The Rum Diaries Part XXVI

This is another questionable addition to the Rum Diaries...but only insofar as we have already tried and tested the Flor de Caña 7 year (and will undoubtedly be testing the 10, 12 and 24 year varieties as well).

Nevertheless, the 4 year old gets extra points for being bought in the duty-free haven of Panama and costing a mere $5.50 for a litre.....oooh yeah. A preview of Nicaragua!! As usual, Flor de Caña proves to be a highly drinkable and very tasty little drop. Definately the best thing to come out of Nicaragua...ever.

 

Don’t worry, be happy.

Diving off a yacht into the turquoise waters of the Caribbean and swimming to a deserted island is about as good as it gets I have to say. Actually, I take it back…doing all that and then returning to find fresh lobster for dinner is as good as it gets.

 

Sailing from Cartagena to Panama is probably the best decision we’ve made since leaving Australia. We had an awesome group, the scenery was insanely beautiful and we had a freaking ball. The winds were behind us and we made it to the San Blas archipelago in record time- 26 hours- meaning we scored extra time cruising the calm lagoons and exploring sparsely populated islands of often just one indigenous Kuna family.  

Sorry, I’m trying not to sound smug but seriously….it was like living in a Conde Nast brochure for five days.

We were blessed with a group of eighteen like-minded people who didn’t mind the odd beer and necked rum with abandon. By day we swam, kayaked, snorkelled, drank rum and talked shit. At night we had fires on the beach, boogied to sweet tunes provided by DJ Sushi and drank more rum. Repeat. End to fade.

 

To say the captain was eccentric would be the biggest understatement ever made. It would take too long to explain fully and to be honest, I still don’t understand what the fuck he was talking about for the most part….so I’ll just sum up the most important points.

1. Petroleum comes from Venus and was deposited on Earth in the time of Moses (!)
2. The Roman Empire is a myth made up by the Catholic Church in order to justify their money-grubbing. Never existed.
3. Adam (yep, of Eden fame) actually lived to 930 years of age and since his time people have been dying earlier (poor old Moses only made it to 120). The Bible is historically accurate (though strangely he didn’t call himself Christian)
4. Here’s the clincher…evolution is absolutely false. You know all that scientific evidence supporting Darwin’s theory? All doctored, all a load of rubbish.

WTF doesn’t really begin to cover it does it? Still, he kept us afloat and was nothing if not entertaining so he has all my thanks.

So although it was a bit of an expensive outlay ($550 odd bucks for the trip and I dare not think how much extra money we poured into beer & rum supplies) it was worth every fucking penny and I would pay it again in a heartbeat. If you ever get the chance, take it.

The Rum Diaries Parts XXIII, XXIV and XXV- special PIRATE edition featuring Matt Turnbull & Duncan Bould

Probably the most impressive thing about this three part series of the Rum Diaries is that all three bottles were consumed in one day (and that several bottles of Abuelo Panamanian rum followed). The first swig was outside the immigration office in Cartagena at around 7:55am as we waited for them to open. Pretty much set the tone for the five days on board that followed.

Soooo, first cab off the rank was Bacardi Añejo (made in Mexico but I guess technically Puerto Rican), courtesy of Matt, which weirdly we’ve never seen anywhere else and got two thumbs up from the pirate crew. That one was finished while the Cartagena skyline was still in view and closely followed by….

Ron Botran de Oro, a Guatemalan rum which was also rather pleasing (or at least disappeared in a similarly short time) but perhaps not worth the cost ($20). The experience was definitely richer for the classy 50’s crystal glasses we found to drink from (kindly modelled by Duncan below)

Last for the Rum Diaries on board, but far from the last bottle of rum consumed, was Baluarte Añejo from Cartagena, Colombia which we decided had a bit of a weird taste (though it’s also possible judgements were slightly clouded by this stage).

Luckily the captain sold rum on board. Unluckily there is only so much rum a 60-foot yacht can carry and we drank the boat dry of rum by day four. Arrggg, Captain Morgan would be proud.  

Realising you're hardcore...priceless

It’s pretty amazing really. Despite years of strenuous resistance to any form of exercise, despite approximately 9 months (ok, let’s be honest, 20 years) of regular beer therapy, it seems that I am, in fact, rather fit (not at all meant in the pommy sense of the word by the way).

After chatting to a few travellers who had hiked to the Ciudad Perdida, I was pretty apprehensive. Most had found it challenging, a few hellish, and all of them had railed against the number of flesh eating insects who were seemingly determined to keep anyone from “finding” the Lost City of the Tayrona.

As it turns out, I needn’t have worried. Although there were a few tough stretches (nasty 40 minute uphill sections loom large in my memory here), for the most part it was fairly relaxed walking. Unbelievably, the fastest walkers were all Australian, even though we had a couple of Swiss (renowned obsessive hiking-types) and Dutch (loooooong legged advantage) in the group.

The hike takes you through the dense jungly foliage of the Sierra Nevada mountain range- the overwhelming impression is of cloying humidity, pulsating heat and more shades of green than a Derwent pencil box. Fortunately every day of hiking was punctuated by swims in the crystal clear mountain streams along the way, and most nights we camped next to a river.

Most people will tell you that the journey is more impressive than the destination, however the ruins themselves are pretty spectacular. Like Machu Picchu, the setting is really what takes your breath away.

The Sierra Nevada region used to be home to most of Colombia’s illegal coca cultivation. For years the trek to the Lost City was closed due to problems with paramilitary groups, drug production, kidnappings and conflict. Thanks to the heavy Colombian army presence and obsessive US foreign policy the area is now deemed safe for tourists, though frequent helicopter flyovers and a permanent army base at Ciudad Perdida are a constant reminder of days gone by.  

Only a year ago, trekking companies were taking groups for tours of jungle cocaine labs, complete with a “sample” at the end. In an attempt to stamp out demand for cocaine, the US concentrated their efforts at the source- fumigation of crops which led to widespread poisoning of the regions indigenous communities; manual eradication techniques which were thwarted by landmines. While the Sierra Nevada today is largely free of large scale coca production, demand for cocaine has by no means slowed, and production has merely shifted to other regions of Colombia, Peru and Bolivia.

While it would have been interesting to see what a line of marching powder would have done to group morale, we were forced to go for the more acceptable forms of energy such as oranges and bananas.

Although the campsites sold beers, we toughed it out and waited until the last day to crack open a cold one and celebrate finishing the trek in style. I think it’s fair to say that a few people in our group were somewhat impressed by our ability to storm up hills and sink cans with equal enthusiasm.

Palomino....el Caribe as it should be

After seeing the barren desert of La Guajira it was a relief to arrive in Palomino and find the kind of landscape you picture when you conjur up the Caribbean. White sands, palm trees and beachfront juice shacks, oh yeah.

Coupled with the fisherman who delivered fresh king prawns every afternoon and we were in heaven. Prawny, sunny, salty heaven.

La Guajira- standing on the tip of South America

La Guajira peninsula is Colombia's outback- untamed, sparsley populated, extremly remote and dry as dry can be. The peninsula juts out to form the northern most point of the South American continent; Punta Gallina (Chicken Point) is every bit as wind blown and rugged as you would expect the edge of a continent to be...and somewhat more windblown and rugged than I imagined the Caribbean coastline coud be.

Apparently people have been trying to tame this wild outpost for years- English pirates, Spanish conquistadors and later the Colombian authorities. The Wayyu indians have resisted such attempts for centuries and even today the region has a lawless feeling that comes from being simply too far from the centers of power for anyone to care what happens.

From Riohacha to Cabo de la Vela (the easiest part of the pensinsula to get to) it is around 3.5 hours of bumping along dusty red roads. Crammed into the back of a pickup truck wth us were 10 other adults, two children and a baby. We piled out in Cabo and quickly found a beachfront hut where we rented a couple of hammocks and settled in to the comatose pace of La Guijira.

 

With about 1500 inhabitants, Cabo is one of the bigger towns on the pensinsula, but still relies on generators for electricty and has to bring in all its fresh water. Being closer to Venezuela than any Colombian city of reasonable size, beer is mostly the Venezuelan Polar brand and contraband gasoline from across the border powers the generators and fishing boats.

We arranged transport up to Punta Gallina- half an hour or so by car to Puerto Bolivar and a two and half hour boat ride up to the northern tip of La Guajira. A few scattered familes live in almost complete isolation up here. The land is dry and barren, the sea wild and dangerous. It's hard to imagine a more unforgiving place to live.

On our second day we drove out to the massive sand dunes that rise steeply from the Caribbean, with spectacular views of the coastline and setting sun. The car overheated on the way and to make sure we arrived in time for sunset our driver bounced crazily along the sandy track as we bounced around like sacks of potatoes in the open top tray.

 

We arrived just in time to race up the steep slopes of the dunes and watch the sun dipping below the horizon.

Stunning.

The Rum Diaries Part XXII

Hmmm, I'm not sure there is really much to say about a poorly thought out midnight purchase of rum in the plaza of Guatape. We divvied this one up between 7 or 8 of us so we only got one hefty glass each. Tres Esquinas Añejo is a fairly pissweak rum out of Cartagena de Indias on the Caribbean coast. I wouldn't seek it out again, but if we ever find ourselves thirsty in a plaza somewhere late at night again, I'm sure it would do the job.