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Top TEN things we saw in South America (well one in Central)

„What did you like the most?” is THE question everyone asks us. So here we go, our top 10 of South America (and a tiny bit of Central). And all of these ten places we loved differently but equally as strong.

1. Off the beaten track to Choquequirao

That hike was absolutely the number one among the hikes for us. It was hard, painful but truly magical. While Machu Picchu is a beehive full of tourists, where you can’t walk around freely, it’s noisy and you can forget about peeing for some time, Choquequirao is peaceful and mystical. There are almost no people and the site is way bigger then MP so we could walk around freely and we saw just 3 people during the whole 1.5 day of walking around (yeah that’s how long it takes to see it). It’s also for only 40% excavated so the stones and terraces disappear in thick vegetation. When I even start to think about it I would like to go back and do it all over again.

2. Omnipresent ice in Calafate

The immense glaciers in Calafate were definitely one of a kind. The tourist attraction number one, Perrito Morreno, was breathtaking, huge and looking at the pieces breaking off was better than a football match. And it’s not so touristic in the winter…:) The Titanic-like pieces of glaciers floating around were just surreal to see, a bit like islands of blue ice in the middle of nothing. And hikes near Chalten where you could just walk around and see dry glaciers just like that was stunning!! I even miss the cold when I write it.

3. Under and above water wonders of San Andres and Providencia

Well, in San Andres we didn’t see any wonders except for garbage and general chaos. But Providencia was all we were hoping for and more!! Gorgeous beaches, water in 50 shades of blue and FOOD!! Everything we tried there was absolutely delicious and it was definitely the best we ate during our trip (except for super fancy restaurants in Lima). The best of it all was the diving: sharks, stingrays, crabs, families of fish and all just sooooo close and soooo many.

4. Warmth of the people and originality of the coast of Uruguay

Without a doubt people from Uruguay were the most educated of all nations we met. They knew so much about history of any country including Poland that I wish I could send all my future babies there for school. Not to mention people were genuinely interested in us and wanted to talk and talk and talk and … drink mate:) The coast has obviously stunning beaches with mostly hippie architecture (recycle houses, Heineken bottle floor etc) and cute little penguins and sea lions. In September you can also spot whales.

5. The Lost City of Tayrona

Simply incredible! When I googled it I was really not impressed but live, it’s another story. It’s immense, breathtaking and magical:) it’s so surrounded by thick vegetation that it gave us a feeling of a hidden place worth all the sweat and pain during the hot, dusty trek to it.

6. Charming little frogs and nature in “Mouth of the Bull”- Bocas del Toro

From Bocas we didn’t expect much since it’s very touristic. But we were positively surprised. Our hostel was so cute, charming and comfy, food was delicious and little red-dotted frogs stole our hearts. Not to mention we saw a huge boa and stunning green forests everywhere. And that’s just because we didn’t stay on the main island but went to Bastimentos.

7. Lakes and mountains around Bariloche

Even though when we were there it was covered in ash after a volcano exploded in Chile, it was an amazing region to see. The town itself looks just like a Swiss mountain village so nothing too special. But the surroundings!! Insane!!! Lakes and mountains everywhere and really many! In between them forests. Pure nature.

8. Kayaking adventures in the Amazon

That was probably the craziest thing we have done. Observing crocodiles not even from a distance actually:P fishing piranhas all the time, getting bitten by all those crazy mosquitos and all that accompanied by noise from all types of monkeys. To fall asleep in that chaos of nature with stars above our head and fireflies was really one of a kind. Just priceless.

9. Wine drinking and colorful mountains in the North of Argentina

If we lived in Cafayate we would become alcoholics! And that drinking different wine every day (yep there is plenty). Not to mention really close from the wine there are colorful mountains and canyons.

10. The villages in the coffee region

Those stole our hearts. Calm, colorful, green and the locals were as colorful as the houses. Warm and friendly. We found one of the best hostels to volunteer in and definitely the best Airbnb. We made friends that hopefully we will see again. We even started drinking coffee :).

Meet the Dortmundts

Lucky us, we come back to Europe and we arrive just in time for Jandirk's family reunion. Perfect opportunity to meet the Dortmundts for the first time in their (what it turned out to be) epic vacation destination- Rotenburg. I took prep for the event really seriously and requested a genealogical tree from Jandirk so that people don't have to repeat their names a thousand times. Especially that Dutch names are always unique, uncommon and on the edge of being pronounceable. The first people I met as soon as we arrive had to repeat their names because they were not on my tree... Some of them I still don't remember...
But it was still amazing and a very colorful weekend. 45 people and all sorts of personality. The crazy, the colorful, the typical dutch, the warm aunt (not even one in that category), the quite, the travel lover. All of that on one party. It all kicked off with a barbecue out of this world. When the meat from the grill got watered with some beer and German Riesling (wine) ambitious dutch music from tapes arrived. Hits like "beer and tits" and "I wanna have sex with the bold one" were reviving its glory. And even the oldest senior on the party stayed up till at least 1.30 am (that's the time we went to bed). The next day the whole family went by bus on a revival of their old vacation to see the pool, the campsite, the town. All the old stories were coming back and even to me (an outsider) it was a really heartwarming experience. We ended up in "their" restaurant. Unfortunately over there they got scared with our small group of 45 people and we could only order schnitzel, schnitzel or schnitzel and for the daring ones a salad. There was also a very limited Donald Duck dish for kids that only a few very special people managed to get. Even coffee or ice cream was out of reach for the guys in the kitchen. But even so it was a charming place, full of history. And they did have beer:)
Since we had a big house rented all for us we transferred the party over there. The senior of the family even gave a singing and dancing performance. Looking at him I was only hoping JD got some of those genes and he's gonna have that energy when he's that old and when its that late. I guess we will have to wait and see till we are the seniors of a reunion in a very far future.

How much does it cost to travel in Colombia? Our budget and tips

With one euro being at least 3300 Colombian pesos everyone is a millionaire. But those millions fade away like in a casino in Vegas. In Colombia we spend 6686 euros for an amazing 110 day adventure. Per day that would give us 30.40 euros per person.

Where did we go?

From the amazing Caribbean islands of San Andres and Providencia to calm villages of the coffee region. From the salsa vibe in Cali to the excruciating hike to the Lost City of the Tayrona. And of course we also went to Bogota and the villages surrounding it including San Gil where JD tried some paragliding.

How did we travel?

To San Andres we obviously flew, to get to Providencia we took a boat but to go back we were forced to fly as a cargo boat sunk and no one wanted to risk it. On the main land we either took a bus or plane (in many long distance trips flying was cheaper than the bus check out Viva Colombia). In the big cities we got fancy with really cheap and handy Uber. Overal on the transport we spend 1060 euros.
Examples: return flight from Medellin to San Andres for both of us with luggage (Viva Colombia) was 719 960 COP so 210 euros.
Uber fare in Medellin: 4000-8000 COP so around 1.15-2.30 euros (depending on the distance and traffic)
Overnight bus from San Gil to Medellin was 140 000 COP so around 40 euros for the two of us.

Where did we stay?

On accomodation we spend 2130 euros sleeping 65 nights in dorms from which 2 weeks for free as we were volunteering in a hostel. One week during Christmas we rented a whole apartment in Medellin and the rest of the nights we stayed in private rooms in hostels or in airbnbs.

A bed in a dorm was around 9 euros except on Providencia where there was only one hostel and a bed in a dorm costed around 13 euros (when booked in advance). Private rooms were usually starting at around 20 euros.

What did we eat?

We mostly kept our habit of cooking at the hostels so a lot of vegetables, oven dishes, pastas, all fresh and delicious and way cheaper. But in some places like on San Andres and Providencia we didn't have a kitchen so we had to eat out. Tough life eating lobster and crab for almost no money at all but we managed (detailed budget about the islands). We also had to cool ourselves with some ice cream quite often and then bring back the temperature with some delicious coffee. In total we spend 756 euros on eating out.

How expensive are museums, tours etc?

On tourism we spent 1274 euros including entrances to museums, boat renting in Guatape, paragliding, trek to the Lost City and a few cinema dates (top tourist destination)

Examples: trek to the Lost City- set price of 200 000 COP so around 205 euros per person
Gold museum entrance: 3000 COP so under a euro
Cinema: around 1 euro depending on the time of the week

What else did we spend our pesitos on?

Medication, books, wool for my crochet, haircut etc. All that and more for only 140 euros.

We also spend 133 euros on "equipment" so clothes, a towel, sunglasses, underwater masks etc.

Our tips to save money in Colombia:

Cooking on your own is the best way to save money. It’s healthier, often more delicious and almost always cheaper
If you don’t want to use public transport in big cities in Colombia, use Uber! It’s easy, fast and very safe. And it’s not very expensive especially if you travel with the 2 of you or more
Volunteer! We did that and it not only saved us some money but it gave us the opportunity to meet incredible people and stay longer in places. We used workaway to volunteer in the coffee region
If you speak fluent spanish consider volunteering as a translator on the tours, they often need someone to translate to english. We used that for a discount to the Lost City Trek
Try to go off season so not in December-February and not in July-August

P.S. Exchange rate used for the overal budget 1 COP= 0.00028 EURO

If you have any questions or you would like to take a look at our spreadsheet, let us know:)

Goodbye Colombia, hello Spain

The last days in Colombia were difficult, we were realizing that something was coming to an end. On one hand we wanted to eat as much papayas, granadillas and dragon fruit as possible on the other we were ready to go to Europe. 14 months in South America has been incredible but we were on for a change. I think we were ready to leave the chaos, dirt and noise. At least for a while. We actually didn’t wait for our flight to do that, for the last couple of days we stayed in the middle of absolute nowhere an hour from Medellin. Santa Elena was a sleepy, green village in the forest. It was a different world. We stayed in a portable house which was just spectacular! Just us, nature and weird bugs. Perfect scenery to contemplate our journey and the new chapter ahead of us.

Our flight to Europe was a long, long one. It stopped before it even started as they had to clean the plane. Nope, it absolutely couldn’t get cleaned before. It took 1.5 hr.

After many hours of movies, we reached Madrid and then Barcelona. Getting out of the airport we realized that 16 degrees in Europe is really cold. We were wondering if we were the only ones feeling that way because half of the tourists that we saw along the way were practically dressed for the beach. Possibly they thought that Spain is always hot or they were determined to get the best vacation pictures possible. Selfie sticks were everywhere and who didn’t have one could easily buy one on the streets. The local sellers are not screaming Gaudi anymore, now the only English words they know are “selfie stick”. And there are some pearls to photograph. Honestly for us everything was
beautiful, even food on the market. All well-presented and ready to buy. We were in heaven. We didn’t have to look
at bananas 100 ways with rice. And there was no corn either. Just croissants, bread, ham, cheese, fruit and veg all of it was our dream coming true. After a nice dinner we could even flush the toilet paper. Only the prices were less of an excitement. The pearls of Gaudi’s architecture have reached just outrageous prices, unfinished Sagrada Familia costs 15 euros if you don’t want the view from the towers if you do 30… Batllo
house is now 22.5 euro and there are still plenty of people waiting in line. Even though it’s expensive Gaudi has created some marvelous architecture in Barcelona and it would be a sin not to see it so we did. The playful light in Sagrada Familia was just spectacular,
incredible colors at every time of the day, I wonder how it will look in 2026 when it’s finished… and how much it will cost. Casa Bartllo was a masterpiece and walking around with kinda smartphones that were showing us how the house looked like when it was just built- insane idea. Obviously Bcn has so much more to offer except for Gaudi’s work and architecture in general. Shopping for example...:) unfortunately we didn’t manage to buy much. And now off to Galicia!!