A Collins and White Christmas

Depleted from the Lost City Trek, we arrive at El Quetzal Eco-lodge sweaty, stinky and mucky. A helping hand carries our bags up the steps to reception. We pass a swimming pool, sun loungers, a games room with a pool table, foosball and darts and find ourselves in a restaurant and bar over-looking the mountains and jungle. We check-in and are escorted to our pristine white lodges with thatched roofs 30 seconds from the bar. Hmm, we could get used to this luxury for four nights!

We freshen up, cleaning off all of the mud, sweat and grit in our ensuite waterfall showers and put on some fresh and most importantly dry(!) clothes. Over happy hour cocktails, we all agree this place is perfect, it’s just what we need after covering so much ground over the last week or so. We are very grateful to Mama and Papa Collins for their generous offer to cover the cost of our Xmas stay and meals.

For Christmas Eve and Christmas Day we’re more than happy to not leave the property and enjoy the facilities, especially the bar and kitchen! In-between refreshments we relax by the pool, invent new rules for games of water volleyball, befriend the local parrot, catch up on our blogging, play cards and relax some more. Of course, being Collins’, there are a couple of quizzes and ‘The Xmas Olympics’ to keep us busy.

As is tradition in parts of the world including Colombia, the big meal is on Xmas Eve. We start with a welcome platter of Buñuelos (the doughnut-esque cheese balls we had in Medellin) and Natilla (?), a kind of cinammon-flavoured flan with fruit. After filling up too much on these, it’s on to the actual meal.

For the proper starter, we enjoy prawn and smashed avocado served on fried plantain for starter. Main course has to be turkey but this time served with rice and either Waldorf salad or Russian salad. Dessert is help yourself to a variety of sweet treats including fruit cake, cookies and marshmallows. A free drink is included plus a few extra top-ups “it’s included” say the friendly staff dressed up in various Christmas props.

On Christmas Day, after our new favourite breakfast of pancakes, eggs, bacon and syrup, we open our cards and presents, most of which have travelled halfway across the world. Thanks Santa.

Alex kindly replaced the tiny microfibre towel I have with me for one exactly the same size, doh. She did also buy me a very exciting new Fitbit so I’ll let her off.

The cunning cat that always turned up when our food was served. Here she is not satisfied with a bit of pancake, demanding bacon.

Oddly, it seems like today is just another day for the staff who are no longer wearing their Xmas props and are not in the partying mood they were last night. We, however, get to continue to enjoy another day by the pool.

Lottie kindly treats Alex and I to a massage treatment on-site for Christmas, where we both go for the relaxing massage with chocolate and coffee scrub. Lottie enjoys a post-breakfast massage herself (the scrub part getting somewhat lost in translation). Having an open-air massage with the cool breeze on our skin and the beautiful bird song to sooth our minds is just perfect, even before the amazing synchronous massage we get as a couple. We can’t help but chuckle to ourselves when we get wrapped up like chocolate sweets to let the scrub do its work on our skin, whilst the therapists do their work on the rinse. A rather surreal experience follows as they wash us down with buckets full of soothing, herbal water as we sit on a plastic stool in our pants. It’s a wonderful treat and we feel fully revitalised.

That evening Lottie and I close off the celebrations with a tuna tartare followed by rib-eye steaks and a bottle of bubbly, whilst Alex looks on longingly from her plate of plain chicken and rice, suffering from her latest tummy bug.

Boxing Day Walk

Finally feeling a bit more human and energetic, we decide we want to spend Boxing Day in the nearby Tayrona National Park. The Xmas funds we received from Auntie Diane and Auntie Janet will go towards the cost of entry and our day in the park, thank you family.

A ridiculously short bus ride takes us to the entrance to the park where we need to buy travel insurance just for this park(!?), that reassuringly covers accidental illness, injury, dismemberment or death (!!!), and hoping to pay for entry on card we’re told ‘there is no internet’, cash it is then. If we had a pound for each time this happened in South America… After splurging most of the day’s cash on the bus, insurance and entrance fee, we opt to walk the first hour instead of taking the shuttle bus. As usual, we’re the only ones frugal (or stupid?) enough to do this but we do hear howler monkeys on the road so that’s something unique you wouldn’t hear on the bus. Eventually we start the proper trail and after around 10 minutes we get to actually see some monkeys! These are the capuchin species and don’t sound half as terrifying as the howler monkeys. They come close to the tour groups but more out of curiosity than need. They don’t hiss for food or go near anyone’s bags.

A bit further up, a different tour group has found another pack of monkeys. An older guy in the group starts shaking the branch one of the younger monkeys is on. The alpha does not like it and bares his teeth menacingly. “Abuelo no, no” pleads the guy’s granddaughter, ‘stop aggravating the monkey grandpa‘ 🙄

On our way to the beautiful beaches where it’s safe to swim, we pass over huge boulders, through dense jungle and across a dirt path surrounded by lush green palms the kind of which I only thought you saw on postcards. Having missed the opportunity to buy ice-cream, we instead buy a large coconut with a hole cut out from an indigenous tribesman. The water inside is not anywhere near as sweet or tasty as we’d hoped but it does the job of keeping us hydrated in the 40 degree heat and some much needed sugar to a still-poorly Alex.

Our first stop is Playa Arenilla, where we cool off in the big ocean waves. In many areas of this park, swimming is forbidden due to strong currents and large dangerous rocks, for safety reasons these areas are blocked off from ocean access.

Carrying on, we walk along La Piscina (The Pool), a beautiful long stretch of beach… until we realise you need to walk a bit inland to the next beach, and so enjoy the beach twice as we find the actual path to make it to Cabo San Juan!

Needing to cool off again we have another swim. Climbing out of the waves once more, we spot Polly and Simon from our Lost City group! They’ve spent the past couple of nights camping in this park. It sounds fun but I bet they didn’t have some ladies scrub them down with coffee beans and wrap them up like sweets!

Lottie and I have some lunch while Alex chills out on the beach, under the shade of a palm tree. Idyllic.

After lunch, we enjoy a bit of sunbathing, swimming and chatting on the beach. We make our way up to a viewpoint that looks out over the two neighbouring beaches to create a mirror-image illusion. By this point it’s clouded over which is perfect for our long hike back.

Back at the park entrance, I finally buy us an ice-cream and trusty Gatorade after all the vendors we saw on the way in had gone home for the day. Thinking that the two minute bus ride we took to get here from Quetzal this morning must mean a short walk back, we opt to find out. Of course it’s more like a twenty five minute walk back along a busy litter-filled road, once again we’re the only ones walking it, we never learn.

We spend our final night at the eco-lodge playing more water volleyball (after dark version) and enjoying a delicious dinner. We pack our bags, ready to go first thing in the morning. We want to squeeze out every last hour as a trio together and hope catching an early bus back to Cartagena will work in our favour. Tune in next time to see how that went…

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Lottie’s Thoughts

Arriving at the Christmas lodge feels like paradise! Although I’m highly aware that I am caked in mud, sweat and mosquito bites so first thing on the agenda is the best shower of my life. Feeling human again I take in our new beautiful surroundings. On Christmas Day I enjoy a massage at the top of our lodge overlooking the jungle view and finish the day with a steak and sangria, I’m afraid the bar has been set high for future Christmases. Visiting Tayrona national park, I ticked another item off my bucket list which was seeing wild monkeys for the first time.

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Adventure – Surviving the walk back to the hotel, passed the longest truck we’ve ever seen. Expecting a bathtub to rinse off in and turning the corner to find a stool and bucket. Being looked after by Santiago and the rest of the Quetzal staff, service with a genuine smile.

Excitement – (Alex) feeling like I could just float in the sea. Seeing a blue, tube-nosed fish, maybe a barracuda, swimming right next to me (after much gesticulating and shouting by a Colombian woman). Crossing paths with people we actually know for the first time on this trip! Making it to paradise despite feeling incredibly weak when we started. The sand glistening in the sea like glitter.

Trauma – (Alex) missing out on eating and drinking all the wonderful hotel offerings thanks to my Lost City tummy bug. All of us joining the BBC (Bad Belly Club) at some point, likely some bug from the Lost City. Doing lots of research on Tayrona payments/how much cash we need to be told “The internet isn’t working”. Machete man.