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Published: November 11th 2008
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Despite all the bad press about Colombia, we thought the country was fantastic. There's not a lot of tourism in the country yet so there isn't loads of tour companies offering trips everywhere, but that was a good thing, we just had time to wonder around enjoying the local atmosphere. The people were so friendly, which always makes you a bit wary at first in a new country, but you soon learn that they are genuinely being nice and genuinely wanted you to see their country.
We only had two and half weeks there and started it by flying from Ecuador up to the Caribbean Coast to the city of Cartagena. A gorgeous old restored town where we just spent 5 days wondering around the streets, beaches and sitting around, it was a beautiful place. You didn't really want to do a great deal as it was stinking hot, around 36 degrees every day, we were roasting. The new town just along the beach is a real hit with the rich Colombians and had huge hotel chains and shops everywhere. In the evenings its all about salsa here and the locals loved dancing to it wherever they were, it was
great to watch!!!!
We followed the coast around to Santa Marta, which turned out to be a bit of a 'dive' despite our guide book giving it a good review (incidentally we found the whole Colombian section of the Lonely Planet to be terrible), although thankfully just 5 kms up the coast was Taganga Beach on the edge of the beautiful Tayrona National Park home to the famous lost city (Ciudad Perdida). We decided not to go to the lost city as it was a six day hike and we didn't have enough time. Also to be honest we were a little dubious as it is still the FARC territory (guerilla country)!! There have been no kidnappings or anything for a few years..........the country is definitely safer than it used to be and plenty of people we met went and had no bother at all. We just vegged around sunbathing, swimming and chatting to the mad locals while partying for a few days, it was awesome.
We found the time to catch up on our sleep with a 17 hour bus ride to the small quaint town of Villa De Leyva. It has an award for excellence as
a colonial town and was pristine, like a museum really. We only stayed a few days having a look around the local area and artisan shops, most still use the old weaving lumes to make the shawls and jumpers they sell.
As we only had limited time in Colombia we then took another 14 hour bus journey to the Zona Cafateria region, which is where most of the worlds coffee is produced. We stayed in a small town called Salento, which was lush, green and mountainous. We stayed with an English guy called Tim at Plantation House who had his own coffee plantation so as you would expect we could drink as much as we liked during our stay for free. He also took us to his farm to see how the coffee was collected, sorted, roasted and ground, then we got to try it! On the Friday night we hooked with our friends, a Belgium couple Line and Dave and went to play the local past time, which includes a lump of steel, a clay target and lots of gunpowder. We didn't fully understand the rules but from what we could grasp from the locals all we had
to do was throw a metal weight at a clay target and try and hit the gunpowder. There were plenty of explosions and I believe the final score was England 9, Belgium 7, ha ha , it was so much fun.
We hiked into the Valley of Cocora, which is famous for the huge wax palms that grow there but the scenery was also gorgeous, it was so muddy though as it rained pretty much all the time we were in Salento. We hiked for about two hours through the forest and over dodgy bridges up to the cloud forest where we visited a reserve full of hummingbirds. The weather up there was very temperamental and just as we arrived at the top when the heavens opened up and all the way back we got drenched, we were so glad Tim told us to wear wellies, as at some points we were wading through mud nearly brimming over them........but after all we were in a rain forest!!!
We finished our time here in Bogota, the capital. It wasn't anything special to us, just another city really, but it did have a good gold museum (museo de Oro) that
we visited and a view point that looked out over Bogota. The old historic town was really nice to walk around too although as a whole it had a bit of an edge and we didn't feel completely safe.
Colombia is a very poor country but the people are really fantastic and nice, except for a tramp who attacked Dan in Cartagena, but thats another story. It really is a great country and completely under rated.........easily one of the best South American countries we have been to!!!
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Line & Dave
non-member comment
sure??
Hi guys, Just read your Colombia story ! It really is a great country, we are now spending our last 2 days here in the still very hot and sunny Cartagena. About the final score of the Tejo-game... Sure it was 9 - 7 for the English??? ;-) ;-) Have lots of fun on your last days, we hope you will enjoy snorkeling in Bonito !! Line & Dave --xx--