Christmas in Colombia!

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Well it was our first Christmas away from home, away from the usual excessive eating and drinking, the delicious food and Christmas parties...in the land of rice and beans we were really worried that our Christmas dinner might be a sad $2 plate of chicken stew, fried banana and a huge pile of white rice and some sort of beans. So we decided to splash out and rent a nice apartment for a few days with the lads whom we just got back from the lost city trip with. It turned out to be a great plan, we got a really gorgeous apartment for about $12 each a night and had a huge kitchen and a big roof terrace with a barbecue so it was perfect for throwing together a decent attempt at a christmas dinner. After a few days of indulging ourselves in Santa Marta, we headed off on the road again and tried to make some progress on the map. We headed on an overnight bus to a town called Bucaramanga and did some trips to some really gorgeous towns in the countryside nearby.

For new years we ended up in a town called San Gil and the day we arrived the whole town was involved in a huge flour fight and a parade, it was great craic! On New Year's Eve the town centre was surprisingly quiet with everyone at their own parties before midnight, but we got chatting to some lovely Colombians and ended up spending the night with them and headed out to a club in the middle of nowhere, it was just like home getting a taxi down to some disco in the back of a GAA clubhouse! We did a few cool trips in San Gil-waterfall rapelling, whitewater rafting and paragliding and saw some more beautifully preserved towns nearby. Then we headed to yet another 'colonial town' called Villa de Leyva, which was really pretty but much more touristy than any of the other places we had been...but we did some nice walks around the valley there which is full of fossils-including the big guy, simply called 'El Fossil'!

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Photos

Christmas dinner..
With Ben, Jess and Shane

Our mammy and her daughter.
She always managed to show up whenever there was food...and wasn't shy about tucking in either.

A freaky wax museum in Piedecuesta
Most of their exhibits were the dying poses of famous murdered colombian criminals (with bullet holes all over their bodies or bits of limbs hacked off), but there were also a few siamese twins and some other very weird exhibits.

Our fist glimpse of the Andes
On the way to San Gil in Colombia

parade in San Gil
Day before new years... involves attacking each other with bags of flour, foam spray and the sneaky feckers in the balconies above throw buckets of water down on top of everyone. Great craic altogether!

New Year's eve
Some lovely Colombians took pity on us and took us partying for the night

Comments

[Adam]

Columbian tourist board should sponsor you folk - Enjoying the pictures - keep up the good work !