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After a night on a building site disguised as a hotel, we crossed the border into Colombia. Our senses were in full flight at first as stories of past kidnappings flooded our minds but we were very quickly put at ease as each Colombian we met was even friendlier than the last. We weaved our way through the vibrant green mountains to the city of Cali - the salsa capital of Colombia. Our time here was spent taking more salsa classes and checking out a soccer match between two local rivals. We arrived at the stadium about an hour before the match started and what we witnessed was incredible - hundreds of young boys aged between 12 and 16 roaming the streets around the grounds, with a large number of them asking people in the street for small change, trying to gather together the amount needed to get into the match. These matches are a common occurrence and seem to be a massive part of the social scene for these boys. Once the stadium they perch themselves behind the goals and they sing as loudly as they can for the complete duration of the game while simultaneously jumping up and down - the most enjoyable exercise regime we've seen in a long time!!!
Bogata
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Bogota is the capital and biggest city in Colombia, with a population of 7 million people. We weren't too impressed by the city. There is a lot of poverty, poor housing and homelessness and the poor street lighting makes it seem dangerous at night. We spent most of our time in the city centre walking around, and went to a few museums - the best one being the National Police Museum. This museum tells the story of the Colombian police force, its history, the laws, famous policemen and the war against Pablo Escobar and the drug cartels (more about old Pablo later in this post). It was quite a big museum, spread over three floors. There wasn't much else to recommend about Bogota, so after two days we packed up and headed onwards.
Medellin
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Medellin was our next port of call. In the late 80s and early 90s, Medellin was probably the most dangerous city in the world with drug cartel related violence getting out of control. Nowadays, it has managed to give itself a complete makeover, and we really enjoyed our time there. Public transport is efficient, the city is relatively clean, the downtown area is bright at night and there are quite a few parks and museums - all of which give the city a safe feel. One of the highlights of the city was the Plaza Botero which houses an art gallery by an artist of the same name. This artist depicts life "in an exaggerated form" - to you and me he paints and sculpts fat people. We also took a cable car over 2km up into the mountains surrounding Medellin. The scenery from the cable cars was stunning and at the top we found Arvi Park, a cloud forest with a host of walking trails and other tourist attractions.
Roberto and Pablo Escobar
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Pablo Escobar is probably the most famous drug lord in history. In the 80s and 90s, his empire was so big that at one stage he was supposedly the seventh richest man in the world. He even had his own fleet of airplanes to get his cocaine to the States. He managed to buy off people with his famous saying "plata o plomo" - literally meaning silver or lead. In other words, take my bribe money or face my bullets. He was eventually killed by the Colombian police in 1993, and his empire fell apart. Roberto Escobar, his brother, was his right hand man right throughout those times, and now Roberto makes his money by participating in a tour where he answers questions and poses for photographs with curious tourists. So along we went. The tour brings us to the old headquarters of Pablo's cartel, to his grave, and then to Roberto's house (formerly one of Pablo's safe houses). Roberto is an old man now, but he was happy to answer and questions we had, sign pictures and generally appear very pleasant.
Cartagena
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Practically everyone we met during our time in Colombia told us that we would fall in love with Cartagena boasting about how 'mucho linda' it is and rightly so. After a long bus journey we arrived at the bus station which looked like it was built on a landfill in the middle of the Sahara. After arguing with the taxi man to take us to the old town we took off across the streetless humps and bumps of the area around the station, through the chaotic morning rush hour traffic of the new town until we reached the gem of the north that the locals bragged about - the colonial old town of Cartagena, one of the most beautiful places in the world. The narrow cobble streets, lined with colourful houses built by the Spanish, blasted out Latino music from morning to night. The plaza next to our hotel was a hangout spot of everyone from the neighbourhood, both young and old. Some people played the guitar and sang while others played chess or joined into the football game that was being played barefoot. The old town was a bit of a maze, with churches and plazas to beat the band. There was a film festival on in town while we were there so we took advantage of this and went to see a rather depressing film about a Chilean musician. From here we took a boat out to the most beautiful beach that we've ever been on, Playa Blanca. This was one of those beaches that you only dream about...but we were here for real...we even drank a cocktail from a coconut!
