i love Colombia

The city of Cartagena and Colombia for that matter are stunning. There is an electricity and sense of life in the air in Cartagena that I have never felt anywhere else. The city is drenched in history; you can almost hear the cannons fire or see pirate ships out in the bay as you make your way around the city. And the people, wow – truly kind hearted, patient and overwhelmingly helpful and nice. One of the best examples of how different Cartagena was showed itself when we went to collect the car (you may remember the Panama City experience from here). Sharply dressed people buzzed around the busy port carrying briefcases, paperwork and showcasing security badges. I waited in an air-conditioned white marble room with huge floor to ceiling windows with a view of the bustle while George and Dean, being the owners of the vehicles sat inside security at a conference table with offers of hot coffee sifting through and signing paperwork. The nice lady in charge of the security badges in the room I was waiting in chatted me up and helped me with my Spanish while I her with her English. When we left she said, “Welcome to Colombia, I hope you enjoy your time here.” It was actually a pleasant experience. After 5 days in the city I kept declaring, I love Colombia and especially Cartagena.


Colombia has only continued to impress us from there. In San Gil, we went class 5 rafting, ate cheap amazing food and drank delicious micro brews, took in the town, George went budget bungee jumping (not for me, thanks), and I took a dance class. We met up with a couple from Australia that we’d met on the sailing trip you might remember from here and another couple from Colorado (CragginWagon). One night we all adventured together to play the game of tejo – where you throw a metal puck at a clay board with the goal being to hit the ring in the middle that’s lined with explosives which explodes and sounds like a gun being fired. Yeah, it was amazing.

From San Gil we made the decision to do the long drive to Park National Natural El Cocuy. George said it well, “we didn’t drive all this way to skip the hard to get to places.” In the end it turned out to be two days worth of driving through some of the most amazing mountainous landscapes we’d seen. It made our first overnight at a gas station seem not so bad. Clean bathrooms, 24 hour security, and quiet night were right up our alley after 10 hours of driving.