Our favorites
Favorite city?
Ben: Puerto Baquerizo Moreno – the town on San Cristobal Island. Tons of accessible beaches, sea lions everywhere – the whole town was very easy to get around on foot and not too touristy (still a bit, but way less than Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz). We showed up here with nothing booked and found a lovely hostel where we stayed for 6 days in a chill little paradise. We were only like 30 minutes on boat from Kicker Rock, a sweet dive site, and at the beaches we were swimming with sea turtles, sea lions, and marine iguanas. Would go back in a heartbeat.
Meg: I have two answers, because they are my favorite in different ways. The Galápagos Islands were my favorite for the natural beauty. Stunningly unique landscapes, brilliant blue waters, so many exotic animals/birds/plants everywhere you turn. It truly is a nature lovers paradise. But my favorite town culturally would probably be Jardin. It was so traditional. Caballeros wearing wide-brimmed hats riding into the main town square on their horses to sit with their pals and sip tinto all day long. Old women posting up at tables and chitchatting/gossiping with their gals. The old colonial architecture. It felt like I was stepping back in time.
Least favorite city?
Ben: Prolly Santa Marta. Just nothing to do really – it’s a great access point to Minca and Tayrona National Park but the town – eh. Quito could have “won” least favorite due to it’s lack of safety after dark, but was saved by it’s views and ice cream cones.
Meg: Obviously each city is unique and great in it's own way. I really did enjoy everywhere we went. However, force me to pick a least favorite and I would probably pick Bogota. It was a fine city, but typical of any other big city I've been to. Lots of great restaurants and nightlife, sure. But not the most culturally unique city and certainly not the prettiest. Served as a good resting city when we were craving something more "Westernized" or modern, but I wouldn't go back just to visit Bogota.
Favorite day?
Ben: The day we rented motorbikes in Guatape was awesome. Driving through the windy roads in the Colombian countryside was really outstanding, and the waterfalls and swimming holes we found at along the way were amazing and secluded – absolutely loved that day. Runner-up: The day we went to the soccer match in Medellin.
Meg: So many options. Mountain biking down Cotopaxi Volcano National Park might take the cake though. First runner up: Finding a random path across lava rocks on San Cristobal Island leading to a secret beach with swimming dinosaurs. Second runner up: Renting scooters in Guatape and cruising around the reservoir.
Least favorite day?
Ben: I mean the day we drove back from the Amazon on the bus for 9 hours blew. So did the day with the 4 flights, but obviously travel days aren’t for fun. Of the other days, the day we arrived at Golden Frog hostel on the Rosario Islands was pretty strange – the diving before was good but it was super hot and humid with no breeze and pretty crap food and the hostel really disappointed.
Meg: We had some really long and brutal travel days. My least favorite was our journey from the Amazon back to Quito. First, we woke up at 5am to go birding in the Amazon. Hardly worth it because we didn't see much. Then after a quick breakfast, piled in the motorized canoe for a 3 hr ride upriver back to the nearest town. Then hopped in a van to take us 1.5 hrs back to the main town. Then scrambled to find a seat on the public bus to take us on the 8 hr trip back to Quito. Oh and then we had another 45 min cab ride from the Quito bus station to our hostel. Absolutely brutal.
Favorite experience?
Ben: Pre-gaming for the soccer match with all the locals in Medellin. Streets absolutely swamped with people drinking and going crazy despite it being an unimportant match on a Wednesday afternoon. We got some great street food and local drinks and really enjoyed being the only gringos seemingly in the entire stadium.
Meg: Diving in the Galapagos. Diving in general is awesome and so much fun. Factor in all of the schools of fish and sharks and rays and turtles and sea lions we saw? Unbelievable.
Favorite moment?
Ben: Either the sunset from the hostel in Minca or when a shark turned right towards me from a few feet away while diving in the Galapagos Islands.
Meg: Watching the sunrise in my hammock overlooking the Caribbean Sea in Tayrona National Park.
Most scenic spot?
Ben: Top of El Penon in Guatape no doubt.
Meg: In Guatape, we climbed 659 stairs to the top of a ginormous rock called El Penon with amazing views of the entire reservoir. We could see the islands/peninsulas and waterways for miles and miles. Plus, we went during golden hour, which always makes things look better.
Favorite food?
Ben: Blackberry soft-serve ice cream in Quito. So good – you just pull a quarter out of the pocket and trade it with someone holding a cone on the street without breaking stride. Not sure why this cone-quarter trade system is so popular in Quito, but it is such an amazing system. The drawback to this relatively lax cone regulation is the frequent brain-freezes. Worth it though. Also, Scorpion fish at the local street vendors on Santa Cruz in the Galapagos. I think they drowned it in butter and garlic but man that was phenomenal. The empanadas in Medellin were really amazing too.
Meg: For the most part, I didn't really like Colombian style cuisine. Lots of unseasoned meats and far too many starches. But I did really enjoy the fruits. So many fresh and unique fruits. And fruit juices too! There were always street vendors selling freshly squeezed juices or chopped up fruit in the morning. And lots of fruterias had fruits that aren't found much outside of Colombia/South America - uchuvas, guanabana, lulo, pitaya, etc. My favorites were the uchuvas (little orange berry things, called Cape Gooseberries in the States apparently) and the salted mango. Sounds odd but they would slice up unripened mango and serve it with lime and salt. I thought it was delicious and had it frequently. Ben did not like it so much.
Favorite snack?
Ben: The little uchuvas fruits were amazing little guys to noms on, but cheese tris were a nice replica of cheetohs from home so I’ll go with them.
Meg: CheeseTris. Not quite as good as Cheetos, but a solid substitute.
Most stressful moment?
Ben: Hmmm. I was pretty nervous to get on the inter-island ferry in the Galapagos, but the waves weren’t bad and I felt fine the entire time – it was actually a gorgeous ride. My heart jumped quite a bit when I saw the bus start pulling away while waiting for my empanadas in some random Ecuadorian villiage but I knew Meg was aboard and they wouldn’t leave without me… so not that either I guess. Just typing aloud here. When I heard about the bombing in Bogota and we were due to head back to Bogota in 2 days I was a bit stressed – I was immediately looking stuff up on my phone about the bombing and if it might impact us or if it would be near where we would be staying (it was).
Meg: On our way from Villa de Leyva to Bogota, we decided to stop in the middle and go check out the salt cathedral in Zipaquira. However, Zipa isn't on the bus line from Villa de Levya to Bogota, so the bus driver drops us off on the side of a road in a tiny town called Briceno and tells us to wait at the intersection for the bus to Zipa. We had no idea when the bus was coming, which intersection, which direction the bus would be coming from, or even if our broken Spanish had correctly communicated where we wanted to go. All we knew was that we were on the side of the road with no internet and no one around who could speak English. After awhile of waiting around, we start to get real nervous. Luckily our patience prevailed and a bus with "Zipa" on the front of its eventually pulls around a corner. Phew.
Thing missed most from home?
Ben: Milk. Bacon. Ice water. Cheese curds. Jack. A place to totally unwind. Efficiency of anything.
Meg: Jack, of course. Also friends and family.
Thing missed most from South America?
Ben: Everyone's general happiness and helpfulness. The ability to go somewhere remote and fairly untraveled. The cheapness of pretty much everything – shit is expensive back home! Everything seemed easy to navigate by walking down there, cities are dense with a lot of random stuff going on outside all the time – in the states everything seems so spread out and going from place to place is a bit more of a production.
Meg: The fresh fruits! And the super friendly locals.