Colombian Fried Ants and Mud Baths

I sit here typing out another blog, probably my last or second last for this amazing trip, with bits of fried ants stuck between my teeth. Nick and I are in Bucaramanga, Colombia and the fried ants are a local treat, so we had to try it of course. Personally I didn't think they were very tasty, Nick seemed to like them though. We also tried some Lemon ants in The Amazon, they were alive ones. They were supposed to taste like lemon, but I think I ended us grabbing the other ants who like to hang out with the lemon ants, as I didn't get that nice lemon flavour, just a numb sensation on my tongue.

Anyway, so far we have had a great time in Colombia. It has been the highlight for South America for us. The place in stunningly beautiful, the people are super friendly and the travel is much less touristy and real.
We have travelled through Pasto, Popayan, San Augustin, Bogota and Cartagena on the Caribbean Coast so far. San Agustin was an interesting place full of ancient archeology that is linked to Ancient Egypt, Asia and Africa. Interesting stuff!

Here is some exerts from my diary recently.

12-6-09 Volcano Mud Bath

"What a surreal experience today was. We dunked ourselves in the contents of what has to be the worlds smallest volcano. We were suspended from within the mud completely weightless, I think this must be one of the closest feelings to being on the moon....There was a Colombian couple with us from Medellin. All I can say is, when plastic surgery goes bad! I had read about Colombia being the plastic surgery capital of the world, but up until today I had found that hard to believe. Think bad botox and boob job, I really felt for the poor woman. Why do people do that to themselves?!...After a 45 min bake in the volcano mud we exited looking like a swamp monster, covered from head to toe. I noticed one girl getting out of the mud had had a blowout on her bikini bottoms...too much mud weighing them down, luckily the mud covered everything... "

13-6-09 Hop, Skip and a Jump to Mompox

"Back on the road again today and it was another enjoyable day of travelling. We were woken up early by the screaming young school girls staying in our hotel, sometime between 5:30am and 6:00am...we got a taxi to the bus terminal as it was raining in Cartagena this morning. The bus station was miles out of town and it would have taken a long time by bus, so I'm glad we did. A lot of Colombians ride motorcycles and you often see whole families on the same bike on there way to work or school. On this raining morning, we saw one family riding along with their umbrella in a vain attempt to keep themselves dry.

We were directed straight onto a minivan headed for Magangue, a place I can not pronounce on the Rio Medellin, the same river we were near in San Agustin, in the South. There was the expected faffing here of course as we waited a further hour to actually leave the bus station as we waited for other passengers...We drove through lots of green fields that reminded me of parts of Africa near Uganda. Some of the buildings were also reminiscent of African huts built of mud, sticks and grass. We twisted and bumped along the road, the driver was going so fast that half the family sitting in front of us on the bus were throwing up. The granny was sick, then the young boy, emptying the contents of their stomachs into numerous plastic bags when they made it. It was quite a vomit feast for a while there. The mother was busy handing out bags to the gran on her left, then the young boy on her right, all whilst holding her little baby. The husbands job was to collect all the vomit bags and sit with them. We managed to make it with all the contents of our stomachs in tact. Although I found out later that I wasn't helping matters when I gave Nick a running commentary of the little boy and the plastic bag distribution around the bus. Oops! Anyway we got off the bus and the family gave us a cheery goodbye...We were directed to the boat ramp for the next leg of our journey, on a chalupa (a small passenger boat) for a small fee...The street vendors dangled there goods by the side of the boat as we waited again for a full load of passengers...We considered buying some bread, but the guy was charging too much so we declined to prevent embarrassment in front of the locals. At which point they all seemed to take an interest in where we were from. They were all so warm and friendly. I love days of travelling like this. We didn't take long to reach the stop for our final leg of the trip...We opted for a shared collectivo with the 2 friendly young girls we were sitting next to on the boat...As we drove along it all felt a whole lot more laid back and relaxed and I was enjoying the beautiful rural scenery role by. Pigs with their piglets, a small child riding a bike that was so big for her she could hardly reach the pedals, dogs wandering about, farm houses, potholes, motorbikes weaving there way around the potholes. We were stopped 2 times by the police or army, either way it was just a routine check for drugs or weapons. The first one was particularly friendly and when he found out Nick was English he felt the need to share his love of UB40 with us. The 2 young girls in our taxi had no idea what we were talking about as they played their own Latin American music from their mobile phone..."

Today we are leaving Bucaramanga for San Gill. We are slowing making our way back to Bogota. We have less than a week left in Colombia before we fly back to Santiago for a few days, then back home from there. See you all very soon.