The San Blas Islands & Colombia

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Having spent a thoroughly enjoyable three weeks back in the UK sorting out our various jobs and meeting up with you all you lovely folk, we returned to Panama solely so we (mmm, wonder which one of us dreamt this up?!) could sail from Panama, via the glorious, sun-filled San Blas Islands and across the seas to Colombia.

The San Blas islands range from a single palm tree with just about enough sand to support it to larger islands capable of being farmed for coconuts - yet still small enough to walk all the way around within 10 minutes. Under the sea is a maze of coral and that needs careful navigation. It's not recommended for those of us that do not know this bit of water incredibly well, as you'll see from our photos. One million dollar half capsized yacht had hit the coral at night and had been abandoned and pillaged, with no hope of recovery.

We spent a couple of days sailing around these islands and would happily have spent another week here. The only downside was that there were 6 crew, 1 skipper, 1 cat, 1 cat litter, 1 cat basket and all of our worldly goods squeezed into a 38ft yacht. As we got on board, the cat looked very cute curled up on the coach roof. It wasn't too long however before we were all itching and removing cat hair from our sun-creamed bodies ... ugh, we couldn't wait to get off by the end. Nor could the cat, the poor thing hated being trapped on board with us almost as much as we hated it!

We arrived in Colombia just after dawn. With quite a bit of encouragement we managed to get our incredibly lazy Captain Dave (for whom we'd cooked, cleaned and taken night shifts steering the boat) to set off with our passports and meet his immigration agent who would take our passports to get stamped and returned by 1pm. Most other crews we later learned are allowed off the boat to return to meet their captains later in the evening or the following day - our captain however insisted we must stay put on the boat! By 2pm there is still no sign or sound from the agent so Dave motored ashore and went looking for him. As the boat is now empty of any refreshments and snacks we asked Dave to return with soft drinks and ice-cream. Sure enough he returned a couple of hours later, half cut but albeit with a bag of goodies. Goodies for his evening meal that was, and he'd only come back with so we could put them in the fridge for him! He set off again, still in search of this agent. Just before the dusk Captain Dave returns - now blind drunk, barely able to steer the boat or keep himself from falling out of it! Passports secured, we bid our Captain farewell ... and good 'luck'! Thank goodness the San Blas Islands were very special ...

Ashore in Cartegena. What a beautiful place. (We must rent Romancing the Stone)! Cartegena is a walled city, with several forts built in the 1600s to protect it from pirate sieges and further invasion. Inside the walls, the city has colonial building after colonial church that have been superbly restored, colourfully painted and bedecked in stunningly bright flowers. Cobbled streets are combined with modern art and sculptures that reflect the history of Colombia and Cartegena. Although Colombia has been off the tourist and traveller track for a while due to security issues, the Colombian's have certainly learnt how to keep us travellers very happy. Cartegena is a foodies haven. There are tons of restaurants and bars tucked behind tiny doorways, down alleys and around the various squares and parks where you can eat, drink and watch street performers.

Not only is Cartegena a romantic city, it is also located on the Caribbean Sea so has glorious white sand beaches and islands only a stones through away. In fact, Ben managed to find one of those stones when he dived into to sea and dented his bonce by head butting the only rock for miles!

A week later, we dragged ourselves away from Cartegena and headed south towards the coffee plantations, via Medellin. Medellin was the home town of Pablo Escobar - and it turns out hundreds of beautiful Colombian ladies. Not only is Medellin famous for it's drug related history, these days it is also the place to party and get plastic surgery - and the women here certainly like to display their newly cultured goods! Medellin has a very lively pub and club scene and is full of youths coming to live it up with good looking women, cheap coke and agua diente, the local spirit! I lost count of the number of young chaps who'd arrived here and decided to stay for a few months - and those that had just arrived and were trying to convince themselves this is not place I should stay for longer than a weekend!

Medellin also has quite a ropey town centre, albeit with an attractive backdrop of the surrounding mountains with red-brick houses built into the lower hills and a modern cable car providing easy access to the top for a view over the town. Much work has been put into bettering this area to convert living from a near slum-like existence to an acceptable modern living standard. Life is still very simple, with groceries, shoes and home-made crafts being sold from the boots of cars or alongside the road.

This city also houses the Antioquia Art Museum, predominantly showing Fernando Botero's bronze sculptures of oversized people. Botero donated some of his many sculptures to Medellin and other Colombian cities so his works can be seen in public squares all over the country. If photos with the sculptures were not enough, a grotesquely obese, half-naked women lollopped outside the museum was offering tourists photos of themselves with her for a few Colombian Pesos! No thank you!

Luck was on our side as our visit to Medellin coincided with the Football World Cup Qualifier between Colombia and Ecuador, and we managed to get tickets. It was a great match to watch and the fans were incredibly lively from start to finish singing tune after tune, banging drums and blowing horns to support their team. After a slow start Colombia went on to win 2-0 and the crowd went crazy.

From here we set off for Salento, in the Zona Cafeteria, which is an area of truly stunning countryside. We stayed at Plantation House, run by Tim, an English guy. Tim also owns a coffee plantation that he showed us around and explained how the coffee is grown and made. He plans to rent the coffee plants to people for a few years so they can have their very own brand of coffee shipped to them! The plantation also has pineapples, avocados, bananas and oranges that Tim and his family live off and sell on. It seemed like a very nice life and Ben and I quite liked the idea of selling up, moving here and having our own plantation and a couple of horses! Well the horses were more my thing.

Those of you that know Ben may appreciate his lack of fondness for horse-riding after a childhood experience where his pony galloped off in chase of a much larger horse, with Ben and his saddle at right angles to the ground! Still I managed to persuade him that it would be good to horse ride through the hills and rivers and thankfully we both had horses that behaved and we loved our few hours of roaming freely with the wind in our hair! In fact, Ben loved the galloping so much, he shot off up the hill approaching a road, ignoring our guides calls of “Despacio and Peligro” (Slow, Danger).

One of the highlights of Salento is to walk the Valle de Cocora, which lives up to its reputation as a lush version of Switzerland. Almost from the offset we were walking amongst the Waxy Palms that the locals rave about. The wax palms are incredibly tall palm trees, although unlike their name, neither the trunk nor the leaves feel any more waxy than a normal palm tree! We walked for a few hours to an Orchid and Humming Bird Farm and then hiked up to the 2850m peak before circling along the path back to our Jeep.

Salento is totally chilled out and a world away from the cities of Cartegena, Medellin and Bogota and again we could have stayed here for a lot longer.

Onwards to Bogota to meet up with Fraser, a friend of Ben's from his school days, and what a lovely chap he is! Fraser put us up for a couple of days, told us about the highlights of Bogota and held a dinner party with us and a few of his local expat and Colombian friends. And Ben and Fraser officially formed The Old Norvicensian Club Bogota!

We visited Zipaquira's underground Salt Cathedral. The Cathedral is carved out of the salt mine and holds a weekly Sunday Service with about 200 public visitors and a Easter Sunday service with about 7000+ visitors!! Not one for the claustrophic amongst you!

We also visited a Gold Museum housing some of the largest works in the world, took the cable car up to the Cerro de Monserrate for a great view over city and spent a couple of afternoon's wandering around the Plaza de Bolivar and La Candaleria - the historic streets of Bogota.

Taking a short flight from Bogota we reached Leticia, a town in the Amazon which borders Colombia, Brazil and Peru. A smugglers haven! We spent a few days in the Brazilian Amazon, walking in the forest, soaking in the mud bath, lazing in hammocks, playing with the house parrot and a rather aggressive toucan, kayaking in the Amazonian lakes rivers with pink river dolphins and fishing for our dinner! We caught a couple of pirhanas, plus a cat fish and a peacock bass. Ben loved it all and was well up for a few days trek into the jungle sleeping in a hammock with a mosi-net. Unfortunately having reached the Amazon Jungle, I was rather more keen to get back to the city! For me, the days were brilliant fun and I enjoyed every minute. The evenings I clearly became the preferred choice of food for the mosquitos. And the nights were sleepless - alert to every little and loud sound, and very much aware of the Anaconda snake that the staff had caught in the grounds that day!

All in all we loved Colombia. It is so diverse and like the Tourism advert says “There´s a risk you might want to stay."

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