I have always enjoyed the slogan of the Montreal Gazette, which states that ¨bigger is better,¨ but after visiting Bogota, I am not quite sure that I stll believe in this mantra. Bogota is the capital of Colombia, it has around 7 million inhabitants and spans approx. 22 kms. and is a sea of buildings. Therefore, it is easy to understand that it is a little hard not to feel a little lost in this concrete jungle.... When we arrived in Bogota on Sunday, most things were closed.....so we decided to visit a museum. One of the best museums in Colombia is their Gold Museum, and it is quite an impressive sight. It had a number of exhibits including the origins of gold, its uses as well as its symbolism, so it was quite educational. Another ... read more

Although our flight was brutally early......i.e. at 6 in the morning, I was really excited to travel to Medellin as we were going to be staying with a cousin of a good friend of mine. We ended up meeting up with Nico (the cousin) at at around midday and spent the day having traigos (drinks) with some of his parseros (friends).....and mainly learning to speak like people from Medellin! I guess every city has its own slang, and one of the best parts about getting to stay with Nico and hanging out with people from the city was to get a better feel of the culture. After eating dinner in Provencia (an nice area filled with restaurants and bars) we heading back to Nico's place which is a farm in the mountains about a half hour ... read more

Today the alarm rang at 5:30 a.m., which is really really early for anyone aware of my sleeping habits, which are not those of an early riser. Unfortunately, it was necessary given that our guide was coming to pick us up at 6 a.m. for our trek to Tayrona National Park. At 6 we were greeted by our guide, Bruno, who would prove to be a great asset, as he was energetic, funny, extremely knowlegable about the prak and a wealth of information about the history of Colombia. He took us to a breakfast place to begin, where we had arepa (which is a flat, round, patty made of cornmeal) and eggs. This was second time trying this Colombian specialty and it was much better than the first time...I think because it had more butter this ... read more

We have finally arrived in Colombia! I must admit that there were some minor hiccups along the way (getting sick and throwing up into a recycling bin at Pearson Ariport is definitely something that I will try and avoid in the future), however, we made all our flights and arrived in Cartagena yesterday evening. The city is very charming, with it´s colourful architecture, and definitely has a colonial feel to it. Cartagena itself is surrounded by a fortress that was built to protect it from sieges by pirates and others in the 1700´s. It is said that it took the Spanish over 200 years to build it, but only 25 years after it was completed Cartagena declared it´s independence...so I´m not quite sure that their investment paid off! The highlight of my first night in Cartagena ... read more