La Costa Colombiana – Cartagena

Last but not least on my Costa Colombiana series, I got to visit Cartagena before leaving Colombia.

Cartagena was the most picturesque, clean but also touristy city of them all and definitely felt more like a holiday than a backpackers trip. The entire city centre is beautiful, full of colorful houses with huge doors and big balconies filled with flowers. So it’s the perfect place to take hundreds of pretty pictures.

We spent the few days in Cartagena walking around the centre and the outskirts and also took part in the free walking tour which gave us a bit of historical background to this pretty port city.

Cartagena is alive day and night and so it was the safest (within the centre) to walk around as well.

For drinks and an amazing sunset over the sea, visit Café del Mar. It’s an open-air lounge type place by the historic centre from where you can see the old town, but also the skyscrapers of Cartagena.

However, there was not much to do apart from admiring the city and doing the walking tour, so a few days there were more than enough to enjoy it!

La Costa Colombiana – Tayrona Park

You can read about my first tour here. The second tour I did whilst in Santa Marta was a trip to Tayrona Park, a national natural park.

If you’re a beach lover, Tayrona Park is a must when in Santa Marta. Its beaches are the most beautiful you will see on mainland Colombia and they lead to the Caribbean. Some visitors hike for 2 hours once they arrive at the park entrance, then visit one of the beaches called Cabo San Juan and return back hiking or on a boat to get back to the exit, others stay at the park overnight either in tents or hammocks.

Due to my limited time in Santa Marta, I could only stay one day at Tayrona and so I decided to go with a tour and visit one beach for the day. And there it was, Playa Cristal; one of the most beautiful beaches I’ve seen with clear blue water and white sand.

They picked us up at our awesome hostel in Santa Marta, La Guaca, and drove us from there, all the way into the park. The first thing you need to do before you can enter, is watch a video about Tayrona. You are then free to explore the park! However, it’s easier said than done by foot, as its huge. On our tour, we were driven to a beautiful viewpoint.

From there, we were taken to the last stop, before we took a boat to Playa Cristal.

We basically spend all day at the beach, swimming and enjoying the view. It felt like a hidden off place, something like from a movie.

The only thing I disliked about going to Tayrona was the extra costs that came up once in the park; apart from the price to enter the park, there was nothing else included in the price for our tour and really all they did was drive us into the park and to the beach. You might want a sitting area in the shade by the beach, you will have to eat something and of course, also drink plenty of water. All of these things were not included so if you can manage to prepare something before heading off, take your lunch with you and make sure to bring lots of water with you. If you didn’t have time to do that, be careful with the vendors and make sure to bargain before you buy, since they tend to try and rip you off.

Apart from that, Tayrona was lovely and I would love going again one day, maybe to even try and sleep in a hammock.

Why I left Social Media – The Value of Time

I came back to my home country, my mother’s land, the Dominican Republic and have been here since the year started. The reason why is here. I’ve had a lot of time to reflect on how I wanted to improve this year and my lifestyle overall.

There is one key phrase I found myself saying a lot when talking to people; “I haven’t had the time”. I’ve come to realize that time is the most important and valuable thing we can give and receive in life. Whether we give it to ourselves, friends and family or to doing things we love. Yet it seems like we never have “enough time” to do everything we love. I wanted to change that. I wanted to devote my life to being conscious, aware and focused at all times. To actually live my life to the fullest, figuring out what I enjoy doing and going for it whilst trying out and learning new things.

When I was younger, I was inspired about many things. I was creative and carefree, always doing what I wanted. I never felt bored and was always actively doing something with my time. Since Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat and Facebook came around, this has changed for me. I found myself lost with my mind at times, being unable to focus and retain information, at a lack of creativity and procrastinating to the fullest, being lazy a lot. When I think about it, I wasted a lot of precious time, scrolling through pages, looking at other people creating and doing things, thinking how I’d like to do that too, instead of engaging and doing something about it.

There are so many things that I enjoy and am interested in, projects I think of working on, things I like to learn more about, books I want to read and people I want to meet. So I decided to go back to the old me, going back to living life the old school way, before social media took over. I’m hoping to show you some of those things I love on here in the future.

One thing that also inspired me to take my final step was this TED talk. Social media can actually have a very negative impact on your mental health and I do believe that since no longer using it, I’ve been happier. My mind and my thoughts have not changed, but I have become more aware of them and of the things that surround me and that I do day after day. Because in the end, you are what you do, who you’re with, what you create and what you spend your time on.

Thanks for spending yours on me by reading this post.

Love and Light,

Celi

Story Time – I got deported

I never thought this would happen to me and so when I was taken to customs at the airport and the worker there told me with little importance to the matter, the words “we’ll have to deport you”, I was shocked and broke down in tears.

So let’s backtrack. I began this blog at the beginning of my year abroad from University. The plan was always to stay in Colombia for 3 months whilst volunteering as a teacher, then travel for 2 months and continue to my next placement. I had prepared my visa back in London, a month before travelling to be sure nothing goes wrong – or so I thought.

So I went on, volunteered, lived my experiences, gave my knowledge to children from low-income salaries, learned about Colombian culture and enjoyed my year abroad. I had honestly thought that I was well-prepared for living abroad; I had missed one very important thing.

My assumption was, that when my visa expired, my Swiss passport would automatically give me the right to stay another 3 months in the country as a tourist, not needing a visa (which you don’t, for the time of 90 days). But what I hadn’t realized, was that my visa wasn’t dated from the time of my placement; the embassy put the dates of 3 months from the date it was issued, so 1 month before my trip, my visa was already running.

I was at migrations, trying to explain to them, that I had the wrong dates on my visa, showed them confirmation of my placement between the university and the organization, explained that I had a Swiss passport and that I was there as a volunteer, with no intention to do any harm or stay in the country; they were so cold, even when I cried, they showed no importance to a young lady that made a bureaucratic mistake. So I was deported for up to 5 years; banned from Colombia. Now, thinking back at it, everything happened for a reason, I got a story to tell and I learned from it. And the time that I did spend there, was well spent; which you’ll see in my following and previous posts.

Moral of the story: don’t take bureaucracy lightly, especially when it comes to migration and visas. If something does happen; don’t worry, life goes on, you’ll learn from your mistakes.

La Costa Colombiana – Santa Marta

In December I finished my work placement in Colombia and finally had time to properly travel around the country for a bit. So naturally, I decided to take the plane dirección hacia la costa!

FYI: If you’re looking for affordable flights within Colombia, https://www.despegar.com.co is a very good site.

In Santa Marta, I stayed at the hostel La Guaca http://laguacahostel.com/ and quite frankly it was the best hostel I’ve stayed in so far. The beds were very comfortable, it was neatly clean, the included breakfast was delicious and they have the best-equipped kitchen I’ve seen in a hostel so far! It’s close to the beach in Santa Marta and there is a supermarket nearby (10min walk). Unfortunately, I didn’t take pictures of my room, but the website does a good job of showing quite accurately what it looks like.

Santa Marta itself is not the most impressive city. The beach is right next to a port and so the sand is greyish and the water isn’t clear but it does the job for a quick swim to cool down. The historical center is quite nice, with lots of parks, bars and restaurants that you can go to and the nightlife is great fun. You can also go to the rodadero with a cab which has even more restaurants and a bit of a nicer beach. But two days in Santa Marta are more than enough to see the city itself. However, there are many tours and activities in and around the city, of which I did two.

The first tour took me to the Sierra Nevada of Colombia, Minca.  It was my favorite activity out of everything we did in Santa Marta. Minca is a beautiful small village up in the mountains and our guide took us on a beautiful hike. We crossed rivers, swam in them and got to see beautiful mountain views.

After hiking for about 2 hours we arrived at the guides house and got served an amazing 2 course meal. For dessert, we got to taste cocoa beans and drank pure hot chocolate. Our guide also explained to us how cocoa is harvested and the process of making chocolate. Our guide then showed us their house and explained how bamboo is one of the strongest materials to build houses from and how he built his own house.

The last part of the tour took us to the coffee plantation where we learned about the production of coffee and got to taste the Colombian flavors!

Minca was an unexpected highlight and you should not miss it when in Santa Marta!

Lago de Pesca, Cali – I went fishing for the first time!

I love trying out new things, learning and going on adventures. This past weekend was my birthday weekend (whoop whoop!) and apart from celebrating, I ended up going fishing at a lake with my cousin and uncle. It was the first time in my life I did this and it was a lot of fun!

There are many different Lagos de Pesca Deportiva around Cali. The easiest way to get there is by car and you don’t need to bring anything, apart from jeans, patience and a love for eating fish.

I didn’t know a thing about fishing but it was surprisingly easier than I expected. You’re almost bound to catch a fish in a lake. We used worms as bait and although I caught around 10, some of them got away so I ended up with 4 fish caught by me. We went home with 12 fish total and paid around a pound for each.

You can either ask to eat your fish at the restaurant there or take it home and cook it yourself. We ended up doing the latter and it was delicious!

Women cleaning out fish

The end result!

If you haven’t thought of fishing before, I hope this makes you want to try it out and if you have, let me know about it!

Besos
Celi

Ginebra – A Village in the Valley

Cali is surrounded by many small villages that have a lot to offer! I’ve visited a few of them and I definitely recommend going to Ginebra.

We went to eat at the Albania restaurant which is surrounded by beautiful nature, mountains, grapevines, and sugar cane plantations.

Fiambre Valluno

I ate something called Fiambre, where meat, rice and an egg are cooked in plantain leaves. It was delicious!

There was a small museum like area next to the restaurant with a replica of an antique Colombian home. You could see the old stoves people used, typewriters, wooden beds and colorful pictures.

We also went around the village and usually they have one small chapel with a big square in front such as here:

The Chapel

On our way back home we were blessed with a beatiful sunset. It was a peaceful and picturesque little getaway.

Heaven on Earth

Another city I visited (but didn’t take any pictures as it was rainy that day) is Buga. If you like seeing chapels and going to mass, I recommend going there as they have a special statue of Christ there called El Señor de los Milagros – Lord of Miracles. The statue is believed to have appeared without the work of human hands.

Keep on exploring,

Celimar

How to save as a student in London

It’s been a month since Uni has started and I remember when I was a fresher 2 years ago, I did not know what was awaiting me. Living in London is expensive and being a student with newly acquired freedom, independence and loan money comes with responsibility and knowing how to budget (unless you’re one of the lucky ones that get everything paid by mommy and daddy). So here are my top 10 tips, to stretch those pounds:

1. Plan a Budget
   This is something I’m not great at myself, to be honest, but even if you won’t fully stick to it, try to plan a rough budget on how much you want to spend in certain categories. Your uni might already have a template excel file ready for you, otherwise, they’re easy to create. Make sure to check on it on a regular to see if you’re sticking to it. There are also good budgeting apps that can help with this such as OnTrees, Pocket Expense or Wally.
2. Transport
   Apart from rent, transport is the second most expensive thing in London. But you are bound to use it. If you want to exercise and save at the same time and you’re not scared of the busy London streets, invest in a Bike. You will pay around £150 pounds all at once but never have to worry about getting anywhere late or missing the bus. You can also buy a yearly Santander bike subscription at £90 if you prefer. Alternatively, you can buy a Railcard and apply for your Student Oystercard so you can get 1/3 off on trips. Don’t get travelcards unless you know you will be travelling more than 2x per day. Topping up will last you longer!
3. Student Discounts
   Keep an eye out for student discounts when you know you will need to buy something. Sometimes quality matters so it’s better to get those Levi’s Jeans or that Macbook on a discount. Get that UNiDAYS account and shop smart. If you know you will be buying food at the coop a lot and want extra discounts I recommend buying an NUS extra card. They also give you discounts on Railcards!
4. Affordable Shopping
   Shop smart. There are certain things that you can get for cheap that you really don’t need to spend a lot of money on such as tupperware or homeware. When it comes to those items, Poundland is your savior. The same thing applies to clothing essentials such as socks, that you can get at Primark for cheap and they will last. If you’re lucky and you have a Lidl close, buy your food there or at Asda where you will get the same items for much less. And if you have a bike, you won’t struggle in carrying your groceries home ;-).
5. Get a Student Job
   This applies especially if you’re in first year. Trust me, you will have a lot of time to go out, make friends, attend events aside from studying, so why not do something productive and earn some money, meet new people and get started in building on that CV!
6. Free activities
   There are many things you can do for free in London. Don’t go and waste your money on all of those society subscriptions, instead stick to one or two, meet friends and take them out to get to know London. There are so many things out there that you wouldn’t even think are free. TimeOut always keeps you updated on the latest events.
7. Learn doing things yourself
   There are many things you end up spending money on, especially when it comes to beauty. Learn to do the little things yourself, such as getting your brows done, nails or even waxing. It will save you time and money. Generally, it’s also good to learn how to fix things or try and ask around at uni whenever you need some help, you never know who’s got skills!
8. Save on makeup
   Instead of buying makeup remover, use oil and water to remove your makeup. Don’t buy expensive face masks when you can easily do them at home yourself with honey, suger, and lemons. Try to spend as little on makeup as you can and once again, get back to those discounts if you have an expensive brand you’re committed to. If you want good cheap makeup, go to Superdrug and get some Makeup Revolution kits! The quality for the price is amazing.
9. Hand-me-downs
   If you know people from second or third year that are moving homes or selling things, get stuff from them instead of buying new things! Most likely, you will be staying at hour housing place no longer than 3 years and you won’t be keeping most of the things when you move. You never know what others are trying to get rid of so have a look on your Uni Facebook page for groups or ask your friends whenever you will need something.
10. Nightlife
    If you like partying and drinking, make sure not to waste your pounds on overpriced club alcohol. Try to pre-drink with friends or go to Wetherspoons where you can drink for cheap.

Lastly, make sure to always carry a water bottle and some healthy snacks with you wherever you go, so you don’t have to spend money on food outside unnecessarily.

Good luck on saving in London!

Un abrazo,
Celi

The mountains of the Valle del Cauca

Cali is surrounded by a beautiful mountain range and although I am more of a beach person, I fell in love with the stunning views down the Cauca Valley and the fresh breeze. There are many small towns in the valley where you can eat good food, drink aguapanela with cheese and enjoy a stunning view to take pictures. It can get cold there, especially during night time so make sure to bring a jumper or hoodie with you.

Dapa, Valle del Cauca

The sun was out in Dapa so during the day it was warm, but it got as cold as 17°C when the evening fell. We went to eat at Racamandapa, a restaurant and event place which has live music, salsa dancers (of course) and good food.

Rainbow blessings

Kilómetro 18, Valle del Cauca

Now, this is an impressive place. These villages are on the route to Buenaventura (the port of the department) and at random times during the afternoon, you get to see fog coming down the mountain and covering everything. It can get very strong, to the point where you can barely see into the distance. Once again, we went there to eat, drink Lulo juice (my favourite!) and enjoy the tranquillity.

There are other villages you can visit too but you should definitely not miss out on these when you pass by Cali!

If you’ve been there before, let me know how you found it in the comments.

Besos,
Celi

Aborrajados – A Colombian speciality

I’ve been eating well here in Colombia, so I thought I’d share a little recipe of one of my favorite dishes. Aborrajados are sweet plantains, filled with cheese and fried in batter. They taste sweet and salty at the same time and are easy to make.

What you will need:
1 Sweet Plantain                                                               Around 50 grams of cheese
1 Egg                                                                                        80-100 grams of flour
Oil to fry (Sunflower)                                                     80ml of Milk
Pinches of salt and sugar                                              1 Orange (Secret Ingredient)

Step 1: Prepare the Batter

Mix in Flower with salt and sugar, add milk, the egg and whisk it until the batter is creamy but somewhat thick. Add the juice of half an Orange and if need be, add some more flour (hence 80-100 grams). You can check if the batter is the right consistency by putting some of it into the hot oil and checking if it fries well.

The Mixture

Step 2: Fry the Plantain

You can either cut the plantain into several thick pieces or if you want a less thick aborrajado, cut those pieces into half as you can see on the picture. Fry them until they are soft inside, around 2-3 min on each side.

Maduros

Step 3: Fill with cheese and fry

Once the plantain slices are fried, use cling film or any non-sticky surface to flatten them. Fill them by placing cheese on one slice and then adding another slice on top to cover it. Dip the cheese filled slices into the batter and fry on both sides y Listo!

Et Voilá: Served

You can serve this as a side with rice, meat and a salad or have it as a starter/ snack you chose really!

Buen provecho,
Celi