Saturday 29 August 2015

The End of Colombia


Right, it's been a while since the last one so where did we leave off? Leaving Minca, the trees, the view, the people and the place behind. Yep definitely could of stayed there for a lot longer than we did.


These next updates might be a bit rushed through as we are now very far behind!


From Minca we headed to Medellin on a 22 hour bus. The Colombians have a thing for air conditioning so after the first few hours the temperature drops and just keeps dropping, until you're sitting there in hats, scarves, blankets and anything else you have to keep warm, unfortunately we had prepared ourselves well for hot climates so had to make use of towels and extra pairs of socks.


Medellin - Colombia
I quite liked Medellin city, Kim wasn't as much of a fan, it has a fantastic (but awful) history. We took a walking tour with a guy named Pablo who took us around most of the key areas of the city, including many of the places tourists are advised not to go. We went down an interesting street selling pretty much only DVD’s; on the left you could buy family films, action films, rom coms etc, on the right you could buy Porn films…. and that was it, for the whole of the street, right next to a church! He gave us an in depth accounting of the city's history, including his personal experiences of grenades exploding at the end of his road. For him he said it just felt normal, if you don't know that that isn't how it is everywhere else, then it's just life. Many of the key areas of it's terrible past have now been converted to symbols of hope, for example a building that used to be known for housing the homeless and drug addicts, rapists and criminals, is now the main offices for Education. It definitely seemed like a safe city (except for the woman we discovered unzipping our bag whilst walking to the metro station), we could even tell you which church to go to if you don’t want to spend a night alone, and are willing to part with some money for that comfort.


Medellin - Colombia
Medellin - Colombia
Guatape - Colombia
About 2 hours from Medellin is Guatape, the key defining feature of this town is a gigantic Black Rock with a gigantic GI written on the side. The owner of our hostel told us someone in town tried to write Guatape on the side of it, but the town next to it that also claim ownership didn't like that and stopped him short. So they just have GI. You can judge for yourself, but I'm pretty sure the guy would of struggled to fit the whole word on the rock anyway? This place had some of the best views we've seen, it's one of those places that every minute you keep taking the same photo just because the view is so amazing you want to make sure you have it. Then I got so burnt kayaking on the lake, trying to tan the white upper bits of my legs, they went a bright purply colour :s I don't think that's healthy.
Guatape - Colombia



Guatape - Colombia
Jardin - Colombia
Another side trip from Medellin was Jardin (Garden in Spanish) a small town 4 hours away. Which was pretty and we enjoyed the cable cars to the mountains at the side, one was new and modern, the other a small rickety wooden cage, but other than almost leaving our backpacks there and holding up the bus to run back to the bus office where we'd left them, not a lot interesting happened.
Jardin - Colombia
Jardin - Colombia
Las Lajas Sanctuary - Ipiales - Colombia
After 26 hours of buses Kim was almost ready to pass out, travel sickness pills have their limits. We then arrived in Ipiales, just before the border of Ecuador, a rather dreary town but our cheapest nights accommodation at £6 for a double room. We sidetracked to Las Lajas Sanctuary, an almost Disney style looking building. This was also our first llama sighting, but weirdly it was dressed in a giant blue dress with a crown on.


From there we hit the border and tagged our passports with a few more stamps. Colombia was an amazing country, with hot weather, impressive views and a lot to do, even with four weeks we had to miss of a few places we wanted to see. The people there were very friendly and in Medellin we even had people coming up to us to welcome us to their country (our guide told us

this was due to the increase in tourism being a symbol of how Colombia is changing since it was known for being so dangerous). Here's a few extra photo's of this wonderful place :)

Botanical Garden - Medellin - Colombia
Medellin - Colombia
Botanical Garden - Medellin - Colombia


Medellin - Colombia
Guatape - Colombia


Jardin - Colombia

Jardin - Colombia
Guatape - Colombia
Guatape - Colombia
A bit of politeness goes a long way - Medellin - Colombia
Guatape - Colombia