Blogs from Colombia, South America - page 267

I´ve composed myself differently on this trip.After more than a few incidents where my Negrocity has been put on the heated front burner, I thought I was pretty well steeled against what had been anything from innocuous to blatant racism.We´ll just say Medellin put this to a leetle bit of a test.Medellin: Home of the Beautiful CaucasiansWith the promise of great nightlife and civic beauty, I´d headed to Medellin with Rob, a musclebound Canadian who was visiting from Ireland, with high hopes of...well...seeing pretty stuff and partying a bit.While the city wasn´t exactly Florence, it had quite a bit of charm with ample greenspace and a lively air. After the horrors of the Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel (over 40,000 policmen killed), the Mayor has made great strides to turn the city around and, in ... read more

Hey everyone!! Landed in Bogota on Friday afternoon! Flight was OK apart from a long queue for security as the Xray mashine wasnt working so they were checking everyones bags by hand.... not very well i might add! Paula boarded the plane with a Swiss Army knife, a lighter, matches and goodness what else! And goodness knows what was in the deep depths of my bag.... havent emptied it out in a looong time and you know what my bags are like... Mary Poppins bags!! :o) Flight was OK, only took 2 hours, but managed to have the luck of sitting next to 3 people instead of 2 as a woman had her toddler on her lap who kept trying to lean back to whack me despite the womans best efforts to keep her squashed against ... read more

El Peñol is a big granite rock about 2 hours drive from Medellin. The scenery is lovely on the way, going up and over the mountains to get there. I went on Sunday, on my own, and got there at about 10am more or less. I got the bus and unfortunately there was no one who would engage me in conversation on the way there, bit disappointing. Anyway I got there and walked from the road up to the rock- only about 10 mins walk but still people were hiring horses to get them up. I opted against flogging the decrepid looking creatures up the hill and had a very nice walk, testing my calf muscles. There are something like 676 steps up to the top of the rock from the base, see photos... I paid ... read more

Day 90 Guess what, another early start ready to set sail. Met up with our team and took taxis at 6am to the port to meet captain Mark and Melody. Away by 7, we were all very excited about getting out in to the open sea. About 2 hours in to the sail we were lucky enough to be joined by a group of about 10 dolphins jumping up and down alongside the boat. A good start! Spent the day reading books, listening to Ipods and getting to know everyone. We seemed to be ok with the sea sickness but Julie the danish girl was really suffering! Mark had told us about a new discovery that listening to music extra loud balances out the veritgo so helps your body to cope better, tom had his in ... read more

We stepped across the border - no machete-wielding drug lords. Got our passports stamped - nobody trying to force us to carry 20 bags of white powder of unknown content to some foreign destination. So far so good. First impressions? Bit like home really - grey, drab and drizzly! But it wasn't long before we'd left the border town and were winding slowly down one side of a steep valley with lush green hills all around and a river flowing along the bottom far below us. Beautiful. We had a very high quality movie on the bus, 'Looking for Miguel', (I highly recommend it if you ever come across it) full of violence, sex, drugs and transvestites, perfect for a lazy afternoon on a bus, with passengers of all ages. Bogota We'd met some people who'd ... read more