Fri 8th 0651 At terminal waiting for 0700 bus to Medellin. Woke up just before 6ish, poss feeling bit drunk. Got up, packed, hotel called taxi, asked driver and 10k to terminal, got here maybe 625-30, bought ticket, had not v good empanadas at place ate yday (4k an empanada instead of 3k, wtf?) and a jugo de sapote en leche, ticket says you have to be here 20 mins before so felt unnec rushed. Didn't need piss or shit but felt obliged to go on destroyer tactics basis, fucking costs 1.5k for the bog and then there's no toilet paper, you have to put coins in a dispenser - I didn't buy any, but what a fucking joke.
0710 On bus - expected a coach, but it's a little minibus/shuttle type thing. But this is fine.
0713 Had to turn hotspot on on O6 as accidentally touched something and this file closed and cos dropbox sucks it is then stuck "waiting for upload" and cant be reopened again without net connection.
Main bag is in back but I remembered to put headphones and (for "emergencies" ) some snacks and water in daypack and take it out before handing main bag in.
Vaguely tempting to use this dead time to write up SBA trip but in reality I'm going to make myself travel sick writing while we're moving, or at least risk it.
0720 We're off.
1334 At some roadside place maybe an hour from Medellin. Feeling intermittently sleepy and very slightly ill. Sort of lacking leg room so good to get off and stretch. Mildly apprehensive about getting from terminal to accom but it should at least be daylight. I didn't put any sunblock on this morning BTW. Had empanada (3k).
1654 At hostel. Room seems OK, not sure it's going to be v social here but who knows. May have to leave a deposit for a key but on plus side i may not have to pay VAT, we will see. Metro card from 2020 worked and even had about 4k on it, I topped it up with some change jic and it worked fine to get me from Caribe station by bus terminal to Floresta and I walked over from there to here no problem.
Once I get checked in etc I will just go out for food before dark and then otherwise just hang round here on offchance of chat or free coffee and probably have an earlyish night.
1828 Been out. Tried Bancolombia cash machine but 600k max. Went for pizza personal - mexicana, meat chilli and pico de gallo - and extremely lush jugo de mora en leche at People Pizza. Bit lardy but still. Then got 1400k out at "ATH" machine with mildly whopping but iirc normalish 20k fee. Come back, few people milling around in frankly strange way, there is one dining type table in common area, TBH I can see myself lurking in room tonight.
Feels vague shame not to get out and about but I suspect weekends not great for lang exch and more to the point I am feeling a bit tired and slightly fed up and an earlyish night probably won't hurt.
Went to supermarket for soft drinks after getting cash and couldn't help smiling as they played "Por que no se van?" .
There is a fridge here as well, have put one bottle in it and brought a plastic cup into room to drink other with.
2002 Let's bash a bit more of boat trip out. Feeling vaguely "down" on Medellin - the idea I'll manage to do anything interesting seems irrationally impossible. Anyway.
I think I'd got up to lunch and the abortive snorkelling. We got back on the boat to go to Bugadub. This was larger and shared between two families (and incidentally a lot of these people seem to timeshare islands within families or to not live on them permanently) and we could only go on one half. I was feeling a bit socially awkward but did get into some chat, and we then had to share a fact about ourselves (I used my Mexican kidnapping accusation) in return for some fruit rum punch, and we got told about the San Blas Killers game - we all picked a person and a weapon and a condition at random out of hats, so I for example had to "kill" Lloyd by handing him a bikini top before dinner. To jump ahead, the second day was mostly a write off due to my illness, but IIRC over dinner second day evening I mentioned this and someone offered me a bikini top, though as it happened I got killed on day 3 (Shane got me by handing me a phone - on pretext of taking a photo of him - IIRC in the presence of Noa) before I got a chance to try. (Shane did ultimately win with IIRC 6 kills - if you kill someone else you get their kills, and aquire their next victim).
I probably started to chat more with Garry and Joanie this evening IIRC. One of the local guys made a palm frond bonfire on the beach and dinner was some very good and extra filling Costa Rican style tortilla burrito style things. I think I had a couple of beers on the "day" island and maybe one or two in evening but not sure, I also got (late-ish) a couple of coconuts and opened my rum and put them in as I sort of felt if I didn't I'd never use any.
We all slept in one big hut in hammocks. I didn't sleep that well but I don't know if this was down to hammock and/or feeling vaguely - but not that badly - ill. I did get up at 4amish for a piss and it was pretty cool to be on the mostly dark island (they have a generator and it was running so there were some lights) going to the bathroom hut thing "behind" the sleeping hut and the dying embers of the fire and so forth.
IIRC the next morning I wasn't feeling great. I did have some breakfast (fruit and a sort of porridge and coffee and prob some bread) but I also went to toilet quite a bit and I decided to take one of the diarrhea tablets I'd bought in PC.
The morning boat trip was quite rough (nothing utterly out of the ordinary apparently, but still rough) and a few people were seasick. I was maybe feeling a tiny bit of that - it was worse when we stopped to let the other boat catch up - but I wasn't really having a problem there. Instead I felt like I was just chock full of gas and kept belching slightly and wishing all the gas would come out, and I was also clenching my sphincter to try to ensure gas escaped but nothing else.
Day island was Gorgidub, pelican island. I think I spent most of the time here lying down (on beach or in a hammock) and visiting toilet. I had half decided not to eat lunch anyway, which worked out well as it was inedible-to-me salad stuff.
We then went on - can't remember if this was rough or not - to Mandunga ("big breasts island"?) and looked round a bit (some nice animals including cats) and did a slightly embarrassing but slightly cool group dance thing (I did join in, despite feeling bloated) and then iirc a short trip to Waginega. We had 8ish bed rooms here, which was quite nice, I also managed to get a single near the toilet. Before dinner we had a talk from one of the Kuna crew in Spanish with Lane translating about Kuna history which was interesting (and I could understand the Spanish, which was nice) although the translation aspect of it dragged it out in a slightly boring way. Oh, they offered us some nice looking slices of cake before this but I declined given how I was feeling. I had to excuse myself (we were sitting in a circle outside) from the talk a couple of times, once just for iirc water shit or something, but the second time I just made it to the toilet in time to vomit hugely and feel much better afterwards - evidently I hadn't been full of gas after all. I do wonder if the tablet I took that morning had interfered with my digestion but I really don't know - obviously I wouldn't have taken the tablet if I hadn't been a bit worried.
I did go to dinner but didn't eat that heartily - there was some fish soup which I mostly ate [two probably staff are having a probable argument in v rapid Spanish outside my room in the street] but mostly didn't touch my nice-ish looking bowl of rice and some other stuff incl patacones (I gave this away). I went to bed after dinner feeling a bit rough, other people stayed up but I probably didn't miss out on too much. I woke up feeling sweaty in night and also - having decided I'd read on phone since we had real beds - my phone had falen on floor and I struggled for ages to find it in the dark. But speaking to people the next day it simply had (despite the theoretical quite strong breeze and relatively imperfect walls) been warm in there, so this prob wasn't fever.
I woke up on the morning of day 3 feeling much much better. Not IIRC 100% but 90-95% maybe. I enjoyed the breakfast and wished there had been more. So it was mainly day 2 that was spoiled by illness, and I did at least "do" all the activities, I just didn't socialise much during day and missed out in evening. But I did feel I'd been generally friendly enough on day 1 that people would understand I was just not feeling great rather than being stand-offish on day 2 (and I think they did).
[Feeling bit guilty cos I was being a whiny stressy git to myself around 630 when I was back after going to supermarket and I "had" to call parents and Dad asked me if I had anything to tell him and I said no and he kept jovially digging "what do you mean you suppose you're having a good time?" ish and I sort of snapped and said I'd been sitting on the bus all day and didn't have anything to say and I felt the hostel was a bit weird and I resented calling every day like I'm 5 - even tho I know I do this mainly for my own "security" . I did apologise but he might have just stormed off from the phone, I don't know. Mum is non-life-threateningly but unpleasantly ill and I suspect his temper might not be helped by being with her prob being irritable all the time. But anyway, I did apologise and I can't do more and it's not like I was *massively* out of order. Just making a note about this.]
I did get given my change (so I have paid 175k for four nights) and without asking or being asked for a deposit got a key for outside door after 11pm too.
Right thumb going pins and needles.
I am dubious about getting "taxi" back if I do go out at night, my O6 can't run apps like Uber or InDrive (recommended by Noa), I may be able to use Uber in browser on work profile and did experiment the other day and it prob works but not sure if there's going to be trouble with phone numbers and credit cards and I didn't carry my experiment all the way through.
As i say I am disappointed with the "social" side of the hostel, yes I have hidden away but the common area is not what I'd hoped with just that one table. But not end of world of course. I think the plan for tomorrow has to just be to go out for a wander hopefully earlyish and see how much of the area I remember and so forth. Apart from visiting El Penol - which I don't know if it is best to do on own or via a tour, but I would prob rather go during week when it is quieter - I don't have any major specific things I want to do here. I sort of hope to see what's happened to some of the businesses I used to visit wrt lang exchange etc last time I was here.
2143 Some presumably other guests talking out front (?) outside room, maybe smoking.
Just cancelled the Panama City-Bogota flight, superficially looks like no fuss and will be a full refund.
2150 Quick poke on meetup is not great for in-person language exchanges, esp if I rule out the "dance" ones. There is Gringo Tuesday, poss miles from here, starting 4pm on Tuesday, but otherwise nothing. Maybe I'm missing something, may look again tomorrow.
2200 Shouldn't have opened second litre of soft drink. Meh, not end of world. Probably moving towards bed.
2203 Just had quick shower. Water v powerful when first turned on. While not intolerable, I was "not hot" enough that the rather cold water was a bit of a shock.
Feel very bloated - have eaten quite a lot (not utterly insane) today and all this soft drink won't help. People still talking outside. I still think my chances of socialising here are low.
I think tomorrow I will maybe try to revisit some of the places from my old blog and see if they are still there and if they are if they have any posters up re lang exch. I remember Dave's bar/hostel was near Floresta (I was near Estadio IIRC, one stop over) so hunting that out might be a good start.
2213 Bed I think. It's not that I want to engage in inherently backward looking stuff by trying to find stuff from my 2020 visit, but given the relatively poor showing on meetup.com doing this might reveal the existence of stuff. And I am interested to see if eg Dave's bar and the hotel I stayed in on the main street leading up to Estadio are still there anyway.
At this rate I can't help wondering if I will *not* be staying in Medellin past this four night stay, but it is very early days yet and let's see how it goes. I suppose even if it's shit compared to how it was, at least I will now *know*.
0710 On bus - expected a coach, but it's a little minibus/shuttle type thing. But this is fine.
0713 Had to turn hotspot on on O6 as accidentally touched something and this file closed and cos dropbox sucks it is then stuck "waiting for upload" and cant be reopened again without net connection.
Main bag is in back but I remembered to put headphones and (for "emergencies" ) some snacks and water in daypack and take it out before handing main bag in.
Vaguely tempting to use this dead time to write up SBA trip but in reality I'm going to make myself travel sick writing while we're moving, or at least risk it.
0720 We're off.
1334 At some roadside place maybe an hour from Medellin. Feeling intermittently sleepy and very slightly ill. Sort of lacking leg room so good to get off and stretch. Mildly apprehensive about getting from terminal to accom but it should at least be daylight. I didn't put any sunblock on this morning BTW. Had empanada (3k).
1654 At hostel. Room seems OK, not sure it's going to be v social here but who knows. May have to leave a deposit for a key but on plus side i may not have to pay VAT, we will see. Metro card from 2020 worked and even had about 4k on it, I topped it up with some change jic and it worked fine to get me from Caribe station by bus terminal to Floresta and I walked over from there to here no problem.
Once I get checked in etc I will just go out for food before dark and then otherwise just hang round here on offchance of chat or free coffee and probably have an earlyish night.
1828 Been out. Tried Bancolombia cash machine but 600k max. Went for pizza personal - mexicana, meat chilli and pico de gallo - and extremely lush jugo de mora en leche at People Pizza. Bit lardy but still. Then got 1400k out at "ATH" machine with mildly whopping but iirc normalish 20k fee. Come back, few people milling around in frankly strange way, there is one dining type table in common area, TBH I can see myself lurking in room tonight.
Feels vague shame not to get out and about but I suspect weekends not great for lang exch and more to the point I am feeling a bit tired and slightly fed up and an earlyish night probably won't hurt.
Went to supermarket for soft drinks after getting cash and couldn't help smiling as they played "Por que no se van?" .
There is a fridge here as well, have put one bottle in it and brought a plastic cup into room to drink other with.
2002 Let's bash a bit more of boat trip out. Feeling vaguely "down" on Medellin - the idea I'll manage to do anything interesting seems irrationally impossible. Anyway.
I think I'd got up to lunch and the abortive snorkelling. We got back on the boat to go to Bugadub. This was larger and shared between two families (and incidentally a lot of these people seem to timeshare islands within families or to not live on them permanently) and we could only go on one half. I was feeling a bit socially awkward but did get into some chat, and we then had to share a fact about ourselves (I used my Mexican kidnapping accusation) in return for some fruit rum punch, and we got told about the San Blas Killers game - we all picked a person and a weapon and a condition at random out of hats, so I for example had to "kill" Lloyd by handing him a bikini top before dinner. To jump ahead, the second day was mostly a write off due to my illness, but IIRC over dinner second day evening I mentioned this and someone offered me a bikini top, though as it happened I got killed on day 3 (Shane got me by handing me a phone - on pretext of taking a photo of him - IIRC in the presence of Noa) before I got a chance to try. (Shane did ultimately win with IIRC 6 kills - if you kill someone else you get their kills, and aquire their next victim).
I probably started to chat more with Garry and Joanie this evening IIRC. One of the local guys made a palm frond bonfire on the beach and dinner was some very good and extra filling Costa Rican style tortilla burrito style things. I think I had a couple of beers on the "day" island and maybe one or two in evening but not sure, I also got (late-ish) a couple of coconuts and opened my rum and put them in as I sort of felt if I didn't I'd never use any.
We all slept in one big hut in hammocks. I didn't sleep that well but I don't know if this was down to hammock and/or feeling vaguely - but not that badly - ill. I did get up at 4amish for a piss and it was pretty cool to be on the mostly dark island (they have a generator and it was running so there were some lights) going to the bathroom hut thing "behind" the sleeping hut and the dying embers of the fire and so forth.
IIRC the next morning I wasn't feeling great. I did have some breakfast (fruit and a sort of porridge and coffee and prob some bread) but I also went to toilet quite a bit and I decided to take one of the diarrhea tablets I'd bought in PC.
The morning boat trip was quite rough (nothing utterly out of the ordinary apparently, but still rough) and a few people were seasick. I was maybe feeling a tiny bit of that - it was worse when we stopped to let the other boat catch up - but I wasn't really having a problem there. Instead I felt like I was just chock full of gas and kept belching slightly and wishing all the gas would come out, and I was also clenching my sphincter to try to ensure gas escaped but nothing else.
Day island was Gorgidub, pelican island. I think I spent most of the time here lying down (on beach or in a hammock) and visiting toilet. I had half decided not to eat lunch anyway, which worked out well as it was inedible-to-me salad stuff.
We then went on - can't remember if this was rough or not - to Mandunga ("big breasts island"?) and looked round a bit (some nice animals including cats) and did a slightly embarrassing but slightly cool group dance thing (I did join in, despite feeling bloated) and then iirc a short trip to Waginega. We had 8ish bed rooms here, which was quite nice, I also managed to get a single near the toilet. Before dinner we had a talk from one of the Kuna crew in Spanish with Lane translating about Kuna history which was interesting (and I could understand the Spanish, which was nice) although the translation aspect of it dragged it out in a slightly boring way. Oh, they offered us some nice looking slices of cake before this but I declined given how I was feeling. I had to excuse myself (we were sitting in a circle outside) from the talk a couple of times, once just for iirc water shit or something, but the second time I just made it to the toilet in time to vomit hugely and feel much better afterwards - evidently I hadn't been full of gas after all. I do wonder if the tablet I took that morning had interfered with my digestion but I really don't know - obviously I wouldn't have taken the tablet if I hadn't been a bit worried.
I did go to dinner but didn't eat that heartily - there was some fish soup which I mostly ate [two probably staff are having a probable argument in v rapid Spanish outside my room in the street] but mostly didn't touch my nice-ish looking bowl of rice and some other stuff incl patacones (I gave this away). I went to bed after dinner feeling a bit rough, other people stayed up but I probably didn't miss out on too much. I woke up feeling sweaty in night and also - having decided I'd read on phone since we had real beds - my phone had falen on floor and I struggled for ages to find it in the dark. But speaking to people the next day it simply had (despite the theoretical quite strong breeze and relatively imperfect walls) been warm in there, so this prob wasn't fever.
I woke up on the morning of day 3 feeling much much better. Not IIRC 100% but 90-95% maybe. I enjoyed the breakfast and wished there had been more. So it was mainly day 2 that was spoiled by illness, and I did at least "do" all the activities, I just didn't socialise much during day and missed out in evening. But I did feel I'd been generally friendly enough on day 1 that people would understand I was just not feeling great rather than being stand-offish on day 2 (and I think they did).
[Feeling bit guilty cos I was being a whiny stressy git to myself around 630 when I was back after going to supermarket and I "had" to call parents and Dad asked me if I had anything to tell him and I said no and he kept jovially digging "what do you mean you suppose you're having a good time?" ish and I sort of snapped and said I'd been sitting on the bus all day and didn't have anything to say and I felt the hostel was a bit weird and I resented calling every day like I'm 5 - even tho I know I do this mainly for my own "security" . I did apologise but he might have just stormed off from the phone, I don't know. Mum is non-life-threateningly but unpleasantly ill and I suspect his temper might not be helped by being with her prob being irritable all the time. But anyway, I did apologise and I can't do more and it's not like I was *massively* out of order. Just making a note about this.]
I did get given my change (so I have paid 175k for four nights) and without asking or being asked for a deposit got a key for outside door after 11pm too.
Right thumb going pins and needles.
I am dubious about getting "taxi" back if I do go out at night, my O6 can't run apps like Uber or InDrive (recommended by Noa), I may be able to use Uber in browser on work profile and did experiment the other day and it prob works but not sure if there's going to be trouble with phone numbers and credit cards and I didn't carry my experiment all the way through.
As i say I am disappointed with the "social" side of the hostel, yes I have hidden away but the common area is not what I'd hoped with just that one table. But not end of world of course. I think the plan for tomorrow has to just be to go out for a wander hopefully earlyish and see how much of the area I remember and so forth. Apart from visiting El Penol - which I don't know if it is best to do on own or via a tour, but I would prob rather go during week when it is quieter - I don't have any major specific things I want to do here. I sort of hope to see what's happened to some of the businesses I used to visit wrt lang exchange etc last time I was here.
2143 Some presumably other guests talking out front (?) outside room, maybe smoking.
Just cancelled the Panama City-Bogota flight, superficially looks like no fuss and will be a full refund.
2150 Quick poke on meetup is not great for in-person language exchanges, esp if I rule out the "dance" ones. There is Gringo Tuesday, poss miles from here, starting 4pm on Tuesday, but otherwise nothing. Maybe I'm missing something, may look again tomorrow.
2200 Shouldn't have opened second litre of soft drink. Meh, not end of world. Probably moving towards bed.
2203 Just had quick shower. Water v powerful when first turned on. While not intolerable, I was "not hot" enough that the rather cold water was a bit of a shock.
Feel very bloated - have eaten quite a lot (not utterly insane) today and all this soft drink won't help. People still talking outside. I still think my chances of socialising here are low.
I think tomorrow I will maybe try to revisit some of the places from my old blog and see if they are still there and if they are if they have any posters up re lang exch. I remember Dave's bar/hostel was near Floresta (I was near Estadio IIRC, one stop over) so hunting that out might be a good start.
2213 Bed I think. It's not that I want to engage in inherently backward looking stuff by trying to find stuff from my 2020 visit, but given the relatively poor showing on meetup.com doing this might reveal the existence of stuff. And I am interested to see if eg Dave's bar and the hotel I stayed in on the main street leading up to Estadio are still there anyway.
At this rate I can't help wondering if I will *not* be staying in Medellin past this four night stay, but it is very early days yet and let's see how it goes. I suppose even if it's shit compared to how it was, at least I will now *know*.
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