Medellin and Cartagena, Colombia

Moving on from Bogota, we made our way to Medellin, just Northwest of Bogota in the mountains and best known for being the home of the infamous Colombian cocaine trade. Things have cleared up a lot as police wander the streets and Medellin has become a pretty significant party town. We arrived on Saturday to a very social hostel full of many international travellers. Our room only had people from SF in it, one who used to work at Advent at the same time but has been travelling for the last 5 months. We spent the night wandering Parque Lleras, awkwardly and unsuccessfully communicating with the locals. I found out later that Colombians dont do well with foreign accents, and apparently Gringo Spanglish in particular. Im bringing out more and more of my High School spanish everyday, but communication is a constant source of confusion and entertainment. We spent the next day wandering the city, the parks, and checking out the view. Yes, I kept looking for Vincent Chase in a fat suit. Longing for more beach after Belize, we were excited to head to the Carribean Coast town of Cartagena on Monday.
Its about 95 degress in Cartagena and sunny. Our hostel is 2 blocks from the beach, and we spent today enjoying the warm Carribean water and shaded by a tent we paid $2 for. The peddlars are pretty annoying, and we got really good at saying NO in Spanish. However, we did give money to the two dudes who rapped to a Dr Dre beat about how we are Americans who don´t understand what he is saying, and how Zack cant grow facial hair. Worth every Peso. We are going to check out the coral islands on the coast tomorrow, Las Islas del Rosario, and do some snorkling. We really like Cartagena and will stay here for a few more days before moving East along the coast to Santa Marta and Tayrona National Park. Hope all is great back in the states, keep the comments and emails coming.

A Word From Zack

Wow, my very first blog. Its tough to follow an act like Brandon Binder when it comes to describing in detail how this trip is going and how I cannot grow hair on my upper lip. I am reminded almost daily between Binder and Mike Grady about how 7 year old Colombian boys can grow more facial hair than me. Awesome. Other than being immasculated every day, the trip has been amazing. Even though it feels like this trip just begun (because of our brief stop over in the US between Belize and Colombia) we have met some pretty unbelievable people. 

In Belize we had the pleasure of meeting some awesome ex-pats from the US including a couple that was originally from the Bay Area who just had their first child. Jules and Tyler would talk about how difficult it was for them to pick a name and when they thought about what kind of a person he would turn out to be they landed on the name Legend. Just to really drive the point home, they gave him the middle name Cornell so their first born son's name is Legend Cornell. We had the pleasure of meeting the young guy and needless to say, Brandon and I are convinced he WILL live up to his name. 

In Miami we stayed with Brandon's cousin Kristen and I got a good sense for what Maria Binder was like when she was my age. Just like Maria, we were welcomed into her home with comfortable beds and tons of food. The Antonidas' really know how to host family and friends. Between my Uncle Fo in Belize and Brandon's cousin, we have been very lucky to see family in our travels.

Our first stop in Colombia was in Bogota where we spent the last couple of days and nights taking in the sights and size of the city. Colombians dont speak very much English so we have been trying our hardest to communicate with them. We moved to a new hostel last night where we met all walks of life and learned Colombia's favorite drinking game which I cannot pronounce let alone type out in Spanish. We were hanging out with people from Seattle, Colorado, Colombia, Switzerland, Australia and a few others I cannot remember. 

Just to validate that this is an incredibly small world we are staying in a new hostel in Medellin tonight and all 3 of our dorm mates are from San Francisco and one of them lives 3 blocks from where we used to live in Russian Hill...annnnd he used to work for Advent Software where Brandon worked for three years before we left for this trip.

Hope everyone is well and we love reading your emails and comments on the blog so keep them coming.

Zack

  

Bogota, Colombia

I think it is safe to say the real part of the trip has begun. It became apparent, when after a 630 am flight out of Miami on about 2 hours of sleep, we found ourselves aimlessly wandering the streets of Bogota. Carrea 7 is like Market Street during Christmas everyday. And everyone speaks Spanish. And there are no gringos. It was the first of many times in the first 24 hours it really hit us we weren´t in San Francisco anymore. They have these people who have cell phones you can use, instead of payphones, and the yell "LLAMAR LLAMAR LLAMAR!!" (Call!). It got stuck in my head and every 5 mins I would yell it out. Zack said he is going to fine me everytime I yell it, but I don´t think he´ll be able to get a Colombian Peso out of me. Yup, we´re getting along just fine.

We toured the city for the day, still delirious, and have begun to realize how cheap it is down here. We got a full steak dinner for about $12 each, cabs are about $2, beers are about $1. Our hostels range between $7 and $10 per night. Awesome. There is a huge mountain range, I mean huge, just at the edge of the city. We took the cable car to the top, just in time for the clouds to roll in, but the view was still pretty insane and you can see how massive Bogota is. Being such a huge city, we are anxious to move on tomorrow when we depart for Medellin for 2 nights. That should be cool, then we will head up to the coast to Cartagena, Santa Marta, and El Parque Nacional de Tayrona where the jungle meets the Carribean.

Last but not least.... and what you´ve all been waiting for... BEARD WATCH: 3 Weeks. I´m sure some of you have some some comments so let´s see em. It´s been great hearing from everyone. Also, its not too late to join the South America train, we have just gotten the news that a few folks will be joining us. Check out the Agenda posted a few weeks back and take a moment to think about how awesome it would be to see our hairy faces in a foreign country. C´Mon....

LLAMAR LLAMAR LLAMAR!!!!!!

Florida, USA

It's not exactly "South America", but it's America and it's pretty far south. There are about 5 purely logistical reasons why we had to come throug Miami for a few days, involving cheaper flights and some other stuff with the crazy Chilean airline we are flying throughout South America. We are going to get (crossing fingers) Brazilian Visas here in Miami, which has yet to be anything short of a nightmare. If you plan on going to Brazil, just know that they make getting a visa about this much fun.

Anyway, we're here until Thursday when we take off for Colombia. My cousin Kristen lives here and has been a gracious host. We went out in West Palm Beach on Saturday night and had dinner at Opa Tavern, a rowdy Greek restaurant. It was good to see my fellow Grecos dancing on tables and throwing napkins in the air. The rest of the night was spent making stupid faces.

We are going to watch the Super Bowl today, and get our last tastes of American culture for a while. Probably won't have much interesting to say between now and when we get to Colombia on Thursday, so maybe you can check out another one of my favorite blogs in the meantime. Just a few more days until we really get into it, oooooh boy.

Also, here are all the pics from Belize.

Belize (pt 2)

I'd like to start this post by answering a few of the questions I seem to be getting a lot from many readers of this blog:
1) Yes, we are still alive.
2) No, we are not in jail... for now, pending a more detailed inspection of our rented golf cart (see below).
3) Yes, Zack has managed to sprout some facial hair. It's kind of red and patchy and the mustache area resembles that of a 10 year old, but its all part of the charm. It's not fair for me to make fun of him with no means to defend himself (like that's ever stopped any of us before) so I have to admit my own facial hair has transformed me into the love child of Che Guevara and Mario (the plumber). In fact, the high volume of facial hair related questions has inspired me to start an ongoing section in the blog known as "Beard Watch". More on this below as well.
4) Yes, we're having a great time.
Now, if anyone still cares what we've been up to... We continued our diving certification and are now fully certified SCUBA divers. We did some great dives where we saw eagle rays, sting rays, eels, a few nurse sharks, and even a turtle. My camera unfortunately does not work underwater but I have this drawing. With the training wheels now off, I am no longer required to wear the Mankini. However, I do miss its support. That will take some getting used to.
We also attended the "World Famous Chicken Drop" in town, which is allegedly the world's longest running outdoor game. The toothless man at the bar said it is in the Guinness book of world records, maybe someone should look that up. Anyway, everyone buys a few squares, they throw pick one tourist to throw the chicken into the ring, and whichever square the chicken "drops" in, is the winner and takes home all the money. And then they are told they have to pick up the chicken droppings. Pretty entertaining.

On Cody's last full day, we took a trip to the Mayan ruins of Altun-Ha, a boat ride to the mainland and up the river, followed by a bus ride to the ruins. The ruins were pretty awesome, the best part being that you can climb on them pretty freely. We got to see the original temple that is on the bottles of the beer down here, Belikin (It's pretty much the only beer allowed onto the island, so needless to say we've had our fair share). Far and away my biggest regret is not getting a picture of our tour guide who looked EXACTLY like Greg Benson's Rasta twin. Had the dirty 'stache and all. It was incredible (the Benson cross-racial look alike mostly, the ruins were cool too).














Cody left on Saturday, and his fire and motivation will be missed. Following a gorgeous not-a-cloud-in-the-sky Sunday Funday full of Belikins, amazing BBQ on the beach, and some live music, the weather took a turn for the worse. At first, we were baffled as to what to do with ourselves due to the underwhelming number of indoor activities on this island. We decided to go exploring, via rented golf cart, seeing how far north we could drive it (Mexico is 40 miles, we were hoping we could make it 8). Despite, its bald off-road tires, broken seat, lack of a windshield and suspension, we made it about 5 miles up the coast until we decided we were pushing our luck when the depth and frequency of the puddles were growing rapidly. We returned the cart barely running, with the alignment off by about 45 degrees, and covered in mud. We figure we made up the Karma points by giving a young schoolby a ride home on the back. Even Steven.














BEARD WATCH: DAY 10(ish)
This is the section where we post awkward close-ups to demonstrate the true essence of our (attempt at) facial hair so you all can follow along at home. This was by popular demand.









Just one more day to go here. We hope to get in one more good sail with Uncle Fo to the neighboring island of Caye Caulker, and one last meal at our favorite restaurant Wild Mango's. After that, it's off to Miami to visit my cousin, watch probably the least anticipated Super Bowl matchup in history (prediction: Cardinals over Steelers 30-28), get a Brazilian visa, then catch a flight to Colombia.

Hope everyone is well at home, we miss you all. Let's see some more comments.

Belize

We're underway. We woke up at around 3:30 am on Monday morning to fly from SFO to Dallas, then to Belize city. From there, we hopped on a Tropic Air flight to the island of San Pedro, about a 15 min flight. The airline just has your name on a piece of paper, doesn't ask for ID, or even cares what flight you were originally on. We got in early and just hopped on the earlier flight. The plane is basically a mini-van with wings, as you can see. That's my view over the pilot's shoulder as we approach the island.

... and a random creepy guy behind me in the mini-van sized plane.

Once we arrived on the island, we made it to Zack's uncle's place at the Belize Yacht Club (The BYC). Very nice place. Cody Liebman, a good friend from NYC, made a power move and bought some cheap tickets and was already here waiting for us. We have our own condo with air conditioning and telvision that's showing SportsCenter, Seinfeld, and even Warrior games (last night we got to see them hit a shot to take the lead with 1.6 seconds left, only to end up losing). Uncle Forrest has taken us sailing, we pretty much just go up the beach to the next bar. Uncle Forrest knows everyone here.

We went fishing with one of the local guides, Chito. We managed to catch a few fish (which we later ate) but the highlight might have been the sunset.

One of our other projects has been to get certified for SCUBA diving. This includes some reading, some dives in about 6 feet of water, testing of some basic skills, and some more dives. Here you can see me putting on some gear, the most important piece of equipment: The Mankini.

I have to admit that the start of the trip is kind of cheating as we aren't exactly "backpacking" or "roughing it" much. It still seems to me like I'm just on a vacation. There will be plenty of time for hostels and roughing it later. We'll build up to that.

3... 2... 1

   So, we leave tomorrow. It really doesn't feel any different to say than "We leave in 2 months... 1 month... a week...". To me, its still the unkown lurking behind that Jan 19th square on the calendar. I think its about time to go already. The preparation has spanned over multiple months, a few sleepless nights (for me at least), a good chunk of change, and about three too many visits to REI. That's just once we decided to actually go, not to mention the time deciding if this type of thing was a logical (still TBD) move in life. I've gone through millions of scenerios in my head, likely none of which will happen, and none of which I am prepared for anyway. I know a lot of useless information about the places I am going to go, yet I have little to no useful knowledge of how I will feed or shelter myself. 

   Multiple people have told me to "just go already", so that at least I can tell them a entertaining story rather than discuss how many pairs of socks I need to pack. Thanks to the many friends and family members for being there and helping us get ready, couldn't have done it with out you. With that, we are off... Next stop: Belize.