So now here we are in popoyan, another charming colonial city in thesouth of Colombia. Things have changed loads here recently -5 years agopeople barley visited this area. the lonley planet i have which is5years out of date warns against travelling at night on buses due toguerillas (FARC) stopping and robbing buses, burning them, particularlydown at the borders but the relatively new president ruibe has ploughedcopious amounts of cash into public security (apparently his dad waskilled by FARC) and has a vendetta against them. This has madetravelling around colombia much safer, although the flip side is publicspending in other areas has dropped and rise in unemployment hasresulted in a rise in city crime. Obviously there are still areas ofthe country completely out of bounds, in fact most of the country interms of area including the vast amazon. we were also warned also aboutthe pacific coast by our dutch friend Ron in Tyrona national park who´dhad a good Colombian friend from Bogota kidnapped on a boat with 20other Colombians last year and had been held captive for 6monthssomewhere in the amazon. The friend had been released after 6 monthsfollowing some payment which people don´t talk about (its illegal to paymoney to the guerillas), but kidnapping and drug trade is what funds theguerillas and that evidently still goes on. So anyway we´ve checked thesituation with the local police who have assured us the situation issafe now and escort all buses down to the border. In actual fact theystop all traffic flow for 3-4hours at night and then escort vehicles inconvoy.

The chiva bus (see photo) is the typical bus from colombia, all the indigenous use it, but the buses over night are a bit more westernised

So after our dose of salsa we´ve been working our way down to theborder. We stopped of in an indigenousvillage weekly vegetable market of Silva (guiyambo tribe) who are themost established indigenous tribe in Colombia (see photo above). We made friends with a lady who was stitching a typical bag, her husband, and their mum whoboasted a full set of gold teeth who giggled a lot and invited us totheir house for sweet herbal tea and cheesy bread. Randomly the husbandand been to finland due to his godmother being a finnish woman who hadvisited the village so we spent the afternoon talking about culturaldifferences between Europe and Colombia, Was amazing as they were allsat there with their bright purple and pink skirts and big black bowlerhats. Also we discovered we were all the same age (except for the mum).

See the facebook link for more cali and medellin photos

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=2421133&l=92a36&id=543366004

Cali the Salsa Capital of Colombia

Also a few days in Cali, the salsa capital of Colombia (thats my gay salsa teacher BTW, so much fun except his advice on which clubs to spend our friday night out in! we thought his advice would be a safe bet (less pushy colombian men, if their interests were to lie with other men) but, we underestmated how pushy and forward colombian women would be!). Anyway Sat night we went to the infamous oldest running Chango club in swanky´juanchito´ area of Cali where the idea of two English girls who cansalsa dance went down a storm and we were pulled up on stage given sometacky prizes and asked to pick out winning names from a box and madefriends with the owner. Lots of fun. Lucky for me my Colombian friendLina from work put me in touch with her family who overwhelmed us withtheir hospitality and generosity, giving us their swanky ´art studio´ inthe centre of the old town to live in for a few days which was totallyamazing. Old wooden beams, art work all over, mezzanine floor and greatspace to do a bit of morning yoga. Also got invited to their amazingcountry mansion for Sunday dinner.

Medellin the city of eternal spring (and pablo escobar)

So the last week or so has been a trip around Medellin (formerPablo Escobar home) and local villages characterized by lots of men inponchos and hats sat around drinking rum in saloon type bars or playingbilliards blasting out ranchero tunes. We accidently walked into oneand realized the unsaid rule of no women allowed. Shame though as lookedfantastic, all sorts of crazy artefacts on the walls and ceilings.

Bogota

Bogota was a fun meeting up place for various folk we´d met along the
way and another few nights of rum and salsa. I was shocked at how cold
and rainy it was though, and think the altitude, lowered immune system
and high levels of air pollution (its shocking how polluted all the
cities are here) meant I got a bit of a cold and spent a couple of days
wrapped up in bed. Still managed to see some of the tourist sites
including the cable car ride to monserrate, unfortunately the dense
cloud and pollution meant no spectacular view.

Part 3 Villa de Leyva

Check out more photos here:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=2417220&l=0e73a&id=543366004

That was the last of our coast experience, we´d met some folk from
bogota and had decided we wanted to get down there for the weekend. We
stopped off in Villa de Leyva, a beautiful colonial town in the andes a
few hours north of bogota (sudden shock at how cold it was away from the
coast), spent a couple of days chilling, playing guitars in the square,
exploring the beautiful countryside, waterfalls (bizarrely I started
recognizing loads of the grasses and plants, which meant yummy healing
red clover herbal teas), think the conquistadores must have brought lots
of European pasture plants to plant up the fields for farming. Also
visited a bizarre historic archaeological fertility site which had loads
of massive 5meter tall stone penises (just to explain the photos).

Part 2: random day in la Guajira

In fact it was the same Colombian family who told us about this other amazing beach – cabo de la vela in the state of la guiajira that was only ´2 hours away´. I´ve come to realize the Colombian concept of time and hours is vastly different to the European, so really shouldn´t have trusted them. When we got to riohacha which was 2 hours away we were told it was another 6hours through the desert, advisable only by personal guide at a cost of $200 dollars. Various sources of information had warned us against travelling through the desert in la guijira, so the alternative option of taking 3 public buses through indigenous villages seemed a bit scary. Also we´d been told to watch out for the indigenous boys of la guijira who, if they like the look of ladies have been known to be quite persistent in keeping them for marriage, in exchange for a few goats (we were told it wasn´t strictly kidnapping as it was to do with traditional custom). Either way we decided we´d cut our losses, spend the afternoon in a flamingo reserve before heading back to taganga which in itself turned out to be a random affair (again the 1hour trip lasted 3hours and we were stuck on a boat with our Colombian guide, his nephew and the boat man who spent hours singing passionate ranchero tunes – see the facebook link).

Part 1: The Colombian Coast

Sooooo I´m in the town of popayan south Colombia about to get an overnight bus to the Ecuadorian border. Its been an amazing month and i´ve barley had time to put my thoughts to paper, other than a few photos and comments on facebook. Thought facebook comments would be enough of a travel log but decided to give this blog stuff a go.

So where to start?

So it all started in the Caribbean,

Check out for some more photos
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=94048&l=32b64&id=543366004
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=95498&l=8345b&id=543366004

I arrived in bogota on 27th December and promptly got an internal flight to Cartagena to meet beth in good time for NYE. Was welcomed with a night of rum and salsa, which come to think of it pretty much sums up most of my memories from our week in Cartagena. Beth had been living in Cartagena for a month with a lovely family (lucky for me there was a spare bed for me to move in for a week), she´d been teaching English in ´da hood´, and had got to know a nice little crew of folk. Actually it wasn´t just rum and salsa, Come to think of it we managed to squeeze in a random trip to a mud volcanoe which was one of the strangest xperiences ever, floating in thick mud, not being able to touch any kind of bottom with my feet, not being able to swim but also being strangly buoyant and being pulled around the volcanoe mud by local folk offering massages for a small fee. The kids hated it, (check out the link on facebook for screaming kids). Skin felt amazing after though. Also got a great dive in islas rosaries which are a beautiful set of carribbean islands, first time in ages i´ve dived with a proper buddy :)

Then Taganga - a small fishing village which has turned into a bit of a traveler hang out, great for a few days chilling, snorkeling, a sneaky salsa night and eating amazing fresh fish for dinner which we saw the fishermen catch the same afternoon.

Also the stunning Tyrona nationa park, probably the highlight of my time in Colombia, beautiful coast accessible only by a 2hour walk through thick rainforest and ccommodation comprising pure hammocks and tents, morning wake up call a selection of tropical birds. We left loads of our stuff in Taganga to make the treck more do-able but couldn´t resist bringing a guitar and selection of percussion which was brilliant as spent most of the time playing the guitar on the beach in the sun, and under the full moon, guaranteed way to meet lots of fun crazy people (check out some of the photos and videos on facebook link). Also we´d planned ahead and bought a cool box and enough muslie, tinned tuna, salad and crackers to last us 3 days, even made it stretch for 4 days, unfortunately no cash points meant we ran out of money and had to leave after 4 days although could have stayed a week.

Although it was quite busy (Colombian holidays seem to last most of January), most other visitors were Colombians which was good fun, and we were camped next to a friendly family who hacked off the coconut husk for us when they saw me struggling with my finnish hunting knife.

Flying over central colombia on my first day wondering how many guerrillas are hiding in those mountains. Was feeling a bit too fresh faced to consider the 16hour bus journey and associated dangers...