Campervanning in North Mayo: A Scenic Adventure

August 27, 2025August 31, 2025 Marie Noonanadventure, beach, campervan, camping, europe, hiking, hiking trails, ireland, mayo, mountains, nature, north mayo, retirement, stargazing, travel, wilderness4 Comments

It was a week to remember, a week in late August, spent campervanning around Mayo, a week of spectacular walking on stunning coastal paths, pristine white-sand beaches, lonely bogs and remote mountains and even a pilgrimage route, Tóchar Phádraig, an ancient druidic path to reach Croagh Patrick.

We started at Portocloy Beach on the far North-West Mayo Coast in a Gaeltacht area. If ever the phrase ‘off the beaten track’ was appropriate, it was here. We watched a lone gull, the only sign of life, gliding and swooping over the calm harbour waters. There were no crowds, cafes, shops or bars, just a picture-perfect beach, isolated by miles of blanket bog and nestled deep into a natural harbour, Carrowteige Cove, a safe haven for swimming or snorkelling and a little pier for fishing boats. There were temporary toilets in place for the summer months which was good news for us as we were sleeping in the van (the ID Buzz).

Portocloy Beach is also the start point for a truly spectacular cliff walk along the sea edge all the way to the extraordinary cliff views of Benwee Head (Binn Bhuí). This walk has a combination of rolling hills, expansive bog views, dramatic cliffs, jaw-dropping ocean and sea stack views, and more sheep than we could count. It is a well-marked trail with black poles and purple arrows, clearly visible on a beautiful cloudless day. The weather was perfect for us, blue skies with a light breeze, perfumed from the heathers, but on gusty days, care would be required because of the trail’s proximity to steep cliffs. We hiked an out and back route (about 13kms) but it is also possible to do the Carrowteige Loop Walk, which covers much of the same trail but is looped.

Rincoe Strand was only a ten-minute drive from Portocloy. It looks out across Broadhaven Bay towards the Mullet peninsula with a sandy beach on either side of a small peninsula. There were far more sheep than humans with the sound of bleating mingling with the lapping waves……until two busloads of Irish language students arrived for a swim in the crystal- clear waters… but peace came ebbing back when they scrambled onto their buses after about an hour, leaving a few campervans and the sheep. We walked uphill past the walled graveyard to Connolly’s Pub (Teach Conghóile), a cosy place with spectacular sea views where a couple of locals were sipping pints. The whole area had a desolate beauty with hardly a tree or bush…it almost felt like we were on an island with the sea and water in every direction. A local man, who now lives in Wexford, told us with nostalgia of the ‘good times’ growing up here, when children ran wild and free, and fishermen travelled to England to find work during the winter months and boys, as young as thirteen, went to Scotland to pick potatoes, known as the tattie hokers.

After Rincoe, we headed south along the coast, stopping for lunch in Belmullet before continuing to Claggan Island, Mayo’s newest island, having only being officially declared an island in 1991. The tiny island is situated on the northeastern corner of Blacksod Bay, about 12km from Belmullet. It is linked to the mainland by a narrow, sandy causeway that divides Tramore Bay from Blacksod Bay and it is circled by beautiful sandy beaches in every direction you look with some amazing views of Achill and the Mullet Peninsula. It was easy to spot the first-time visitors…they were the ones driving on the rough sandy road while the locals used the beach.

Driving around the roads of North Mayo, we kept seeing signs for Tír Sáile without knowing what it was. By the time it registered that this was a Sculpture Trail, we had passed most of them. Tír Sáile originated in 1993 when fourteen site-specific sculptures were installed in spectacular locations around the coast (sáile is seawater). One of the sculpture was on Claggan island, titled ‘Acknowledgment’, a 50m long sculpture of stone and earth, a tribute to the anonymous dead, whose memories have been lost in time.

South of Claggan Island, there seemed to be an unending supply of more white-sand beaches with the distinctive silhouette of Achill Island on the horizon in the distance. Doolough Beach was empty apart from a man walking five dogs who told us that whales were spotted in the area the day before. Doohoma Head had a wooden seat with a dreamy Achill view but it was time for us to turn inland towards the mountains.

We stopped at the Ballycroy Visitor Centre in Wild Nephin National Park, a modern building full of light and clean lines with knowledgeable, enthusiastic staff and a lovely café. Wild Nephin National Park is huge – a vast 15,000 hectares of uninhabited and unspoilt wilderness, dominated by the Nephin Beg mountain range and the Owenduff Bog, one of the last intact active blanket bog systems in Western Europe. Martin, who worked in the centre, explained the vision for the future with conservation plans for reforesting the park with native species and a focus on education.

Just inside the visitor centre was a huge star-studded poster with the caption ‘The darkest skies reveal the brightest stars’ because Nephin has some of the darkest, most pristine night skies in the world and is officially certified as a Gold Tier standard International Dark Sky Park. The Mayo Dark Sky Park extends across the entire National Park….there was even a viewing platform on the grounds of the visitor centre. The best time for star-gazing is the clear crisp winter months but it is possible on any night for visitors to see with the naked eye thousands of twinkling stars, other planets in our solar system, the Milky Way and even meteor showers…if they are lucky.

On Martin’s advice we headed to the Letterkeen Trailhead, about a forty minute drive, northeast from the centre, a trip into wilderness and blizzards of midges at dusk. Unfortunately the skies remained cloudy for us that night with only a smattering of stars but the Letterkeen Loop walk the following morning was gorgeous, with different terrain from stony sheep paths, forest trails to sucking boggy paths where we almost lost a boot. Although the air was thick with moisture, it didn’t actually rain. We enjoyed panoramic views of inky-black lakes, brown streams and a feeling of deep isolation and silence. Nephin has been called ‘the loneliest place in the whole country’ because of the absence of human habitation and mobile coverage is patchy. We didn’t meet a single person on the trail although there were a few cars parked at the trailhead, which also had spotless port-a-loos.

Our next stop was Ballintubber Abbey, founded in 1216 and one of Ireland’s oldest surviving abbeys and the hub of the ‘Irish Camino,’ and one of the five medieval pilgrim paths of Ireland. It is the starting point for Tóchar Phádraig, an ancient pilgrim path that stretches to Crough Patrick.

Tóchar Phádraig predates St. Patrick, originally built about 350AD as a chariot route from Rathcruachan, the seat of the kings and queens of Connacht, to Cruachan Aille, as Crough Patrick was called in Pre-Christian times, a mountain sacred to our pagan ancestors.

Pilgrims must register in the Abbey before setting out, where they will receive maps, advice and a booklet which gives some information on the many points of interest along the way. We registered on Friday afternoon so that we could get an early start on the 35kms route the following morning as the office opened at 9.30am. The walk can be broken into two parts, the first section to Aghagower with its round tower, and the second section to Crough Patrick but we hoped to complete it in one go. We were branded on the back of each forearm with a small green cross, evidence that we had registered and paid our dues should any farmer or landowner request proof.

The morning started grey, in a light drizzle, the type of West of Ireland rain that was very wetting but the day cleared after an hour or two. The camino wound its way through open farmland, fields of grazing cattle, sheep and a few horses. We trekked through woodland and forests, stepped over countless stiles with the Tóchar cross sign etched into the stone and tramped along country lanes past hedgerows laden with abundant bounty – blackberries, sloes and haws and moisture drizzled cobwebs.

There were numerous storyboards, highlighting points of interest, a welcome opportunity to stop and read. This was not only a spiritual pilgrimage but also a cultural and historical journey through the ages, a fascinating blend of pagan and Christianity, a place of history and pre-history where every tree, stone and rock had a story to tell – mainly of famine, hardship and betrayal but also of healing and goodness. Sometimes in the silence, all I could hear was the beating of my heart and the sound of my boots on the earth. While the first section was predominantly off-road, the second section was mainly on paved country roads and laneways.

With our damp start and the high wet grass, our feet were wet from the very beginning and we contemplated giving up at the halfway point but we persevered. Crough Patrick loomed out of the landscape, a focal point since ancient times, and seemed to beckon us forward although for long sections, it didn’t seem like we were getting any closer as we plodded along. There were signs saying ‘No complaining’ in several places which we tried to obey.

Although the trail was well-marked, we managed to lose it several times, back-tracking until we picked it up again. There are several guided walks each year, organised by the Abbey, which would be easier as we wouldn’t have to concentrate on finding the markers ourselves but we were a week too early for the August guided pilgramage. We finished with a sense of achievement…. and exhaustion with shrivelled feet… after a long day of blisters and contemplation.

We barely scratched the surface of what North Mayo has to offer but one thing is certain, we will certainly return if we can. If stunning scenery, amazing deserted beaches, superb hiking and starry skies are your thing, then Mayo is definitely the place to go. The locals are an added bonus, probably the friendliest people in the whole country and certainly the most talkative.

We had no problem with the electric van, charging it in Ballina and in Westport. This van trip was so successful that we are considering going further afield. Might it be possible to drive to Istanbul or Casablanca…..and back?

Thanks for reading

Japan: Chasing the Dream (aka Running from the Rain)

October 27, 2024October 27, 2024 Marie Noonanamami oshima, asia, beach, campervan, Ferry, japan, japan-travel, kyushu, retirement, travel5 Comments

We are in the terminal building standing in a queue to buy tickets for the ferry to Beppu in Kyushu when several phones, including Caoimhin’s, start making strange sounds simultaneously. It’s an emergency alert but it doesn’t say what for …more information coming is the ominous text. The noise echoes around the high ceilings of the building. People glance at their phones but nobody seems too bothered and the queue shuffles on as if such alerts are frequent. It’s a reminder that we are in a country where natural disasters are common with a history of typhoons, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes.

Ferries run several times a day between the two islands (Shikoku and Kyushu). We hadn’t booked a ticket but there wasn’t any problem about buying a fare on the day. The cost for two passengers and the van was €100 for the three hour crossing. There was more alarming phones on the ferry but again nobody took any notice. The ferry was quiet and extremely comfortable…. so comfortable that we were disappointed to arrive early.

Kyushu seemed green and mountainous and a lot like Shikoku with perhaps a little more rice cultivation. It has been a bad year for rice due to the unseasonably high temperatures. Most of the rice cultivation is on small holdings managed by elderly farmers. The average age of an agricultural worker in Japan is 69 years old. Most older people in Japan continue working. At the launderette where we were doing our weekly wash (we pack very lightly), the manager was a sprightly eighty something year old. He was a very chatty man, eager to give us tips about all the places we should visit in the locality. Unfortunately we missed a lot of it as Google Translate couldn’t keep up with him, he talked both too much and too fast for Google.

Our first stop in Kyushu was Beppu, a town known for its many onsens (thermal baths). It’s a very seismically active area which explains the many baths. The nearby region of Oita has had nine earthquakes, greater than magnitude seven, since 1900. Beppu is built on a flat plane hemmed in on three sides with mountains. As we approached on a grey, humid 30 degrees afternoon, the plumes of steam rising from the many hot springs and the clouds descending down the mountains intermingled to give an eerie darkness. Maybe it was that our minds were filled with those emergency alerts (that everyone ignored) but we felt a sense of foreboding. It became darker and huge, fat drops of rain splattered the van.

We tried to stay in an RV park in the centre of Beppu but it was closed so we tried a campsite in the hills buts that was boarded up. Our third option was a campsite high above the town in a nature reserve near a lake,. This was open and the rain stopped. Although there were loos, there weren’t any showers and it was prohibited to swim in the lake. Lake Shidaka is supposed to have been made from the accumulated tears of the broken hearted. Nevertheless it was a serene plane where swans floated by and the trees were beautiful. There were only 5 campers/tents in the huge park. There was some damage from a typhoon that had swept through a few months before.

In desperate need of a shower and some Wi-Fi, we searched for a guesthouse in Beppu and found J.Hoppers in the centre of town with parking, Japanese futon beds, our own ensuite bathroom for less than €40 a night. It was fantastic, comfortable and reasonably priced. The luxury of having our own bathroom cannot be underestimated. The owner spoke English with great recommendations for onsens and restaurants. There was also a common area for chatting with other guests, a couple who were cycling to Bhutan, a Kuwaiti guy who described Kuwait as a ‘dreamless sleep’ where people have nothing to do and more money than is good for anyone. If you ever find yourself in Beppu, I’d recommend you stay at Hoppers.

The Hells of Beppu is a series of seven bubbling pools of water and mud with various colours from deep turquoise to flaming red. They are dotted at separate locations around the town. The pools are strictly for viewing and not for bathing (unless you have a wish to be scalded) although there were footbaths at many of the sites to soak your feet. It was probably the most touristy thing that we have done and our first exposure of coachloads of Japanese tourists. The noise, the crowds, the bell-ringing of the tour guide was totally overwhelming especially as the day was hot and the parks were steamy. It truly was ‘hell’.

After our enjoyable stay in Beppu, we headed down the east coast of Kyushu on non-toll roads but even these were very good. There were numerous tunnels cut through the mountains. Sometimes we there were only a couple of hundred metres from the end of one tunnel and the beginning of the next. It was about 20 degrees, a drop of 10 degrees in a couple of days. There were deserted beaches and closed campsites where we parked for the night anyway.

The Nichinan Coast on the eastern side of Kyushu is regarded as one of the most beautiful coastal drives in Japan with many offshore islands, strange rock formation and thundering surf. Down the coast, we visited a shrine for couples, a place that was very popular as a wedding venue. It was quite busy with both the hopeful, the grateful and the desperate.

We pulled in for the night at a scenic spot along the coast overlooking the Pacific. It was sunny and blustery but it began to rain during the night and it didn’t stop. Hours later, we were marooned in the van, there was water leaking in the window onto one of our pillows. The carpark was almost a lake and a trip to the loo was a major expedition. It rains a lot in Japan (evident from the trees and green moss) but the area we were in was regarded as the wettest in the country. We sat in the van, checking weather forecasts and wondering where to go. Although we hadn’t seen the most impressive part of the stunning coast, we decided to abandon that plan. The lure of tropical islands was strong. We investigated ferries and flights to Okinawa and other islands in the East China Sea as rain hammered against the van. We made some coffee which streamed the windows even more and decided to head to Kagoshima Ferry Terminal and investigate ferries to any island. After driving on flooded roads when we feared the van would stall or a river might burst its banks, we diverted to the tolled roads. Hang the expense!

The woman in the ferry terminal office had the patience of a saint as we changed our minds about what we wanted to do, There was no availability for the overnight ferry that evening for a van, mainly because the army were travelling with lots of jeeps and trucks. We decided to go as foot passengers but then changed our mind again when we heard the price of parking the van at the ferry terminal. When we found out the price to travel with the van, we almost called the whole thing off. I’m sure that the woman was inwardly cursing us but she was so helpful, as we debated, dithered and communicated with her by Google Translate. Eventually we came to a decision. We would travel the following day with the van and we would return in eight days. There was some discount for getting a return fare. So we left Kagoshima in the rain but thankfully there was little wind and sailed four hundred kilometres overnight on the East China Sea.

After a night on hard mats in the third class quarters, the ferry arrived in the early morning to a sleeping Amami Island. We parked near the sea, boiled some water on the stove for tea and coffee and waited for the island to wake it while we admired the dawn tranquillity . There was more birdsong than we had heard up to now and the loudest cicadas that we have ever heard.

Mainly there were green, forested hills, rising behind small fishing villages nestled on the shore. With the topography of steep hills coming down to meet the sea, we saw that it was a constant battle to prevent the land sliding into the sea from mudslides and the sea overtaking the land, a constant pull and tug. Driving around the island we witnessed first hand the hills reinforced with concrete and the sea barriers, both requiring constant maintenance.

The Amami islands are halfway between mainland Japan and Okinawa island group and not that far from Taiwan. Amami Oshima, the main island, is sparsely populated, smaller and less touristy than its more well known neighbour, Okinawa. It has a similar climate, warm with plentiful rain and a unique culture with worship of many gods of mountain, sea and forest. Many rituals take place around a lunar calendar and are overseen by an elder female.

We soon found out how plentiful that rain could be. Although our first day on the island was warm and sunny (about 29C), it began to rain that night and didn’t stop at all for about thirty six hours. The rain wasn’t like rain at home, it was warm but still drenching and it caused more leaky windows. The deluge gave us an opportunity to visit museums, an aquarium and the wildlife conservation centre. Conservation and nature is an important part of Amami with its unique eco-systems of mangroves, forests, seashore and pristine waters. It is a World Heritage Natural Site. There are rare species of plants and animals, unique to the island. Sea turtles come ashore and lay their eggs on many of the beaches between May and July. There were so many butterflies that sometimes it was almost like a blizzard. There are huge efforts in progress to eradicate the mongoose which was introduced to help reduce the number of snakes and rats. The problem was that the mongoose ignored the snakes and rats who were sleeping during the day and found easier prey in the rare species of rabbit and woodcock which have both become endangered as a result. Everywhere we go, there are warnings about the snakes, particularly vipers. So far, we haven’t seen any…..fingers crossed, it stays that way.

Last night we are parked up by Yadori beach, an idyllic spot on the edge on the forest. The temperature in the soft darkness was about 25C, there was a light breeze and we were enjoying some wine (which is surprisingly cheap in Japan). A man in a jeep stopped beside us to warn us about the danger of snakes in the region(all by Google Translate). That put a little damper on our evening, I even dreamt of snakes slithering in the van window that we had to keep open for some ventilation and I’m not even squeamish about snakes….usually.

We are so glad that we made the decision to bring the van to the island. It allows us the freedom to travel around as the bus service is not extensive. Amami is an island made for camper vanning with so many beautiful places to park, often with toilets, showers and picnic tables. At the southern end of the island we were spoilt for choice, parking beside gorgeous beaches with crystal clear water where we snorkelled with colourful, flickering fish. Truly a paradise when the sun shines……except for the snakes.

But there’s a typhoon coming and it is predicted to be a strong one. We are going to try and change our ferry tickets so that we can leave a day early…..just in case

Till next time….hope your Bank Holiday weekend is going well

From a sunny, blue-skied Amami,

Mata Ne (またね)

**Kayaking among the Mangroves, Amami Island**

Colombia- Cartagena and Beyond🏖️

March 3, 2024 Marie Noonanbeach, caribbean, cartagena, colombia, environment, rincon del mar, south America, sunshine, travel4 Comments

Cartagena on the Caribbean coast is the fifth largest city in Colombia with a population of two million. It is also the most touristy and considered the most expensive to visit. We had heard mixed reports before we went there but we enjoyed our visit. We stayed in Getsemani, a lively area of street art, bars and restaurants and near the old walled city.

The big attraction for tourists is the old quarter which oozes history with gorgeous colonial houses, small shady plazas and a clock tower built in 1601which once had a drawbridge over a moat that connected Getsemani with the walled city. Gold, silver, and other treasures from the South American continent were shipped to Europe from the port of Cartagena. We strolled through a sunny plaza where slaves were once branded and sold by auction. Cartegena’s history is littered with repeated pirate attacks because of its fabulous wealth. Sir Francis Drake ransacked the city in 1586, burning down the original cathedral. The city was fortified after that with thick walls to prevent more attacks. We did an excellent 2- hour ‘free’ walking tour, given by a very enthusiastic Cartagenero with a Spanish name but with a mixture of cultures flowing in his veins. The people on the tour given in English were American, Australian, South African, Lebanese, French, German, English and of course, us flying the Irish flag. There was a real ethnic mixture in Cartagena, both with natives and visitors, a true melting pot.

In a small park just outside the old city walls, we saw a family of tamarin monkeys and also some three-toed sloths sleeping in the trees. This wasn’t a zoo; the animals were free to go but seemed quite content to stay, like so many others. Some of the monkeys seemed keen to be photographed and enjoyed the photo-shoot.

There was a vibrant energy about Cartagena despite the heat with signs of expansion, an impressive high-rise skyline over the river and lots of building works. A new mayor had big plans to improve pavements and parks. Cartagena was home of the hustle. Everyone was selling something. If an unwary tourist walked about without hat or sunglasses, they were immediately mobbed by street vendors selling both.

Cartagena is relatively expensive for most things but not for cocktails🍹especially in Getsemani, where women with mobile carts served up potent mojitos in plastic glasses for the price of €5 for two. It was also a place of music and dance of every genre, of eating outside every evening to the beat of buskers and the click of heels and the passing around of a hat for tips.

Cartagena is surrounded by sea and rivers, but lack of clean water was an enormous problem. We arrived after an 8-hour bus journey from Riohache to find that there was no water in the tap or shower at our accommodation. Our landlady told us that the water had been turned off in the city because of burst pipes. It came back for a few hours the following day but was turned off again. The local shops sold out of large bottles of water, so we had to buy lots of small bottles, creating quite a mountain of plastic😲. Just breathing in the sticky tropical climate was thirsty work. In a small environmental gesture, we drank cold beer in glass bottles whenever we could. The amount of plastic generated by the huge volume of tourists in Cartagena must be staggering.

Water continued to be an issue when we moved westwards along the Caribbean Coast to Rincon del Mar, a small fishing village without an ATM or a bus link. We had to travel the last leg on the back of motorbikes to reach it.

We stayed in a breezy cabana with a view of the mangroves on one side and a two- minute walk to the sea on the other side. We had no water😏again for a few days until the water tank on the roof was filled. When we had water, little was wasted. A series of pipes from sink and shower collected wastewater into buckets, so-called ‘grey water’, which was used to flush toilets. When a big tanker lorry rumbled down the sandy streets of the village, the villagers ran to it with basins and buckets to fill them with precious water. There was only one tap in sinks or showers, no such thing as hot and cold taps. Often the water that came out of the tap was hot, heated by the sun but we were grateful just to have water. Maybe it was the heat (ranging from 37C during the day to 27C at night) but more than likely it was the lack of hygiene in the restaurants due to water shortages that led to both of us suffering stomach upsets (mine a particularly long lingering dose.)

In Rincon del Mar, the village lifestyle was simple and very communal, with doors always open, children playing in the street, old people sitting in doorways chatting or playing TV bingo. On weekend nights, boom-boom boxes were set up in the middle of the street and they blared music until five in the morning at an ear-splitting volume. These 3-metre high boxes were so loud that talking was impossible, but most people just sat around drinking beer and occasionally dancing.

**Caoimhin entertaining the kids in local shop**

The highlight of our week in Rincon del Mar, apart from the glorious sunrises over the mangroves, spectacular sunsets over the ocean and lazy days, was a sunset boat trip to swim with bioluminescent plankton. We first detoured to Bird Island, where thousands of majestic Frigate Birds circled overhead in a blush-pink sky, on their way home to roost for the night on the island. It was a magnificent sight. As darkness descended, we made our way through a labyrinth of shadowy mangroves into a secluded, almost secret, area of sea. When we jumped into the water from the boat, something magical happened. Each of our movement created a glittery solar glow of bioluminescent plankton. We were shining in the inky darkness of the water as if we were lit from within. It felt special, bobbing around in warm water at night, creating our own personal light show. The boat journey back felt long and even cold in our wet swimming togs, but we were still charmed by what we had experienced. We don’t have any photos because we know from experience that phones and salt water is not a great combination.

We also did a boat trip to the San Bernardo Islands, a group of islands about an hour offshore. Some of the boat passengers were staying on the various islands for a few days so the trip felt more like a bus service, dropping off and collecting people. But for the first time on this trip, we saw the calm clear turquoise waters, the Caribbean of tourist brochures. It has been very turbulent and murky up to then due to the strong winds at this time of year, making swimming difficult and snorkeling impossible. Now in crystal-clear waters, we donned our masks and jumped overboard in great anticipation. Unfortunately, we were dismayed by what we saw, a paltry number of pretty fish swimming around dead and broken coral. It was heartbreaking. There may be other areas which are well preserved and protected but it wasn’t the case here. We felt we were swimming in a graveyard.

We moved further along the coast to Covenas, a beach resort town with high-rise beach apartments which was very popular with Columbians. The beach was long, quiet and perfect for walking. We cooked plain food in a little apartment with running water, which was within spitting distance of the beach. Thankfully our digestive systems began returning to normal.

One interesting thing about Colombia is the way that processed food is labelled. A packet of Oreo biscuits, for instance, carries three prominent warnings EXCESS Sugar, EXCESS Salt and EXCESS Fat. This isn’t news but seeing it written in black and white on the packet kills the enjoyment a bit. Maybe it’s a better way of labelling processed food.

We’re not sure where we are going next but probably inland to Medellin, a city famous for all the wrong reasons as anyone who has watched Narcos will know.

Muchas gracias por leer esto xx

Colombia – Looking for Paradise

February 11, 2024 Marie Noonanbeach, colombia, photography, south America, travel9 Comments

Palomino is a small town on the Colombian Caribbean coast, nestled between two rivers, Rio Palomino and the Rio Salvador. Both rivers flow from the Sierra Nevada mountains to the sea on both sides of the town. It has developed a reputation as a mecca for backpackers with lots of cheap accommodation and good restaurants. It sounded like an ideal spot for some relaxation after our exertions during the Lost City Trek.

The bus from Santa Marta (two hours away), dropped us on the main road, with roaring traffic, motorbikes, buses, fumes and deafening noise. Palomino itself was just off this paved main road, a series of dusty unpaved roads, lined with low ramshackle, unpretentious houses, a lot of greenery, a few dogs sleeping and hardly a person in sight. It was early afternoon in a dense humming heat and Palomino did not seem like a mecca for backpackers…..or anybody else.😲

Our accommodation, Jui Chi Mama, was at the edge of the town, a 15-minute walk along more dusty streets. The outside door of our accommodation was faded dirty green, but inside was an oasis of calm and birdsong, an old house set in a huge, lush garden of huge tropical plants, an outdoor kitchen and lots of shady seating areas.

Jui Chi Mama was the sort of relaxing place that put a spell on its guests, a bit like Hotel California, you can check in but you can never leave.😄 Our initial booking was for four nights but we extended that by another four nights and then by another four nights. We weren’t the only ones…an English couple kept extending until they had spent three weeks, a Spanish girl was there for months and so was a German woman. We hope to check out tomorrow……if we can.

Palomino has the feel of a frontier town. Unreliable electricity supply is part of life here and power cuts are routine. A lot of guest houses and businesses have their own generator which unfortunately in our accommodation kept breaking down. We spent one long hot sticky night without a cooling fan, which was very unpleasant. There are no connected sewage systems (houses have individual septic tanks) but there are plans to change this with diggers doing the preliminary work but not very consistently. Clean drinking water is also an issue and we were advised to use the filtered water available in the kitchen even for cooking.

Heat is also part of life in Palomino with it’s tropical climate. It’s hot all the time, most days are well over 30C and nights are just under 30C. When we first arrived and trudged along the dusty streets, we wondered how people got around in the wet season when the dust in the street must turn to mud. February is in the dry season, which runs for six months from December to May. The weather was cloudy, overcast and very humid. We got a taste a few days later of what Palomino might be like in the wet. It rained, just a few showers at first, an afternoon of warm drizzle the next day and then a downpour that felt like it might never end, the skies emptied for about fourteen hours relentlessly. The streets were a quagmire, a slip-sliding mess of oche mud, flowing streams and floating rubbish. We were told that rain like that was very unusual, especially at this time of the year.

Palomino had the feel of two separate towns, there was the main strip, really just one street that led to the beach with lots of restaurants, tourist shops, tattoo places and tour operators. This was where most of the visitors hang out and then there was the rest of the town, where we were staying where the children played in the streets, where the front doors were open, where people sat outside their houses and gossiped, where the music coming from the snooker hall was seriously deafening at the weekends.

The Beach was long and sandy, bookended by the two rivers but the sea was surprisingly rough and quite dangerous in places for swimming. It was not the Caribbean of our dreams, the clear calm turquoise waters that we imagined. We dipped in it a couple of times, like being in a washing machine on a warm cycle, and when it spat us out, we relaxed at one of the beach bars and restaurants,

There were interesting trails into the mountains leading to indigenous villages, along paths that climbed high and then descended steeply and repeated over and over through thick vegetation.

Herman, who runs our guesthouse, was a keen birdwatcher so we booked a birdwatching tour with him, a four-hour walk in the early morning though the town, along by the river and mangroves to the beach. There was a huge variety of birds from tanagers, flycatchers to eagles. Many of the birds were similar to our own but then there are the colourful parrots, the Macaws and the tiny hummingbirds. Over the last six or seven years, a large patch of ground on the edge of town that was used mainly as a dump has been cleared up and is being reclaimed by nature to form new habitats. The growth here is phenomenal….we have watched a bunch of bananas in the tree outside our balcony , increase in size by the hour.

For the last week, we have been taking Spanish classes with the wonderful Christina, just an hour a day, mainly concentrating on conversation. Christina is a native of Bogota who moved to Palomino many years ago and also spent a long time in America so her English is excellent. Our progress is slow but hopefully, one day, it will all fall into place….with perseverance and practice🤞

So tomorrow we check out -if we can- and head further into the La Guajira region towards the desert and the northernmost part of South America

Hasta luego, amigos🥰

Colombia – The Lost City

February 1, 2024April 20, 2024 Marie Noonanbeach, colombia, hiking, south America, travel10 Comments

Everyone has heard of Machu Picchu in Peru but Ciudad Perdida, the Lost City of Columbia is far less well known despite being 650 years older and also shrouded in mystery.

Unlike Machu Picchu, Ciudad Perdida does not have a bustling town at the base of the mountain with hotels to suit every taste and a bevy of tour buses to ferry tourists to the entrance. There is only one way to get to the Lost City in Columbia……and that is, by foot on ancient paths and tracks hiking through protected indigenous land…and it can only be done as part of an organized guided group on a multiday hike, carrying your own luggage. You have to sweat to earn the privilege of visiting the Ciudad Perdida or Teyuna as it is called by the native people. The companies offering the trip are all based in Santa Marta, a town on the Caribbean Coast so we headed in that direction.

The temperature on the overnight bus to take us from San Gil to Santa Marta was icy especially when compared with the outside temperature of nudging 30 degrees. Some passengers were draped in blankets and one woman was wearing a wooly hat covering her ears. The journey was supposed to take fourteen and a half hours but although we left San Gill almost an hour behind schedule, we still reached Santa Marta an hour ahead of time😲We were tossed and tilted on our reclining seats and would have certainly landed in the aisle if we didn’t have seat belts especially for the first few hours. Maybe it was a blessing that it was dark and we couldn’t see the road but overall it was a relatively comfortable if chilly journey at a cost of €25 each but we saved on a night’s accommodation.

Santa Marta is a ramshackle sort of place where the drivers were unusually courteous, stopping to let us cross the road unlike those in San Gil where crossing the street was an adrenaline-fueled adventure. It’s a beach town and a busy port with a huge basilica, the oldest colonial town in Columbia (founded in 1525) and the place where Simon Bolivar, the Liberator of South America died in 1830 of tuberculosis (although his cause of death is controversial, as most things are in this part of the world). Santa Marta could also be called the windy city, a warm gusty wind blew up in the afternoons and evenings which was quite welcome although it stirred up the rubbish and swayed the trees.

But for us, Santa Marta was mainly our gateway to the Lost City. There is no competition between the tour companies that organize trips to Ciudad Perdida. They have all got together to form a cartel of sorts, they have the same itinerary and charge the same prices, a whopping 2 million COP per person (€500 ), a price that has doubled in the last year. As the 4 day or 5 day tour cost the same price, we opted for 5 days (we have time on our hands😄), starting the following day. If you book online, its even more expensive.

In the office of Expotours at 8.30am, a motley group of strangers looked around, assessing the people they would share the next 4 or 5 days with. Caoimhin and I were by far the oldest, most being in their twenties and thirties.

There were Germans, Canadians, a French woman, two English girls, a Colombian couple with their thirteen year old son but surprisingly the largest representation of any nationality was ….the Irish. There were four lads from Galway who were at the start of a 5 month stint around South America, there was Joe from Belfast and the two of us, the Elder Lemons.

A couple of jeeps took us on a bumpy ride for a couple of hours into the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountains to begin our trek. After a lunch of rice, salad, beans with natural juices and an orientation talk, we were on our way with Spanish speaking guides and English speaking translators. The midday sun beat down on us and the trail was a mixture of exposed sections where the sweat dripped from us, drenching our t-shirts and welcome shady sections through forest and a canopy of trees where we encountered a dead snake on the path.

The 7 Kms on the first afternoon took about three and a half hours including a stop for a swim and another to eat thick slices of luscious watermelon, the stony paths mainly climbed upwards except the last section which was steeply downhill to our first campsite. This was an open-sided galvanized-roofed building with a kitchen, rows of long tables for meals, rows of bunk beds, some cold water showers and flush toilets. The river, a faint gurgle from the camp was downhill where we had a swim in a refreshing deep pool before dinner and looked at the huge water spiders (apparently harmless ) which rested on the large mossy rocks.

On that first afternoon a pattern was set that would continue for the following days, the Galway lads who were all GAA players with bulging muscles, set a blistering pace, egging each other on until even the guide was a perspiring heap and the group was stretched across the trail.

Our second day began with a flickering of lights in the dorm at 5am and a lot of groaning. All the damp sweaty clothes from the day before were still wet. It had rained during the night and the air was humid. It was still dark outside and drizzly. Breakfast was papaya and melon, scrambled egg, arepas (a Colombian bread a bit like a Mexican tortilla) and sweet fruit bread. The Galway lads were in flying form, messing and slagging each other, even at this early hour in pre-dawn darkness, woofing down any leftovers with gusto.

**Jungle Etiquette – stand aside for mules**

We crossed into indigenous land with thicker jungle and shared the trail with the natives wearing their white traditional dress, often herding a black pig on a leash or accompanied by laden mules. We jumped when a huge jackfruit dropped from a tree and split open with an almighty splat in front of us. We passed a small village of round thatched houses with black haired children playing outside, crossed rivers and streams, swam to cool off in dappled water with leaves constantly falling from the surrounding dense foliage. It felt almost like a different dimension, another world, with no cell phone or internet coverage – the guides communicated with each other on walkie talkies. ‘Happy Hour’, the name that the guides gave to the intense uphill stretches, began that day after a huge lunch of lentil soup with lumps of corn on the cob floating in it, veg stew (or chicken stew for the carnivores), rice and salad, finished off with a small packet of oreo biscuits. We staggered into our small camp at about 3,30 pm after a long and pretty gruelling 17 kms to be greeted by reviving coffee and hot chocolate and enormous trays of salted popcorn. The food prepared freshly by our cook, Petrona, was tasty, filling, plentiful and very much appreciated.

We slept that night in bunk beds under mosquito nets in another open-sided structure to the sound of gushing water from the river a few meters away. The guide had warned us to shake out all blankets and all clothes before putting them on……just in case. The just in case was left hanging tantalizingly in the air without further explanation. The following morning, Joe who was in the bunk next to mine, felt something on his back when he was getting dressed. He brushed it away, but it was a scorpion which strung him on the finger. Everyone was shaking out their clothes and checking shoes after that and thankfully Joe was fine, with minor swelling and numbness.

The third morning, we entered the Lost City after clambering over boulders by the river. crossing a rickety rope bridge and climbing 1200 steps to the site which is sacred to the indigenous tribes who close the site to visitors every September for the whole month to perform sacred rituals. It felt like an achievement to be there, a place that was ‘lost’ for so long, abandoned about 400 years ago and swallowed by the rampant growth of the jungle and rediscovered in the 1970s although the indigenous knew of its existence all the time. For many years after that, it was off limits for visitors, too dangerous to visit for this was drug country, an area that has known appalling bloodshed, ruthlessness, and greed. Tourism is an opportunity for change, for a new beginning and for a good livelihood not based on the cultivation and processing of drugs.

At the top of the steps, we reached the initial settlement which consisted of several large stone circles with low stone walls and some towering trees reaching to the heavens. There was an air of tranquility in this majestic setting of misty tree-clad mountains, our group were the only people there, except for birds, a trio of dogs and an army of mosquitoes, intent on breakfasting on us despite the copious amount of repellent that wafted off everyone. The site kept unfolding, becoming more impressive the further we walked until we were in front of the giant terraced platforms, that climbed one above the other, concentric circles. There was the shadow of a huge buzzard overhead, a bird that in indigenous folklore were messengers between the spirit and the human worlds. The sun slowly rose to warm the site and bathe the stones in warm sunlight. Soon the heat intensified, and it was time to reluctantly retrace our steps. back the way we had come, navigating the 1200 steps which seemed even steeper on the descent.

On the fourth morning, the 4-day and 5-day groups parted company. The Galway lads and an Englishman had signed up for the 5-day hike but changed their minds, deciding that they couldn’t take any more with sore muscles and blistered feet. Caoimhin and I continued for another day with the Colombian family.Our young friends awarded us ‘warrior status’ for our endurance but the old dog for the hard road.

This fourth day with a smaller group was all about rivers and waterfalls of all types, gushing curtains of water, or water falling like gentle white rain watering a wall of exotic green plants. We crossed and recrossed the Rio Buritaca several times, more times than it seemed possible to cross the same river. We crossed with steping stones, rope bridges and once and best of all in a rope pulled ‘cable-car’, standing on a timber plank, swaying above the foaming water. The Columbian family and the guide chatted as we hiked. Although our Spanish is still not good, we can understand more than we can speak. When I couldn’t understand anything, I longed to earwig on conversations and know what people were talking about. We discovered that their chat was almost exclusively about food, what they ate and when and what they would eat again and we thought that we were missing out on deep meaningful conversations or at the very least, a bit of gossip.

On the fourth night and in a bunk bed in a camp by the Rio Buritaca (yes, that same river), we slept for a solid ten hours, both body and mind in need of rest. Our fifth day was easy, a two-hour hike through former coco plantations back to where we had started walking five days before, but we weren’t the same people, our muscles ached but our heads were full of memories of a mysterious city in the mountains that was lost and found.

What else might be out there waiting to be ‘found’?

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