More great times in Colombia

It's been a while....
We've had such a great time roaming Colombia that there's hardly been any time to update the blog. Okay, the time thing may not be entirely true, but we have truely had a fantastic time in Colombia. Today is our last day in this wonderful country and also marks two months on the road.
This is going to be a bit of a whirlwind account of our trip from the north east, to the far south and back up to the central highlands. Those following us on facebook will know that we have been up to a bit of everything from paragliding to gold museum and falling in love with Medellin and the great people there. I'll try and keep it short and sweet, although not exactly my forte, and pepper it with some pics for general entertainment.

Recovering from our sweat-inducing trek to the lost city, we decided that we'ed had enough of the tropical climate and jumped on an overnight bus to San Gil some 700 kilometers to the south in the eastern part of Colombia. San Gil is Colombia's adventure capital and and a great little town to hang out. San Gil is close to the Chicamoca Canyon which is one of the best places in Colombia to paraglide, so why not go and roam the sky for fun? After being driven to within literally a few steps from the edge of the Canyon, we were strapped into a front seat, with the pilot behind us. A few instructions and my pilot said "Okay, run" and within a few steps towards the edge we were in the air, a surprisingly non-hair raising experience. Once in the air, it was just us and the sound of the wind. We had more than half an hour in the air, gliding over the canyon, climbing up and over a plateau and suddenly I found myself floating in cotton wool clouds. Gliding at 2000 meters and all you can see is white all around you was a surprisingly serene experience. Later my pilot peformed a chin flapping downward spin, which got the adrenalin pumping and my breakfast to threathen an untimely exit. It was fun but one spin was enough.
Flying high on nothing but hot air is an awsome experience not to be missed.

Not far from San Gil is the small town of Barichara, where apart from the cars, you could be fooled to think that you had stepped back in time or transferred to the spanish countryside. Rows of 300-year-old white washed houses, stone streets and a couple of sandstone churches surrounded by a gorgeous country side. We spent a night there, trying the local delicacies, rack of goat ribs and for a snack big-assed ants, fried with a pinch of salt.We walked the ancient Camino Real to the neighbouring village, and generally enjoyed the clean air and tranquility before jumping on another night bus to the big city of Medellin.

Beautiful Barichara.

Medellin was not long ago synynomous with the cocain trade and the boss of it all, notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar. In the early 1990's Medellin was the world's most murderous city and a no-go zone for foreigners. At the height of his power as much as seventy to eighty tons of cocaine a month was smuggled into the U.S. by Escobar's cartell, who controlled 80 percent of the world market. This made him one of the wealthiest criminals in history, rumour has it that he once offered to pay off Colombia's foreign debt!
After a year long man-hunt involving U.S Navy Seal trained special forces, Pablo Escobar was gunned down in Medellin in 1993 and the city has since recoverd to an astonishingly degree.
Today it's a modern dynamic city with innovative public spaces, a great climate and Colombia's only metro system. Cheap, clean, fast, safe and reliable it shuttles you around the city and should be the envy of many a big city around the world (I had a particular city in mind, starting with M, but it was censured by my proof reader!)
Instead of staying in a local hostel, we splurged and booked a room through Airbnb. At Juan's apartment we got the first taste of the wonderful hospitality and friendliness of the paisas (Medellin's proud residents
call themselves paisas). We could not have asked for a better host or a better place to base ourselves. We felt we had checked in to a five star hotel, with the added bonus of new friendships.
We timed our visit in Medellin with the yearly flower festival, Ferie de las Flores. Cut flowers are one of the regions main exports and they didn't waste the chance to show off and celebrate. The city was decked out in flower arrangement and at multiple pop-up bars, young and old drank and danced to the wee hours.

On our first afternoon we decided to have a beer in one of the outdoor pop-up bars. We were not alone for long before we were adopted by proud shoe-shiner Danilo and his family, including eighty year old granma. They didn't get too offended when we politely declined to salsa with them, and we were instead invited to sit at their table. From then on we could not get away with paying for any of the beers that kept coming. They didn't speak english and we only know a few words in spanish, however soon we were exchanging football teams and other stories from our different worlds. Late in the evening we were escorted to the steps of the station and bade a warm good bye to these amazing people. A truely heartwarming experience.
The grand finale of the flower festival is a big parade, with floats, live bands, street performers and most importantly the chance for local flower growers to show off the best of the best in floral arrangements. What started with traditional baskets being carried on the back, is now a huge disk-shaped flower arrangement weighing up to 90 kilos and still carried on the back of  men and women, dressed in traditional outfits. We lined up along the route hours before the parade began, spentding the waiting time trying local street food, cooled off with beers and celebrated with the locals. The wait was well worth it, the flowers were beautiful and the atmosphere and cheering, must have been a huge help for the poor but proud basket carriers.

Colombia has two main exports that feed the worlds addicts, both starting with C. We choose to explore the production of the legal of the two trades. The name is a give-away, Zona Cafetera is coffee-growing heartland. We spent a day on a coffee farm, where we got the full low-down on all the intricacies of coffee growing and most importantly how to prepare the perfect cup. It's a beautiful area with lush rolling hills and beautiful old coffee farms. Couldn't think of a better place to attend coffee-school especially when the teacher is the passionate coffee grower himself.

Southern Colombia still see it's share of nightly high-way robberies, so not a place you are advised to jump on a nightbus. After a couple of long days in small busses on increasingly narrower and bumpier roads, we made it to San Agustin. We made the journey to check-out the mysterious statues and tombs, left behind by a culture that was gone well before the Europeans arrived. Not much is known about the people who lived here, other than they buried their dead in great big tombs, guarded by statues depicting human-like figures with animal features, like jaguar teeth and eagle eyes. Many statues were removed from their original locations before archaeologists could intervene. These statues are now show-cased in forest covered by an archaeologic park. The best way to see the ones that are still in their original spots, is by horseback. So we mounted a couple of small horses and went exploring in knee high mud, with our guide and caballero Pacho. Pacho's english was as limited as our Spanish, but with a bit of German thrown in and a fair bit of guessing, we got most of the details (at least we think so).

To break up the long journey from the south to Bogota, we stopped off for a few days in a small desert area, the almost otherworldly Desierto de la Tatacoa. Not much happening here, in a good way, definitely no internet and a whole lot of dust and sand. We spent the days exploring the red, grey and yellow desert, having long conversations over a sun-downer or two and waiting for the stars to come out so we could go to the small local observatory. Finally on our last night the sky was clear enough for the astronomer to make an appearence. Within minutes he had focused the powerful tripod telescope, and there was Saturn and all it's glorious rings. Not a bad first introduction to astronomy.

Desierto de la Tatacoa 

                               
Almost five weeks have gone by and our last stop, before heading back on the originally planned route, was Bogota.
It somehow made a gritty first-impression and it doesn't measure up to Medellin by any stretch, but it does have it's interesting areas. A cosy colonoial area, with narrow streets and charming old houses. An impressive amount of legal grafitti light up many a grey wall and almost acts like an open book on the recent political history of Bogota. By far the best feature of Bogota, in my view anyway, is the surprising amount of cycling-friendly infrastructure. 350 kilometers of designated cycling lanes is not to be huffed at and to top it off every Sunday, 120 kilometers of Bogota's main roads are closed off for motorvehicles.

Saturday was museum day, with a visit to Bogota's must-see gold museum. Thirty thousand plus pieces of gold, from all over Colombia's pre-hispanic cultures is pretty impressive, and English explanations throughout makes things so much easier and interesting.

 Coca chewing at the gold museum.

Sunday was an obvious choice for a five hour guided bike-ride through parts of the city. The tour was conducted by Mike, an American journalist, who has lived and worked in various different South American countries before setteling in Bogota and trading journalism for tour guide duties. While travelling the streets of Bogota in general isn't the safest, as Mike pointed out it's definitely safer than being a journalist.
The tour took us through areas of the city that would not be wise to visit on your own, all with very insightful commentary by Mike. En route we stopped at the city's bullfighting ring, where at one spot protesters demanded an end to bullfighting and fifty meters away a group of young bullfighters were on a hunger strike to keep bullfighting alive. The young bullfighters were on day twenty of no food, with some in hospital. I wonder how many animal rights activists would be prepared to go to that extreme for their cause? There's a current court case, which shortly will decide the fate of bull fighting in Bogota.

Given Mike's background, his commentary was refreshingly blunt. He was certainly not only giving us the rosy tourist blurb.

Grafitti in Bogota.

I think it should be pretty clear to everyone that Colombia really has been a fantastic country to travel in. Sure it has its fair share of problems; guerrillas, corruption and huge inequality to mention a few, but it's hard not to think that this country is on the verge of something bigger and better. Colombia should be on everyone's must-visit list and now is a great time go.
HASTA LUEGO COLOMBIA

Two happy caballero.