Colombia-Cartels,Cocaine,Guerrillas,Child Prostitution and other Cool Stuff.

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It's hard to believe we are writing about the last stop of our year-long tour of Latin America! Months ago we skipped over Colombia while heading south from Panama to Ecuador as we needed to get out to the Galapagos in time for our ill-fated cruise. Practically every backpacker we encountered throughout South America said Colombia was hands-down their favorite country and an absolute must see. Heeding others advice we decided to spend the last six weeks of this journey exploring what Colombia has to offer. After our short stint in Rio we hopped on a plane and headed North on a 6-hour flight to Bogotá.

Bogotá

After passing through customs we took a collectivo (packed mini-bus) to the La Candelaria neighborhood (the historic city center) which we used as our home base for exploring Bogotá. We spent our first evening getting oriented with the city's layout as well as enjoying some real Mexican food! The next day we headed out to the Museo del Oro to check out some more gold artifacts that somehow weren't melted down and taken back to Europe by the Spanish. Pretty good museum, but both of us had hit our carrying capacity for museums, so our visit was a relatively short one!

Unfortunately, back in Rio Becky came down with a wicked cold/sinus infection which pretty much laid her out for the rest of that afternoon. With her down for the count and near death, I made plans that night to meet up with two guys from Finland we met months ago in Cordoba, Argentina. I thought the evening was going to involve meeting up with them for a few beers; however, as it turned out one of the Finns had a friend in Bogotá and we were going to meet up with him and head to Andres Carne del Res. Carne del Res is the largest and most famous club in all of Colombia and is located about 20 miles from the city center. Let's just say the evening ended up being bigger than expected with multiple bottles of Aquardiente consumed and me not returning to the hostel until 4 am.

The previous evening antics made it impossible for me to head out on a bike tour the following morning. Becky, feeling better and not sympathizing with me one bit, went on the tour solo and spent 4 hours riding around the city taking in various sites. Her highlight of the tour was riding through the red light district where she saw the sketchiest/most strung-out prostitutes imaginable. She said it was like something out of a movie and it was the most unimaginable place she's seen and it was truly the first time ever in her life she had been concerned about her safety.

With both of us on the mend we ventured out to visit a famous salt cathedral, located about 30 miles north of Bogotá. The cathedral, which used to be a salt mine, was pretty impressive. It is located about 600 feet below ground and is absolutely massive, accommodating over 8000 people. We took a tour and then wandered around underground for an hour or so taking in a light show and a cheesy 3D movie. The cathedral is still used for services on occasions, but obviously is much more of a tourist stop.

Realizing Bogotá was pretty lean on things to do and see we made our plan to get to our next location.

San Agustin

A supposed 9 hour bus ride turned into a 12 hour affair that found us arriving in a sleepy little town in the middle of nowhere late in the evening in the pouring rain. Gladly getting off the bus we were accosted by a woman pimping a place to stay and tours etc. Being tired and extremely hungry we agreed to take her recommendation and loaded up our stuff in her car and drove a few minutes out of town to a little finca (farm). The accommodations were fine and the woman kindly drove us back to town to a restaurant that was still open.

The draw of San Agustin is the archeological park which contains hundreds of statues dating back over a thousand years. Prior to Spanish arrival a mysterious group of people who buried their dead and honored them with magnificent statues and tombs inhabited the area. It is supposedly one of the most important archeological sites in South America. The majority of the statues were concentrated in the park and we spent a few hours checking them out and admiring the views of the surrounding countryside. The following day we went on an all day "jeep" tour of the surrounding area. The "jeep" we travelled around in ended up being a Chevy compact car driven by a kid who couldn't have been older than 14. We were joined on the tour by a Danish guy that has been living in Colombia for a few years. He was there checking out the area for the tourism business he runs out of Bogota and ended up giving us a ton of info on Colombia. We did see some beautiful countryside, a couple waterfalls, and some more statues as well. The most interesting sight of the day was El Estrecho. This is a short stretch of the Magdalena River, which is the largest and most important river in the country, where the whole river flows through a 6 foot wide, 80 foot deep channel. A month later we saw the river near the Caribbean coast and it was at least a half mile wide.

Moving north, we took a beautiful 5 hr. bus ride through what was previously FARC dominated country. Over the past few years most of the guerrillas have been driven out of the area, yet we still did see a strong military presence on the roadway. Lots of soldiers, a few tanks, numerous bunkers, and a couple of military checkpoints were encountered. Eventually we ended up in the City of Popayan. The only reason we ended up here was to avoid another 10+ hour bus ride. That evening we were fortunate to see a cool parade with a number of marching bands and hundreds of women and children with candles walking in silence along side the bands. We were told it was some sort of religous event, but couldn't get an answer as to why no men were carrying candles. Unfortunately, after 11 months there was still times when our Spanish wasn't quite good enough to get a good explanation. The next day we were back on a bus for another five hours heading further north to Cali.

Cali

Cali is the salsa capital of Colombia but is unfortunately a city that doesn't have much else to see as a tourist. Looking for a way to burn a day and feeling the need to stay in one location for more than one day we decided to head to the Cali zoo. Neither of us had been to a zoo for decades and really had no expectations of what we'd see. It turned out to be a great zoo and we wandered around it for half the day. Later that evening we took a salsa lesson at the hostel in preparation for going out to a salsa club. We hoped the lesson would be on par with the tango lesson we took in Buenos Aires, only wanting to learn some basic steps so we wouldn't look too foolish later that evening. Our lesson ended up being an hour of profuse sweating and no learning. The "instructor" was an amazing dancer, but didn't teach us a damn thing. He simply admired himself in the mirror and laughed at us trying to keep up with his lightning fast moves. Although we weren't armed with basic salsa knowledge we still headed out with a group from the hostel to a local salsa club. For some reason at the club all the gringos were segregated into one area away from the dance floor. This, along with our different skin color and the fact none of the gringo ladies had fake boobs or butt implants, made us stick out like sore thumbs. After a few beers and watching the locals get down we headed onto the floor a few times and tried to salsa. We weren't really sure what we were doing, but no one openly laughed at us or kicked us off the dance floor. The next day found us back on a bus for another 6 hours heading further north to Salento.

Salento

Salento is a very small little mountain town located in the heart of Colombian coffee country and surrounded by some of the most beautiful scenery in the country. The higher altitude and cooler temps were a welcome change. The following morning we got up early and hopped in the back of a jeep with ten others and drove 15 minutes out of town to the Valle de Cocora. We then took off on a beautiful 4 hour hike through the valley with great scenery. The lush jungle with towering wax palms rising high above it was quite beautiful and unique. With not much else to do in the small town we spent the afternoon playing Tejo. Tejo is the National sport of Colombia and is played in the equivalent of a seedy outdoor pool hall. Upon finding the Tejo hall an old man hooked us up with a court, a couple beers, and a demo on how to play. It quickly became my new favorite game. The game is played by throwing heavy metal disks at a clay board with paper packets full of gunpowder sticking in the clay against a metal ring. The goal is to throw the metal disk (tejo) and have it hit one of the gunpowder packets, causing a minor explosion. After numerous throws we finally hit a packet, but it was a dud, it only smoked and caught on fire. Eventually we got another good throw that resulted in a loud bang and made us both jump followed by high fives and cheers. After a handful of beers and seven games we ended our Tejo match having blown up a bunch of packets and having had a great afternoon.

Medellin

Continuing to cruise through Colombia at a rapid pace we took another beautiful 6 hour bus trip to Medellin. Not too long ago Medellin was the most murderous city in the world and home to the notorious Pablo Escobar and his cartel. We found the city to be very progressive with nice architecture and an unbelievable metro and cable car system. We rode the metro and cable cars a few times to different sites in the valley and had a few fun evenings out on the town.

Having spent half our Colombian time covering a lot of ground and seeing a significant part of the country we decided our remaining three weeks would be spent on the Caribbean coast. With neither one of us excited about another long bus ride we looked into flights and got a great deal that ended up costing us about $10 more than a bus. It was a pretty sketchy flight up to Cartagena, but the 50 minutes of white knuckle flying beat the hell out of a 15 hour bus ride.

Cartagena

Stepping off the plane both of us were floored by the heat and humidity. We expected it to be hot, but what we experienced was brutal. We had a hostel in the old walled city that fortunately had AC, but only in the evening. We wandered around the old city the following day, often stepping into stores with AC and also visited a few malls simply to get a reprieve from the oppressive heat. The highlight of the day was visiting the Castillo de San Felipe de Barajas, a massive fort that overlooks the old city. The fort wasn't actually that awesome, but the tunnels underneath it were nice and cool. Not being able to stand the heat any longer we hopped on a bus and headed 5 hours further east down the coast to the small fishing village of Taganga.

Taganga

After 11 months of pretty much going going going we decided our last bit of time would be spent relaxing and chilling at the beach. We took up residence in Taganga for three weeks. We had a great place to stay with a kitchen, refridge, and a hammock on the patio. It didn't take long to get into a routine of spending the day at the beach reading and swimming followed by having a beer and watching the sunset. Some days we would hit the beach in town and others we would walk 15 minutes over a couple ridges to a quieter beach, Playa Grande. We broke up our routine a few times by scuba diving and also venturing over to neighboring Tayrona National Park. Tayrona is a beautiful park encompassing miles of rugged undeveloped coastline. It took about an hour to get to the entrance by bus, then we had to walk an hour through the jungle to get down to the beach and spartan tent camps. The walk was unbelievably hot, but enjoyable as we saw monkeys, hundreds of 6-inch centipedes, and poison dart frogs along the trail. We spent two nights camping in the park and enjoying the beautiful deserted beaches. Having consumed all our food, water and rum, we headed back to our pad in Taganga.

We sadly departed Taganga and bused it back to Cartagena for our final day and a half. It unfortunately rained most of the time we were back in Cartagena. We did get a reprieve for a few hours in the afternoon so we rented bikes and cruised along the beach and checked out the newer/swankier part of the city, Boca Grande, which we hadn't seen on our previous visit.

Overall we enjoyed our time in Colombia. It was very apparent that things are changing as the country tries to move forward after decades of problems with guerrillas and drug cartels. We felt just as safe here as we did in any other country. It was also the only place that when talking with locals and telling them we were from the United States, that we were thanked for visiting their country. In the majority of places we visited it was obvious that the tourism industry was beginning to take off and as a result the people were very friendly and welcoming. It will be interesting to see how things will change for Colombia as more and more people visit this beautiful country.

We want to thank you for following us all through Central and South America over this past year. It's been a year of amazing adventures, once-in-a-lifetime experiences and an affirmation of what truly matters to both of us. We knew this particular adventure would wrap up eventually, but we are thankfully and excitedly looking forward to planning the next phase of our lives, and we can't wait to catch up with all of you.

Happy Summer, see you all very soon!

Sky and Becky

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