2021 Christmas in Chicago and 2022 January in Colombia

      After a two year Covid travel hold, Denyse and I went on a five week trip to Chicago and Colombia.

Here's the story.....

      Getting to Chicago from Alamosa, CO involves a 6AM Christmas Day bus ride that ends in downtown Denver at 11:30 AM.  Then a Metro light rail ride to DEN, flight to Chicago and arrival about 6PM for a nice North Shore AIRBNB.   



But the real reason to head to Chicago was to see (almost) two month old Aerin.   




     After a nice visit in Chicago at 4AM New Year's Day we returned to OHare for a flight on Spirit Airline for a trip to Medellin, Colombia.  There we were faced with an already growing crowd attempting to get on a 5:30 Spirit flight to Ft. Lauderdale.   With new requirements to fly to Colombia (Spirit had not warned us about), with staff vastly outnumbered by customers, references to use technology we don't have, and apparent lack of airline staff showing up for work on 1/1/2022 we didn't make the flight. (To this date no response from Spirit).   However, American had a flight to Miami later in the day with flight on to Medellin early on January 2nd.  We took it....all was fine (except for price). And after all night in Miami airport we arrived on schedule and settled in Colombia.

    This was our second extended stay in Medellin which is a city with year-round 70 degree days, 60 degree nights and (in January) a little rain every three to four days.  Small coffee on the street is equal to 21 cents($US),  lunch-of-the-day (including soup, meat and rice) is $3 (US) and a modern elevated Metro ride is 75 cents ($US).     

    In addition to Medellin we traveled to three outlining towns.....two of which were multi-day trips.  

    We traveled via bus (1.5 hours) to Santa Fe De Antioquia a small town near Medellin.  They were cleaning up the plaza for removal of a stage etc.  Seems we missed the weekend fiesta by one day.  Still a very old colonial town with narrow streets, parks and lots of kids chasing pigeons. Good restaurant with portraits of local athletes.  Interesting combination of Football (soccer), Cycling, Olympic Sports etc.  Cycling in Colombia is a popular sport especially since a couple years ago a Colombian won the Tour de France. 


     In two to three day trips out of town we next went to a river preserve about four hours out of town.  The Reserva Natural Canon de Rio Claro is a stunning canyon with a marble bed.  Denyse went zip lining, and through a underground  cavern with a small river running through it ending in a water fall into the main river.  I just took a walk along the river.   By the way, four hour bus ride is about $10US per person.

     https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g1602461-d7597666-Reviews-Canon_del_Rio_Claro_Reserva_Natural-Puerto_Triunfo_Antioquia_Department.html


     Our other out-of-city trip was a return to Jardin, a small town again four hours our of Medellin that we had visited before.    


    Jardin is a few hundred feet higher than most cities and an interesting combination of rural farming village and tourist get-away from the big cities.  Most distinctive is the square in front of this church.  The square is filled with chairs and tables for outdoor dining/drinking/sitting with services from the various bars/restaurants at the sides of the square.  Each restaurant has chairs with a different paint scheme so you need to sit at the section you wish to be served from that particular cafe/restaurant.  At early evening the square is filled with families, vendors of even more food options, a couple horses on display at one corner of the square and groups of young boys and girls eyeing each other.  Weekend room rates two blocks off the square are about $35 a night for a small apartment.

       At the end of January we reluctantly left Medellin to return to the USA.  Spirit  was not overwhelmed this time and we made our flights arriving in Denver the same day but in the middle of a snow storm.  I had hotel near airport reserved that provided shuttle service.  Unfortunately for the hotel there was one taxi available on a bad weather night and the cabbie said "$75.00" for the 15 minute ride.  Hotel was paying so I said ok and he collected from the hotel.  Next day we were prepared to bus toward home from Denver and when we boarded the bus were told that our next bus transfer for the last 80 miles was not running this particular day.  Extra night in Salida, CO (not a bad place to be stranded) then the 5PM bus did run and we arrived home (a day late, just like going) at 7PM.

       All in all a good trip....just Don't take Spirit Airlines out of OHare and don't be surprised if a bus driver decides to go home early due to weather forecast.


    






Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Manizales, Colombia

Image
Eight happy hours on a curvy road in a big bus brings us to the North part of the "coffee triangle."  The area of Colombia known for the most coffee production.  Havent seem much of it yet, but very pretty area. Ive been in much of the US Rockies where roads are built in the valley or along rivers and every once in awhile we climb over a pass to the next valley.  Here it appears that small settlements were built high near the ridgeline....so the road follows near the ridgeline.  Lots of back and forth driving with limited passing opportunities.  But then hard to get more that 60 kph speed when you have to do a 90 degree turn every 100 yards. Manizales is a town of about 300,000 souls also built on a ridge.  Bus station is a bottom and two enclosed ski lifts (my term) will take you to the top of two separate towns...Manizales or MariaSomething.   Ride cost about US$.45.  This is also a University town so lots of young people around....
Read more

On to Palamino

Image
    East of Santa Marta is Tyronia (Spelling) National Park which is said to have the best beaches in  South America along with lots of birds and wildlife.  We didnt go there  (Denyse forgot her berka).  But just past the park is a miles long beach at the town of Palamino.  Another hippy, young person hostel town just growing into it´s tourist future.  After checking the beach out we contracted for the river float and ended up on a two hour float down the Palamino river which ends at the Beach.  I believe I spend one of my nine lives on the back of a 125 cc moto driven by a 17 year old to take up to the put in point. Then two hours of minimum rapids and shallow water to the beach.  A number of the hostels also have space for camping either in your tent, their tent, their hammock, dorm room or private room.  This is a 1960s Carribean beach resort at a small fraction of the cost of any other Carribean island.
Read more

Just a little Adventure

     Sometimes you make your own adventure....whether you wish to or not. In purchasing bus tickets from Santa Marta I wanted to use my newer credit card (sign up miles bonus) but the young clerk wasn´t use to chip credit cards (What, no pin!).  So the transaction lasted 15 minutes or so with a lot of tries.  Once complete we left for the bus....not knowing we left credit card back at ticket counter. All is fine on the bus, a fairly new Volvo with seating to compare to Air First Class.  The conductor comes back with his cell phone with someone one the phone who wishes to talk with me. My spanish is not good, in Santa Marta they talk FAST and it happens passenger behind me knows Spanish and English so he takes phone and explains that they have card and will send it on next bus to our destination so stay at terminal for 2 hours after arrival to pick it up. So far, so good.  But at 9PM second bus is in and no one knows about credit card.  Come ba...
Read more