Colombia

Actually, we would go this time to West Africa again, to Ghana, but then we changed the destination to Colombia instead. Mostly because my friend was anxiously for Ebola and though I tried to convince him that in Ghana is no risk of becoming infected so I was not able to convince him of that. So it became Colombia then to go to and it was in any case a real experience.

For years I have thought of Colombia, among others also because I have read almost all the books of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and liked all of them very much, he became one of my favorite writers. And so I wanted to see his Aracataca and Magdalena river so I could complete a little more my picture of him. I was also curious about Cartagena, Bogota, but the highlight was most the Amazon.

When I got to read that on the roads are lots of trucks, buses and cars so I didn't know that it is much more than I could imagine, I've never experienced anything like it.  One truck after the other truck, they were literally at each other. So our average speed between Cartagena - Medellin - Bogota was really around 20 km/h. It was a bit of a hassle to be on the road all day, one day it took until maybe 10 hours to arrive from Manizales to Girardot. First on the way back after San Gil it began be a little better, less trucks in any case.

Thus, unfortunately, I had not much possibility to explore more deeply the places we drove through, also got abandoning the other places I had on my list. Most of the trip we spent in the car. So it was really a shame.

Still, I had 4 weeks for me to take us from Cartagena - Medellin - Manizales - Bogota - Leticia - Tunja - San Gil - San Alberto - Aracataca - Cienega and back to Cartagena. So if you want to go by car in Colombia, you should have more than 4 weeks to be able to see more than just the road.

But, anyway, we have made a 5 day side trip by plane to the Amazon, to Leticia. It was the highlight of the trip for me, to be, to see and experience Amazon river and take a trip into the jungle. It was a great experience and I'm very happy to get it because I do not think I should be going several times to South America. It was just considering seeing this piece of Amazon, so apart from to follow a little Gabriel Garcia Marquez, it made me to decide to do Colombia trip. Otherwise, Africa is my great love, but unfortunately I got not go there this year because my travel buddy was anxious of Ebola. But now he looks forward to our next trip to Africa again.

 We even stayed several days in Cartagena and saw this nice city with almost everything it had to offer.

in Getsemani

church San Pedro and the street in old town

Castillo San Felipe de Barajas

 Also got to experience for the very first time a sloth, it was in a park where, how he ended up there, I have no idea.

Between Getsemani and entrance to Old Town is

a small park Parque del Centenario where it is

nice to rest a little after to be and visit Old town. You may be lucky and see sloths there. Have never seen such before, so it was an extraordinary experience. He must have gone astray and a park attendants carried him to a tree. But the tree was a bit too thick and sloths not knew how to behave, so he just pour out there and did not move. Park attendants took him, and put in the lawn. Sloths began to crawl up to someone's sign, but he was lost there too. In the end, took park attendants him again and put on a less thick trees. And it was exactly the sloths wanted. He began to climb, slowly, of course, but in the end he came up in the branches and seemed very happy. It was fun to be with and see.

Motel in Colombia
Take you never at a motel in Colombia. Our first night after leaving Cartagena was near Sincelejo. It was getting dark so we started looking for some hotel when we saw a motel. We went in, the area looked really nice out. A man came up to us and started something in Spanish, but we did not understand a word. Just some numbers and hours and so on. But we said OK, we spend the night here. So we drove into the garage next to the room. Suddenly, I heard that they locked us so I started banging on the door and screams to not lock us. They opened and I explained that they should not lock us, we're no prisoners and so on. They went along with it, we were then ordered dinner they would fetch from a restaurant there.It turned out that the room was completely without windows, a large bed and large mirror in the headboard. We did not react, thought OK, we get to sleep in peace without being disturbed. First on the morning I understood what it was for something, haha. It was really "hourly motel". So since then, when we saw a motel on the road, we just laughed.

Our trip then were going through the country via Medellin, Manizales, Girardot until Bogota. It was difficult to drive because as said there were so many trucks and cars so it was not going especially fast. But nice landscape it is in any case, wonderful indeed.

This beautiful place was in one park there we stayed at hotel Los Caimanes near Planeta Rica.

lizard called "IGUANA" in Spanish

I had really luck to could take a picture of him, he was very fast and when he heard some is near him, he disappeared suddenly, but anyway, I managed to take this picture of him. Wanted take a video, but ...
green iguana it is and it says it's hunted for its eggs which is delicious, it says. But though it is forbidden to hunt them, the people do it.

Rio Medellin, maybe, anyway one wonderful river along the road where we made a short stop for to enjoy the view.









 
 


approaching Medellin where we stayed over night only and next day continued our trip towards Manizales









 

Manizales

a wonderful view over Andes

 

We continued then via Pereira to Girardot, one nice smaller town, but it was late and dark already when we arrived. Have gone lost a bit before the town where it were junction but without the sign. So we didn't know which way to take. And of course we took wrong way, so we got go back and eventually we found the right way to Girardot.

Restaurant in Girardot in front of our hotel reminded me of old times from Marquez books and I had feeling that anytime Marquez self will arrive for to take a dinner with us ☺

Bogota from Girardot is approximately 150 km only, but it took around 5 hours before we managed to take us to the hotel in Bogota.
I thought we arrive before lunch so we have the whole afternoon for us to see a little bit, but it was not so. 

And unfortunately it was not much at all of Bogota for us because we were going the next morning fly to Leticia.

  this is Bogota

I was disappointed when I arrived in Bogota, thought it becomes finer, La Candelaria well. 

Once I saw a beautiful picture of Bogota, La Candelaria, so now we went there to look at it in reality. However, on the picture it was more fine, or I had unlucky because the weather was a little windy and colder, darker began be too because we arrived later afternoon.

Not so good picture of Catedral Primada on Plaza de Bolivar. But as said, big traffic, difficult to find parking place so everything took long time before we got opportunity to go and see more while daylight.

There was not much time to see more after coming back from Amazon. I planned a full day in Bogota then, but precisely because of the traffic we had to leave Bogota a day earlier for to be in time back in Cartagena

they build so awful  so all the fine places are not much visible

But I met there one friend and his family I never met before and it was really nice to learn us a little more than from only FB, LOL. They invited us to theirs home and we got also one Colombian typical soup ajiaco which was very good and tasty.

Amazon was wonderful, I liked it very much. We have stayed for 5 days in Leticia, one day we took the boat trip on the Amazon river and another day trip in the jungle. We also got a glimpse of Brazil, made a short trip by tuk tuk and went through Tabatinga, so it was also interesting to see.

Tabatinga















The trip on the Amazon River was nice, unfortunately it was a bit hectic, we would try to do it alone and not with a group. We had no time to suck in the impression and so, everything went quickly.
But still, it was nice to go on the river, come with one foot to Peru, see funny small monkeys.

  

trying to see dolphins and even caught up with the boat in the mangroves so we got a little exciting in the end anyway.

 





And we got to see also Victoria Regina which I saw once earlier, but only in the botanical garden when I was about 15 years old.

We took a 3-4 hour trip to the jungle, has found a travel agent who could arrange the trip for just ourselves, with a guide of course. We could not walk alone when we did not know where we would go and begin, and secondly, we had no real experience in the jungle of course. It was quite much different from rain forests we were in earlier in Cameroon, for example.

After coming back from Leticia we got continue our trip towards Tunja where we had difficult to find to the hotel I booked. At finish we needed to ask police to help us, so they escorted us ☺

Tunja is very nice small, but cold town, almost more cold than in Bogota. It was also much higher than Bogota, I think at hotel they said it was about 3000 m, in elevation it is one of the highest cities in not only Colombia, but on Earth, while Bogota is only 2625 m.

Above on the picture it is one of police who escorted us to the hotel.

Generally, police in Colombia are very helpful, it was not first time we asked about help, mostly to find of course. 

Sometimes we were really confused how to go because they build the whole time something which we could not find on the map. Especially in cities we were often lost LOL

Even theirs way to sign the street is not so easy for us to understand.

Next day finally we got to warm us because we began to go down from Andes so it felt nice to not need have cold. San Gil was the next overnight stop where we not found, again, but this time it was some restaurant for to take a dinner. Even if at hotel they described how to find so we non did that. But then we found  small fast food where we got chicken. It would be nothing interesting to talk about, but what was funny was that we got to eat only with hand. Not with cutlery. We were given plastic gloves instead. New and fun experience.

incredible beautiful Andes

One other stop was in San Alberto, one sweet rather village than the town. Most I liked there our breakfast at one small restaurant where they were cooking the soup which is nothing special to cook it, only the way was a little different of what normally does in restaurant.

Another funny thing I experienced when we went to El Paso where I thought we could stay overnight. We got there and were looking for a hotel, stopped and asked a man where we can find some accommodation. He then spoke on the phone with someone and said "here are some gringos" - so it felt really fun being called for a gringo. Otherwise you hear this just in western movies. But now I got to hear it for real, and it was directed towards me. Unfortunately, there was indeed a hotel there but closed.

church in El Paso





and

the countryside on the way to El Paso

This was fantastic, I have never saw this tree before, the name is Tabebuia chrysantha, known as guayacan in Colombia. It was something exceptional. 

So many trees, the whole forest.

Aracataca was the other highlight for me because I love to read Gabriel Garcia Marquez books, have read most of them. So it was a must for me to see this city where he lived.

We sat there on the square and I tried to assume me into his thoughts about the city, what he could do there and so on. Moreover, his books gave me even before a picture of how it can be there in Magdalena region. And I have somehow recognized the landscape and cities, because he describes it very colorful.

The woman made me wondering over what is happiness. She was poor, she got a little food on one restaurant and then gone over the square. So she saw a plastic bag lying there, it seemed quite clean so she picked up it, sat on the edge of a tree and gently she began to put the food in the bag. Then when everything was neat and orderly, she pursed her bag and then she sat happy and satisfied looking at people and things around. I began to wonder again, what everything is relative only.

the empty street in Aracataca

and the train station there, also empty














After Aracataca we drove towards Cienaga where we would stay overnight at one hotel I booked. But, it was very difficult to find the place, at end we found it, but it was closed. The man sitting outside said to us that police closed it. Why, we not know, he said something but we not understood much.

So we were leaving and searching after some hotel where we could stay. And found, one nice hotel on the beach.

Next day we continued back to Cartagena. It was one small road, it was some lagoon or what and only one small strings between the sea and the lagoon.

Unfortunately, we have missed Santa Marta and beaches even if I planned it, but we got no time for it because of all the trucks and so on. So instead of taking and go for a couple of days there we had to go straight back to Cartagena for to catch the plane home.

Do not wait for you to have warm tap water and shower, it becomes lukewarm only, they heat water on the roof from the sun. Just in Bogota and Tunja, we got hot shower. The shower itself - it's just a ray, not what we are used to having a shower.

Hotel rates varied between 60 thousand and 150 thousand, depending on what kind of hotel. The dinners cost between 10-20 thousand per person. $ 1 was about 2,392 pesos, I think. Tolls cost between 6300-11000, many were there and often you can say. On our way we had total 41 tolls = 289100 pesos = ca 120$

Roads are good, highways around Bogota, otherwise it's normal roads. But very winding, up and down all the time, especially before Medellin and Bogota, then towards San Gil. Only afterwards they start to become straighter and flatter.
 
Conclusion of my trip is that Colombia is very fine and much interesting country, but hard to do. Either you can go by car, but then one need really much time to be able to see. Or fly between cities, but in that case one can not see much of the country. One sees only piece here and there. So really, even though we sat most of the time in the car I would think that we still got to see quite a lot of the country. Nature, how people live, how cities look like and so on. So much would we not see if we just flew between locations.

back in Cartagena