I can't take credit for the blog title, it's the Colombian tourist board's new motto for promoting the country, on one hand they have a rather difficult job on their hands, when telling anyone you're visiting Colombia you generally get regaled with many stories of friends of friends who've been kidnapped, held at gunpoint, taken by the cartel etc etc. It was, at one time, one of the most dangerous countries on Earth and that reputation still holds for many people who remember the time when the drug cartels ran the place and violence and brutality was a way of life. However in the last 10-15 years it has performed a minor miracle and turned itself around in an amazingly short space of time and now rates, amongst travellers who've actually visited it, as one of the friendliest, most beautiful and most captivating countries in South America. Once people get over that initial perception the tourism board of Colombia has probably one of the easiest jobs on the planet, it's a country it's almost impossible to avoid falling in love with.
Crossing over from Ecuador the scenery changed almost immediately, from rolling high plains to steep sided valleys covered in lush tropical vegetation and roads that cling to the edge of cliffs that must make the Colombian road builders some of the best in the world.
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| The road into Colombia |
After a couple of overnight stops through stunning scenery we arrived at our first proper destination in Colombia, Salento, a huge favourite with the group. This is a town whose chief purpose in life is coffee, a purpose many of us share. Its climate is perfect for growing the pretty red and yellow caffeinated cherries which are so important to so many cultures around the world.
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| Coffee growing in the fields |
Salento itself is a very pretty, colourful town sat on a precipice in the Sierra Nevado Range surrounded by 360 degree views of hills and mountains.
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| The view from our hotel |
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| More stunning views |
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| At our hotel |
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| Sunset in Salento |
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| Pretty, colourful Salento |
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| A Salento jeep |
It would be rude not to visit a coffee plantation really, so we visited Don Eduardo's, run by a British ex-pat Tim, who told us all about the process of growing coffee and how to make a proper cup.
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| A lecture on coffee production |
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| Coffee on the bush |
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| Removing the outer skins |
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| Washing |
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| Simon having a go at grinding off the inner coffee skin |
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| Emma and coffee at its various stages |
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| Roasting - you'll have to imagine the smell! |
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| Beautiful medium roasted beans, the only way to roast coffee! |
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| Sarah grinds the roasted coffee |
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| Paula - coffee at last! mmmmmm!! |
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| The plantation is also home to lots of other tropical plants, Paula in the bamboo forest |
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| Pineapples - this is really how they grow! |
Colombia is also home to some beautiful cloud forests, tropical forests that almost always have a picturesque mist floating around and just down the road from Salento is the Cocora Valley which you can visit in an old Willy's jeep, and go for a lovely hike to see the forest and the wildlife it contains.
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| Off to the Cloud Forest in a jeep |
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| Jeep ride |
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| Heading to the forest - wax palms on the horizon, the tallest palm tree in the world |
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| Hiking in the Cocora Valley |
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| That's why they call it a Cloud Forest! |
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| Ali & Jess in the Cloud Forest |
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| Helen & David in the Cloud Forest |
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| The Cloud Forest |
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| Chris |
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| Hummingbird |
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| Iridescent Hummingbird |
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| The thing about Cloud Forests is that there are quite a few clouds which also bring a bit of rain! Chris, Sarah and Gen. |
Some people also went off quad biking in the area.
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| Lee, Steve, Louisa, Simon, Roberta and Mike audition for Starlight Express |
Aside from coffee, Colombia is also known for being somewhat 'loco' or crazy, its a country where bizarre and funny things happen every day and the locals are generally either so caffeinated or just plain excitable that we, a truck full of gringos driving by, were met daily with shouts of 'GRINGO GRINGO GRINGO' whoops, whistles, manic arm-waving and near spontaneous combustion of drunken groups of men in roadside bars. It sometimes nicknames itself as 'loco-lombia' or 'crazy Colombia' and there is little more crazy than its unofficial national sport/drinking game of 'tejo.' Salento is home to a tejo bars, a local drinking establishment where, if you drink enough beer, you can play the game for free. Basically it is a mix between bowls and fireworks night, where a lump of metal, called a tejo, is hurled at a clay bed with a metal ring on which are placed small packets of gunpowder. If the tejo hits the packet of gunpowder and that connects with the metal ring it explodes and you get points! Simple! In the same way as pool the more you drink the better you get, or so the theory goes. So of course we tested this theory in the name of cultural learning.
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| Los Amigos - the friends - Tejo bar |
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| An important ingredient in Tejo |
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| What you're aiming to hit |
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| Paul |
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| Gen |
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| Emma |
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| Dave |
Our next stop was Medellin, at one time the most dangerous city in the world as it was home to the Medellin Cartel, run by the infamous Pablo Escobar. The atrocities that happened here on a daily basis are not really happy travel blog material but to put things in perspective, on a local walking tour our guide told us that there was a particular incident where someone dropped a grenade from a balcony on to the street full of people below and no one remembers it because it wasn't even the worst thing that happened that week. However it is no longer the city it was, after the death of Pablo Escobar in 1993 and the government cleaning up the military and taking control back of the country they have done an amazing job of turning the place around, loads of money has been pumped in to it and it is now beautiful, cosmopolitan and modern, dotted with excellent coffee bars and wonderful art and a lovely place to spend a couple of days.
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| Medellin cable car |
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| Medellin church |
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| Forest of Poles |
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| Just one of the many art installations in the city |
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| Shopping centre in the old Palace of Justice |
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| Medellin is also the birthplace of Botero, the sculptor famous for his mishapen figures of people and animals, the city is dotted with his works |
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| Roberta |
From a new city just being discovered by tourism to one that has been Colombia's major tourist attraction for years, Cartagena. During the time of the cartels there was a general truce in Cartagena as drug barons need somewhere to go on holiday too. It's a stunning city that even Francis Drake was keen to take for himself back in the 1500s when it was founded and its city walls still bear the marks of his canon fire. It's a city of contrasts, the stunning old town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and has been restored to its former colourful glory with balconies overflowing with flowers and brightly painted buildings containing expensive boutique restaurants. Just outside is the backpacker favourite district of Gethsemani with more pretty balconies and flowers and slightly cheaper boutique restaurants. For those with more modern tastes the flashy new Boca Grande is a wave of high-rise condos and high-end shops and for a taste of reality the rough and tumble Bazurto Market brings you back in to the noise, mayhem and heat of this Caribbean part of Colombia – probably the maddest, most colourful and friendliest part of one of the maddest, most colourful and friendliest countries in the world!
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| Hitching a lift up the mountain on the way to Cartagena |
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| Cartagena skyline |
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| Beautiful old town |
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| Louisa |
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| Colourful murals |
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| Street performers |
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| Cartagena sunset |
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| Even the souvenirs are colourful |
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| Gen & Mike in the tunnels under Cartagena |
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| Heading off on a "Chiva" tour, the colourful public buses of Colombia |
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| Cartagena fort |
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| Anti-Francis-Drake cannon |
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| Claire |
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| Mike in a shoe |
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| Old and New |
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| Arepas cooking on the street - tasty corn cakes |
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| Coffee here is a science |
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| Gecko door knocker |
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| Drinks on the wall at sunset |
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| Street cocktails |
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| Simon Bolivar - the liberator of Colombia and its neighbours |
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| Street art in Gethsemani |
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| A 10-man selfie |
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| Bazurto food market |
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| Simon goes shopping - we were met by cries of 'GRINGOS IN BAZURTO!!' |
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| Tasty pineapples |
After all that culture and colour we were well due a rest and where better than on a Caribbean beach? We hopped up the coast to a spot just outside the beautiful Tayrona National Park and embarked on some hardcore resting, sitting in hammocks and occasional surfing, followed by more sitting in hammocks. It's a picture perfect place so I'll let the pictures show you how perfect it was!
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| Caribbean campsite |
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| Paradise |
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| Hammocks galore |
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| Chris at the Caribbean |
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| Ali on the beach |
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| Mike |
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| Emma, Simon & Mike's leg |
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| It's a tough life really |
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| Mike and Simon learn to surf |
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| Dave attempts to part the waves... |
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| Hawaiian night |
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| Ali enjoys some local delicacies |
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| Simon gets the fire going for dinner |
Sadly we were forced to drag ourselves away from the beach and South again out of the vast hot plains of Northern Colombia and back in to the hills. But happily our destination was the capital, Bogota. It's a very cool city, it's edgy and vibrant and full of students and music and graffiti and all the things that make a city cool, edgy and vibrant! It is also home to an excellent gold museum, celebrating one of the main reasons the Spanish decided they liked South America quite so much in the time of the Conquistadores, and a hugely important metal for the people who preceded the Spanish invasion. It has a beautiful laid out collection of gold artefacts on show. There is also an excellent Botero gallery and a somewhat heart-stopping elevator/cable car up Monserrate Hill for views of the city.
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| Out of the sierra and into the hills again |
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| Beautiful Bogota |
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| Feeding the pigeons, Bogota |
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| "Trooping the colour" in Bogota |
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| Big Up the military for cleaning up the country |
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| Roberta |
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| The Candelaria district where we stayed is full of Art Deco buildings |
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| Gold - always believe in your soul |
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| Nose pieces |
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| Botero painting |
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| After some debate it was decided that the Botero Mona Lisa was more fun, bigger and better than the original mostly for not being surrounded by hoards of elbow wielding tourists |
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| Rotund royalty |
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| Monserrat Hill - not for those who aren't good with heights |
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| Saint Veronica on Mt Monserrate |
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| Beautiful Bogota |
Next up we headed South again to the small town of San Agustin, unlike many South American countries Colombia is not somewhere you associate with ancient history and indigenous cultures, it's a modern place more famous for its 20th century history than what came before, but San Agustin bucks this trend in style. Set in a beautiful green valley it is home to many totems and statues built by the culture who lived here in the 1st to 8th centuries. Very little is known about their motivations but they are assumed to be grave stones or megaliths that depict humans and animals. Some people headed off to the excellent archeological park to explore the many statues, some on horseback for some rather excitable and chaotic horse-riding in true Colombian style (health and safety? No, not sure what that is, sorry.) and some people headed off in a jeep to explore the surrounding archaeological sites.
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| Tombs with a view! San Agustin |
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| Tomb at the Parque Arqueologico, San Agustin |
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| John and statues at the Parque Archeologico, San Agustin |
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| Horses |
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| Beautiful San Agustin scenery |
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| Amazonian Motmot |
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| Horse riders minus horses |
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| Louisa & Steve |
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| Puppies on the horse riding expedition - ever a dog-loving group |
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| Plus the campsite was full of cats, so something for everyone really |
Next up was Popayan, which we had briefly visited on our way North but now had time to explore properly. Some headed off mountain biking, some explored the pretty streets of the “White City” as it's known and some attempted to channel their inner Colombian and loosen their gringo hips in a very funny Salsa lesson (mostly funny because we completely failed to loosen our gringo hips – it's the plight of the gringo – we just can't dance.)
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| The White City - Popayan |
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| Salsa class |
Our time in Colombia was drawing to a close and as we left Popayan we also had to wish a sad goodbye to Dave who had to fly home for the only thing in the world more important than travelling: family. There were more than a few tears as we drove off and waved him goodbye, he was a big part of the group and will be badly missed.
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| Louisa & Dave |
But we had one last stop as we neared the border with Ecuador in the little town of Ipiales, after some confusion over the way in to town, Colombia's street naming system is somewhat strange – it uses an American style grid system with numbered streets, which would be great if it was a country of flat land and block street layouts, but it's not, it's one of the hilliest countries in the world, so the numbers are often wrong, peter-out, go round corners or just change numbers halfway through, add to that some Colombian logic and its a recipe for disaster. Anyway, with a lot of 'help' from a group of local men who decided we were absolutely fine to go the wrong way down a one way street (we were planning to refer the traffic police to them) we made it to our hotel. The following morning everyone had the opportunity to visit The Sanctuario de Las Lajas – a church built in to a stunning canyon before we headed off to the border.
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| The stunning Sanctuario de las Lajas |
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| An angel watering the prayers and messages |
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| Inside |
Our 3 weeks in Colombia have left a huge impression on us and many people expressed their sadness at leaving what has become their favourite country on the trip so far. It's hard to pin point exactly why so many people who visit Colombia fall for it so quickly, I think it's lots of little things, it is stunningly beautiful for a start, it has tasty food, excellent rum, stupendous coffee, it has a fascinating history and is a place starting afresh and has a feeling of a young, excited country doing everything for the first time with pride and happiness. But I think most of the group would agree that the main reason has to be the people, nowhere else in South America are you greeted with such enthusiasm and warmth, it's hard to know how to react to an entire bar of people standing up and shouting at you with huge smiles as you drive by. The people are infinitely polite, the smallest shop purchase is met with 'siempre a la orden señora” (always at your service madam) and they lack any shyness or reserve. They are people who wear their hearts on their sleeves, passionate about everything they do, always choosing the most colourful and happiest clothes they can find. They must look at us gringos in our zip-off khaki shorts and polite handshakes and think how drab our lives must be, and well, compared to Colombians' they are really!
A little story to sum up Colombia is something we have seen as we have driven around the (somewhat crazy) roads, there is a pretty large military presence out in the countryside, the fight continues against drug production, though it is a fight that the authorities are winning, and the military are keen to let you know that you are safe. 15 years ago to drive through certain parts of the country was out of the question even for locals, now Colombians are embracing internal tourism and discovering their country for themselves, and as they, and we, drive through their stunning hills and mountains they are met with men in uniform, not asking for papers or shutting roads, but giving a thumbs up to every vehicle that passes by. It was a PR stunt that stuck, by a military who had not always been well-loved by the population, a young soldier smiles at you and signals that everything is ok, the road is risk-free because the army is here protecting you, your country is yours again and you are safe. It breaks all protocol and shows the human spirit beneath the uniform, it is a heartwarming sight and a thoroughly Colombian one.
