It has been quite a while since our last update as I've been far too busy having fun, but enough is enough and as our time in Colombia is coming to an end it's an appropriate moment to sit down and put things together. This is a bumper issue so make yourself a cup of tea and settle in...
Some photo highlights are included but all can be found here (in various albums): http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/fernando.nilanga
Medellin (7th to 13th August)
I'll pick up where I left off, in Medellin - also known as the City of Eternal Spring due to its perfect all-year round weather. First, a small amount on Medellin's notorious modern history. This is a city that 20 years ago saw 60 bombs exploding in a three month period, this was the centre of the world cocaine trade for 15 years and the playground of the infamous Pablo Escobar - a man with the blood of thousands on his hands yet his legacy still commands respect from many of Medellin's poor.
We arrived early in the morning from Cartagena into a city at the crescendo of its biggest festival of the year - The Feria del Flores, or Festival of Flowers. Medellin is the capital of Antioquia, Colombia's richest and I think largest department, home to the 'Paisa' - who have a reputation for entrepreneurism, hard work and hard drinking! The city over the final weekend of the festival was one huge party, coming to a peak on Sunday 8th August with the Silleteros Parade, when hundreds of Paisas decend into Medellin to parade huge wooden constructions each containing thousands of flowers through the city.
This sounds rather strange but the spectacle was magnificent, some of the silleteros being over 10 feet tall, and some of the weight-bearers being small, old but clearly incredibly strong women! It was great to be there in the city's biggest moment and revel in the atmosphere of collective celebration.
Medellin has, in the style of Alan Partridge, Rolf Harris and Dennis Hopper, really bounced back from its dark modern history. It is beatifully set within a huge valley, with progressive architecture, a great modern Metro system, cable-cars to connect hillside slums to the city centre, great museums and an exhilarating nightlife.
We had to do the obligatory Pablo Escobar tour which was brought to life by our savvy and very amusing guide - who seemed to hate all the major players in Colombia's recent political and social history - politicians, guerillas, drug cartels and paramilitaries. It really was hard to fathom the extent of his power and control, rising to the top of the Medellin mafia at the age of 29 (I have 1 year left...). Not even he knew how much money he had but some accounts say up to $20bn.
On visiting his grave we met two locals in their 60s who were visiting his cousin (and major right hand man), it was intruiging to hear them almost praising Escobar - who was known to hand out money within poor slums, but who also never hesitated in murderous acts against the very same people to reach his enemies...
After 6 days in Medellin we decided it was time to move on, we were sad to leave such a fun (and surprisingly clean) city but we were to find paradise in our next main stop...
Zona Cafetera (13th to 20th August)
We left Medellin for Colombia's semi-mountainous coffee growing region, via a one night stop at some thermal springs for some much needed rest, recouperation and relaxation at Santa Rosa de Cabal. The next day (Saturday 14th August) we took the bus to Salento - a beautiful little town set in the heart of rolling green hills, coffee plantations and rushing streams and waterfalls.
The countryside truly was spectacular - no overstatement. We took a jeep (riding on the back and hanging on for dear life) out to the Cocora Valley, a unique place with huge palm trees that seem like they are not real. After a stiff 2 hour climb through jungle we were able to take in some breathtaking views and then stroll through the valley, walking among these strange, for-no-apparent-reason-ridiculously-tall trees.
Spot me at the bottom of the tree
We stayed in a phenomenal 'hostel' - basically a new eco-farm 1km out of town with incredible views, a chef from Barcelona who nightly prepared 8 course feasts and great fellow guests who we got to know well. We ended up staying a week in Salento, passing the time by walking in the hills, eating, reading and visiting coffee plantations. We were also fortunate enough to cross paths with two musicians from New Zealand (check them out: http://www.myspace.com/themaproomband) who led two great sing songs, one including a full rendition of the Dark Side of the Moon, fuelled by wine out of a box.
Don Elias - Don of Coffee
Again, we really didn't want to leave Salento but it was time to move on and we got the night bus to Bogota on Friday (13th!) night. Typically Colombian bus journeys have been at least 2 hours longer than the scheduled time, but this one really was a shocker... an 8 hour journey that eventually lasted 15 hours. Twas alright for me as I was mostly asleep however Jo was fuming and unfortunately mostly awake.
Bogota (21st to 25th August)
After resting for the first day we took to Bogota on foot - a city with a great number of museums, churches and cultural activities. In three days we managed to watch three different musical acts - one was part of the 'Salsa in the Park' festival (incredible dancing, some ridiculously cheesy), one was a trumpet quartet in a museum (oh how cultured) and the best was a threesome of young traditional Colombian guitarists.
We took in a couple of arial views from Colombia's tallest skyscraper and from Cerro Montserrate (one of the mountains overlooking Bogota).
Plaza Bolivar
Bogota is cool but regretfully I'm not sure we made the most of it - both were feeling a bit burnt out so we took it really easy. I was impressed with some of the museums, particularly the Museo Del Oro (Gold) - which was incredible, basically a chronicle of Colombia's pre-conquistador history told through the use of gold and other precious metals by indigenous tribes, many of which date back thousands of years and most of which are rather strange...
Roland Rat?
We continued on the theme of ancient cultures by heading from Bogota to San Agustin on the nightbus (again the theme being that I sleep and Jo doesn't) on Thursday 26th August.
San Agustin (27th to 29th August)
San Agustin is a small town nestled into a valley near the Rio Magdelena - Colombia's main river from south to north. It's famous for archealogical remains left by a mysterious and ancient indigenous tribe who did not leave behind any scriptures (but existed up until the 15th century) - hence are known as the 'Agustinians'.
The next two days were spent staying in a lovely countryside retreat and taking jeep tours / walking tours through beautiful scenery a large number of stone sculptures and burial mounds. Apparently the Agustinians mummified and buried their dead together with some great statues (some of which have been looted but many of which remain).
After a few days in San Agustin we decided to head north-east to Popayan, a city about 5 hours away by bus on a ridiculously bumpy road (that's only been free from landmines/guerilla activity for a couple of years). I say free from land mines but a friend we met saw one go off a few days before on the side of the road... EEEHH.
Anyway, the bus journey was a unique experience - an hour and a half in we encountered this:
What followed was 7 hours of standing still, waiting for parts for the lorry on the left (which had lost its rear axel), watching people unloading huge chunks of wood to stabilise the lorry on the right, and (me) discussing - in very broken Spanish - Colombia's recent political history with a crazed local who seemed to get a bit more passionate that I expected. Anyway, 7 hours later than expected we reached Popayan - a city famous for its white-washed colonial buildings.
Popayan and surroundings (29th August to 3rd September)
We arrived in Popayan at about 11pm and went straight out with our friends Denise (Aus) and Michael (UK). We bumped into some Colombians who plied us with Aguardiente (local anaseedy liquor), got us into a club then asked us to pay for their beers!
The next few days were spent chilling and wondering around the beautiful old town in Popayan - with two notable exceptions. One was a trip to a weekly indigenous market about an hour away from Popayan, in a small town called Silvia. I would loved to have taken some photos as it was a lot of fun but apparently it's an insult to the locals, so the camera was kept firmly in our bags.
The second exception was probably THE BEST thing I've done in Colombia (so it's really fitting that we did it on one of our last days here) - we hiked up and down a massive dormant volcano in Parque Purace - about an hour and a half from Popayan.
We woke up at 03.50am to get the bus to the park (a hugely important park in Colombia - source of its main rivers), and went up to 3,300m from where we started our 4 hour climb to the summit, at 4,850m. It was pretty tough but we made it up there in under 4 hours (YES!) - despite the altitude giving us pounding headaches and empty lungs.
We took in numerous different micro-climates on the way up, and some pretty horrendous cold weather and howling winds - but it was well worth it. As we got to the top we could see nothing... but after 20 minutes of walking around the crater the clouds were blown away and it was really quite weird to be looking across a volcano crater! One of the best things is that for the whole day, we were the only two people on the whole hike - so it was quite scary in terms of our isolation from any kind of assistance if anything went wrong, but all was good and we made it back down in time for the last bus to Popayan.
The start...
Strange plants...
So that's what a volcano looks like!
Which brings us up to the present. I am writing this in our bed in Popayan, with my body in pieces but feeling a good sense of having done something worthwhile. Tomorrow (3rd September) we are flying down to Ecuador and then bussing it to Quito, from where on the 5th September (Sunday) we depart for an 8 day cruise around the Galapagos - likely to be one of the highlights of our travels!
We've really enjoyed Colombia - it's a beautiful country with incredibly diverse landscapes, from white beaches to green valleys, from huge mountains to thick jungles. The people are insanely friendly and are so eager to banish the reputation of Colombia being a dangerous place to visit.
From what we've seen we can only agree with them and encourage other travellers to come and explore this incredible country.
good work, pity about the typo.
ReplyDelete