Hot springs and hot weather.

Pereira is a town in the centre of Colombia which we went to because no one suggested we go there, OK not strictly true but it is a town that is not on any tourist map and has nothing of real spectacular interest to put it onto anyone's 'must go' list. We ended up there for two reasons, the first was that the tour to what everyone says are the best thermal springs in this part of the world starts from Pereria and secondly there was a very cheap flight out to the Caribbean coastal town and main old Spanish entry point into Latin America of Cartagena. 

The thermal springs at San Vincente about 30 km out of town were as advertised, spectacular. Set in the head of a very steep waterfall surrounded valley high in the north Andes. The last 10 km in the bus took a good three quarters of an hour as it wound up steep ridges and basically just climbed and climbed and climbed until we crested the ridge and went down into the valley where the thermal springs are located.

 The high sided v shaped rain forest valley.

 Steam rising off the stream, a totally natural environment where the only concession to humans are a few stones blocking the stream to create pools to lounge in, a bridge and a set of steps.

 There is at the head of the stream, man made pools and a hotel. It was here that all the Colombians (we were the only gringos in sight) spent the day. This left us to enjoy the totally natural pools further down.

 During the trip up it rained heavily, this made the cold water stream, which ran almost parallel very high and very brown!

 Waterfall in the steep valley around the hot springs.

We met a really nice Colombian guy called David while we were there and consequently spent the evening out with him, his girlfriend and his North American history teaching friend Kevin. We consequently had a rather late night which was OK as we were not flying until 5.30 the next evening so we caught up on correspondence etc and spent a bit of a wait at the airport before heading out of the Andes, where we have been since northern Argentina and hit the heat of the Caribbean.

As we were now down to sea level the first really hot weather since we left Asia hit us. We found it rather hot and sticky which we were not expecting after having coped with weeks of much hotter and stickier weather in the east. You obviously take some time to acclimatize and were pleased we had A/C at our hotel.

Cartagena was for many years the capital and entry point of all things Spanish into Latin America, it was the scene for several conflicts, pirate, British, French attacks and consequently it is a beautiful walled city at its centre. Full of old colonial buildings, streets that are only slightly on a grid pattern with flower encrusted timbered balconys and cool courtyards everywhere.

 With long beaches to the north and south now filling up with high rise hotels and places for the Colombian middle class to enjoy the beach.

 It still has the feel of a genuine working town with ironmongers and plumbers just as numerous as hotels and shops selling tourist tat.

Outside the city walls on a hill is the old fort. The Castillo de San Felipe de Barajas which any potential invaders had to take to take the city. In the course of its active life it had the record of won 1, lost 1, drawn 1 (a siege of the town, which the town lost through starvation). A really impressive place, full of ramparts, redoubts loopholes, flanks, crenelations  and all the other words that have crept into the English language through 17th century fort building.

 As we left the storm clouds gathered and by the time returned the audio guide to the ticket kiosk the heavens had opened. We had to shelter under its eaves for half an hour until the rain and river the road had turned into, had abated enough for us to cross the road where we sheltered in a restaurant having lunch until it had stopped enough to walk into town.

The next day we climbed another volcano.... this was by far the smallest being only about 15 meters high. However the views from the top were nice...

 And the views into the crater were different!

 Yes a hot mud volcano....

 We think this would certainly have got Liza's father Paul to start hunting out the black plastic bags.!

But luckily the freshwater lagoon behind was available for a cleaning swim.

We have now moved to the small coastal village of Tolu south east of Cartagena, details of which we will bore you with next blog.