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Adventure Brazil Colombia Guide Solo Travel South America

Ten Days in the Amazon on a Budget: Part 2

Three nights of sleeping in a hammock strung up alongside about 100 strangers. Six consecutive carb-heavy meals of rice, noodles, and beans. Ninja mosquitos with a freakish immunity to Deet. Showers in smelly brown river water. This isn’t exactly a Carnival Cruise, people.

Perhaps this post should be titled something along the lines of “Traveling From Colombia to Brazil on a Boat,” but I wanted to keep it consistent with the first post. But that’s exactly what this post is about, my experience of crossing the border in Leticia, Colombia and taking the slow boat from Tabatinga to Manaus.

The hammocks before it got crowded
Our hammocks strung up before it got too crowded

 

If you’re not uptight you don’t have high standards while traveling, this is an awesome, cheap way to see the Amazon on a tight budget—not to mention a great way to save hundreds of dollars traveling from Colombia to Brazil if you’ve got a bit of time. A flight between the two countries can easily cost upwards of $700 USD, but for only about 70 you can hop aboard a ship from Tabatinga, Brazil (which is only a short cab ride from the Leticia airport, or walking distance from most hostels in Leticia) and head downriver to Manaus to catch a flight elsewhere in Brazil.

So that’s exactly what I did.

I did the trip downstream during the rainy season when the rainforest was flooded, which apparently knocks off at least an entire day. There are several other routes from ports in Peru, Colombia, and Brazil ranging from a few days to closer to a week, but I thought the three-day route between Tabatinga and Manaus was plenty. 

Keep in mind prices will likely vary greatly based on the time of year and how far in advance you book, but here’s my breakdown during the peak of high season just before Carnaval:

– $112 flight from Bogotá to Leticia on a Tuesday
– 200 Reais (about $66 USD) for my 3-day boat ticket (which includes all meals)

– 36000 Colombian Pesos (about $14 USD) for a hammock and rope
– $164 overnight flight out of Manaus to Rio de Janeiro on the following Thursday night.

That ends up being about $356, which isn’t exactly pocket change, but the only other costs over those total ten days were $30 for three nights in Leticia, the free hotel room in Manaus, plus a few bucks for meals and $100 for the Amazon tour. Plus booking the overnight flight to Rio helped me save on one night’s accommodation. Definitely cheaper and more exciting than if I had flown the $700 Bogotá to Brazil flight in seven hours, and way cheaper than booking a touristy Amazon tour through some agency.

Amazon Boat
A quick shot of our ship in port in Manaus

As mentioned, this post is all about staying in Leticia, Colombia and taking the slow boat from Tabatinga, Brazil, to Manaus, Brazil. For more info on an activity-based tour of the Amazon, check out this post.

ABOUT THE BOAT: VOYAGER V

There are several different ships you can take, but I don’t think you have much control over which one you get on. I wasn’t really sure what to expect but I prepared myself for the worst. There was a lot of ambiguity on how long the trip would actually take, and some horror stories about the food being served with a side of explosive diarrhea and vomiting. But overall my trip was a super relaxing, pleasant experience with no nasty side effects—for me at least, some others on board the ship weren’t so lucky. My tiny bout of tummy troubles held off a good few days until I was tucked away in my own private hotel room in Manaus. (Thankfully it was nowhere near as bad as what I dealt with in Thailand.)

Anyway, back to the ship, the Voyager V. Most of the locals seemed to congregate on the bottom level even though it was extremely noisy near the engine. There was a small kitchen in the back half of the ship right alongside the motor, and a picnic table eating area where all of the meals were served. Food was served at a set time every day (breakfast around 6am, lunch around noon, and dinner around 5pm) and yes, I was almost always one of the first people in line for feeding time.

On the second level there was a fully netted-in soccer pitch that stayed lit up well in the night. There’s also a snack counter selling hamburgers, ice cream, beer, soft drinks, and a few other snacks; a common area with plastic tables and chairs, and what looked to be private cabins towards the front of the ship.

The top level was pretty much just hammocks, bathrooms, and gorgeous views.

Sunset match
Only in Brazil
The bar/hangout area
The common area aka the gringo drinking area
The private cabins had a little space to themselves on the side of the boat
People who booked private cabins enjoying some deck space

 

Each deck has several bathrooms containing a toilet and a shower, and some have a sink. On the top deck alongside our hammocks we had four bathrooms with a few additional sinks outside of the bathrooms, along with a TV and about 15 power outlets. There are actually a good amount of power outlets scattered around the boat, but they’re almost all in awkward places high on the wall. You can leave your phone there to charge by tucking it behind a soap dispenser or something but forget about trying to charge a laptop unless you’re ready to stand there and hold it. 

Bathrooms on board the boat
Two of the bathrooms on the top deck. Notice the charging ports on each side, where it’s kind of difficult to leave something charging.

 

DAY 1
Our tickets had a 1030AM departure time. Riiight. Anyone who’s traveled in South America knows that 1030 translates to about 130. Yet we still decided to head down to the port to get a good spot around 9am. In the pouring rain, four of us crammed into this miniature clown car taxi with all of our wet bags. The dirt roads were flooded, so the taxi driver refused to drive us all the way to the port. Instead he dropped us off at the top of a muddy hill where we were forced to make the rest of the slippery trek downhill in the pouring rain. I still don’t know why we paid him the full fare, but I’m glad I’d tucked the flip flops away in favor of hiking boots. After dropping my bag in a mud puddle while digging for my ticket, I went straight to the top deck where all of the gringo tourists were stringing up their hammocks. I had some of the guys help me hang mine, partially because I didn’t trust my own knot-tying skills, but also because I was too short to reach the rafters.

The hammocks on the top deck
The top deck hammock area filling up
Dirty hammock selfie
Snapping a quick hammock selfie on the last day before packing up to head into Manaus

 

The deck filled up within about a half hour of our arrival, but we finally left the port at about 110pm, naturally. 

The first day was rainy and grey so I spent most of it tucked away in my hammock stuffing my face with an embarrassing amount of the snacks I’d packed. Around 5pm we were served a delicious chicken noodle soup and bread. Soup isn’t really my idea of a full meal, but with chicken, noodles, and veggies, it was extremely tasty and satisfying. Once it got dark I decided it was appropriate to start drinking beer, which I quickly decided was a huge waste of money. The mini cans of Brahmas were quickly eating up my budget but not giving me the desired level of drunkenness I had set out to achieve in pursuit of a good night’s sleep. After six I settled for a sleepy buzz, but unfortunately the MMA fight blaring on TV well into the middle of the night had a different agenda.

Port

One of the ports

Sunset after the rain

Tiny Brahmas

The Hammock Crew
My hammock buddies. Daniel (the crazy German smirking at the camera) spent his entire three days trying to become a Rubik’s Cube master

 

If you’re a light sleeper like me, a pair of earplugs just won’t do the trick. Bring headphones and charge your phone/mp3 player. I was constantly waking up every time my earplugs came loose. Also every time a baby screamed, someone knocked into my hammock, or the boat made its cringe-worthy screeching metal sound while turning. At like 12 or 2am (I was too sleepy to read my watch properly) the boat blew its horn and woke us all up while pulling into port. In my sleepy, startled state I shouted “iceberg right ahead!” before drifting back to sleep. Good to know I still have a sense of humor while half asleep.

DAY 2
It seemed like only ten minutes later when I heard a man walking around the deck, shouting in Portuguese while rolling up the sides of the boat to reveal glaring morning sunlight. “What an asshole,” I thought, “doesn’t he know people are trying to sleep?” But he was calling us for the world’s earliest breakfast. And as much as I’m not a morning person, I’m also not one to miss a free meal, EVER. So I forced my grumpy ass out of my hammock at 6am and made my way down to the bottom deck for breakfast.

“Breakfast” was a community bin of shitty rolls (aka hot dog buns as we call them in the States), a tub of butter, and overly sweetened coffee. Definitely not the quality of breakfast I’d normally wake up at 6am for. I smuggled an extra piece of bread back to my hammock to coat with the strawberry jelly I’d packed, scarfed it down, then read about two lines from a book before dozing off again. The only good thing about not getting a proper night’s rest on a boat like this is realizing that you have absolutely zero obligations the next day, so you can nap whenever you damn well please. Finally when I woke up for good a couple hours later I mustered the energy to shower.

Showers on the boat are exactly what you’d expect them to be. They pump out brown river water straight from the Amazon, in the same 4×3 room as the communal toilet. It’s not as cold as you’d expect, but not at all warm either. In the humid Amazon temperature I actually found it rather refreshing.

After that my entire day was an endless cycle of reading, napping, and eating. I think I took four or five naps, only leaving my hammock whenever I heard someone shout that it was feeding time. 

Lunch consisted of a basic pasta, rice, beans, and some kind of beef. It’s a good thing it was delicious because it’s basically what we ate for every single meal the rest of the trip. After going for seconds on the pasta and beans I went back to sleep and woke up a half hour before dinner. (Yes, I’ve gained weight.) Dinner was basically the same meal as lunch, except with chicken instead of the beef.

Pasta, rice, and beans
Pasta, rice, and beans for days

 

After dinner I wandered around the boat with my camera to take some shots of the best sunset we’d see while on the river. I nerded out for a good hour or two before retiring back to my hammock to resume reading Killing Pablo.

I slept much better the second night because I wised up and put my headphones in and blared some Deftones for a good twelve hours. Win.

Another boat at port we'd been following for a few spots
Another boat making the same journey
Cruising along
Chugging along the river
Evening cruising
The scenery doesn’t change too much, but it’s sure nice to watch as it passes by
Sunset on the Amazon
Oh and the sunsets are pretty epic

Sunset on the Amazon

DAY 3
I woke up again at 6AM just long enough to ask the girl in the hammock next to me if breakfast was the same as yesterday. When she said yes I covered my face and fell back asleep until about 830.

Upon waking I fixed myself a rather creative breakfast using some vanilla wafers, strawberry jelly, and a smashed ball of bread I dug out of my bag, then showered up to take another nap. We had lunch around noon, and right after loading up on more carbs I noticed the soccer pitch empty, complete with a shoddy looking ball. I was starting to feel restless and fat, so I gathered the gringos to play a game. Before long we were going full-on gringos vs Brazilians, running barefoot on the pitch and sweating our asses off in the afternoon sun. I only made it about 20 minutes before I had to quit from the unbearable blisters forming on my girly feet. I don’t think they missed me though, I was definitely the worst player on both teams.

Afterwards I went to the snack counter and paid 5 reais (about $1.60 USD) for a ham, egg, lettuce, tomato, ketchup, and mayo sandwich because my body was craving some sort of variety. It wasn’t great but it was a nice change. I skipped dinner that evening and instead watched an episode of Parts Unknown, and did some reading and writing before fading off into yet another early slumber.

DAY 4
On Tuesday morning I woke up around 7am to a lot of commotion. I thought it was just everybody making their way to another shitty breakfast, but I quickly realized people were packing up their bags. I looked at the GPS on my phone and we were nearly to Manaus. That woke me up immediately, so I got up and made my way to the front of the boat to see the sprawling city before us, which seemed to have popped up out of nowhere in the middle of the Amazon. Within the hour, the trip was complete in only about 66 hours total.

Manaus
And just like that, a city of almost two million appears out of nowhere

 

The trip was much more comfortable and organized than I was expecting. It’s not really a good way to see wildlife (or maybe we just weren’t looking hard enough) but you’ll get to see some interesting villages and beautiful sunsets. From what I could tell there are a lot of locals and tourists making the trip, so it’s easy to meet people on board if you’re traveling solo. But really, as long as you’re ready to relax and do nothing for a few days, you’re set. It doesn’t hurt to bring along a book or two and some snacks, but it really is very easy to just sway in your hammock and watch the scenery go by while catching up on some serious napping.

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Adventure Brazil Colombia Guide Outdoor Peru Solo Travel South America Tours Travel

Ten Days in the Amazon on a Budget: Part 1

Part of the reason I chose to do an extended trip through South America was because I couldn’t choose where to visit first on a short vacation: Machu Picchu, Rio de Janeiro, Patagonia, or the Amazon. So naturally, I decided to do them all, plus a bunch of other awesome things in between.

As part of my budget adventure, I planned on taking the three-night slow boat through the Amazon from Leticia, Colombia to Manaus, Brazil because this would only cost me $75 with all meals included, as opposed to the $700+ to fly internationally from Colombia to Brazil (more on this coming soon, stay tuned!). So naturally, it made sense to fit my Amazon experience in during my time in Leticia or Manaus.

(Aside from the cost breakdown at the end, this post is all about the two-day tour I took from Leticia. More info about the other seven days in Leticia, Manaus, and the three-night boat journey coming soon.)

My initial search for Amazon tours brought up a ton of options from Manaus. But they also seemed a bit expensive, and seeing as Manaus is a city of nearly two million, I thought it might be an odd place to go off the grid and spend some time in the secluded depths of the Amazon. Luckily when I arrived in the small tri-border town of Leticia, I met three other solo travelers who wanted to do a tour from there. Since there were four of us it ended up being about 1/3 the price that I was budgeting for one from Manaus, at 240,000 COP (roughly $100 USD). Sold.

We chose the two-day, one-night Javari tour from La Jaganga Hostel, and it was everything I wanted in a quick trip to the rainforest. We considered the three-day, two-night trip, but it really didn’t seem to offer many more activities than the two-day.

The trip took us on the Javari River which separates Peru and Brazil. The idea of an organized Amazon tour was really off-putting to me at first, but it’s pretty much the only option unless you want to end up lost in the Amazon by yourself. Luckily, this didn’t feel like a tour at all. Instead it was just us four and our guide, Francisco, and it felt like we were hanging out with a friend who was just showing us around. We didn’t see another tourist until we were heading back to Leticia on day two.

Francisco
The man, Francisco, and his machete after chopping down some tree branches that once stood in our way

Here’s how our two days went:

DAY 1

We left the hostel around 8:30am in a ten-minute taxi ride to the port across the border in Tabatinga, Brazil, where we met with Francisco. With his round belly and beaming, gummy smile, we all instantly loved him. The five of us jumped in the wooden, canopied boat as Francisco turned in three different directions, pointing out Peru, Brazil, and Colombia. After crossing over to Peru for a quick, yet crucial beer run, we took a leisurely boat ride alongside pink and grey dolphins, brown water, and lush green trees.

Amazon Crew
L to R: Max the German, Josh the Aussie, Francisco the Colombian guide, and Susannah the Colombian

Canoeing through the Amazon

The perfect companion for an Amazon boat ride: rum

About three hours into the ride, we passed a house and waved at the kids as we zoomed past. Next thing we knew, Francisco was turning the boat around to take us for a visit. We climbed the stairs to the wide-open room that hovered over the water on stilts. The family of about nine kids and four adults sat inside, grating and cooking yucca, and spoke Portuguese despite being on the Peruvian side. The kids were in charge of peeling and cutting up the yucca before handing it off to the women to press through a machine and then grating it by hand. Then the man cooked it in a giant pan over a fire, and us gringos ate it by the handful. 

House on the Amazon

Making grated yucca

Cooking the yucca

After our afternoon snack, we continued down the river to another house which was one of only a couple that we passed during the whole 3-4 hour boat ride. Like the last, this house was also on stilts. Since it’s rainy season and the forest is flooded we weren’t able to find dry land to hang up the hammocks, so we stayed the night in this house. It was basically two separate “houses” joined by a short outdoor walkway. One was a fantastic, huge kitchen complete with hammocks, a portable cooktop, a wooden table and bench seats. The other was two stories high, and the main sleeping quarters. The top floor appeared to be for the family, and us guests were split up into rooms: boys in one, girls in the other. Each room had two mosquito-net covered beds and mesh windows that looked right out at the river. The three bathrooms each had a refreshing shower that used rainwater from a tub on the roof, and for the most part you felt like you were showering outside. Quite honestly, it was kind of like a wilderness dream house.

An inside shot of the main sleeping area of the house we stayed in. The downstairs had several different rooms and three bathrooms which you can see into there in the back.

My bed

The kitchen
The ginormous kitchen and baby Victoria who was very curious about my camera

Kitchen

View from the front door of the house. The room in the back is the kitchen area.
Neighbors
I think the family owned this house too, right next door

I unloaded my bag in the room and went for a quick swim because I couldn’t resist playing with the most adorable puppy ever who was climbing on some scraps of wood in front of the house. The water was only about thigh-high, a further reminder that the flooded area around the house is actually dry land during the dry season. Totally unimaginable.

Puppy
Baby puppy! The family pet was walking around on some floating boards trying to figure out how to get back up to the house. I just HAD to jump in the water and play with him!

The family prepared us food which was surprisingly phenomenal. I thought it would be a lot of bland rice and beans like most tours, but again, this was nothing like a normal tour. We had yucca, potatoes and beans, lentils, arepas, pork chops, eggs, fish, piranha, pasta, cucumber and onion salad, carambola juice, camu camu juice, spaghetti, and a few other things I didn’t really recognize but loved the taste. It was like eating at an old friend’s mom’s house; they fed us well and there was a ton food every time we sat down.

Dinner plate #1

Dinner plate #2

The family was so friendly. Apparently they live in town, but they built this house as their kind of getaway house, and to host tourists for an extra income. My only regret is that I didn’t speak more Spanish or Portuguese so that I could’ve conversed with them more like the two in our group who were fluent in Spanish.

After we ate, we set out on the boat again to visit a wildlife conservation area, which looked just like another house on stilts in the middle of the rainforest. When we pulled up in the boat two monkeys immediately ran aboard, climbing on our heads, curling up in our laps, and almost instantly finding and devouring the bag of camu camu berries we’d just picked. The whole time we wandered the property, the monkeys followed us around curiously, hanging from the trees while snacking on fruit and watching our every move.

Pepe, the rambunctious monkey

Monkey Business

Monkey
My flash accidentally went off (seriously, I never use a flash) and this monkey jumped and ran after me while screaming. Scariest moment in the Amazon so far.

Then we got the chance to play with an anaconda that was contained in a wooden shack. Snakes don’t scare me, so I wasn’t so much worried about it biting or choking me as I was about not being strong enough to lift it or take it off without dropping it to the ground and pissing it off. Turns out, with a little help, it wasn’t as heavy as I’d thought and I managed to get a photo with it.

Anaconda
Nevermind the snake, look at this guy’s adorable smile.
Prehistoric Turtle
I think this was called a Mata Mata Turtle, some sort of prehistoric turtle that’s only found in the Amazon region

En español, we learned a bit about the gigantic nearly-extinct arapaima fish and some pretty awesome looking turtles, when suddenly we heard this loud, barreling train-like noise, and looked over to see a wall of rain pouring down about a half mile away and a rainbow forming right in front of us. With my camera and lenses in my hand, two of us sought shelter under the house along with a dog and her pups, a few chickens, and a little girl, while everyone else went up into the house. 

Rainbow

After the brief rainstorm, the sky cleared and we headed to a lagoon to watch the sun set while pink dolphins swam around us. It was definitely one of those “holy shit I’m in the Amazon Rainforest” moments, where my dreams as a third grader were finally fulfilled. Now if only I could figure out a way to see dinosaurs and make it to outer space, third grade Kim would be so jealous.

Amazon Sunset

Sunset on the Amazon

We went back to a delicious candlelight dinner when I realized, and revealed, that this was my first candlelight dinner ever. I think everyone laughed at me. Afterwards, Max and I headed out on a canoe to search for some of the nocturnal animals of the Amazon with the neighbor. This guy had a flashlight that could easily illuminate trees fifty feet away as he searched for the different creatures of the night. It was all kinds of awesome just paddling around this wide open lagoon under the light from a nearly full moon and hundreds of stars. We floated around to the choir of jungle animals as our guide pointed out the different sounds of monkeys, tree rats, frogs, and other Amazonian creatures.

Every so often he’d spot a pair of red eyes and paddle closer. Before I knew it he was pulling small caimans into the boat, letting us hold them before throwing them back in the water. They seemed to freeze up as soon as you touched them, and when we threw them back in the water they swayed their body back and forth like they were still in shock before disappearing.

We also saw a snake swimming through the water, a wide-eyed owl perched on a branch only a few feet away, a tarantula clinging to the side of a tree, and I nearly bashed my face into a bat that was hanging on the side of a branch before it got startled and flew away. It was a truly amazing experience that I couldn’t believe the other two had missed out on by going to bed early.

When we got back, Francisco was partying down with some cachaça caipirinhas he’d mixed up. I tried one but it was a bit too sweet for me, and since I was the only non-Spanish speaker still in the room, I got ready for bed and retired for the night by 10pm.

DAY 2

It started getting light out at the absurd hour of 430AM and the family started stirring about just as early. I looked out the window to see grey skies and decided there wouldn’t be a great sunrise so I went back to sleep.

At a slightly more reasonable hour (about 7AM) I finally got up and showered. After another delicious breakfast, we set out in a canoe to go piranha fishing, which was probably the most hilarious experience of the entire two days. Five of us piled into what probably should’ve been a three-person canoe, without life jackets, and set out again with the neighbor guy. The water was about an inch from spilling into the boat and flooding us out, as we cautiously turned our way into the jungle. Every slight move tipped us to the side as I regretted bringing my SLR on board, so I shoved it in my waterproof bag for safe keeping. After about a half hour we ended up in a pretty strong current, which had us bashing into branches, careening straight for a tree. Josh, the Aussie in our group who was paddling in the front, looked for direction on which way to go but the tide carried us much quicker than the guide could direct us. We crashed right into the tree as Josh calmly stood up, quietly mumbled some profanities, and jumped into the water without even rocking the boat. I knew something had happened, but the slow rate at which he calculated his next move and jumped out without capsizing us was rather impressive. Just as quickly, I realized that he’d just ran right into a swarm of wasps when I saw at least a hundred of them flying around a grey nest. Both Josh and the paddle were being pushed downstream with the current and we kind of just sat there watching as the guide backed us up away from the wasps. Josh eventually climbed back on board with stings all over his face and neck, and I held off on making fun of him until later in the evening.

About an hour and a half after setting out, we dropped our poles (sticks with fishing line and a hook tied on, baited with fish) into the water right in the middle of some shrubbery. Almost immediately I could feel the piranhas biting, but the first few times I pulled the hook up those bitches robbed me of my bait. 

Now you should know that I’m a fairly poor sport. I’m fiercely competitive when it comes to dumb shit. I learned early on that I suck at sports and it’s a waste of energy to get pissed because I suck at soccer, basketball, kickball, running, etc. I just do what I can and have fun. But when it comes to things like bowling, beer pong, Mario Kart, tejo, and apparently fishing, I get livid when things don’t go my way. I focus intently and the only words to leave my mouth are usually curse words. So you can imagine the scene as we all sat quietly in a canoe while the piranhas stole my limited bait right off my hook.

Then the guide caught one.

Then Josh caught one.

Then I got pissed. 

Using that anger, on the next nibble I yanked the hook right from the water and voila—a piranha! I shouted a few obscenities, took some pictures, and to add insult to injury to the piranha, the bait was still in tact when we took it off the hook. I dropped the line back down into the water and felt another bite. Again, I pulled a second piranha up less than 20 seconds later, with the same piece of bait. Talk about killing two fish with one piece of bait, suckersss! 

Lunch! My first piranha catch

 

I was on a roll. At this point, Josh had also caught two and stopped for a smoke, Susannah had given up a long time ago, and I put another piece of bait on my hook. We only had a couple of pieces of bait left, and after my adrenaline wore off I realized what a dick I was for baiting up again when Max had yet to catch a fish and was still trying. After another piranha robbed me of that piece, I reluctantly put the pole down and decided to chill out and let Max try to wrangle one in with the last pieces of bait. He didn’t, by the way.

The ride back to the house wasn’t nearly as dramatic as the ride in, as the guide took the helm and guided us through a calmer area full of giant Amazon water lilies. We returned for our last delicious lunch which also included the freshly prepared piranha. They don’t have much meat on their bones, but piranha meat is delicious. It’s not fishy at all, just super juicy and tender.

Amazon Water Lilies
The giant Amazon water lilies are lined with spikes underneath to ward off predators, and can support around 20kg, if not more
Fish lunch
I took this pic through the green mesh screen of the girls preparing our fish right in the river. If I spoke their language I would’ve offered to help.
Sorry not sorry, piranhas. Thanks for being delicious.

Around 2pm we packed up and left the house for another leisurely ride back to Leticia. We saw toucans and tons of other colorful birds flying in the sky, sloths slowly climbing amongst the leaves, huge towering ceiba kapok trees, and all in all completely different scenery as we cut through the jungle.

I don’t really know what’s going on here, but we were trying to take an interesting selfie.

We made it back to Leticia around sunset, as James Blunt’s “You’re Beautiful” BLARED from the Peruvian border. Definitely a weird choice considering how little English music I’ve heard down here, but it gave us a good laugh.

Should you do it?

Duh, that goes without saying. Visiting the Amazon was one of the coolest experiences I’ve had so far, and I barely scratched the surface. It was a fantastic two days and I really think we saw and did a lot. If you do the same tour during the dry season you’ll probably have more options to hike through the rainforest, sleep in hammocks outdoors, and possibly see even more wildlife. But we definitely got to see much more than I thought we would, and I can’t recommend this experience enough. I would love to go back during the dry season and do a longer trip, but come on, $100 for two days of transportation, food, lodging, and activities? Totally worth it. It’s worth noting that the more people you have, the cheaper it is. And if you need a translator you will pay even more, so it helps to have at least one person in your group be fluent in both Spanish and your native language.

Pricing breakdown for ten days in the Amazon region:
Flight from Bogotá to Leticia: $112 (though one guy I met said he booked one for $40, I have no idea how)
Three nights at La Jangada Hostel in Leticia: $30
Two-day, one-night tour: $100
Three-night boat from Leticia to Manaus: $75 (more on this adventure coming soon!)
Two nights in Manaus: $21 (I redeemed hotel points for a free stay, just had to pay taxes. But you can find a hostel for just as cheap.)

Grand total: $338, averaging about $33.80 per day, plus a little extra for food in Leticia and Manaus.

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Colombia Solo Travel South America Tours

Getting Dirty at Volcan el Totumo

So there’s this popular day trip from Cartagena to a place called Volcan el Totumo. It’s a so-called mud volcano, and the whole experience goes a little something like this: strip down to your bikini, climb a steep wooden staircase, descend into a thick, muddy pool of strangers, and get passed around by a bunch of Colombians while a whole slew of tourists watch. Then you walk down the death stairs covered in slippery mud, and join said strangers in a lagoon where you’ll get even more naked and let some women rinse (aka nearly drown) you with buckets of water.

 And yes, this is the most action I’ve gotten in South America. But anyways, I digress.

I first read about Volcan el Totumo in a book (What I Was Doing While You Were Breeding). Then a few travelers I met raved about how hilarious of an experience it was and insisted that I do it. Since I was still in those first days of a trip when money isn’t an issue, I was sold as soon as I heard the word volcano. So I spent about $35 USD to hitch a ride from Hostel Mamallena for a quick half day trip. Of course the 9:00 AM departure was more like 9:45 AM (because, Colombia), but after another hour or so on the road we pulled up to the giant ant hill.

The mud volcano

Maybe the word volcano doesn’t quite translate, but this thing looks like nothing more than a giant manmade pile of dirt. It juts out of nowhere, and it’s definitely everything you’d expect from a tourist trap. They claim that this measly 50-foot-high pile of dirt was once a legit volcano that used to erupt fire and lava, until one day a priest sprinkled holy water on it because he thought it was evil. Now it’s just full of non-evil mud.

Right. And I used to be a six-foot tall supermodel with a yoga body until some giant squished me back down to 5’2″. I’m calling bullshit on this one. 

When we arrived our group was told to store all of our valuables together in a locker and leave our shoes and clothes out on the table. I threw my stuff in, took off everything but my bikini and my camera, and walked my way barefoot across the stones to the wooden staircase. I followed a line of other tourists up to the top where we waited at least 25 minutes in the sun, awkwardly watching people get rubbed down in the mud.

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Mud pit

Finally when it was my turn I handed my camera over to a pre-pubescent boy who was also snapping pics with about four other cameras. I made my way down the mud-crusted ladder before the man at the bottom grabbed me and pulled me on my back. The mud was thick and gritty. There were bits of rocks, twigs, and who knows what else, but I was surprised how much I floated. I clenched my gut abs and lifted my neck to keep my hair out of the mud. The Colombian man shouted at me in Spanish, but I couldn’t understand what he was saying. Then he lifted handfuls of mud and poured them on my chest, and made a notion for me to lay my head back. I finally relaxed and lowered my hair into the thick mess, and immediately it filled my ears. I raised my head slightly to the side, thinking it would drain out like water does, but no such luck. This stuff was thick and it cut off my hearing almost completely, and the guy seemed annoyed that I was moving so much. So I just lay there partially deaf while this man ran his hands all over my body and people crashed into my feet.

Awkward
Okay… this is weird… 
Oh he’s taking a picture, do something cool!


After a minute or two he passed me along to the next woman in line. I wouldn’t say it’s as much of a massage as it is just some people rubbing their hands all over your body. There were way too many people in the mud hole to be comfortable or even the tiniest bit relaxed, and I kept bashing my head into the side while nearly scraping my nose on a beam that stuck out a good few inches from the side. 

Once the woman was finished with me she passed me on to another pre-teen boy who told me to flip over. I felt like I had entered the Superman pose, P90X style, while trying to keep my face above the mud. He rubbed my belly, which was super awkward as I totally gave up on sucking in.

When I was finished with my rubdown I decided to float around to try and understand why on earth so many people recommended this. And to at least feel like I got my money’s worth. I smeared the mud all over my face in hopes that I’d emerge with younger, healthier skin, or whatever sort of benefit this thing was supposed to have. But it was so crowded I just kept running into random people, our nearly naked bodies knocking against one another as I grabbed for something non-sexual to hold onto. 

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After a few minutes I’d had enough. I climbed the rungs of the slippery ladder, and the mud weighed down my already-loose bottoms as I struggled to hold them up and maintain my balance. Paying no mind to my disappearing bottoms, another Colombian man wiped the mud off of me. I climbed the rest of the way feeling like I’d dropped a huge load in my bottoms and they were sagging off of me. 

The first few steep, wooden steps down were terrifying. I thought for sure I was going to unintentionally slide my way down, breaking an ankle or two along the way. After arriving safely at the bottom I followed the herd to this small lagoon to be rinsed off. Before I was even in the water two women came over to me with buckets and started cleaning me like an infant. The expectation here is that you’ll tip them with a few thousand pesos once you’re sparkling clean from river water.

One woman took my hair out of the ponytail holder and dumped buckets of water over my head in what seemed like slow motion. After my upper half was clean, she then said “bottoms” in a thick accent, which I assumed meant to take off my bottoms. So in waist high water, I kneeled down and pulled my bottoms off. I felt strangely liberated, and the murky water made it so no one could see my girly bits, but I also wondered what was lurking next to my exposed womanhood.

SHOULD YOU DO IT?

I think it’d probably be a lot more fun if you’re with a group of friends, and probably even better if you drive yourselves there and arrive early ahead of the crowds. But when you go solo, it’s just borderline creepy because you have no one to laugh with. I really don’t think you’re missing out though if you skip this, as you can definitely recreate the situation in your own back yard, and probably pull in a profit if you throw in some wrestling.

Categories
Colombia Living Abroad Solo Travel South America

A New Year, A New Life

South America, I’ve arrived via Colombia!

After what felt like a decade of packing and planning, I finally finished most of my pre-trip list and got to bed at 130am Tuesday morning. I was right back up an hour and twenty minutes later to get ready for my flight. Turns out it’s impossible to sleep when you’ve got a massive trip coming up.

Donning several sweaters, a scarf, and a bulky pair of hiking boots, we drove to Detroit in the pitch black, 18-degree weather at 4am. It felt just like every other Monday morning after a holiday when I would fly back to New York before resuming a grueling workweek. Thankfully that wasn’t the case this time. Instead I was heading to 90 degrees, sunshine, and carefree days spend exploring instead of sitting behind a computer.

After showing proof that I did in fact plan on leaving Colombia despite my one-way ticket, I got my boarding pass and made my way to the gate. One three-hour flight, two-hour (delayed) layover, and a two-and-a-half hour flight later, we landed in Cartagena.

Cartagena Sunset

I dropped my stuff off in my hotel and made it to Cafe del Mar just in time for an incredible sunset. As I stood there watching that red ball fall into the ocean, I couldn’t help but think “this is it. The trip you’ve been planning for so long, it’s here. And you don’t have to go back next week, or ten days from now. You go back whenever the hell you’re ready to go back or when you run out of money. And it’s up to you what “go back” even means. But right now, you have the next few months planned to just do what you love most: travel, explore, and meet new people.”

This is the first time in my life where my focus is to simply enjoy life. I know I haven’t even been here 24 hours yet, but I feel happy and free. I’m incredibly grateful that I learned early on to play by my own rules by going after what I want and building a life that’s worth living. That direction may keep changing as I learn and grow, but one thing’s for sure is that I’ll always be happy with my decisions.

Wherever you may be celebrating in the world, if you’re still looking for a New Year’s resolution why not make it to simply enjoy life in 2015? Rather than setting up a resolution with high expectations and a possibility for disappointment, take the time to focus on the things that really matter to you. Whether that’s family, friends, travel, or spending more time pursuing a hobby, ensuring that you’re able to recognize the important things in life and enjoy every single day that you’re fortunate enough to wake up in good health is one resolution that can’t go wrong.

So as we ring in a new year, the year in which I will enter my 30’s, my New Year’s resolution is to simply see more sunrises. I’m not a morning person at all, but as it’s probably the most peaceful time of day, I want to see the sun come up in some of these amazing places that I’ll be visiting over the next few months. It’s not 2015 yet (in this part of the world), but I woke up to my first sunrise today without even trying.

Happy New Years everybody! Do you have any other great resolutions? Comment below!

Cartagena Sunrise