Packed day. We had a lot on the agenda and we were heading back to Medellin today. We piled into our car and headed out to meet this tour we were doing. But wait… the road out was locked and barred. No way through. Once again we were trapped! After consulting a small child on his strategy on how to escape we raced around for awhile. The conclusion of this was that the child probably didn’t know what he was talking about. Luckily we finally found a guy who did and he was able to round down some folks to open the gate and let us out. Now we were only 30 minutes late to meet our group.

We raced over there and were met with a huge group of people and four jeeps. Hey, no problem some people can just ride on the roof or hanging off the back of the jeeps. Oh good! The real problem, though, is they aren’t coming back to the start so we have no way to get our car. A problem best dealt with later. So we pile onto this jeeps, take off down the highway and then onto windy dirt roads up onto another promontory in the lake. Naturally, the jeep we are riding in explodes and we have to leave it there. So now we only have three jeeps for everyone. No problem, pile more people onto the roof and now the bonnet.

We finally get to our destination, one of Pablo Escobar’s many mansions. This one has a tour and, more importantly, a paintball arena. So we played paintball in an arena that was comprised of the guest house, servants quarters and stables. As you can imagine, pretty awesome. Everyone sustained their share of injuries and running around at the equator with a mask, gun and overalls is hard work. After that we got a tour of the property and, thankfully, lunch.

From here we took boats back to the town of Guatape and had coffee. Since we were in a town we thought this might be a good time to retrieve our car. As we often do, we offered a random guy some cash to take us back to our car. He was happy to oblige. So we collected our car and drove to Penol de Guatape. A massive rock (second largest in South America) that overlooks the lake. 740 stairs later we were at the top. We made it in time to catch sunset so everything timed out quite nicely in the end. After a celebratory beer at the top we were on our way back to Medellin.

The drive back included only the normal amount of close calls for driving around South America and we made it unscathed. We were starving and so naturally rolled into Il Castello, a very nice Italian place. We had been, driving, hiking and running all day and to varying degrees we were still covered in paint. …they were gracious enough to let us stay for dinner.

As was habit now, the day began sitting on the patio reading. We made the shocking discovery that some cars were driving around which meant the road was probably open. Great news since some of our friends were coming to meet us. They showed up in the afternoon and since they were able to get dropped off right at our door we arranged a boat to take us back to our car. In the afternoon we checked out the town of Guatape, had lunch, randomly did some bumper boats and sat on a dock drinking. In the evening we headed back to our place and again hung out on our patio.

A much anticipated thing was happening today. The restaurant near our house that we were trapped at was going to open. This meant we could have more to eat than fun-sized packages of chips! We hustled over there as soon as it opened to get lunch. Afterwards, enthusiasm for other activities waned and we returned to our gorgeous patio and read. In the evening we rounded up another boat and went for a ride around the lake at sunset. Predictably gorgeous. Then we came back and had dinner at our one restaurant before calling it a pretty early night.

So, the next morning. Normally not being able to get up the road to your house would be a huge problem. But we were staying right on the water. Easy solution; secure a boat. There’s a small restaurant right near the house we were staying in but naturally it was closed. This meant once we got out there we were going to be stuck without food until… whenever that opened. No problem. We secured some provisions (several small bags of chips and five bottles of wine) a boat and made our way out to our place. The place was, as expected, gorgeous. We spent the rest of the day sitting on the balcony until the steady intake of wine turned that into singing 90’s hits. …as happens.

All cultural differences aside, the rest of the world just doesn’t work as seamlessly as America does. As such, it took me considerable effort to get a car rented to drive out to Guatape today. Having successfully executed that, we worked from the apartment and grabbed some lunch at this Italian place nearby, Asti. I went to collect our rental car, which was another ordeal. I had to laugh at some of the special disclaimers for renting a car in Colombia. Bad news, if the car is destroyed as a result of your participation in an insurrection you’re out the cost of the car… After reams of paperwork and some incomprehensible directions back to the apartment we were on our way.

We had found this gorgeous AirBNB right on the water in Guatape way out on one of the many snaking promontories (basically islands) that make their way into the lake. Even though our rental car could only get up to about a top speed of… 40kph we had a pretty smooth drive out there. Right up until the last turn before our place. Turns out the road was completely impassable. Being the resourceful types that we are, this wouldn’t have been a huge problem if we had turned up earlier in the day. But as it stood here. We were stuck with no way to get to our place.

It started out as a pretty standard day. Went to my now staple, Ganso & Castor for breakfast and then headed over to the work space for the rest of the day. However, by the end of the day I had fallen into a trip to Guatape departing tomorrow.

Very early start today. Went back to my new passion Ganso & Castor to work in the morning, then relocated to Cafe Velvet for a while before heading over to the workspace. Lost motivation, though, so just hung out until my clothes were clean next door and then headed home for the evening.

Another productive day and one that I finally managed to venture out of the house for. I managed to wake up at my more usual time this morning so I think I’ve totally kicked that brush with getting sick that I had after my junket to New Orleans. I started the day at Ganso & Castor which is a just great little cafe, possibly my favorite since Copenhagen Coffee Lab in Lisbon. Worked there for the morning before heading back home and working there in the afternoon. In the evening I had dinner at this Indian place, Naan. Not only was it excellent it featured something else I’ve been sorely missing; American-level customer service! Called it an early night afterwards.

In true American fashion and after not finding anything open yesterday morning I went and worked at Starbucks this morning. Then made an unsuccessful attempt to secure some new clothes before returning home and have an extremely productive afternoon. Last night when I was at Dante I noticed that there are three Italian places in the same little complex and since it’s the closest place to me I’ve resolved to try them all. So tonight I went to Parmessano which was also good, not great, but a killer deal for the price.

Tried to venture out and find some cafe or coffee shop to work from this morning. Sadly, everything was closed so, as usual, I just ended up wandering the streets. I finally just decided to have lunch at Bonhomia which was good. But after that I was full and tired so I just went back home and worked until the evening when I tried this Italian place called Dante which was average but also extremely cheap.