Finally arrived in South America!!

---

Well, Since I've been appearing in Frans blogs, I decided I better write one of them. So here goes the first Colombia entry.

Well, Colombia gets a lot of bad press so it was hard not to arrive with a few preconceptions. In Panama we had seen the Colombian tourist board advertisements on the TV, telling us the when you go to Colombia 'The only risk is wanting to stay'. After a couple of days we soon realised how beautiful and safe Colombia is & how much they are doing to shake off the bad image.

We arrived in an amazing colonial city called Cartagena. The old part of town is contained within the original city walls & everything inside has been preserved in the old colonial style. The city was decorated for Christmas & had a great atmosphere. Christmas is high season and Cartagena was full of Colombian tourists and a few gringos too. The old city was buzzing with street music & performers with street vendors selling just about everything you could imagine. The evening we arrived we sat watching afro-caribbean dancing & had cold beers, ice-cream, & kebabs served up by the street vendors & all fairly cheap. To be fair though, there was a serious contrast when you left the old city & there were plenty of areas you wouldn't want to be wandering around at night (same for any city really).

We met up with our Canadian & English friends from Bocas & spent a few days chilling out in the hotel, wandering about the old town & drinking plenty of cheap beers.

Then we went out to a beautiful caribbean beach called Playa Blanca for a few nights. The only way there was by boat so it was fairly quiet & after the boats left in the evening there was only a handful of people there for the night. We rented hammocks for about 1,60 euro a night. It was class having the beach pretty much to ourselves.

After Cartagena, we headed up to a beach town called Taganga to do some diving & organised a trip to the lost city "La Ciudad Perdida". This is the Colombian equivalent of Machu Picchu & I'm sure in a few years it will be just as well known. The hike to La Ciudad Perdida took six days, there & back & the scenery the whole way was amazing. The area is within an indigenous reserve of the Kogi tribe and we passed through a few villages along the way. Most of the Kogi people we encountered would just ignore us but some were happy to chat & allowed us take some photos. Every so often while we gasped for breath up one of the hills, a Kogi guy in welly boats with a huge load on his back would run past & really make you feel useless.

On the way back we took a side trip to see a cocaine plant. It was fairly small scale & I reckon it was more to show tourists than actually produce any real quantity. Either way it was interesting to see the process. We were all fairly shocked at how flilthy cocaine is & that was after seeing it is purest form, before it gets cut with all sorts of crap. Our guide thought he was doing a moral service by turning gringos off cocaine but he was also making a nice bit of money in process. He added a bit of drama by telling us not to photograph his face & telling us to remove our memory cards before we got to the military checkpoint at the end of the hike.

The trek was tough going at times (particularly when we all got the delhi belly) but the whole trip was class & it was a great way to see the jungle & some of the remote mountain areas. After the trek we were all filthy, sore & tired & looking forward to a few days rest & some good food over Christmas.

---

Photos

Street kebabs with Spuds!
Could this be the end of rice and beans?? Not likely, but at least there's a few spuds on the menu.

Mud Volcano
If it blew it wouldn't be dangerous, just very dirty!

View from our hammocks
We had the place to ourselves, for just 1.60 a night to sleep in the hammocks.

trek to the lost city got off to a bad start..
The 'Chiva' bus broke down on the way so we had to walk a few miles extra on the first day...sure we were all so eager that it was no bother at all. Good job it was just the first day.

Comments

[ger]

dancing
the dancing looks like a regular night out in Doyles!

[Gar]

Dancin
Yer man doin MC Hammer is pretty nifty!

[Roxanna 30]

I like your pictures!
I like your pictures.But, my favorite is where you are with Botero statue...jejeje It's funny. I'm ecuadorian, I went to Cartagena few years ago that is very nice. I like the style, the food is delicious, I think you tried a lot of food from Colombia, I saw in your pictures, I don't know is you ate a dessert whith rice and cinnamon, it so delicious! I stayed for 6 days at the Resort in Santa Martha city, it is a nice beach and a exotic food, I remember one dishe with rice and coconut cream, and shrimps wowww it was really good!....I visited Playa Blanca, too. I know when yoy say that beach is very quiet, but I liked the cocteles there.I went an aquarium I don't remember the name, but yoy have to go only in boat. We could see the different kind of fish, and sealions. They play with the people almost during two hours, that place is very nice.We spent five hours in the aquarium. I like the pictures with christmas lights, I think you went there in the most important season because some country in South America have typical celebration for Chirstmas, and new year. the people were excited for this dates.So, I think you enjoyed your trip in Colombia, this country is amazing!