After the heat of Santa Marta we headed up into the Sierra Nevada to the village of Minca to base ourselves for waterfall walks, bird watching and to visit a working coffee plantation.
Our first morning we got up at 6pm and walked UP the hills further to a bird watching garden. I think our bird extravaganza at the National Aviary had spoilt us a bit as we had seen so much close up. We enjoyed the great views and a multitude of hummingbirds until the sun hit a certain angle and they disappeared. That was our call to head back down the hill/mountain for breakfast. One of the things we are loving most about Colombian food is the fresh juice smoothies - ingredients being the fruit of your choice and ice.. The girls have at least one a day. In the heat they are the best cool down. After an aforementioned fruit drink stop at the Lazy Cat cafe we headed out to Marinka Waterfalls for a swim and late pizza 🍕 lunch. The walk was so hot and so uphill but we made it!! The waterfall was cold and the best cool down to recover for the walk back. It was our biggest day so far with 24k steps in total. Day 2 in Minca started with a tour of La Victoria Coffee where they grow and manufacture 40 tonnes of coffee a year. All with machinery still going from the early 1900s - the whole site is largely powered by a hydro generator powered by water flowing down the mountains. It supplies enough for everything except the fuel powered coffee bean dryer. We followefmd up the tour with a beer tasting across the road at a thatched hut 🛖 selling a local artesian beer. It was pretty surreal sitting in what felt like the middle of nowhere surrounded by jungle hills. Thankfully we had taxied up the 7km to the site so it was a hot but manageable walk back down to iceblocks and cold drinks!
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Our four nights in Santa Marta were filled with great meals, the best gelato of the trip so far and a walk filled adventure out to Taganga where Rob did two dives on our last day.
We stayed at the amazing Casa Gaitana where two of our nights were in the Presidential Suite where we had two seperate sleeping areas, a walk in wardrobe (ie we could spread out our backpack and big suitcase without it filling half our room like normal) , and a big balcony. It was too hot to really use but great to dry our washing 😂. It was the perfect slow down to get used to travelling and the heat. Hopefully good prep for adventures and walking in Minca and Tayrona National Park. Thanks to Google translate and our Air BNB reception we were able to book a taxi (thanks Gonzales) for the day to take us out to the national Aviary in Baru. Filled with an amazing array of birds 🦅 in what appeared a really well run facility was hopefully good prep for birdwatching in Minca.
The place was obviously very popular with the birds as outside the aviarys it seems many different varieties of birds had also selected it as their home. In particular my parrot 🦜 friends above the Coke machine. It was hot, humid and well worth the 90 minute drive. Our drive was just as much of an adventure as Gonzales drove through a puddle that ended up being more of a hole! We were immediately stuck but after all getting out we were also immediately rescued. Every passing motorbike stopped so there was a team of 10+ to lift/push/pull the car out and we could continue. That was on top of the 10+ watching and making sure everything turned out ok. After the aviary we headed 1km further to the coast along a bumpy sandy road to enjoy Playa Blanca. We booked a table and day bed in the shade at Playa Surf and spent the afternoon swimming, sleeping (me) and enjoying a great beach meal and cold drink. The girls loved the water and it was incredibly picturesque with its aqua blue water. Cartagena was our first Colombia stop. We have just spent 5 days there exploring the old town and some of the coast with a visit to the National Aviary and Playa Blanca (seperate post to come).
Highlights of our 5 days include: - A great Air BNB within the old walls which meant we could walk everywhere and come back to our own aircon space to easily refresh - Quero Arepa restaurant where we ate 4 times - Arepas are thick corn bread we have been served instead of toast and breakfast or split open and filled with meats, beans, cheese etc - Streets filled with beautiful old buildings and flower filled balconies - Sunset 🌅 drinks atop the historic town walls at Cafe Del Mar - Rooftop meal at Henry’s with a view across to San Filipe castle - Experiencing our first tastes of Colombia food. Restaurante Robert and Restaurante Rebelion Alma & Sabor - Exploring the Naval Museum - Parque Centenario where we saw a sloth 🦥 and monkeys After a frantic, intense four weeks of planning and booking (13 flights thanks to Rob, and 92 nights of accommodation in 7 countries) we landed in Los Angeles for our first night of the trip. Short Version: - Pool closed 😫 - Santa Monica Pier - Great night sleep in a bed (not an upright plane seat 💺) - Hollywood sign and Hollywood Walk of Fame - Lunch in Beverly Hills catching up with Elizabeth - Walk down Rodeo Drive and to the Beverly Hills park - Driving the mansion filled streets - Venice Beach …continued below for long version
Hoi An is a beautiful old town, it is packed with amazing little buildings and absolutely packed with tourists. Luckily we knew it would be this busy or it could have been a bit of a shock. At nighttime the streets were as busy as Oxford Circus but the lantern lit alleys and most delicious meals all made it worthwhile.
Our highlights included a fantastic cooking class with www.hoianecocookingclass.com We had a action packed morning that started with exploring the local markets. From there we went to the cooking school and started with some crab hunting (all crabs safely returned to the mangroves after) in bucket boats before the real fun of the cooking lesson. For two hours we were taught everything from how to make rice paper from scratch to firing up a tomato sauce for grilled eggplant. Sophia and Olivia had very special treatment and pretty much did everything that we did. It all finished up with a grand lunch of all our creations. We stayed at the Jade Hotel while in Hoi An - they had a calm, oasis of a garden with a great pool. What really made the place special though was the attention and kind service from Jesse. Nothing ever felt like too much trouble, every morning we had little messages on our plates and every afternoon when we returned we had petal and grass messages on our bed. For our final night in this area we headed to the Sheraton Grand Da Nang though. It felt wonderful to have 24 hours of luxury. Apart from the amazing sea view the 240 meter pool easily kept us busy and was the best way to spend our time there. From Hanoi we headed out to Ca Ba, an island to the South of Halong Bay. We headed here primarily to try the rock climbing and kayaking that Rob had read about. To get here we caught a 2 hour taxi to the Ben Binh pier and caught a 45 minute hydrofoil to the main town strip. It got a bit hairy towards the end and we later heard we were the last ferry for a couple of days to do that crossing.
Accomodation in Cat Ba town isn’t flash but we found a clean, basic place to call home for the next three nights. We spent out first day on a great kayaking and climbing tour with Asia Outdoors. We took a beautiful junk boat out to islands in the bay to kayak for 2 hours, enjoy a lunch on board and then spend the afternoon on a deserted strip of beach climbing the huge cliffs. The pictures tell it all but I was so proud of how well and fearless Sophia and Olivia were climbing to the top of each of the four climbs set up. We enjoyed roof top drinks and dinner at Mona Restaurant and eating twice at Oasis 2 which had a pool to use. Everyone was so nice there and as the beaches were not what we expected this was a great way to cool down a bit with pizza and cold milkshakes. After the calm and peace of Laos, Hanoi was a big change in pace. The first skill we had to master was crossing the road. These were jam packed with scooters carrying anywhere from one person to a whole household or people or belongings. It really just came down to getting up the nerve, looking for a gap and then making a determined, nerve racking effort.
Hanoi was filled with fantastic meals, from the street food to the modern restaurants. Our two top restaurants in Hanoi were: 4Ps - mains were about 150,000 each and really worth it. This places was more upmarket than we have been used to but we felt like sitting down in an air con and for the girls to be able to have a pizza. They had a great been and wine list so I had a rare glass of wine here. Hong Hoai’s This place is amazing, the food is fresh, comes in huge servings and really reasonable in price. The people working here are also super friendly and helpful so we tried a few dishes that we had never tried before. The make your own post lettuce wraps were a highlight! If you are in Hanoi with kids, apart from all the great eating experiences, we’d recommend: Water Puppet theatre - there are a few but we went to the Thang Long theatre near the lake. For about 100,000 dong each we enjoyed an hour show. So much we ended up buying a wooden water puppet after to remind us of our afternoon. With a live band and of course the amazing water puppet show it made a great, cool afternoon’s entertainment. http://www.thanglongwaterpuppet.org Night Markets (and the more low key day one at Dong Xuan Market) - these are great for wandering and checking out the local specialities. Vietnamese Womens Museum - created to share history and cultural heritage of Vietnamese women and improve gender equality, this museum was a really interesting walk through of marriage, birth, life, war and cultural celebrations in Vietnam http://www.womenmuseum.org.vn Again we used grab taxis with our app everywhere. It made booking and paying so much easier when we sadly have no Vietnamese language understanding at all. Every single restaurants had wifi so we could always also order them home. I had always heard amazing things about Laos but had also always wanted to travel near beaches and the water. I am so glad we found time this trip to spend a week in Luang Prabang and surrounds. Now I just want to back and explore more parts. 7 days was the perfect amount of time to see the main attractions around Luang Prabang and also take a side trip up a river off the Mekong to see rural life and the amazing scenery Laos seems packed with. For anyone planning a trip hopefully the below is helpful. Just expand beneath the photos. For more details on exactly what we paid, where we stayed or how we got around just contact me via the form and I can share our travel planner. Click below to continue.
We had a hot, busy 6 days in Kuala Lumpur and Melaka, as the blog hasn’t been working I am going to just list all the amazing things we did. 3 days in each was still enough to do a lot and if we had planned in more time I would have extended the trip to some of the stunning East Coast islands.
Kuala Lumpur:
Melaka
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