Written by Mia:

The guide books to Colombia are a great read and we were aching to explore a real place and grabbed the opportunity to see a bit of this incredible country and we started with the Antioquia which is a region in northwest Colombia, lying mostly within the Andes mountains and extending toward the Caribbean Sea.

We rented a car in Medellin and set off to see the countryside. We drove 800 kilometers, Jon did about 28 hours of driving and so we ended up averaging 28 kilometers an hour. There are lots of lorries and buses on the roads and traffic is slow which is probably good because the roads are curvy and there are car sized potholes and landslides to avoid.

There will be a longer blog post about Medellin, as it deserves it’s own!

Jerico was our first destination and we took the scenic route to get there. The road brought us past the most gorgeous, lush countryside, awe inspiring valleys and bustling towns. As we drove through towns and peered into shops and eateries it felt like we got a glimpse of the rural Colombian lifestyle. And it wasn’t long before we saw our first coffee plants, and they are gorgeous! They very often they seemed to be coupled with banana trees because they offer shade for the coffee plants, the root systems prevent soil erosion and the bark of the banana trees act as fertilizer, plus you can sell the bananas, too. It seemed fitting to take a coffee break and take in the view.

The light was golden as we finally arrived in Jerico and the drive through town to our hostel was a rainbow of brightly painted houses. There are not many hostels in town and we were happy that Las Cometas (which means “The Kites”) had room for us. It was a super friendly place with an eclectic mix of colors and tiles and furniture style and as we walked into the courtyard, we realized it is right underneath the church. In the morning we awoke to a full service. Jorge, the cool guy running the hostel is very welcoming and we had fun chatting with him not just about Jerico, but also the future of Colombia. They are running a coffee project which includes inviting a Kiwi barista to teach the cafes to make hipster coffee and giving free English lessons to locals in the tourist industry. Apparently the area around Jerico was the original coffee region and they want it back. The next day after Teo made breakfast for the coffee project, we went for a long walk around this adorable town and even spent a good chunk of time in the botanical garden. We left town later than we planned headed for Jardin and we arrived with an hour or two of sunlight.

Jardin is another glorious, colorful pueblo in Antioquia and even though the main plaza is under refurbishment, it is full of charm and buzzing with activity. The church in town is black and white striped and we enjoyed fabulous coffee and cake in its shadow. Our family run hostel “Es Tuyo” was just across the square from the church with a wraparound balcony and an amazing view, plus we had six beds to ourselves. I wanted to sublet a double to couple backpackers but Jon wouldn’t let me. There was a man and his horse practicing a special horse gait called “Paso Fino”which demonstrates great control. The sound of it is mesmerizing and we stood in awe as they went up and down the street. The next morning we wandered around town and stopped at “Dulces de Jardin” which is gorgeous family run sweet shop with tons of temptations and gorgeous tiles. On our way back to the car, Teo attracted the attention of about 15 giggly school girls who wanted to touch his blonde hair and practice their English. This was enough to make Teo shy and that made them giggle even more.

We got a late start hitting the road and there is a huge construction project and that combination meant we arrived into Solento in the dark and to make it interesting it was raining hard, too. We had been in contact with the hostel Art Valez and even though we felt bad waking the girls, we were happy to get there! They were happy to get us settled and Teo was thrilled to have a bunk bed, and he decided that upstairs was for playing and downstairs for sleeping. Solento is very cute but more touristy than the other places we visited. We were amused by the tour groups with color coded baseball caps. We enjoyed our coffee tour at the small eco friendly plantation called Arcazia. We got to see the whole process, including what terrain is best (hilly high altitude but not snow proned), when beans are ready for picking (only the red ones, our baskets were not full), what plants to use to keep bugs away (garlic and sage compost soup), how to tell if a bean is top quality (does it float or sink in a water bath) and we got to see where they roast their crops (grandma’s kitchen). We ended the tour sipping coffee on the veranda and chatting with the guide from Venezuela.

We enjoyed dinner and breakfast at a place called “Brunch” which is run by a guy from Oregon who makes his own peanut butter and write notes for your packed lunch. Teo loved writing on the walls “Are you SURE I am allowed?” and his Mickey Mouse pancake and Jon and I got through half the nachos mountain.

We went for a hike in the valley of palms, Valle de Cocora and loved hiking through the jungle and crossed the river on bridges made of logs. This was not an easy walk and we ended up with an ascent of 1000 meters. The palms of this valley are gorgeous and grow to be 60 meters tall and 200 years old. Many of them were being cut down for Palm Sunday festivities so Colombia has made them their state tree to protect them. We loved the Humminbird Sanctuary Acaime where they just buzz around your head so closely you think they might land. You might see a pattern forming but we stayed too long and then took a wrong turn which meant we were very happy that mobile phones have built in flashlights and that we met Marco from Mexico to share a laugh with on our descent. It has rained a lot and slipping and sliding in the mud in the dark was less fun, but all in this day was incredible and made us even more proud of Teo who was a complete rock star.

Our last outing on our road trip was a visit to the Botanical Garden at Quindío with an incredible Butterfly Enclosure. We enjoyed the guided walk through the garden and all the views points and the small museum but the best part by far is the butterfly enclosure. We loved it and we could lure the butterflies with orange wedges. I even had one omg nose for a while!

We loved exploring this bit of Colombia and with hindsight we could have done less or stayed for a month longer! If only we had time and money!

Written by Mia:

A visit to Cartagena de Indias was high on our list of must do’s in Colombia. The city was founded in 1533 and is a walled old town of 13 glorious square kilometers of quaint, narrow cobblestone streets and beautiful stone buildings with balconies and potted plants. It was built on the site of an old Carib settlement and is often called the pearl of the Caribbean coast. There was a fire in 1553 which encouraged the inhabitants to rebuild the city in stone to our delight today. The wall was inspired by the pirate sieges the city suffered, five in the 16th century alone, with the most infamous by Sir Francis Drake who was paid 10 million pesos on the promise not to level the the city to the ground.

The guide books tell you to just wander and that is basically what we did. And we loved every minute of it! We traveled with the lovely crew of Sugar Shack by bus to Cartagena on the day of their independence and we enjoyed the fiesta. There were happy people everywhere, a very colorful parade around the outside of the city wall and a fabulous buzz of excitement. And I think Teo would tell me off if I didn’t mention the “espuma” which are cans that shoot out foam like silly string. A teenage girl noticed the gleam of interest on Teo’s face and handed him one and told him to attack her boyfriend that were probably his favorite part of the day! There were espuma wars going on and Teo was right in the thick of it!

We stayed across the Independence Park from the Old Town and the area was full of fun places to eat, sleep and play. We loved checking out this area called Getsamani had a wonderful atmosphere and we wish we had been in early in the property market because it reminded us of Santa Catalina in Palma. It had a wonderful laid back atmosphere with funky bars, restaurants, hostels, street art and graffiti. We wandered through right before lunchtime the day after the party but it was shiny clean and quiet but still hummed with energy. Later we returned for a wonderful meal with Sugar Shack.

We were of course drawn back to the Old Town for another wander. We had cake for lunch a gorgeous place called Milas and otherwise wandered and took lots of photos. The buildings and especially the gates are painted wonderful colors and there are signs of care everywhere. Even the street vendors seem sweet. We stopped into many artisan shops, found a sweet shop where they were rolling lollipops by hand and spent time in a chocolate museum that was just a tasting palace with an assistant that wanted Teo to move in with her so he could help her improve her English and it seemed like a good deal since she promised to teach him Spanish, too.

We couldn’t leave town without a trip to the looming fortress and we had fun exploring the vigilant bodyguard of the city. The approach is jaw dropping and steep and we had fun with the stairs and tunnels, twists and turns. And by the way, those tunnels get dark, itchy ankles for me and nervous giggles from Teo. We loved our trip to Cartagena!

Written by Mia:

We took our own sweet time getting from Willemstad, Curaçao to arrive in Santa Marta, Colombia. This marks the first visit to South America for any of us. What does this mean for you? There will be lots of blogs ahead, because Colombia is amazing and we have a lot to say about it and I might as well warn you now, there will be lots of superlatives, this place deserves lots of crazy adjectives.

Our first taste of Columbia was an anchorage at Cabo de la Vela located at the northwestern tip of the country. It is the first place Europeans set foot in South America and an area that indigenous tribes call home. We really wanted to go ashore and check out the dusty village and the lookout point, but the wind was high and we were not checked in so we just admired it from deck and enjoyed a swim in the crystal blue water before heading to Santa Marta.

Stay tuned for blog posts about living in the marina in Santa Marta, a trip to historic Cartagena, impressions from Medellin and at least a couple from our road trip, mostly because we have lots of photos to share. Jon and I are both armed with cameras and both have burned through batteries already three days into our trip…

But just in case you have missed us, here come a few first impressions of Colombia:

The cities are big and busy busy, lots of people, lots of traffic and so many things to see and hear. And there still seems time to wish us foreigners welcome. There are 48 million people living here at last official count in 2005 and everyone is going somewhere and doing something all the time.

The countryside is beautiful and the towns in it very colorful. The people seem proud of their homes and painstakingly paint them all the colors under the sun.

The Wild West is alive and well in Jerico and Jardin.

People work hard, at whatever they do, wherever they are doing it. We just bought coffee from a woman walking the queue of the construction site traffic jam.

It takes a lot longer to get from point A to point B, because you twist up up up and then twist down down down but there is so much fun, beautiful, incredible stuff to see on the way. Jon did the math and on our trip we covered 800 kilometers in eight days and averaged only 28kph.

This country has more shades of green than Ireland and an incredible diversity of landscape.

People are so, so, SO friendly and proud of their country and happy to have visitors. We get lots of smiles from people we meet and we hear “bienvenido” (welcome) and “con mucho gusto” (with much pleasure) all the time. Teo is very popular with his blonde hair, and older grandmas cannot gush over him enough and just today 15 girls in school uniforms all wanted his attention, practicing their English and giggling when he talked to them.

Lucky for us, a little Spanish goes a long way.

There is SO much to see and do and it is painful to have to choose what to do with our time. Colombia has had a complicated past and we have our fingers and toes crossed for a very bright future!

Here is very short history of Colombia. All the way back to the beginning Vizzini! Colombia was named after Christoffer Columbus even though he never set foot in the country. The indigenous people were covered in gold adornments and early European visitors kept searching for the source and this strongly influenced the Legend of El Dorado. The first major settlement was founded in Santa Marta in1525 and followed shortly thereafter by Cartagena in 1533 with its substantial city walls and impressive fortress. At this point it was still being ruled by Spain; enter Simon Bolivar, known as “el Liberatador” because his battles across northern South America eventually lead to the liberation of Venezuela, Colombia, Panama and Ecuador. These countries later formed “Gran Colombia” which is remembered as a period of peace and economic boom, especially in the coffee industry. The coffee boom that was born in the early 20th century is alive and strong in Colombia today although there seems to be a strong desire to catch up with the coffee house barista movement we know and love. I am going to leave the Colombians to argue over their own politics and religion and bow out now.

And since this is being written mostly during a traffic jam, I’ll leave you with a list of missed photo ops:

Pimped up vintage trucks from Dodge, Mac, and Volvo decorated with Mary and Jesus and of course painted bright colors.

Street signs warning about road kill animal crossings including their Latin names. Our favorites were ant eaters, iguanas and armadillos.

Old men using ancient Singer sewing machines to create original leather Jerico saddle bags and shops selling bags of grain.

Kids on bikes holding on to the back of semi trucks.

Fifteen school girls in uniform practicing their English on Teo.

And the best one was a cowboy with a straw hat riding a horse up the road checking his smart phone.