COLOMBIA

Cartegena, Colombia
Arriving in the port of Cartegena having been at sea for five days was a huge reality shock. Large tower blocks, cargo containers, people, traffic, the lot. Not very nice. That being said, Cartegena is a beautiful colony town. The old town is full of colourful Spanish architecture and history. I stayed in Cartegena for a few days and met some really nice people at both my hostel and on this strange mud volcano tour (see pic). Finally Ben, Alex, Zoe, Rowan and myself all decided to go to the national Park Tayrone on the Caribbean coast. Oh dear, more harsh times ahead! God, the life of a traveller, i tell you, ....you should try it!

Park Tayrone

We stayed in a little fishing village, Taganga for one night before taking a 1hr boat ride to the park. When we initially got there is was full of tourists, again! However, then next couple of days a lot of them left and it was a lot more peaceful. We went for walks to nearby beaches, did some fantastic snorkeling and generally had a really great time. Apart from the last night. I managed to get us all in to the top chalet location over looking the sea. Just beautiful, except for that night one of the hardest storms in recent weeks hit the coast we everyone got drenched. Hard rain coming in horizontally. We laughed about it afterwards.

Medellin, Colombia

After being about a week together the group split and Ben and I headed for Medellin where we meet up with a local Colombian friend of his Felipe. Medellin is buzzing, as busy as any modern city with friendly people and well the women, say no more. Silicon Valley! Felipe was such a nice guy, we stayed at his place, he should Ben and I the nightlife of Medellin including the famous Mangos nightclub that was coincidental holding the ¨October Beerfeest¨ that night (see pic!). We had a blast!

A little hungover the next day, Felipe showed around some neighbouring towns of Medellin. It was a great couple of days.

La Salento, Colombia

Thereafter I headed to the mountains, to a very special coffee growing village called Salento. It´s one of my favourite village towns in Colombia. A quiet, beautiful, colourful town and within its rain forest the unique wax palms. Unique to Colombia and unique only to Salento the wax palms grow up to 60metres tall and can be a 100yrs old. I met some other travellers and we made the six hour hike through the rain forest in a loop round to the wax palms. I felt the Corcoa valley to be a very magically valley with a very special energy. Calm and peaceful, perfecting for meditating if you were on your own. The pictures don't do the valley justice, i am not sure the video does either but i hope you enjoy.

From Salento i passed through Manizales and visited the snow capped peaks of Park Los Nevados. I stayed in Cali for a few days, saw more silicon valley and then from there i did a day trip with a mate to a beautiful river however the main attraction was getting to the river. A motor bike attached to a train track packed with far too many people. Dangerous. We couldn't really believe our eyes or what we about to embark upon. We sat on these wooden planks attached to a motorbike that was attached somehow to an old disused railway track. It was a little crazy, certainly when we saw others come off the rails and we ourselves almost hit another bike and of one of the passengers got hurt. Check out the crazy video below.

Ipales, Colombia

I headed further south towards Ecuador but first visiting the border town of Ipales and its famous church. There is a very special church built between two valleys, over a river with its own waterfall. When there I learnt that the local priest saw a vision many years ago of the Virgin Mary on a rock nearby. With that the priest gathered the support to build this magnificent building. I think its the most beautiful church, both architecturely and location wise that i have ever visited and trust me, i have visited a few churches in my time.