Very Colombian Experience - Termales Santa Rosa de Cabal

We got up early from our country spot in Salento and took a short ride into town.  From there, we took a bus 1 hour to Pereira.  From Pereira, a 25 minute bus ride to Santa Rosa de Cabal, then a taxi ride to the hot springs.

There you will find a hotel and commercial hot springs.  There is a large swimming pool size soaking area where people of all ages (from children to grandparents) were soaking an enjoying the Thursday morning.  

Above the hot pool, there is an incredible waterfall.  So before the hot water from deep underground is mixed with cold from the river, the water falls from a taaaaaalllll, cold waterfall.  We  weren't feeling very adventurous, so we just dipped in our toes into the cold pool.  It was a cool day to start with, so submerging our bodies into the cold water of the small pool wasn't very tempting.

As the cold water spills over the rocks below, it is mixed with 40 degrees Celsius, scalding hot water.  The minerals that cascaded over the rocks over the years create a soft, swoopy look.

There is even a little cave to escape the heat.

The soaking pool varies from hot to comfortable to body temperature as you move away from the falls.

Valle de Cocora

We spent our October break in the Zona Cafetera town of Salento.  There, we visited a coffee finca, hiked amongst the tallest palms in the world, went horseback riding (Linnea went 3 times) soaked in thermal hot springs and relaxed at our hostel, La Serrana.

On our first full day there, we went hiking in the Valle de Cocora is just east of Salento.  From Salento, we took a 30 minute ride in a jeep taxi called a Willy and started the hike.  The valley is know for the wax palms that can reach up to 60 meters high.  Palma de cera is the largest palm tree in the world and is Colombia's national tree.  The trees were threatened to extinction because of their use of wax for candles, being cut by farmers to build with and the fronds that were used on Palm Sunday.  So in 1985 the Colombian government designated the valley a protected area to preserve the endangered tree.  As you can see, the trees came back.

Kid hikers - Eli, Linnea, Dempsey and Finn

Before the big trek over the mountain

At the top of the mountain, we found the La Montaña ranger post where we had a cup of chocolate con queso, a typical Colombian snack.  We were up in a cloud forest and it was cold and a little drizzly.  The valley ranges in altitudes of 1800 to 2400 meters.

After leaving the ranger post, we zig-zagged down the mountain and made several crossings over the Rio Quindío on rickety suspension bridges.

After making it off the mountain, we were in the valley where the majority of the magnificent 

palms grew.  We were in good company with a lot of cows too.

 End of the 5 hour hike!

Time Marches On

We can't believe that it's the end of March, which means it's almost summer!  That may seem a little overly-optimistic, but this time of year always seems to pass very quickly and the next thing we know we'll be back in California for the summer.

March always brings a birthday in our family.  We celebrated at Julia, an Italian restaurant.

We spent Semana Santa in Carmen del Apicalá.  About a 3 1/2 hour drive southwest of Bogotá, it's in "hot country".  We got a 7 bedroom house with 3 other families.  All we needed was the pool, food, and a blender.

The Colombian version of the Otter Pop is Bon Ice.  Kids ate a lot of these.

 Linnea playing hair stylist with Izzy

Almost full moon

More Bon Ice bliss and Mickey Mouse pancakes at the breakfast bar.

We trapped a little scorpion in the house and let him go far, far away. 

 8 adults and 8 kids!

B - Burros

Although Bonaire is situated in the caribbean, it does not offer the typical tropical landscape one might imagine.  Lush green grass and palm trees are seen, but usually around homes or resorts.  More commonly seen are tall Kadushi cactus, scrub-like divi trees, paddle cactus and thorny shrubs.  This is the perfect environment for a variety of iguanas and lizards.  Surprisingly, it is also a good environment for donkeys.

Brought to the island in the 1500's by the Spanish, the donkeys were used for transportation, namely salt from the south of the island.  With minimal water requirements and the ability to eat about any type of scrub vegetation, they were well suited for life on the arid island.  With no predators and little competition for scrub, the numbers increased over the years.  Today, goats and donkeys can be seen roaming the less populated parts of the island.  But most of the donkeys have found a home in the Donkey Sanctuary.

We hopped in our rented truck and drove about 10 minutes out of the main town to the sanctuary.  We were greeted by a boy of about 13 years old.  Speaking English with a Dutch accent, he welcomed us and we bought 2 bags of carrots from him.  He warned us not to roll our windows more than halfway down because a carrot-seeking donkey might put their head into the car and then break the window with their chin! We heeded his advice.

Just across the cattle guard, the donkeys were waiting for us, or for our carrots.

After the initial shock of seeing those lips up close and personal...

...Linnea got used to feeding them.

We are surrounded!!

The donkeys were really sweet and gentle.  They would mostly approach the car, see if there were any carrots, then walk away.  But after the carrots were all gone, we had one persistent donkey follow us for a while.  He trotted along next to us and would periodically kick the truck.  The first time I heard the loud thump, I thought I had run over a large stick or something, but the sound kept coming from the direction of the donkey.  Linnea started to get scared, thinking the donkey wasn't going to give up on pressuring us for carrots.   I was getting worried about our rental truck and the size of the dents this little quadruped was leaving.  When he finally realized that we were carrotless, he stopped following us.

After we crossed the safe zone on the other side of the cattle guard, I got out of the truck to assess the damage.  No dents, just scratches in the paint.  I kept my fingers crossed that they would not be noticed by the rental agency under all the dust and dirt that had accumulated on the truck.

I mentioned to the woman in the office that a donkey was kicking the truck and she assured us that he was not being aggressive.  Rather, when they run, their hind legs flail out to the sides.  Okaaaaay.


Check out the Donkey Cam.  You won't be disappointed.

B is for Bikes

We all know that the Dutch have a sensibility about transportation and bicycles.  In the Netherlands, more than 1/2 of all trips within cities are taken on a bike rather than in a car, taxi or bus.  A bike can be ridden a in a suit or dress with heals while carrying a load of groceries in a basket.

Things are a little different on this municipality of the Netherlands.  Although Bonaire is relatively flat and small, the roads were built first for cars, not bikes.  Also, the heat makes it difficult for riding long distances.  But that didn't stop us from renting bikes to ride to the town of Rincon.

We rented our bikes from Rolf, a Dutch man who started his mobile bike rental company 6 months ago.  We called him and within a hour, his yellow van arrived with a variety of bikes, mountain and Dutch bikes.

We rode north from Kralendijk to the town of Rincon.  Once we left the capital, the traffic lightened up a lot and it was very safe.  Many drivers would wave as they passed.  Most of them were divers that we would catch up to when they parked at the dive sites along the western side of the island.

 It was a blazing hot day.  Fortunately, we were able to stop at 1,000 Steps Beach to snorkel and have lunch.  There were really only 109 steps (Dempsey counted).  The beach was mostly coral, so it wasn't the build-a-sand-castle, hang-out-on-the-beach kind of place, but we did get in the water (briefly, the waves were a little big here and it was hard getting in and out... the kids were not fans).  While we were eating lunch, this iguana came over to check out our back packs.  He stayed for a while.  Maybe he was waiting for a handout?

Rincon is nestled in a valley, so there was a huge hill to ride up  and over to get there.  With a 55 pound kid on the back of my bike, I only made it about 50 yards before I had to walk.  She walked, too.  Obviously.  She was a good sport about it though.  It probably took 20 minutes to get to the crest.  But the downhill was fuuuuun.  When we got to Rincon, we went to a market and guzzled down some sodas and a bag of Cheetos.  We weren't sure what kind of place we would find for lunch (lunch #2) until we found this Chinese restaurant.  The eggrolls were huge, the sweet and sour tasty and the vegetable fried rice hit the spot.

At the top of the hill before the descent back to our side of the island.

 Looking to 1,000 Steps beach where we had lunch earlier.

 The ride back to Kralendijk seemed to go by quickly.  We stopped a few times for a water break, to pick up or fins and snorkel gear that fell out on the road from our bag and take in the views.  As we rode past 1,000 Steps, there was a huge iguana that had been flattened by a passing car.  We hoped it wasn't the same one we had met earlier on the beach, but I have a sinking feeling it was the same one.  Poor guy.

Tuckered out!

The B in the ABC's

Back in early fall, we began making plans for our December vacation.  We wanted to find a place with a little something for everyone... scuba diving and snorkeling, wildlife, plenty of time in the water and outdoors.  My mom suggested Bonaire, the least known of the ABC islands: Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao.  The more we looked into it, the better and better the idea seemed.  Netherlands Antilles, here we come.

Located in the southern caribbean about 50 miles off the northern coast of Venezuela, the island is relatively flat and dry.  All of the waters around Bonaire have been protected since 1979 and are calm and great for swimming and diving.  We stayed in  the capital of Kralendijk.  About 16,000 people live on the island, so you can imagine the capital doesn't have a big-city feel.  


The original inhabitants of the island were indigenous people called Caiquetio from Venezuela who went to the island about 1,000 years ago.  When the Spanish arrived in the 1500's, they called the island "las Islas de los Gigantes", or the Island of the Giants because of the Caiquetio were a very tall people. The Spanish didn't see any commercial or large-scale agricultural use for the island.  Instead, they enslaved the indigenous people and shipped them to the Island of Hispanolia (today Haiti and the Dominican Republic) where they were used on large plantations.


In 1621, the Dutch established the Dutch West India Company.  The Dutch and Spanish fought over the island for nearly 80 years and in 1636, the Dutch conquered the island.  The British took over for 2 brief periods in the early 1800's.  During this time, the settlement of Playa was built, now known as Kralendijk.  This diverse history has led to diversity in language as well.  The official language of the island is Dutch.  However, the most commonly heard language is Papiamentu, a mix of creole, Spanish, Dutch and bits of English.

Kralendijk sits in the southern half of the island directly across from Klein Bonaire, an uninhabited island.  Washington Slagbaai National Park is to the north and world class wind surfing and kiteboarding on the eastern side, notably in Lac Bay.

Kralendijk

Thanksgiving at Mesitas del Colegio

We spent Thanksgiving at our friend Sandy's finca in Mesitas del Colegio, about a 2 1/2 hour drive southwest of Bogotá.  The property has been in her family for years and it was once a high producing coffee plantation.  Coffee is still produced and processed here, but on a smaller scale.

An alter is being built, but the Virgin Mary hasn't shown up yet.  We improvised.

Walking up the river.

Centipede!

 Sandy and Linnea

Pictures from around the property...

Little Yellow Jobs

 The old beneficiadero (I don't know if I am spelling that right, but it's a coffee processing barn).  It has a lot if big roasters inside that they stopped using because they were powered by gasoline.  

 Inside the beneficiadero.

 In the states, we only see poinsettias in December, but in Colombia, we see them all the time.  They are full shrubs, not gangly and leggy like the ones that get planted in the ground after the holidays are over.

We had a great Thanksgiving meal of Eric's deep fried turkey, Allison's brussel sprouts and white beans, vegetarian pumpkin lasagna for the vegetarian in the group, and my sweet potato gratin, stuffing and pumpkin flan.  Being in Colombia, we had to get creative with some of the ingredients that were available to us.  We scrambled to find cream of tartar (got it from our neighbor from California who brought it back from the states), pumpkin puree (we made it from scratch and will probably never buy canned pumpkin puree again), and paid as much for the oil to fry the turkey as we did for the actual turkey.  Sorry, there are no photos of the meal.  We were too busy eating!