Dirt-biking up a Volcano

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After a few minutes of instruction in Spanish for those of us who’d never ridden any two-wheeled motorized vehicle before, we were ready to head up a volcano on rented dirt bikes.

We rode as far up as we could and then hiked up to a waterfall. A family of wild horses blocked our trail back. There was no way around them, so I twirled bamboo and encouraged them down the path.

The ride up was steep and sketch, but not nearly as much as the ride down. We almost ate it at the bottom when we hit a mega-patch of sand, but my ballet days swooped into action and balance saved us.

We stayed at a hostel on the side of a volcano and hiked up and down into the crater of it the next morning.

(There might have been a part in there where the two with Marine Corps training left the group at dinner, took a wrong turn at a chain link fence in the dark, and got lost in the jungle a bit before backtracking and eventually finding the hostel…but the night creatures won’t disclose us.)

Sunrise in Nicaragua

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It was still dark when our flight landed in Managua. Seven of us tetris’d into a cab and ended up on the shore of the expansive Lago de Nicaragua as the black morphed blue above us.

There was a tree of ants and monkeys, and the sun rose across the water.
The beach was a happening place – markets, cars and horses all shared the sand. We caught a ferry to volcano island, squeezing in some shut-eye on the bright white deck.

 

Street Art: Bogota, Colombia

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Museo de Oro — gold, gold, gold!

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 Bogota, Colombia

 

Also, cell phones stands: no  strings attached…just wires…to a woman on the corner selling minutes. This one has an actual stand, more often they did not. 

San Gil, Colombia: meat, white water, explosives

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They tell you to not drink the water. They tell you don’t eat the fruit. Well, the first night I arrived in Bogota I managed to disregard both of those bits of travel-doctor-advice with Mora con Leche. Literally: blackberries with milk. A smoothie-like drink that I proceeded to have at least one of each day thereafter (but more likely one per meal). It’s just SO GOOD.

We arrived at the San Gil bus terminal late and walked into town to our hostel. We slept.

In the morning, we went to a market. I’d been craving a banana split and boy did I get one. I couldn’t finish it. So much melty goodness. The meat below looked good, too. Raw. I think they might’ve been a little weirded by my photo taking, but when I smiled and tried to explain in a language they didn’t understand they eased up a bit.

Following the meat market, the group split up trying to find things to do. All I wanted to do was raft. That was the key that opened the lock for me on this trip. White water.

It was too late in the day, but paragliding was still an option — at least, for 20 more minutes. I sprinted back to the hostel to try to find someone to go with. Avery was there, and so we took a bus to a mountain top.

I was handed a helmet, harnessed up, and dragged off a mountain.

The next morning we went white-water rafting and that night, we played Tejo, the national sport of Columbia. It’s sort of like the popular college game Corn Hole, but with explosives.

A bus to Tunja, smell it

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