Colombia highlights

The holiday is over and I long to go back to South America. I'm already planning! Cuba is also still high up on the list. Here is a list of highlights (in no particular order):

• The salsa and tango music that you hear everywhere
• The way everyone says "con gusto" when you say "gracias". With gust. Love it.
• The way that each of the places we visited had a different climate. Cool in Bogata, "eternal spring" in Medellin, tropical in Cartagena
• Each of the places we visited also had a different personality. Commerce in Bogota; edgy efficiency in Medellin; laid back & chilled Caribbean in Cartagena.
• Women celebrating their curves with figure-hugging clothing
• The talented artists
• Larger than life Botero paintings and sculptures
• The metro cable in Medellin
• The bario of Santo Domingo high in the mountains of Medellin
• The bougainvillea and balconies of Cartagena
• The well-preserved 16th century buildings
• The fruit sellers of Cartagena
• The fruit! Goldberries, strawberries, papaya, mango, pineapple
• The beautiful white sand Caribbean beaches of Baru
• Toucans. Emerald toucans in the wild. Tame toucan (Tatto) in one of our hotels that liked to sit on David's arm
• Arroz con coco
• Parillas
• Frijoles
• Arepas
• Tamales
• Queso blanco
• Mojitos
• Aguila light beer
• Readily available free wifi
• Courtyards
• Parque Arvi
• Night view of Medellin
• Seeing Gabriel Garcia Marquez' house. Eek!
• Gold museum in Bogota
• Fine old churches
• Just hanging out in colonial Cartagena
• Air France. Best flights ever.

Lowlights?

• Bus through the Andes. Never again.
• Mad taxi drivers
• Chaotic Medellin airport
• Wine (lack of availability & options, also the price)
• Tea. Mostly not available, but I did have a few cups of something that they call "te en agua". I mostly stuck to coffee.
• I left my kindle on the return flight to Paris. I reported it within 15 minutes but they never found it :(

Taxis

Although I'm an independent traveller, I'm not a thrill seeker.  Honestly! The most dangerous thing we do while travelling is taking taxis. We have taken about 35 taxis in 2 weeks. Only two of them had seatbelts and most of them drove too fast. We felt safest in the taxi going from Bogota airport to our hotel on the last night. The driver was a woman and I don't think this was a coincidence. David should be writing this post as it was his idea, but here are the worst 5 taxi drivers from our trip.

In fifth place...

Medellin: coming home from the trendy Zona Rosa night spot area on a Saturday night. The driver overshot the turnoff to our hotel on the dual carriageway. When he realised, he screeched to a halt and then started reversing at top speed!! We said we'd get out and walk as it wasn't far. He said that he was terribly sorry and explained that his sick daughter was on his mind. Bless. Glad we got out of the car though...

In fourth place...

Medellin again: Man who took us to the airport. He was desperate to overtake on a blind bend uphill. Luckily he couldn't follow through as his car was too crap. He was kept scarily close to the car in front though.

In third place

Yes, Medellin again! The guy got lost finding our hotel and knowingly went down a one way street at top speed into an oncoming car as a short cut.

In second place...

And again, Medellin. We just got off a nightmare 12 hour bus journey and into a taxi. Either the guy had no breaks, or had breaks but no intention of using them. Top speed downhill, swerving in and out of traffic. I asked him to slow down. This request finally worked when I told him I felt sick. Must remember that line - you could tell he was more worried about cleaning up vomit from the inside of his car.

And the winner of the worst taxi driver on our trip went to the man who drove us from our hotel in Bogota to the bus station at the beginning of our trip. He looked a bit like Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver. I noticed him fidgeting. He was speeding and we asked him to slow down (he did slightly). When we were safely there, David asked me if I'd noticed the guys eyes... and his fixed smile..... he looked like he was coked out. aagghh!!

There are always some adventures in taxis on our travels, but there were too many in Colombia. (See Malacca, Malaysia: The story of Zachariah, the man with the moustache here; Bali, Indonesia: Goody's existential angst story here

Cartagena street scene

30 second video clip of a street in Cartagena. The orange house is now a bank, but was once home to the liberator Simon Bolivar

http://youtu.be/5ym79l_t8ZI

Portal de los Dulces

Sweet Alley! Yum yum.

Boutique hotels in Cartagena

Beautiful boutique hotels that we stayed in: Casa La Fe and Bantu

Caribbean beach

Isla Baru

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

I didn't manage to meet the author and famous Cartagena resident, but here's his house and a photo of him at the art museum.

Castillo San Felipe

Getsemani, La Trinidad y la iglesia de San Roque

Most things come with a fried banana, refried beans and coconut rice

The church of San Roque

San Roque

y su perro (pero con rabo :)) )

Palacio de la Inquisicion

Cartagena snapshots

Parque Arvi

We took the second cable car to the end of the line, right in the thick of the national park over 2000 meters high. The plan was to get a map from the information hut and head off for a 2-3 hour hike. The first thing we came to was a farmers' market and we did a quick spin. I bought some ham and cheese "tortas" (baps) and a piece of carrot cake for our lunch on the hike. It felt good to have my hiking boots on and to breath the cool, crisp air. I have missed hiking so much. We found an information counter and I asked the guy if he could recommend a good trail for about 3 hours. He told me right out that it didn't work like that. Eh?! So how does hiking work exactly?? Well, in Parque Arvi, you take a free guide for each of the walks highlighted on the map. Everyone gathers at the head of the trail and then hike together when there is a group. Each walk takes about 30 minutes. We have hired guides in the past if the the hike is particularly long or tricky like in Indonesia (Rinjani), Indonesia (Arun), Peru (Inka Trail) and Malaysia (Kinabalu). As far as we knew, the trails were very easy in Parque Arvi, so why the need for a guide? I thanked the guy, took the map and then went back to where David was waiting. We decided to just do our own thing and use the map as a guide. We decided to head towards a lagoon around 3km away and then double back and take another trail for another 4-5km. The map was rubbish. It was designed for people walking with a guide. We kept missing turns as they weren't actually marked on the map. We asked directions at one stage and a family told us that we had to take a guide as it's easy to get lost with all the trees. We thanked them and carried on doing our own thing. The trails were very good, but the signposting and maps were awful so we did take a few wrong turns. One of the wrong turns resulted in a spotting of a family of emerald toucans. Wonderful! These are the park's emblem, but I think they are actually quite hard to find so we felt so lucky. Once we sussed the right trail, we had a wonderful hike. At the end, we sat on the grass eating our lunch. We also found a little hut selling organic coffee and another selling artesanal (i.e. made in someone's kitchen) chocolates. Back at the market, we bought some berries from a farmer. It's the first time we had tried uchuvas (gold-berries). Yum yum!

After a break, we took the cable car back to Santo Domingo and lingered a while. It's a bustling neighbourhood. Apparently, 10 years ago it was one of the most dangerous neighbourhoods in the world, but not any more. As it was a Sunday, kids played in the park, dogs wandered around and mums and dads sat on benches chatting. The views were fabulous too.

Map of the national park (they didn't give this one out!)

Me on the trail

Strawberries, blackberries and goldberries

Views of the city from the cable car

What a great day.