... so basically nothing like the film apart from being completely empty. 

Itamambuca essentials

As we were the only guests, the staff took special care of us. The hotel has two restaurants. In the low season the pizza restaurant only opens over the weekend, and the sushi restaurant is open Thursday to Sunday. We arrived mid-week so the chef invited his mates over and put a barbie on for us on Wednesday, and on Thursday we had sushi. Great sushi. The best sushi I've ever had. Damn it was good. Mario, the chef, knows what he is doing. And at $15 for a mixed plate of sushi and sashimi, it is also the best value meal we've had in this relatively expensive country. 

Just hanging with my birds

Every morning at breakfast I embraced my twitcher tendencies and marvelled at the array of colourful of birds that flocked to the feeding platforms.

My favourite, apart from the elusive 'Red Velvet'

And that was basically it for the Sao Paulo coast. Quiet times in the quiet season. Next stop: Salvador de Bahia.

Colombia: a footnote

Backtracking in Parque Tayrona

This isn't a complete turnaround or a full retraction, but Parque Tayrona and our return trip to Bogota deserve at least a footnote to the bite-fueled vitriol of my last post on Colombia.

Parque Tayrona: first stop en route to El Cabo

A few days before we left - the rainclouds having parted for the first time in weeks - we took a boat to Parque Tayrona, a national park near Santa Marta on the edge of the Caribbean.

Lush tangles of jungle cloak the steep ranges flanking sheltered stretches of golden sand - as we motored deeper into the park, I heard the rustle of petals unfurling.

El Cabo: "the most beautiful beach in the world"

Without the rain, without the air steeped in humidity, without every inch of my body being racked by incessant itches... in a different time, in the same place, I think I would have fallen head over heals in love with Colombia. Swimming in the cool currents, looking in towards the empty beach and the jungle behind it humming with life, I think Colombia may have been whispering in my ear, "it's not me, it's you".

Cabo camping: backpacks optional

Just one blot on the serenity

Coconut crabs: they're everywhere

Work horses bring in supplies

Even our return trip to Bogota was a happy reunion. Danyel and Massimo welcomed us back like old friends. After a day of roaming the familiar streets, we took the cable car up to Monserrate, a mountain in the centre of Bogota with views right across the city and to the left, to Guadalupe Hill, where a statue of the saint stands vigil.

Monserrate & the city

Guadalupe: keeping watch over Bogota

Cracking a smile in Boggie

Birdseye view of La Candelaria

Before our midnight flight, we ate pizza and drank beer with Massimo and Danyel, Massimo regaling us with stories about his attempts to reach his "objective" of attaining 1,000 notches on his bedpost, plans to open a swingers club in Bogota, adventures in a Czech nightclub and dealings with a one-eyed Sicilian on a quest for a Colombian bride.

And so we left for Brazil, not altogether hating Colombia. In fact, maybe even loving it, just a little.

Colombia: the list

Bogota
Hotel Chorro de Quevedo, Calle 13B #1-53, La Candelaria, Bogotá: run by the eccentric Italian Massimo, Hotel Chorro is on the edge of La Candelaria, the city's old centre (COP$110,000 B&B)
Bogota Bike Tours, Carrera 3 #12-72, La Candelaria, Bogotá: run by an American former-journo called Mike, the tours cover the old town and down town. He includes pit stops at a chocolate factory and a coffee roasters, along with a tour of the market where the group samples Colombia's incredible array of fruit (including lots we recognised from home - feijoas, gooseberries, tamarillos, pawpaws). Mike's background as a journalist allows him to pepper the tour with anecdotes and historical information (COP$30,000)
Pequena Santa Fe, Plaza Chorro de Quevedo, Carrera 2 No 13-14, La Candelaria, Bogotá: a cosy little bar on the scummy but cool student hangout of Chorro de Quevedo in La Candelaria. Beers, pizza and a roaring fire
La Jugueteria, Calle 27 #4A-03, Macarena, Bogotá: a crazy barbecue restaurant filled with toys - dolls hang from the ceiling and the walls are adorned with all sorts of old-school amusements including Mickey Mouse, Smurfs, Popeye, M&M, Superman, Donald Duck, Chucky, gumball machines and carousel horses (mains: COP$25-30,000)

Santa Marta
Casa Verde Hotel, Calle 18 #4-70, Centro Historico, Santa Marta: boutique B&B in a refurbished colonial family home. Simple, stylish rooms around a pretty courtyard (COP$165,000 B&B)
Donde Chucho, Calle 19 #2-17, Centro Historico, Santa Marta: fantastic seafood restaurant on Parque Santander. We had the mixed ceviche (octopus, squid, smoked ray & shrimp) (COP$18,000), green salad (COP$6000) and shrimp cocktail (COP$9000)
Ouzo, Cra 3, Parque Santander, Centro Historico, Santa Marta: Mediterranean restaurant serving simple, tasty salads, pizzas and pastas 
El Santo, Calle 21 #2A-52, Centro Historico, Santa Marta: Argentinian bistro with excellent food, drinks and service
Agave Azul, Calle 14 #3-58, Centro Historico, Santa Marta: Mexican restaurant with massive portions run by the same brothers as Ouzo, they also run the hostel next door, La Brisa Loca
Lulo, Cra 3 #16-34 Callejon del Correo, Centro Historico, Santa Marta: cafe / juice-bar, delicious healthy arepas (ground maize patties with a choice of toppings including steak with avocado, grilled peppers, sour cream and pesto, pulled beef with tomato salsa and sour cream) (COP$8000), pitas, wraps, coffee (COP$2500), smoothies and granitas (COP$4000) made with the delectable local produce

Colombia: reality bites

Massimo, our eccentric Italian hotel manager in Bogota, explained that when he was younger he had wanted to go to New Zealand or Australia, but they wouldn't let him in. He worked his way down his list of emigration possibilities and repeatedly had the door slammed in his face...until he ended up at the bottom of his list, in Colombia, where the doors were wide open.

I have to be honest. Matt and I are not enamored with Colombia. It has not delivered much of what the guidebooks, websites and traveller reviews claim is on offer. Maybe it's because our generation is so well travelled that there are few places in the world left to "discover" and people are desperate to be at the vanguard of a new destination. Or maybe some people genuinely like it here. I am not one of them.

I maintain that when you travel, sometimes you get lucky and a place unfurls itself. Your accommodation exceeds expectation, the weather is perfect, you stumble upon a great place or restaurant or meet some cool people, everything just comes together. Maybe our trip to Colombia is the antithesis of that or maybe Matt and I have very different world views from other people who travel here.

Fruit seller in picture perfect Cartagena

Cartagena may well be on the Caribbean, but "beach resort" it is not. Dark sand renders the sea a bleak murky stain, and though I'd agree that the old town is an "architectural gem" with its myriad crayola-coloured buildings, cascades of bougainvillea and pretty wooden balconies, after Mexico and Cuba our quota of Spanish colonial architecture has been filled to the brim. Maybe it is the quiet season, but the old town lacked a pulse.

Civil disobedience: tagging in Bogota

As for Bogota, it is a city of many faces, and one of them is moon-shaped. In certain areas, people defecate in the streets. And, as we observed with utter consternation, some of them make their deposits into bags and set them alight.

Paradise lost: Taganga

Place after place failed to live up to expectation. Our recurring disappointment plummeted to the depths of disbelief when we caught a collectivo from Santa Marta to Taganga, described by many backpackers as "paradise". In fact, we found ourselves in an uninspiring, dirty, fly-blown dump of a beach, with a few party-worn travellers littering the bars.

Coconut grove: road to perdition

A couple of days ago, I sat hiding from the rain in a dank "natural tent" on a beach north of Parque Tayrona, part of a fledgling surf camp. There was no surf, it was humid as a steam room, it was raining, and the rooms advertised on the website were at least two months off completion.

Natural tents

The so-called surf camp's website promised an "ecolodge" with en suite rooms. Instead we'd arrived at a building site, with four palapa shelters for sleeping and one for eating. I'd emailed asking about their four-day surf safari which promised a private room, all meals, surf lessons and board rental, and transport to the region's best breaks. I'd received a response saying that they did have room for us and I confirmed our arrival time. When we got there, they seemed totally unprepared.

The owners, two hapless Canadian brothers, clearly have some sort of vision, but both seem oblivious that at this stage it is nothing more than a pipe dream. With some people you feel like you can see the cogs going round, their brains operate at such low speed, but these guys seem trapped in a perpetual daze where senseless conversations skip and repeat, are forgotten, and then repeat again.

"So, which room shall we take?"

"Any one. There's the three palm tents, and there's a room upstairs"

"Okay, can we have a look at the one upstairs then?"

"Um, nah, I think some guy has his stuff in there"

"Oh, okay, well, which one should we take then?"

"Ah, any one"

"O-kay, we'll take one of the palm tents then"

"Cool, yeah, I need to get you guys some sheets"

"So, which one shall we take then?"

"Oh, yeah, I'll show you down in a minute"

It starts to rain, again. We shoot the breeze for a couple of minutes.

"Okay, I'd better get back to raking"

"Okay, cool, so, do you want to show us which room is ours then?"

[Blank look] "Oh, yeah, I completely forgot, follow me"

It took us 30 minutes to actually figure out which "room" was ours, another 30 minutes and circular conversations to get some sheets for the mattress, and another couple of hours to procure one towel for Matt and me to share between us.

Nice beach, pity about the rain & sand flies

I've been reading a book about three Americans who were held hostage by the FARC for six years in the Colombian jungle so I tried to remind myself that our accommodation was probably pretty good compared to theirs. The obvious fault in this line of thinking is that we are not being held hostage by machete-wielding guerrillas.

Once bitten, twice shy: surf camp bites

After an uncomfortable night on a damp mattress in our airless shelter, sharing one pillow and ravaged by insects, I walked the beach at dawn until the owners surfaced and could book us a taxi back to Santa Marta. The place has sucked us dry of any good feeling about Colombia - we both have colds and are covered in bites. I have never been bitten so badly in my life and spent the night scratching the hell out of my feet and legs, so vigorously, that at one point I managed to stub my toe against the wall (sadly, the pain wasn't sufficient to stop the itching).

Casa Verde: our Santa Marta sanctuary

To be fair, I have to admit that there have been some good parts to our experience of Colombia. Our hotel in Santa Marta is gorgeous and the guy who owns it is cool. It's a restored colonial home with a courtyard centred around a green-tiled plunge pool. Planters are filled with ornamental coca and dope plants.

La Candelaria: Bogota's oldest area

La Candelaria, the oldest part of Bogota, was interesting, and between the piles of human excrement are cobbled streets lined by painted colonial buildings, graffiti, students and grimey bars. Our hotel owner, Massimo, is a classic character who loves nothing more than holding court in his reception and telling random stories about datura, the mafia, his sideline in writing erotic fiction, his dogs and his attempts at becoming a dad. His righthand man, Danyel, is a sweet-natured guy who gave us lots of advice and insights into life in Colombia.

Bolivar Square: come saints, come sinners

Danyel believes that Colombians need to learn how to be good citizens, because the period when the FARC and Pablo Escobar were reigning terror across the country and countless politicians were abducted and assassinated was so divisive and encouraged the mentality of every man for himself. The collective mindset has suffered and Danyel pointed to the state of the streets, the reckless way people drive and the huge amount of tagging in Candelaria of examples of people not considering the impact of their actions on society.

He mentioned that one of the city's mayors, Lithuanian Antanas Mockus, had tried to teach Bogota's population to be good citizens. One initiative involved deploying mime artists armed with red and yellow cards to let drivers know when they'd wronged. Failure to give way to pedestrians: yellow card! Running a red light: red card!

Being under threat was part of Danyel's everyday life when he was a kid, his school's windows were taped up and bomb alerts and explosions were common. He said he remembers being quite desensitised to the violence. He did, however, become very afraid after an incident where the FARC fired a gas cylinder into a church where women and children were hiding, killing 130.

Not many people could make cycling look this cool

We did an excellent bike tour around Bogota with an American former journo, Mike, whose anecdotes provided some political and social context to an incredibly complicated place. These days, Colombia is one of the most politically progressive countries in Latin America. Abortion is legal (under certain circumstances), as is prostitution and euthanasia. Up until a couple of years ago, it was legal to possess drugs for personal use.

Tourists? Us? Incognito in Bogota

We visited the abortion district (the clinics line the streets around a major church), the fruit and vegetable market (where we sampled Colombia's abundant and unusual fruit, including quite a few we recognised from home such as feijoas and tamarillos), a chocolate factory and a coffee roasters, the informal street-side emerald exchange where men flash their rough gems on scraps of paper and negotiate sales, the site of presidential candidate Jorge Eliecer Gaitan's assassination, a square where children ride alpacas, a cevicheria selling "natural viagra" milkshakes - berraquillo - containing blended live crab which are claimed to compel imbibers to engage in "savage love", the cemetery (home to countless assassinated politicians), and the bull ring where more men have died by the hand of another than the charge of a bull.

Museo del Oro: Bogota's excellent gold museum

Bogota's Gold Museum is without a doubt among the best museums I've visited. It is world-class with an astonishing number of gold treasures and it is incredible to consider that what remains is a tiny fraction of what was taken by the Spanish, melted down to bullion and shipped back to Europe.

Ceviche: prawns, fish, squid & smoked mantaray

Arepa: street food goes gourmet at Lulo

We've eaten well in Santa Marta. The day we arrived from Cartagena, we had ceviche of prawns, fish, squid and smoked mantaray at Donde Chucho. As we sat on the edge of the plaza in the sunshine, Fat Freddy's Drop boomed out from the restaurant and we thought maybe it was a sign, perhaps our luck would turn. We also had excellent arepa (maize cakes) topped with steak, avocado, salsa and sour cream, washed down with passionfruit shakes at Lulo.

Cartagena: oh so pretty

The drive from Santa Marta to surf hell took us around the base of Tayrona National Park, a lush mountainous jungle. And Cartagena did indeed deliver on the promise of gorgeous architecture.

Back at the oasis of Casa Verde in Santa Marta, our flights have been rearranged and we are getting the hell out of Colombia a week early. Brazil is calling. Maybe we're missing something but I can't see any point sticking it out at the bottom of the list.

Costa Rica: a fleeting stopover in Alajuela

The security guard behind the massive iron gates shook his head - the restaurant was closed. Our journey from Havana to Costa Rica had gotten off to a bad start that afternoon when the check-in staff informed us that our travel agent had messed up our itinerary.

Our flight to Costa Rica and onward flight to Colombia had already left - the itinerary supplied by our agent had the dates wrong. Thank the lord that the Cuban airport staff managed to get us on the flight to Costa Rica. Given the same situation, I can just imagine the Ryanair staff rubbing their hands with glee. The flight to Colombia the following morning was fully booked, but they put us on the afternoon flight instead, giving us an extra half day in Costa Rica.

Our accommodation in Costa Rica felt like luxury after the last couple of Casa Particulares in Cuba (we'd dubbed the one in Veradero "The cell"). Just fifteen minutes from the airport in the hills above Alajuela, Tacacori is a little oasis of four detached rooms in a lush garden. The heavy scent of the pale pink datura flowers lining the path hung in the air, and the darkness shrilled with insects. Clean sheets! Hot water! Hallelujah Alajuela!

Our hosts had suggested we take a short walk down the road to Xandari Resort, which has a restaurant. After long hot showers, we'd walked down the dark road, past the occasional barking dog, to the resort gates and the shaking head of the security guard. We weren't sure what to do. We looked out into the darkness - there were no alternatives nearby. Fortunately the guard phoned the restaurant and the staff took pity on us. We walked through the extensive acreage to the restaurant that is perched on a hill overlooking the city. We had an excellent meal (and wine) - our enjoyment no doubt boosted by the mediocre fare we'd encountered in Cuba. Like Eddie said: "That's the best god-damned cracker I've had in my life!"

After a brekkie of fruit (including golden and white pineapple) and coffee - while the resident parrot decimated the foliage surrounding his perch - we headed to Doka Coffee Estate for a bit of a nosey and some lunch.

The hills around Tacacori are prime coffee-growing land and the lodge is surrounded by coffee estates. The land is filled with birds, insects, snakes and animals, so the coffee growers plant fruit trees between the coffee plants to provide an alternative food source. The neat rows of glossy-leafed coffee plants are interspersed with limes, bananas and mangoes.

Costa Rica has loads of volcanoes providing rich soil, and it has a good humid climate for coffee-growing. They just put the coffee bean in the soil and it sprouts into a little stem with the bean at the tip of the protrusion. It takes a surprisingly long time for the plants to start producing - about five years.

Coffee flowers smell amazing and can be used to make perfume - but there is more money in coffee. The beans are picked when they turn red. For each basket of beans, the workers are paid $2. It's not much money for Costa Ricans so all the pickers come from Nicaragua and stay in purpose-built accommodation on the estate.

Doka is one of the oldest estates in Costa Rica and still uses machinery to refine the beans that is more than a hundred years old. I was amused to see it was all made in London.

The estate also has a butterfly house. I wished my butterfly-loving friend Sheree could have been there.

The list
Tacacori Eco Lodge: small hotel run by a French couple, with four private rooms set in lush gardens, $85 B&B
Xandari Resort & Spa: gorgeous resort ranked by Conde Nast Traveller as one of the top ten Central and South American resorts, five minutes walk from Tacacori, has a great restaurant with stunning views across the valley
Doka Estate Coffee Tour: coffee estate near Tacacori that runs tours and has a restaurant and butterfly house, $29 (coffee, tour and lunch)