Travels through Colombia

I've been in Colombia for a couple weeks now and it's been pretty awesome.

After Taganga the three amigos made our way down to Cartagena, a lovely city on the coast surrounded by high city walls (to keep out the pirates).  We cruised around the bars drinking rum, saw this great band that Kate knew from her last trip to Cartagena, afro-caribbean beats with melodic latin lyrics plus a little bit ska with the trombone, the dancefloor packed and pumping.  It was really all about the party in Cartagena, we had several crazy nights.  In the day time there was a lot of lounging around the hostel which had a lovely courtyard and a pool.  On our last night together (Kate sailing to Panama, Dougie off to Buenos Aires, me staying in Colombia) we had a massive one on the rooftop of the hostel, watching the sunset, doing acrobatics and other nonsense and making our own fun during a blackout.

After a fair bit of indecision I decided to make my way to Medellin, a thirteen hour overnight bus ride away.  It wasn´t that bad actually, when I woke up in the morning we were winding around the high mountain roads, with the clouds hanging low and the sun attempting to break through, it was quite beautiful.  When I got to Medellin I took a few days of resting and recovering.  I gradually explored the city which is set in the valley between two mountain ranges, checked out the plaza of sculptures by the famous artist Botero, the Colombian art gallery nearby, and chilling in the botanic gardens.  One afternoon I caught the cable car up to Arvi Park, a nature reserve at the top of one of the mountains.  Cable car is a pretty cool way to travel, the first part was sweeping over the rooftops of the city checking out the various neighbourhoods, watching the kids playing soccer in the streets, then the second part was quietly gliding over the canopy of the forest.  At the top I went on a guided walk through the reserve with a lovely guide, Monica (who I got all to myself) who told me all about the trees and different types of forest.  She practiced her english and tried to teach me some spanish, we had a great old time.  There were two dogs accompanying us and she explained that one of them used to be really skinny, so the park staff named him Juan, after a really skinny co-worker of theirs.  This human Juan took a liking to the little dog and started feeding him and fattening him up, and so now he was quite healthy looking, frolicking in the forest with the other dog, living the good life.  Monica said the human Juan is still skinny though!

Since Medellin I've been in the beautiful Salento, high in the Zona Cafetera (coffee growing region).  Its just my kind of town - small and friendly, beautiful mountains all around and GOOD COFFEE!  The coffee has been pretty crap around most of south america, all the good stuff gets exported.  On my first day in Salento I went to the lookout at the top of town and was blown away by the beauty of the valley below.  A guy up there told me I could walk down to the river below so I did, then decided to keep on walking to Cocora, a little spot with lots of walking trails and such.  It took a couple hours to get there, but it was such a nice walk along the quiet country road through the valley.  When I got there I had lunch then went on a short horseride through the forest along the river, it was magic.  Afterwards I caught the jeep back to Salento and met some other tourists including an Australian Katie who was staying with friends at their bar the SpeakEasy, so I went there that night and had a burger and a few beers and made plans to go on another horseride the next day.  Another fantastic day! I had a fiesty horse called Violin who liked to be at the front of the pack and when he broke into a gallop was really bloody fast, almost scary, but in a fun rollercoaster kinda way:) We spent four hours riding though another gorgeous valley, to this little farm where this cute old grandpa showed us around his palm trees and coffee plants, smiling all the while, then a muddy precarious walk to a beautiful little waterfall.  We had tea on his balcony before going home again.

I was a bit sore after that ride! But I like it heaps here so I reckon I'm gonna hang around a while and take some spanish lessons:)