BUT…

if you have the chance to meet some Barranquilleros, they might show you the real life of Barranquilla which you wouldn’t think of.

Because the city is well known for it’s best worldwide Carnaval after Rio. It was worth seeing a bit of the history of this famous event at the Casa del Carnaval. This place is currently in expansion and will get better and better.

It was possible to see the main masks that represent the Carnaval since years.

Another highlight of interest of the city was the Museum of the Carribean, which overview the history, culture, and origins of the Colombian Caribe. It also showed the music trends of this part of the country as well as the Folklor.

An interesting shot I took, overviews the typical local words and expressions of the Colombian Coast, good luck

This Friday night was the last night for me in Colombia so the aim was to see as much as I could.

Our first stop was in the middle of a street, where a Ronda de Cumbia was happenning. Basicelly a group of musician play Cumbia in the middle of a street, and word of mouth drives people there, where they will dance around the musicians, while drinking and having fun. Great ambiance !

Just be mindful that the Colombian Cumbia has nothing to do with the Peruvian one, and Colombian are really proud of their own Cumbia!

After some shots of Aguardiente to warm up, our next stop happenned to be La Troja. This is the third place-bar in south america which has the reputation of being the best salsa place. Joe Arroyo used to play there. And ….this is nothing like you would expect.

This place is totally informal, open air, people gather together and dance salsa all night, between tables, on the walking path, and even on the road when the bar gets too crowded. The ambiance is fun, everyone is happy and cheerful. Awesome time! With a Carnaval tone while receiving some maizena on the face (gently).

A BIG Thank you to my Barranquilleros amigos. This was an unforgettable night out!

To feel a bit more the vibe I invite you to download this video and view it.

This is the ambiance of La Troja:

Barranquilla

Cartagena remains a beautiful city even for the second time I spend there, romantic with it’s beautiful Cathedral and it’s colonial architecture. It’s surely the biggest attraction of Colombia for Tourism on the Carribean Coast.

With it’s defensive walls always present with canons which date from centuries ago when the city had to be defended against pirates.

The old town of Cartagena is a jewel to discover by day or night. On the side of this, the neighborhood of Bocagrande is a total different style with it’s big scryscrapers, full of big hotels and appartement to rent.

In order to go to Baru you need to catch a boat, better a fast boat (30 min cruise) from Cartagena to Baru. It’s a touristic venue, so you won’t be alone on the boat. But it’s not too busy either so you can still expect some calm and peace on the beach.

Arriving there is a beaufitul beach, with nice little houses with typical leafes roofs.Coconut trees, white sand, transparent blue water, and a nice breeze. Seriously, that’s one of the dream beaches!

The lunch is usually included with the ticket of the quick boat, and it was really good! Fresh fish, and declicious coconut rice.

A few vendors will try to sell you different stuff, from massages to artesania and fresh oysters. But the best ever is the fresh coconut, just cut with a machete. It’s even possible to have it mixed with some coconut liquor and ice.

And if you are as white as me due to little sun in Europe, watch out, the sun is really strong!

The way back to Cartagena will let us discover two old boats, pirates alike, which almost put us back in the old times when pirates attacked the city. Cartagena actually has a nice Naval Museum which relates the details of it’s history, worth a visit.

In Colombia, to fly from one city to another you have the choice between a few airlines companies, the cheapest being Easyfly and LAN (LAN just bought Aires), and then Copa Airlines and Avianca.

and then headed to Taganga by bus. This small touristic fishing village sitting right next to Santa Marta is mainly known for being laidback and a party place for the week end. I realized that at this period of the year a lot of Argentinos are travelling in Colombia, and they are all good people to meet and share moments with.

From Taganga you have a few options, you can just relax on the beaches nearby, or take a bus (or boat) to the Parque Tayrona. The other option is to do the Cuidad Perdidad, but you either need 5 days for it, or 3 if you are really optimist being a great trekker.

My aim was more to relax and discover the surroundings on a short term. So the first afternoon was about having lunch at Playa Grande.

With a good typical lunch from the coast, fish and Coconut rice! (along with a small salad and platano banana)

The evening will be a quiet night out in Taganga at the famous club “sensation”, a bit of dancing and drinking right next to the beach nearby the coconut trees.

Salsa biggest hit in Colombia and biggest pride, Joe Arroyo – la rebelion

Reggaeton – Don Omar & Natti Natasha – Dutty Love

Reggeaton – Dj Buxxi – Como tu no hay dos

Reggeaton – J Balvin – en lo Oscuro

Just note that most of them (except Don Omar) are Colombians.

Patience is something you have to learn while travelling in South america

Arriving late in Bucaramanga and having limited options in terms of affordable hotels, I have tried the “Hotel el Principe”, that was a wrong idea…service crap, lack of cleanliness, matress like a piece of wood, so…long story short, go to Antigua Belen Bed & Breakfast, that was be the best option.

My week end was about partying and relaxing, as crawling over the whole country from one place to another doesn’t make it too relaxing on the long term.

I had the chance to meet Juanch and Paola with whom I will spend two nights out discoverring what the city has in store as well as a very friendly bar in the Barrio Cabecera on the road 48. A big thank you to both of them for making this week end very lively and sympathic.

Back on a little bit of information regarding the city itself, it’s the 6th of Colombia in terms of size and has a great economic situation due to producing a lot of veggies and fruits. The city is also well known for it’s speciality for the aperitivo, that is fried ents.

No joke, in Europe you may eat some nuts, here in Bucaramanga, this is what you could taste. It’s actually not bad at all. Give it a try if you have the chance!

Here is the bus terminal in Tenja. It’s always difficult to try to catch some real local pictures, as the market or so on, as this is where I should avoid to raise attention and show a camera.

San Gil is a small town with 50’000 people and quite a bunch of tourists from Colombia (students are mainly on holiday until the 23rd of January).

There is a parc in San Gil worth a little walk, which includes those special trees with those hanging lyken which gives a unique feeling to this place.

At night I have been eating at the Mana, a good and incredibly cheap restaurant which I would highly recommend. It’s in the lonely planet.

After that it was time to see what the town has to offer in terms of nightlife, even if we were only wednesday. I met a cool group of students from diverse places in Colombia and the Aguardiente was our drink for the evening.

San Gil is well known for being the capital of adventure sports: rafting, kayaking, paragliding. But also for the picturesque Colonial village of Barichara.

Because the sun hits hard after 10 am, I managed to take a bus at 7h30 and walk from Barichara until the little village of Guane through the “Camino Real” an ancient route that the spanish used with donkeys.

The walk will last 2hours on this old paved donkey road.

A second night out will lead me to go with the same group of people in a club where we will dance a bit of everything, starting with the place named “one shot” slightly out of town.

One of the other attractions of the surrounding is a huge waterfall named “juan Kuri”. For this, take a bus from San gil in direction of Charlara and ask the bus to stop there on the way, it’s about 30 min drive.

this is the view from the entrance, and you will have to walk 20 min to reach the bottom waterfall which is full of tourists…but noone dares going up to see the other waterfall because the path is steeper and more sporty. You will arrive on top totally sweaty, but the view is worth it.

Arriving at around 20h30 in Tunja I was afraid not to get the small bus to the village of  Villa de Leyva, lucky me, due to the high holiday season there still was one. The road was mountainous and the driver had to be careful of a few holes in the road.

At around 21h30 I got in this lovely typical colonial village and had a room booked at the Guesthouse el Renacer, a peaceful place just outside of town, 1200 meters to walk.

The area is more than safe, so walking alone even at night is absolutely not a worry. I discovered this incredibly well conserved village by night, a great night cosy ambiance surrounded the place. The main square appears to be huge with 120meters on each side.

At night I will have the opportunity to randomly meet a group of Colombians from Medellin, with whom I will have a few drinks and play cards. Colombian people are very welcoming and are always happpy to engage the conversation, that’s one of the reason why I really enjoy this country.

Villa de Leyva is a small town of 8000 people, but it is one of the preffered week end destination for the people from Bogota. It sits at 2200 meter high and the attractions aside of the town itself and it’s great architecture with patios and nice restaurant, are about : trekking, horse riding and mountain biking. There are a few national parks around which are just made for trekkers.

This village is also sitting where there was a sea, millions of years ago, and one of the great finding is a fossil of this marine dinosaure “Kronosaurus” which is almost entire, only the queue is missing, so in total that would be a 12 meter long dinosaure, really impressive.

My day was about walking around the area and relaxing.

The second night, while looking for dinner I will be surprised by the hidden restaurants which are just a few steps away from a door and then you discover a whole inside patio where 4 other restaurants are.

Furthermore the food was great and cheap.

Friday morning was about getting prepared for the trip of the day, I have left the hotel “Yurupary” which I found pretty expensive and a bit too much “family” oriented. But well, only a few hotel/hostels from Leticia are online.

The organisation at the check-in at Leticia was pretty hectic, although there was only one flight going on. So it sounds ridiculous, but arriving there 2 hours earlier was actually necessary.

Making a change of flight in Bogota to Cali and here I got at around 5pm. A cool Taxi man drove me to the barrio San Antonio, which is the historical center, a nice place full of good restaurants. I stayed there with Vanessa in this lovely Posada which had a nice colonial style with this patio.

Our first day in Cali was the discovery of the commercial center Chipichape, the biggest in Cali where you will find anything you want. The aim of this shoppping time was to find the exact new version of the camera I lost in the water. After looking at 4 different places we finally got it. We also went for a little walk in the Barrio San Antonio, very Colonial style. Until the lovely church in the park.

At night we tried the barrio (neighborhood) of Menga, where many discothecas could be found, we tried the Praga, a pretty good club playing essentially salsa, merengue, Reggeaton and Vallenato. It was an OK experience, but we haven’t found the real salsa show we were looking for.
although I realized that people danced salsa on a lot more basic level than I expected.

On Sunday we decided to make an excursion to the small village of Pance, this is at 1,5 hour from Cali by bus, so we took the local bus which…broke down after 40 min, at this time we really thought that we would have to come back in taxi or by other means, but surprisingly an extra bus saved the situation.

This week end is big long week end, so all people from Colombia have the monday as a free day, reason why…a LOT of people went for a day excursion in this little village, it was seriously packed. But well it was nice to have a walk outside, just before we got cought by the rain

At night we tried the barrio of Granada, one of the high class places. This is where you realize that there is a stricking difference of social classes in Colombia. The place had a perfect service.

On Monday morning we had a little hop-on hop-off with a taxi to see the Cristo Rey it sits on the top of a mount right over Cali. IF you have been to Rio de Janeiro, it looks alike, but slightly smaller.

The security has been the top subject of our stay in Cali, by night it’s really not recommended to walk even in the barrio of San Antonio on our own. Then, at night you just have to take a taxi which you call (to get a safe taxi), to go from point A to B. We also had to take a taxi to go up this mount as everyone get’s robbed on the walking track, so it’s way too dangerous. If you don’t see any pictures of the night out in the club this is also due to safety reasons.

Another reason why our stay got even more critical, is due to this “free week end”, most of the people from the city would go elsewhere on a week end destination, so the city was more empty than usual on Sunday, so the streets were empty and therefore unsafe.

Here is a view over Cali from the mount. (part of it as this is a 4 million city)

The Police was everywhere and especially at the touristic interesting points such as here at the church. Which made us feel a bit more safe at least.

As a sum up, we had a good time in Cali and in Pance, but Cali remains for me the Colombian place where I felt a lot more insecure than anywhere else.

The second visit of the day was at the “Mundo Amazonico”.

An amazing educative place eco-friendly aiming to present the diversity of plants of the jungle, their medical properties, the fruits, tasting some tea and learning about the culture of the indigenous. We thought we would stay 1hour and ended staying more than 2 hours, not seeing the time passing by.

The owner is a passionating person who has great knowledge to share.

The whole place is about 7 hectar in order to recreate a true environmental environment were the plants grow normaly, so that gives you an idea of how big it is.

Have a look in here:

http://www.amazoniapark.blogspot.com/

This also complicated the “toilet time”. It actually was a bit of a challenge.

So you are in the deep dark of the jungle and need to go to the loo urgently.

You first need to spray all your body and clothes with the insect repellent, because all the mosquitos are waiting for you right behind the mosquito net and will sting you at the first occasion.

Then, you find a spot, and with your light you check the surroundings to avoid having a snake biting your butt, or any other unwelcomed animal.

To avoid having your butt completely stung by the mosquitos, you need to spray most of your naked part with the insect repellent, before doing what you need to.

So yeah, pretty different than the usual way

At 4 am we did a night walk to spot some nocturnal animals during which we got lucky and saw a few very scary spiders due to their shapes, and a few tarentulas, as well as some scorpions. (in grey)

This picture is surely the most striking in terms of mosquitos stings of one of our traveler friend, even with a long sleeve shirt, the mosquitos stings through it, so a double layer in needed.

On the way back to the boat in the morning we got lucky again to see another snake (the same kind as before).

The afternoon was the way back to Leticia, and a 3-4 hour boat cruise, for which we used a “shortcut” through a new river, at least one which hasn’t been used for 6 months, as there was not enough water till then.

So the cruise was a bit of an adventure as we had to go slowly and sometimes cut our way through the trees branches with a machete.

The weather was nice and we managed to see a lot of birds including the fishing eagle.

We arrived at the end of the day at Leticia and a real shower became something really welcomed