Vibrant Colombia

Friends and family edition…

Bienvenidos a Colombia 

First impressions of Bogota exceeded my expectations, a lively bustling city more developed than I had envisaged! Given we were staying in the tourist / wealthier bario of Zona Rosa may have had a role in developing my initial thoughts. An incredibly lively district with many restaurants, bars and clubs! Friday and Saturday night I was shocked at how big the queues were to enter! It seemed as if half of the city was heading out! The current tour group weren’t too keen to sample the local nightlife so I checked out some of the more tame bars before a comparatively early night. I don’t think it was the type of area you could go solo – not much space at the “people watching” bars. Entry queues started from soon after 7pm!!! 

Being in Bogota it is a rite of passage to ascend the steep hillside to Monserrate to take in sweeping views of the city! A lot of the locals opt to do this as part of their Saturday morning routine, a 1.5 hour climb at a leisurely pace for some lovely city views! 

Being Saturday I took the opportunity to join another group who were heading to the Millonarios football game. Included in the package was bottomless beer and stadium entry. A great experience, the ultras didn’t stop bouncing, singing and waving their flags all game! The ride home was a little interesting, my taxi driver had quite a strong twitch that led to uncontrolled accelerating, braking and swerving towards oncoming traffic! I tried making conversation in my basic Spanish to try distract him with limited success! 

The next day we saw a slightly different side of Bogota when we drove through one of the poorer neighbourhoods on our city tour. The rest of the city was quite pleasant with very impressive graffiti plastered over any available wall space, all telling a story from Colombias recent history. 

Next stop was Medellin, largely regarded as the best spot in Colombia. Once again a vibrant city with a lot to offer. Neighbourhood Communa 13 was very interesting, an area that until 5 years ago was too dangerous to visit and now is a must see on any tourist hit list. Over a few years a group of teenagers decided to transform their neighbourhood and now it is packed with tourist shops, hip hop shows and little eateries surrounded by the compact housing on steep hillsides. Here we had one of the best meals of the whole trip towards the top of the neighbourhood overlooking the narrow streets and packed housing. This is the area with the outdoor escalators to assist locals (and tourists) with getting up and down the steep hillsides. 

Also from here we did a day trip to Guatape known as the most instagramable place in Colombia, largely owing to the huge and beautiful manmade lake which it sits on. After the 7 or so years it took to fill the lake, the mayor of Guatape decided to turn his town into a tourist hotspot on the shores of the lake… he did this by making it compulsory for all town centre houses and buildings to decorate the lower 3 or 4 foot of their buildings, this has led to some very colourful and picturesque streets! Also from here we climbed some 700 steps up a rock for some amazing sweeping views of the lake!

During our stay in Medellin we left the city for a day trip to a coffee farm, where farming is undertaken in the traditional way, no big multi national coffee farms in this area. An enjoyable day in a dramatic mountainous setting! Here, however, we had a spot of bother… returning home by jeep down the hillside dirt tracks one of the drivers lost concentration and was heading to collide with our jeep, panicking he pressed the accelerator in place of the brake and flew into us flipping his jeep on to the side and rocking ours up. The jeep was packed full with my tour friends and one even had her arm out the window the whole time – a close escape! I rushed to their jeep but Given nothing really worked on them it was a little challenging rescuing everyone… naturally the back door didn’t really open very well but we managed to get everyone out largely unhurt! We were lucky! 

This delayed our return to Medellin and as such it looked like I wasn’t going to make the game tonight… Independente Medellin vs Millonarios in their FA Cup SF 1st Leg! Thankfully with a mad dash I managed to join the group just before they entered the stadium, I was greeted with two large beers I had 4 minutes to drink! Another bit of luck… I escaped what could have been a very bad injury when I half fell into an uncovered manhole rushing to catch the group after the “catch up” beers! Inside the stadium I was (supposedly) treated to a carton of their local brew… a 29% battery acid tasting drink.. it took 70 plus minutes to finish!

The atmosphere was fantastic and with a Colombian / Norwegian lady we snuck into the side of the ultra section, soemthing I was against as they take their ultra sections very seriously and day trippers would not be so Welcome! I persuaded her to stay put just when one of our hosts popped up and said “no further! Any closer to the middle is too dangerous”. I probably would have declined her invite if it wasn’t for the local 29% brew! The atmosphere was great and during the second half one of the ultra groups invited me to join them on their banner at the front of the second tier… they were standing on the railing with said banner some 20+ feet above the stand below… I stood on the concrete!! Not sure my travel insurance would cover any injuries from such tourist recklessness. 

An early start had us heading to Cartagena in the north, I had heard mixed reviews of this area and they were all largely accurate… the town is sketchy but the rooftop bars / restaurants and islands nearby are all fantastic, I was fully in agreement. Here the highlight was certainly a day trip to the Rosario Islands on our own speed boat. The islands are beautiful! First stop at 10am (!) was a party area known as Isla de Cholon where the yachts and speed boats form a semi circle around some tikki bars in the sea, safe to say the music was already pumping and the other boats certainly looked on their way to a boozey day! To be fair it was a lot of fun just a surprise to be having beers and cocktails for breakfast!! Moving on to Isla Grande we had a spot booked at a resort where we could relax for the afternoon in paradise! The resort was a lot more chilled in comparison to breakfast! Both super fun for very different reasons.

This was the last day of the trip and after a lot of goodbyes, all but two returned home. Emma headed to Panama and myself to Baru to try sleep and switch off for the first time in August (6 countries in 29 days didn’t leave much time for sleep!).

Whilst I am here, one thing about Bogota that I loved was their Sunday morning ritual followed by a huge proportion of the city! For the more active there is the option to bike or blade a huge number of roads closed to cars allowing people to cross the city to see friends and family without the 24/7 traffic jams! For those that choose to stay in it is customary to lie in bed till 11 ish. Those who are single tend to catch up on Whatsapp messages or Netflix whilst those coupled up do similar but whilst intertwined amongst one another. Aside from the cyclists the city was dead until around lunchtime when it abruptly came to life!

Moving down to Isla de Baru I had four nights in a very remote hotel a few km down a dirt track. It hotel had two small beaches separated by mangroves, alfresco terrace dining, a small beach bar and not much else. It was nice to have no wake up time or minute by minute daily plans already set out for once. Nevertheless I tried to make the most of my time there.. some beach trips with the hotel one of which where I was befriended by an Argentinian couple who spoke no English but invited me to all their meals and beach cabanas! 

The hotel was opposite the lively Isla de Cholon party bar, about half a mile across the straight. One afternoon I kayaked over for a few drinks in the bar… it was always lively between 10am and 4pm so many yachts would come by from Cartagena every day brining 100s of lively revellers. It was quite fun just to lie in the surf sipping a beer people watching. 

Anyway I’ve now left paradise and heading back to Medellin for the El Classico derby this Sunday… 

The El Classico was quite possibly one of the best nights of my life (not to get too carried away). It had everything… pyro, flags, noise, colour and the most amount of ticker tape and shredded paper you could ever imagine! Not to mention “we” scored after 40 seconds in the biggest game of the season and went on to win 4-3 in a very tense final few minutes after leading 4-1 at half time! Met quite a few locals and shared a few Aguardiente with them… mainly the one I bought illegally inside the ground. The stadiums are dry but local vendors still manage to sneak them in inside bags of sweets they are supposedly selling to kids in the hooligan end…! it’s 29% proof and disgusting! I’m glad the locals wanted to share mine this time unlike my first game there. 

A few more fun days were spent in Medellin, a city which I felt I could easily live in, such a nice atmosphere aside from the stories I had heard, which I will save for when I am back! On the last night I met a Colombiana for a lovely meal followed by me dragging her to the pub for the second leg of the SF Copa Libertadores! She didn’t protest (too much!)  and depending on my schedule I will try pop back to say hello! 

And that was just about the end of Colombia… I am sad to be leaving but had an amazing time! O I forgot to mention we also took part in one of their common past times… throwing stones at gunpowder on what is almost like a darts board. The first few minutes were intense… the bangs were so loud and I was nervous fixing the board for the next round in case any went off in my hands… alas they did not… on to Ecuador!!!