GETTING READY

(Crossing Colombia Part 1)

Travel Tales Index – Crossing Colombia Index – Colombia Pix

 

Dear Friends and Family,

This year, we are taking a trip to Colombia from December 27, 2009 until February 21, 2010. For one reason or another, your name is on our travelogue e-mail list. If you know anyone else that would like to receive our e-mails, have them contact Paul at PaulWorksHard@hotmail.com. This is the first of a series of e-mails you will be receiving related to our trip. Here is information about planning, packing, logistics and answers to some questions people have asked us:

 

Why Colombia? (i.e. Paul, Where Do You Get These Nutty Ideas?)

It all started out in Lafayette, Louisiana where we were hanging our with our good friends Mark, Gerre and Scooter after Festival International. Mark and Gerre travel like we do and often take two or three months a year to go somewhere fun. Gerre asked us where we were planning for this year and at the time (late April), we weren't sure yet. We mentioned Southeast Asia or somewhere in Latin America. Gerre said, "what about Colombia?", Paul responded, "isn't that too dangerous with kidnappings?". Gerre then proceeded to tell us how her twenty something daughter Linsey had spent two months there during a six month trip to South America and thought it was the best part of her trip. Hmmmm.... Within a week, Paul had talked to Linsey, we decided it was a good place to go and booked airline tickets! By the way, there was a recent newspaper article saying kidnappings are down 54% this year from last year (to 172 incidents) and down 91% from 2002 when there were 1441 incidents. So, we blame it all on Mark and Gerre. Who, by the way, are going to spend seven weeks in Colombia at the same time as us. We hope to cross paths with them at least a few times.

 

How Do You Plan Your Trip?

Our two biggest resources are the library and the Internet. We get as many guidebooks and look at as many web sites as we can. The idea is to decide which cities/towns/villages/small grouping of huts might be interesting to visit. We don't figure out exactly what we want to do in a town, just how many days we might want to spend there.

For this trip, Paul looked at 3 guidebooks: Bradt Guides, Lonely Planet and Footprint Books. Which guidebook to use is dependent on the destination. For Central & South America, Footprint is by far the best. For Asia, Lonely Planets tends to be better, however, we preferred the Rough Guide in Vietnam. For Cuba, Moon Handbooks couldn't be beat.

Guidebook we are using on this trip:

After doing our research, we create a list of places we want to visit and how long we want to stay. We get a map of the country (usually from an on-line source) and circle each place on the map. Next, it is simply a matter of trying to connect the dots in an intelligent fashion. The guidebooks we use tend to focus more on logistics than information about various sites. So, they have maps of each town with lists of places to stay and eat and information about getting from point A to point B by bus, truck, boat, taxi etc. With the dots connected, we have a rough idea of our itinerary and what modes of transportation we will use between places. The initial plan may be changed radically or not at all depending on how much time we have, if a place is better/worse than it sounded in the books, if we decide to add/delete a town because of information from someone we meet on the road, etc.

 

What Do You Take With You? (i.e. Paul, Do You Bring Your Telescope?)

Here’s our packing list for this trip (including what we wear heading out):

The notebook is a Sony VGN-TX670 which weighs in at 2.75 pounds and includes a memory card reader for our cameras and a DVD/CD writer. We can make phone calls using Skype, make DVDs of our photos, review photos and, of course, edit travelogues. The Steripen is a neat little tool which uses ultraviolet light to kill all bacteria and viruses in water. We used it throughout Africa and had no problems drinking tap water. This allows us to be a little more green and not go through so many plastic water bottles. We are bringing a cell phone so that we can get a Colombian sim card and make local calls (plus if you want, you will be able to call us, if you can figure out how to dial internationally to Colombia). Our latest present to ourselves was a Canon EOS 7D. It has way more capability than we will ever figure out how to use, but it should improve the quality of our photos. Believe it or not, the goal is to bring as little as possible. Our packs weigh about 23 pounds each, including a large supply of reading books.

 

What Happens If You Get Sick?

You feel miserable for a little while and spend lots of time in the bathroom. On our Cambodia trip, Paul got seriously dehydrated, but made it to a clinic; got the best and most attentive medical care he ever received and was ready to go the next day. We bring Imodium and Ciproflaxcin. The Imodium stops you up and Cipro is a broad based antibiotic for any bacterial GI problems. We have used both of these on a couple of occasions. Worst case, you need to be evacuated to a nearby city with modern health care facilities. Insurance covers this. In fact, if you join DAN (Diver's Alert Network) for $40 a year, they have fantastic medical evacuation insurance.

 

Where Do You Stay? (i.e. At The Holiday Inn?)

Hotels, motels, guesthouses, inns, pensiones, albergues - any place that has cheap rooms for rent. The guidebooks list places to stay in each town. We have a reservation for our first night in Cali.

Our understanding is that rooms are in the $15-$25 range. We'll probably spend toward the high end of the range in the major cities and toward the low end elsewhere. Hostels with dorm rooms are very popular in Colombia, but we plan on staying in private rooms. In some cases, we might end up sharing a bathroom.

We usually don't know where we are staying until we walk up to the place, ask to see a room and decide whether or not we like it. Occasionally, we call ahead if the next stop is a large city or we expect it to be difficult to find a room. We have never slept out in the cold, but have paid more than we wanted; stayed in a place we really didn't like or spent an hour or two looking.

 

Money, Money, Money?

Costs to date:

Based on the reading we've done, we are expecting costs to be around $50 per day for the two of us. We are bringing $448 cash, credit cards and two ATM cards. The cheapest and best way to change money is to use your ATM card to get local currency. If you open a Fidelity My Smart Cash account, there are no fees and they reimburse you for any fees charged when using your ATM card, anywhere in the world. We expect to find ATMs about as readily as in the United States. The credit cards and cash are backups.

 

How Do You Communicate?

The official language in Colombia is Spanish. We've spent lots of time traveling in Spanish speaking countries, so while Paul is not fluent, he can communicate pretty well. Lois can ask and answer some basic questions and understand a menu. We have a small Berlitz dictionary, a sense of humor and away we go...

 

 

How Do You Get Two Months Off From Work?

Ask. It works for Paul. Don’t ask and don’t work. That is Lois’ method. Actually, Paul is quite lucky. The people Paul works for have been exceptionally accommodating of his desire to take a little extra time off. So, thank you very much to Steve and Howard.

 

What Is Your Route?

Click here to see our intended route. We fly Copa airlines from Washington, Dulles to Cali, via Panama City and return from Cartagena, again via Panama City. Below is an ordered list of the places we are planning on seeing and how long Paul thought we might want to spend there. Given that transportation in some places may be difficult and that we have 56 days available but about 61 days allocated, the chances of sticking to this itinerary are very slim!

 

Happy Holidays & Happy New Year To Everyone!

Lois & Paul
December 26, 2009

 

 

all content is copyright © Paul Schneider, 2009.