Colombia

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When we sat at home thinking of which countries we'd visit, Colombia wasn't somewhere we envisioned having time to see, infact we thought we'd only have reached Bolivia by Christmas. But it turned out that time was on our side and as it kept coming up in conversation with other travelers as one of the must see countries in South America we tagged it on.

When I told my mum we were going, being a bit of a worrier to say the least, she said in horror, “Oh Charlotte you're not, please don’t go there it’s so dangerous”, which to be fair is the general consensus of anyone who hasn’t been there (little did we know that leaving the place would be the most dangerous part, but that's the next blog!). Having spent a month there I think Colombia is still getting an unfair wrap, the country seems to be trying hard to make positive changes and for it to become a desirable travel spot. Don’t get me wrong the country isn’t without its problems and there are still parts of the country that I’d strongly advise staying away from but if you make the decision to venture there you’ll be rewarded with some of the friendliest people, in fact I’d go far as to say I felt the most safe and welcome there as I had done in any other South or Central America countries yet!

On route to Colombia we took a week’s break from the buses to stay in Ecuador’s capital, Quito. We spent a fairly uneventful week chilling at the hostel, touring the markets and a trip to the Equator of course! It took three attempts to find the real 0 degree mark, put off ever so slightly by the Mitad del Mundo centre's 30 metre-tall monument, constructed to mark the point where the equator was thought to pass through the country at the time. It turns out that they were actually around 250 metres out but the center fails to tell you this as it would mean they would have to move the whole place down the road so instead they just lie! See the bottom of the blog for info on how to see the real point.

By the time we reached Colombia's capital, Bogota, it was all dressed up for Christmas. Colombians seem to go all out with their decorations, which was exactly what I needed to get into the festive spirit. We were also really pleased to by chance bump into Angie and Dave, our friends we'd left in Peru, who went on to stay with us for Christmas and we have only just left a few days ago. We were also entertained by John, a Canadian guy staying in our hostel who introduced himself as being "the strongest man in Buenos Aires" a random title as Argentinians aren't exactly known for their size or strength so I can't imagine it being a difficult competition. He also liked to brag about the fact that he drives "fast and furious", and over the limit daily. This made my blood boil and explaining to him what my last job involved and giving him the facts and figures weren't enough to change his mind so I had to resort to telling him what an idiot I thought he was instead.

The city has loads to offer; the Gold Museum, a huge salt mine that's now used as a cathedral and my favourite, the Botero exhibition at the National Museum. I have to say I wasn't aware of his work before and for those of you as art ignorant as me - his work is fun and always of fat people, generally ladies who are often naked (I've included one of his pieces- a fat Mona Lisa!). The other must see and not featured in the Lonely Planet is the Police Museum, packed full of historic pieces relating to the force; their uniforms and badges through the years as well as cases upon cases of confiscated guns - including three miniature revolvers that were recovered from prostitutes who had them smuggled up a certain orifice! They go to joke that the handmade three foot barreled pistol that they show you was also recovered from a similar place a few days later! This is all good and interesting but the real draw, and the part they're most keen to show you, is quite a shocking section on the capture and killings of some of the world's most notorious drug criminals. Their piece de resistance being the photo of a dead and bloody Pablo Escabar, slumped on his roof and surrounded by tens of policemen with big grins and their thumbs up for the camera. Their pleasure in capturing him made a little more understandable when you learn a little more about the grip Escabar had on the country in the 1980s. Through controlling 80 percent of the world's cocaine market he was named the world's 10th richest man and this title didn't come lightly, his brutal ruthlessness legendary: killing anyone who stood in his way he became responsible for the deaths of 30 judges, 457 policemen, and other deaths at a rate of 20 each day for two months!

I wasn't too disappointed to hear that we wouldn't be able to take the 24 hour bus ride to Colombia's Caribbean coast for Christmas, this is where all the locals holiday and so all the buses pretty much everywhere were booked up for weeks. Instead we opted for a flight for only $30 extra, arriving in Cartagena only 50 minutes later and to be handed a free cold beer on arrival made it even sweeter- I can't imagine that ever happening at Gatwick!

I've got to say it was nice to be out of the cold of Bogota but we soon realised that Cartagena seemed to be one of the hottest places in the world- day or night it never seemed to cool down and the fact that the affordable accommodation was a 45 minute walk from the beach made it a place for doing little and slowly. Just round the corner we discovered a small park that housed huge iguanas, monkeys and my favourite animal of the trip so far (after the orangutans maybe), a sloth who was walking in-between trees along the pavement. He was the strangest looking fella I'd ever seen; with a small head and huge talons it moved so slowly and everything seemed to be a huge effort.

Christmas day was quite a low key affair, we thought there would be some celebrations in the town but we were wrong. It turns out they actually celebrate Christmas eve more than the day itself allowing the kids to stay awake until midnight to open their presents, not a bad idea if you asked any child around the world I'm sure! We spent the day with Dave and Angie and a few others who had flown with us from Bogota, had a seafood lunch with sangria - not your typical traditional Christmas fare but my lobster tails didn't half taste good.

Keen to get to the beach to cool down we took a 5 hour bus ride along the coast to a cute fishing town called Taganga. There was quite a big group of us forming for New Years eve so decided to see in 2008 at a party on the beach where our Italian friend, bless him, thought he was MC-ing all night but actually after the DJ soon realized how bad he was he turned off his microphone off but happily let him carry on all night oblivious and we didn't have the heart to tell him and put an end to his good fun!

After spending New Year ’s Day recovering with the help of some fruit smoothies, we headed for the coast's real beauty, Tyrona National Park. The setting was stunning and looked somewhat like Thunderbird's Tracey Island! We bought tents especially but failed to read the dimensions and when erected they looked like a kid's Wendy house! After a downpour on the first night we discovered they leaked, badly. So a little disheartened, wet and stiff from a night of contortion we moved to the best beach to settle for a few days. Carbo was idyllic, white sand and turquoise waters with gold flecks; the only blot on its beauty was the few who took advantage of it being a nudist beach! Most of them middle aged men of course, apart from one young guy, probably German, who had shaved off all his body hair and not content with laying on the beach or even frolicking in the sea practiced naked capoeira, a Brazilian marshal art (like the guys in white on the BBC interlude) doing cartwheels and lunges for all and sundry to see his bratwurst waving around!

So after a couple of weeks on the coast we returned to the historic walled town of Cartagena to arrange taking a boat to central America, but that's a whole other story!


*For those of you planning on visiting we were told where the real mark is… take a left out of the visitors center, past the fun gravity games place (worth a see even if it also isn’t the actual equator), you’ll past a small quarry on your right and then a few metres along see two blue lampposts by the side of the busy road, there just to the left in between the white lines you will see a 15cm diameter silver disk- that is the real equator!

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Photos

Botero statue
Too flowery me thinks