Blogs from Colombia, South America - page 301

I arrived in this beautiful city just yesterday. Just checking on the possibility of hiring on a commercial vessel; or the chance of meeting some Canadians or Americans who need an experienced hand of their ship! if not, I'll return to Medellin.... read more

I think the biggest difference between here and the US is the quality of CornNuts.* Last week I went to the world’s biggest Vallenato festival, about 4 hours from here in car. What’s Vallenato you ask, as far as pop music goes, Carlos Vives is poppy Vallenato. Who is Carlos Vives you ask? Anyways, it’s a local music that is insanely popular here, in fact in my little town if I care to hear it any hour of the day or night, one needs only to crack open a window and let it in. A lot of accordion and scraping a cheese grater with a stick. Sounds great I know, but I actually kind of like it. The Vallenato festival is in Valledupar, south of here, where it began in force. People from Valledupar are ... read more

So........ my bag was stolen and we headed to the capital...Bogota, to sort out a new passport at the embassy. Expecting a dirty, sprawling city we were pleasantly suprised when we arrived at the sue hostal ( which would become the closest thing to home since we had left). Situated in the older part of the city, spanish colonial style buildings, colourful streets dotted with murals and some amazing graffiti aswell as cool places to hang out we had landed ourselves a chilled little home while we waited for my passport. We spent a few days wandering the streets around the area, some great flee markets and art museums. We had a little taste of colombian art, when we went to the botelo museum, loads of repulsive paintings of really fat people.nice. but they seem ... read more

Where I startedAntonio Martinez-VasquezIt's Monday and I've in beautiful Medellin, Colombia for about five days. It's changed alot since I was last here in 2000. But the changes are extremely positive. There's a good likelihood of leaving tonight or tomorrow for Panama City. I started an impromptu import/export business: in order to finance my travels. During the past two years, I've been to Trinidad, Peru(it stinks) Equador(three steps up from Peru) Nicaragua(quite different from 1978-80) all throughout Central America. But the least country I liked was Costa Rica, everything is for sale from the women to the politicians. The capitol San Jose really smells, and the infrastructure of the city is an urban planners nightmare! It's amazing how dumb most american tourists are; they really think Costa Rica is neat! Everybody ... read more

Colombia April 12- May 5, 2007 BOGOTA We were glad to arrive in Colombia to get back in touch with the outside world! Cuba has isolated us from the rest of the world for one month as we could barely use emails or phones due to their very slow speed and outrageous costs. The history of Colombia has been known for its constant struggles among the military, guerilla and paramilitary. The latter are known to be "sponsored" by the government to counteract the guerilla. However, we all know that this form of "counteraction", which is usually violent, is "forbidden" according to the international community's standards. In the last days, President Uribe has been omnipresent in the newspapers and on TV since he has been accused of being in "contact" with the paramilitary. It is hard ... read more