Jo Blogs in Colombia 2013: Parque Arvi

We took the second cable car to the end of the line, right in the thick of the national park over 2000 meters high. The plan was to get a map from the information hut and head off for a 2-3 hour hike. The first thing we came to was a farmers' market and we did a quick spin. I bought some ham and cheese "tortas" (baps) and a piece of carrot cake for our lunch on the hike. It felt good to have my hiking boots on and to breath the cool, crisp air. I have missed hiking so much. We found an information counter and I asked the guy if he could recommend a good trail for about 3 hours. He told me right out that it didn't work like that. Eh?! So how does hiking work exactly?? Well, in Parque Arvi, you take a free guide for each of the walks highlighted on the map. Everyone gathers at the head of the trail and then hike together when there is a group. Each walk takes about 30 minutes. We have hired guides in the past if the the hike is particularly long or tricky like in Indonesia (Rinjani), Indonesia (Arun), Peru (Inka Trail) and Malaysia (Kinabalu). As far as we knew, the trails were very easy in Parque Arvi, so why the need for a guide? I thanked the guy, took the map and then went back to where David was waiting. We decided to just do our own thing and use the map as a guide. We decided to head towards a lagoon around 3km away and then double back and take another trail for another 4-5km. The map was rubbish. It was designed for people walking with a guide. We kept missing turns as they weren't actually marked on the map. We asked directions at one stage and a family told us that we had to take a guide as it's easy to get lost with all the trees. We thanked them and carried on doing our own thing. The trails were very good, but the signposting and maps were awful so we did take a few wrong turns. One of the wrong turns resulted in a spotting of a family of emerald toucans. Wonderful! These are the park's emblem, but I think they are actually quite hard to find so we felt so lucky. Once we sussed the right trail, we had a wonderful hike. At the end, we sat on the grass eating our lunch. We also found a little hut selling organic coffee and another selling artesanal (i.e. made in someone's kitchen) chocolates. Back at the market, we bought some berries from a farmer. It's the first time we had tried uchuvas (gold-berries). Yum yum!

After a break, we took the cable car back to Santo Domingo and lingered a while. It's a bustling neighbourhood. Apparently, 10 years ago it was one of the most dangerous neighbourhoods in the world, but not any more. As it was a Sunday, kids played in the park, dogs wandered around and mums and dads sat on benches chatting. The views were fabulous too.