Author Archives: Björn

Cali on a Monday

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Today we had another drive of about 140km ahead of us … this time however mainly on good quality, toll highways – making the journey from Popayán to Cali pass by in a good two hours.

We made it to Cali in the late morning, dumped our stuff in the hotel and were off for a tour around town. It did not take us too long to discover, that – today being a Monday – all the main attractions were closed … so we had to come up with an alternate plan. We finally ended up doing an extensive walk around town, checking out some of the quarters neighboring the center … an antique shop – we ran into by chance – even made a good substitute for a museum. 😉

In the evening we took taxis to San Antonio church to enjoy the views over town. We soon changed location to a nice bar (again with city views) for some drinks and later on also dinner. Dinner was an eclectic mix of bar food and included another offal-tastic surprise: pieces of fried lung were part of the mix. Those pieces did not look much different than the normal pieces of meat – just imagine the unexpected surprise, when expecting meat but ending up with a piece of lung (and its – for my taste – horrible texture) in your mouth …

Popayán

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We left San Agustín in the morning for the 140km / 4 hours journey to Popayán – a bumpy and curvy ride, including a 3200m mountain pass.

We got into Popayán in the afternoon – in time for a visit in a juice bar (lulo anyone?) and a walk around town. Popayán is also known as the white city due to the color of most houses, churches and official buildings in the old city center.

As today was a Sunday, the city was fairly quiet, most shops and cafes were closed – only (obviously) churches were busy.

In the evening we went to a local fast food joint, for (based on the view of Andres) the best chicken soup. The soup turned out a proper broth – complete with the most flavorful little pieces of chicken (or menudencias per the menu … i.e. liver, hearts, kidneys etc. – no white meat though). He was right … the soup was very flavorful – though … me not being a fan of offal, I just had to eat around the one or other menudencia.

After dinner choices were between the odd dark bar on the other side of the street and the bar of the local five-star hotel a short walk away. The choice was an easy one – the drinks good (if available) – just the music selection left some questions. 😉

Around San Agustín

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We made it into San Agustín in the late afternoon of Jul 8th; it was an evening spent over mainly trout-based dishes and red wine, ultimately ending (not sure how we got there) in a discussion focused on udder recipes (cow udder eclairs anyone?) … might sound weird (and hell yes – it was), but is a clear sign of working group dynamics. 😉

We now had a full day around San Agustín; after (an udder-free) breakfast, we took taxis over to San Agustín Archaeological Park. The park is yet another UNESCO world heritage site and features a huge number of monolithic religious monuments, as well as many dolmen graves. Given the number of graves, I guess, one could technically count the place as a necropolis.
The San Agustín culture goes back to around 1000BC, it then thrived for the next two millennia with its decline kicking in around 1000AD (so well before any fun with the Spaniards). There are still many question marks around this culture; check out the wikipedia pages for a good starting point (Spanish, German, no English version unfortunately).

We had an extensive tour around the park taking in the main monuments, graves, the ceremonial spot around the river, made it up to a viewpoint and had the chance to sample the gastronomic offers of the park (yummy empanadas).

The afternoon saw us heading out to the small village of Obando to visit the small museum – to see some more graves and a compact exhibition (and summary) on the San Agustín culture. From here we continued to the Estrecho Del Magdalena (Magdalena Narrow), a spot at the Magdalena river, where the water gets pushed through a narrow channel between the rocks, resulting in high pressure and speed.

Welcome to Bogotá – Welcome to Colombia

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I have had Colombia on my bucket list for some time now; with the security situation well improving over the last couple of years – and a good offer at hand (for both tour and flight), I decided to get booked for this summer.

I made it into Bogotá in the evening of July 6th after a quick 11.5 hours flight (straight in from Frankfurt). After a good night of (jet-lag induced) sleep, I had a full day to explore the city – before the initial meeting with my group in the evening.

This morning I had a walk around the touristic center, making my way around to Plaza Bolivar, the cathedral, the presidential palace and Santa Clara museum; I also paid a visit to Bogotá’s Gold Museum. In the afternoon – after a late sandwich lunch – I walked up to the cable car station, to make the way up to Monserrate to see the church and shrine – and (certainly more important) get a view of the city.

I made it back to the hotel in time for the group meeting. It turned out, that there were only four of us (including myself, plus Andres, our tour leader) for the next ~twelve days (until Cartagena), so a fairly small group. After the usual introduction, we made our way into a nearby restaurant for dinner – followed by a first visit to the BBC and a great IPA introduction.

The next day – after a tea-based introduction to Starbucks – Colombia’s air force (or better the air force controlled airline SATENA) was happy enough to get us to the first stop of our tour itinerary – San Agustin.

 

From the Pacific to the North Sea

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Business did bring me to Amsterdam this week. This evening we had a team dinner, which we enjoyed straight at the beach of Zandvoort, a mere 40 minute drive from the office (and as such not much further away than Amsterdam downtown). We were just in time to catch some sunshine and get in the sunset over dinner – a real treat after a day’s work (with more to come).
I guess, there are only few better ways to finish a month, which had started with the Pacific Ocean in sight, than having a foot bath in the North Sea.

Around Half-Moon-Bay

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The plan for today was less tight and – after the action the previous days – we kind of took things easy. Also the weather turned against us – with rain and low temperatures (around 12C).

We left Oakland late in the morning and made our way South to the San Mateo Bridge to cross the bay and then over to the Pacific Ocean at Half Moon Bay.

With the weather against us, we decided – after a short coffee / tea stop – to have a small road trip down famous Pacific Coast Highway / California 1 to Pescadero for lunch and then back via the back country with a stop at the beach on the way (it had stopped raining at least).

Heading North we stopped in El Granada to pick up some crabs – that would become dinner later tonight. After a short walk around, we made our way back to San Francisco for a crab dinner with the family of Lisa’s son – a great opportunity to finally meet them, after having heard so much about them over the years.

Around Mount Diablo (literally)

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Today we were heading inland for Mount Diablo. With just below 1200m the single highest elevation in the bay area – offering stunning views.

We first made it to the summit by car (this is the US at last) to take in the views and check out the visitors center. We also talked to the ranger about hiking / walking options. There was the easy going 1km trail around the summit (even halfway paved) – with the next bigger hike a proper 12km hike around the mountain (and no real options in between).

We decided for the latter one – and soon discovered, that we had underestimated both elevation changes and trail conditions – in short gravel and gradients are not a combinations … the hike in the end took us a good four hours (including breaks) and not the 2.5 to three hours we had expected. Yet – it was a very enjoyable hike, with fantastic views (some proof below), abundant plant life (many wildflowers in full bloom) and perfect weather conditions (cloudy, temperatures of around 18C). So – we took our time and enjoyed.

California Wining

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It had been some time since my last visit to the San Francisco bay area, so it was about time to return – with the main driver really being to see Lisa – my old pen pal, who I had originally met on my first trip to Antarctica – and to finally get to personally meeting some of her family.

So on this Saturday I was handing myself over to Delta Airlines to get me across the pond into Detroit (my favorite US airport) and then on towards San Francisco. I made it into San Francisco in the late evening (around 22:30) after two uneventful flights (good thing). Lisa and Harry did pick me up and we made it over to Oakland.

Sunday saw me sleeping until about 10:00 (not unexpected, given how timezones work). Over breakfast we looked into the planning for the upcoming days – to then head for an easy day of wining around the more local wineries.

We first made it over to Treasure Island – straight in the middle of the bay and straight in the middle of the Oakland-SF bay bridge – for a visit of The Winery SF (or simply W). We made our way through a number of wines. Not being a fan of Chardonnays (anymore), my focus was on the reds here – all were nice, though the Pinot Noir really outstanding.

On the way out we had a stop at the coast for a view over to San Francisco – before making it back into Oakland and a stop at Dashe Cellars to try some great Zinfandels. After a late lunch, we had a final stop at Rosenblum Cellars for a further tasting. Dinner was at home with a home-made Korean-style ox-tail soup.

Overall a great and easy going day – and a good introduction to California wines (which over here are still somewhat seen in the ‘mass-production’ and ‘nothing-special’ category) – and even better preparation for the following Monday.

Monday saw us driving up to Napa; Harry had secured tickets for the wine train – i.e. a train ride through the Napa valley, accompanied by a great lunch. With the train marketed as ‘wine train’, we somehow had expected the trip being themed around wine, e.g. with a proper tasting, some wine backgrounds etc. – but that was not the case, it was really more like a restaurant on tracks (with an extensive wine list though). To make up for that, we had another tour around the valley – after we returned to the train station. We also did two more tastings – one at the Whitehall Lane Winery and the other one at the Grgich Hills Estate.

So – two wining days … with many great wines – in other words two winning days 😉