Dueling Backpacks

Day 83 (September 19, 2018) – Salento, Colombia We left Salento too early. Like most places in Colombia, whatever time we set aside to be somewhere, it never seems to be enough. We always want more.

Day 74 (September 10, 2018) - Medellín, Colombia After our trip to the small towns of Colombia, we were (and I especially was) ready for a big city again. We had heard that Medellín was a good city for restaurants and nightlife, and it lived up to that description. We stayed in a section of the city called El Poblado, which has a high concentration of restaurants, bars, and clubs. Unlike in Bogotá, where we hardly saw tourists in the area we were staying (Chapinero), the Poblado section of Medellín was absolutely full of them. Everything was also extremely pricey in this area, probably because of all the tourists and the somewhat fancy restaurants/bars.

Day 70 (September 6, 2018) - Mongu í and Iza, Colombia We wanted to break up the long trip from El Cocuy back to Bogotá, so we spent a couple days each in Mongu í and Iza. Similar to El Cocuy, these are small towns with a very strong country village vibe. In theory, these towns should be a lot more touristed than the very far-flung El Cocuy, but during our stay we still managed to rarely find other visitors.

Day 64 (August 31, 2018) – El Cocuy National Park, Colombia We had one more hike planed in El Cocuy National Park, up to Ritacuba Blanco. We were supposed to do this hike the day after our first, but with our change in plans and having to head back to El Cocuy, rather than stay in a caba ñ a at the trail head, we decided to delay the hike for a day and take a day of rest.

Day 62 (August 29, 2018) - El Cocuy, Colombia El Cocuy is an extremely different town than anywhere else we've been in Colombia. Since the town is so small and secluded, there's just a different vibe here. Everyone in town knows each other. Everyone says hello to one another, even to us. It is extremely safe, since it is so far removed from any major city, and only locals (and some tourists) are present. Shops open and close at the whim of the sole shopkeeper: if they had to run an errand or something, or go to church, they'd close. Even shops with posted hours would sometimes be closed during their open hours, which was a little frustrating when we needed something from the pharmacy. Everything is extremely cheap: a "tinto" (a small cup of somewhat watery coffee served in a plastic Solo cup) was only $500 pesos (about 16 US cents). Nobody really tries to rip you off like they sometimes do in big cities (though one grocery store here did seem to charge us a G

Day 61 (August 28, 2018) – El Cocuy National Park, Colombia We got up in the freezing cold in Hacienda La Esperanza at around 4:15 in the morning, while it was still dark out. We freshened up, packed our day packs, applied some sun screen, and had breakfast at one of the outdoor tables. I ate as much of the fruit, eggs, bread, and cheese as I could manage, knowing that we had a long walk ahead of us. The coffee also helped to warm us up a bit.

Day 60 (August 27, 2018) – El Cocuy National Park, Colombia We had an early morning start, eating a breakfast of fruit, eggs, bread, cheese, and coffee at our hotel before leaving at 6 AM for the town square. One of the cheaper ways to get up to the cabañas at the start of the trail heads is to ride on one of the local lecheros, or milk trucks. As we waited in the square, there were at least a half dozen milk trucks that drove through the town. Some stopped and others just drove straight through. Travis was vigilant in asking each one that passed if they were going to Esperanza. With some help from the other lechero drivers, we finally found ours, which would take us up to the start of the trail head and to our accommodation for the night.

Day 59 (August 26, 2018) – El Cocuy, Colombia El Cocuy is a very small, quaint town that sits on an Andean hillside. The main draw for travelling to El Cocuy is to visit the nearby El Cocuy National Park, where we hiked for a couple days among glacier-capped Andean mountains. Our trip to El Cocuy started in the early morning from Villa de Leyva where we caught a van that took us to Tunja where we changed to a very large coach bus that would drive us through the mountains to El Cocuy. We knew this was going to be a long trip and, indeed, it was about 8 hours later when we finally arrived.