Colombia

So at the time (April 2018) we hadn't gone on any adventure style trips for a while. But man, we were reminded in a hurry how great it is to get out of your comfort zone. Going new places is just the best.

​The preceding is a pretty good indicator to how much we enjoyed Colombia.

Yessss I know that a year isn't that long a time, but I'm sure there's people out there who think owning the same jacket for more than a season is a while too. To each their own.

How do you get to Colombia?

So, you don’t just go to Colombia. There’s a very difficult Visa you need to get in advance and have with you at all times, a host of vaccines and inoculations are required, you need to prebook all intercity transportation with reputable vendors, as well as get additional insurance for kidnapping amongst plenty of other “high risk” area insurances. There was even a special YouTube channel the Canadian government “recommends” all visitors to the area watch briefing videos for.​

Just kidding of course. Going to Colombia is like going to any other friggin’ country in the world, except that it’s maybe more friendly to tourists than average. But you probably believed at least a few of those outlandish claims I made, why? I'm guessing it had something to do with Colombia's particularly rough and somewhat recent history, but if you like statistics then here's a chart for you.

Well if that's not progress I don't know what is.

There's no two ways about it, 15-30 years ago Colombia would not have been a great tourist destination, but then again, I wouldn't recommend traveling to any war zone.

​Anyway, I'd love to start talking about how great a place this is.

A lot of Colombia has a very Spanish Colonial type feel.

YYZ -> BOG

#1, It's a DIRECT flight from Toronto, and it's the basically the same time zone. The airport you land in Bogotá is called El Dorado.  Also cool.

We were in Colombia for “oh just a quick vacation?” of 10 days, enough time to have a tremendously good time, but not nearly enough to see most of the country.

​You see, like all geography in the southern hemisphere, it’s a bit shrunken. Colombia is pretty large, which makes it difficult to travel around the whole country, and it’ very mountainous, which doesn’t help either.​ Also there's dense rain forest, further exacerbating transportation.

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We heard this quote from several couples/people.

One of the list items I should have put into my clichés post, is being passively judgemental about the duration of other peoples travels. It's funny to watch people say,

Stranger 1 - "Oh yes, we wanted to see the country properly so we're staying here for a month"

Enter Stranger 2 - "Oh wow, I spent a full month in obscure country village, I think to get a true feel for Colombia you need a full year here, like what I'm doing. I'll be here for a year."

www.thetruesizeof.com is, as you may have noticed, a favourite website of mine. As you can see, driving around Colombia over a 10-day span is not super feasible.

Because of this unique geography, we focused our tourism on two spots; San Gil and Medellín. Less days in transit generally correlates to more fun. But we did fly in to Bogotá.

And as much as I tried to rise above the prejudice for the country, and treat it unbiasedly, I caved and did something I wouldn’t normally do.

It wasn’t the flocks of unlicensed cab drivers that somewhat aggressively wanted your fare as you left the airport (just go to the registered taxi line up), or the colourful, diverse city we were driving through, or the half broken communication of our cab driver trying his best to to clarify our destination address (no problems there).

It’s about 8pm, we drop off our bags in our hostel room. We’re tired, but there’s enough time to walk around the neighbourhood. Then, for the first time ever… we ask the guy at the front desk...
 
“Is it safe to go for a walk?”

Besides the fact that we seemed to be in a nice part of town, the streets were well lit, people were coming and going, and I received in general absolutely no visual cues that this was a location where safety would be a concern....I still asked about safety, because it's Colombia.

"Yea it's fine, we've never had any trouble." was his response, of course.

That was almost the only time I let my observations and judgement be impacted from unsubstantiated fears.

Although I must say, we were instructed by Colombians, to not give papaya. Let me explain.

On our walk around Bogotá, while in line for a restaurant we overheard a woman in a bit of a panic who just had her camera swiped. Not pleasant, but this is just as likely to happen in Paris or Barcelona too. You can diminish your chances to be thieved by not giving papaya.

To not give papaya, or no dar papaya, is encouraging people to not have their valuables easily taken, so what does this mean? Well, don't do the following:

• Count money on a busy street corner
• Have your wallet sticking out of your back pocket
• Have an expensive looking handbag on a tiny strap

You get the idea. No dar papaya.

So Lindy and I did our best to not be handing out papayas.

Notice how Colombia is not among these countries.

Bogot​á

​When we were getting our connecting flight in Toronto, one of the initial ticket-checker security-type people looked at my ticket, then a mildly puzzled expression appeared on her face. 

"BaGOHda Where's BaGOHda?"

Well, everyone, it's pronounced "Bogo-Tá". The accent on the "a" means that is the syllable which receives emphasis.

And while we're on the subject, please don't spell or pronounce Col-O-mbia, as Col-U-mbia! Think of Sophia Vergara's (Gloria) character on Modern Family, she's pronouncing it correctly.

From the bit of research we did beforehand, it seems that this typo is a minor pet peeve for Colombians.

​Spelling aside, Bogotá was a lot of fun for the brief time we were there (two nights)

Although the buildings and weather were a bit grey, there was plenty of colourful street art.

Uber is currently illegal in Bogotá, but that doesn’t stop many enterprising Uberites from doing their best to operate the service, in spite of being harassed by the police.

We heard one German couple say that their driver told them his name, and in case of police trouble, just to pretend they were friends! How nice. Sure enough they did get questioned by the police, and although the Germans didn’t sell out their friend/driver, they did forget his name… Apparently it all ended up ok though.

It’s really too bad, because Uber is a lot more convenient and reliable than the taxis.

Taxis in Bogota were really the only thing that we felt were somewhat sketchy (drivers turning off the meter, etc..), which is why using Ubers without driver prosecution would have been so nice. We did get in one cab back to our hostel, and at the end of it, the otherwise nice driver insisted on me paying with credit card as opposed to cash. Why?

He said, "More secure"
To which I replied, "More secure than cash?"
​
He gave me a shoulder shrug and I gave him cash.

No large city is complete without it's chess congregation

Some other rapid fire thoughts:
Bogotá is colder than you’d expect. Although it’s very close to the equator (500 km north), it’s pretty high up there (over 2,600 metres in altitude). Bring pants and a jacket. 

​Like many parts of Colombia, Bogotá has seen more than its fair share of action. In 1985, military armoured vehicles literally opened fire on city hall in an attempt to regain control, after Marxist guerrilla militants took the building in the Palace of Justice Siege. The event took the lives of almost 200 people.

Remember in 2014, when one individual with one gun caused a national tragedy at Parliament in Ottawa? Can you imagine the reaction if instead of it was one person it was 35 people with 3 vehicles? It's definitely events like this that contribute to the poor image of Colombia held internationally, even though it was over 30 years ago.

With over 8 million people in Bogotá, it’s a big city. It’s actually the fifth largest city in all the America's, just a bit smaller than New York.
​
Though we enjoyed Bogotá, we really only had a tiny little taste of it. Though it did serve very well as a method to get acclimatized (both to the altitude and the culture)

A bit of that culture shock

I'm not talking about learning how to Salsa dance or eat tamales.

Normally, it’s pretty easy to figure out local transportation once you get to a place. Unless you’re in crazy peak season of a popular spot, I find doing things 1-3 days in advance is just fine.
​
Although I didn’t exactly know how we were going to get from Bogotá to San Gil, I knew I could just figure it out after we got to Colombia. Generally speaking, transportation has never been an issue for us, anywhere we've ever gone.

Here is are the steps to transportation success:

1. Google it, or;
2. Ask someone
3. ???

We've never had to go further than step 2... Until Bogota!

The internet was no help at all.

​Besides telling us where the bus departs from, I couldn’t actually get confirmation of departure time, or if it would even take us to the right destination. 
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And the front desk guy at the hostel I asked?

All we wanted to do was get to San Gil, and not end up in Yopal.

Well, he did call someone for us, but hung up the phone being like:

“I don’t know man, you might just have to wing it.”

I saw from my research online, no buses really left before 8:30AM. I also saw the names of a few bus companies that were more likely to go to San Gil than others.

So our strategy was wake up early, go to the bus station and try our luck. And as it alllllllwaaaaaayssss turns out (99% of the time anyway), it was much ado about nothing.

We had a very nice, helpful cab driver take us to the station. I went straight to one of the bus company windows, who’s logo I recognized. I said “San Gil?” and received some rapid-fire Spanish in response. But the operative words we were able to hear were:

“Si, quinza minuto sesante y ocho mille”

Then I gave that universal look that says, “I know I just opened the dialogue in Spanish to you, but I don’t actually understand Spanish that well so could you tell me in English please?”

This only prompted her to say the same words, but slower and louder. Basically, between her nodding, pointing to a bus, and asking for money, we figured we were probably in the right spot.

It didn't hurt our chances that after we paid and got to the bus queue, there were two Americans also looking mildly puzzled as well, also traveling to San Gil. So that sealed it, we were in the right spot! Probably.

No confirmation biases here!

After we got on the bus, the rest was uneventful.  We had about a 6-7 hour bus ride to our destination. Traffic was fine, weather was good, country side was nice. One the movies on the bus was Fast and the Furious. It was amazing how much of it you could follow even though it was all in Spanish.

 San Gil (pr: sawn-HEel)

Rio Fonce, dividing the city of San Gil

San Gil was definitely a highlight. It was a perfect "little" town (population ~50,0000) that was just bustling. You could just walk around for hours, a people watchers dream (does anyone else think the term “people watching” is kind of creepy?)

Not seen in this picture: bustling activity.

We arrived right at the climax of Holy Week (Easter week), so the town was bustling with activity, and live music at night. The food was great here, people were friendly, great weather (including isolated torrential rains) and plenty of other foreigners who were keen to link up for activities together.
​
We were planning on white water rafting but the water levels were too high, so we went canyoning instead. 

​Canyoning, like most adventure type sports, gets its excitement from gravity. You basically start higher up an appropriately selected canyon, and scramble, rappel, swim, or jump your way down.

We also went mountain biking.

Blissfully ignorant of the coming challenge

Lindy: "Let’s do the more difficult of the two options for mountain biking."
Mike: "Yea that makes sense, we’re both in half-decent shape, and I’ve mountain biked one other time in my life, 7 years ago and you've never mountain biked."

Mountain biking is like, really challenging. Holy crow.

It’s a good thing that our guide from Colombian Bike Junkies was so great and patient, because Lindy and I were the stragglers. I probably fell off my bike 3-5 times. Also, I’m not sure if avid cyclists ever stop to think about it, but numerous times I thought, “Gee I sure hope I don’t just accidentally twist these handle bars and drive straight off this cliff.” I didn’t though.

​And the cut I got on my achilles from that cattle grate never got infected, and we had burritos for lunch, AND we got to swim in a thermal pool after, AND the music in the very scenic drive back was great. 

It was crippling and exhausting, but amazing.

We would have loved more time in San Gil (and the nearby Barichara), but alas, you can’t do it all.

We only saw Barichara for about 3 hours, but what a nice relaxing place. It was only about a 30 minute bus ride from San Gil.

More buses

It was time for some deja vu.

I wasn’t sure how we were going to get from San Gil to our next place, so we asked the hostel employee, and she basically said, go to the place where you arrived in San Gil, take this bus and make sure you say you’re going here, then transfer to this other bus.

After our confidence building bus ride out of Bogota, we thought we were capable of everything! So we followed her instructions.
THIS bus ride was more of a big van / small bus. Probably only room for about 10-15 people.
​
Notable moments on this leg

• Overly affectionate older couple sitting right next to Lindy​

We transferred at the top, Los Curos. Note the towns of Barichara and Jordan which we visited briefly, lots to see in Santander province.

• The spectacular view out the bus window, which after about 40 minutes, became a bit dizzying and anxiety building.

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Then all of a sudden, the bus quickly slows to a stop, the daylight is just starting to wane, and the driver yells out “Los Curos!” which was our transfer point.

Hmmm. Outside doesn’t look like a bus terminal...Oh boy here we go.

We get off the bus, the driver helps us get our bags, then he quickly climbs back on board and peels off.

Hmmmmmm.

We’re literally left standing in the dust thinking, where the hell are we and how do we continue? No recognizable road signs, bus stops,  etc….

So we both look at each other and think “I guess we should just start asking people?”

After a few confused looks at our question/pronunciation, multiple people we ask start pointing in the same direction, off this fork in the road up hill. We head up that way.

So far so good, we’re now off the highway, and happily drawing some attention of people going about their day. This made it much easier to approach different folks and ask how to get where we were going.

​We had great help from the nearby paramedic/pharmacist across the street who made us some handy communication cards.

Also some friendly conversation with a group of 6-7 women, spanning 3-4 generations, who were waiting at the same bus stop as us. They were helping the grand (or great-grand) mother with getting on the bus. I regret not getting a picture with them.

Overall, we were on and off buses for about 5 hours getting to the next place, a beautiful, secluded hostel with great food and bar and stellar views.

​BUTTT we went there to climb, and we couldn’t climb, so that was a bummer. Really the only thing during those ten days I could try to complain about though.

The note left to us by the helpful pharmacist/paramedic, to hand to the bus driver.

Then we bused from there to Bucaramanga (great name eh?), got in a cab and got to the airport. This was the ONLY time in the trip I got a little sketched out.

Basically, the bus dropped us off in a weird spot, kind of the side of a highway except with about 30 people around waiting for cabs and buying stuff at the stand that was there. It was then where I noticed, a young transgendered individual and an elderly man with a limp. Normally, this sort of thing wouldn’t have garnered my attention, but I couldn’t help but notice them staring us down very plainly.

And then slowly, nondescriptly, they making their way towards us.

In the meantime we get the attention of a driver, and he pops open the trunk to help us get our things inside the car.

All the while this odd couple is still approaching our vehicle. Finally the younger person addresses the cab driver, and speaks quietly to him in Spanish. The driver doesn’t really acknowledge the person, and then shakes his head and waves his hand away. He then politely motions for us to get in as he also enters the car, we drive away.

I don’t know if this duo was trying to get Lindy and I involved in a drug running scheme, or simply compliment the driver on how insanely beautiful his fare was. Absolutely no idea. But it felt weird.

I have to admit, I was quite manically following our GPS on Lindy’s phone, ensuring we were taking the correct turns to the airport. And when he unexpectedly stopped for gas I went into a bit of a paranoid overdrive. But of course it was all fine.

To balance out that negativity, I had a wicked hamburger in the airport food court before we departed.

Here's me about to enjoy that burger.

Medellín

One of the most frequent things people would talk to us about before or after arriving to Colombia, was “Have you seen Narcos?”

The iconic gondolas of Medellín. Prior to these, people who lived up here were hard-pressed to receive any type of useful public transit.

Without checking Wikipedia, I do know Narcos centres around Pablo Escobar’s rise and fall. An incredibly tantalizing subject, a story as terrible as it is fascinating. Although, I think the strange conditions that allowed for Escobar's meteoric rise to power 40 years ago and the miraculous rejuvenation of Medellin that has occurred since his demise, are more interesting stories.

Colombians love talking about proud moments (which is great, most countries do this, right?) Apparently the Colombians had a last minute goal to tie a World Cup game one time, the game finished as a tie. Our tour guide said this moment was one of those moments, where Colombians will talk about and recall like;
​
“Where were you when we tied that game?”    

But also, they don’t acknowledge so well the recent violence in their history, like going as  far as it not being mentioned by a teachers at any point during grade school. This is especially noticeable compared to how well we noticed Berlin acknowledges their rough recent history...

​This same city tour guide I keep referring to, also wouldn’t even say the names of certain recent politicians out loud, because opinions are that polarizing and rousing.

Medellín was just a great city to visit, every way you look at it. It's affordable without being cheap, public transit was amazing and clean, expansive nature is just outside the city. It had great history, museums, art galleries, nightlife, restaurants... It was really one of the best city tourism experiences I've ever had.

Luís Eduardo Villegas López, the first person to climb El Peñol

Colombia was sooooo great. I feel like there’s a number of places in the world that are 
“undiscovered” as far as tourist destinations go, I wouldn't quite put Colombia in this category anymore.

In the words the walking city tour guide:

“One year ago, if I saw gringos in the near our meeting point, they were 100% on my tour. But less than one year later I couldn't assume that anymore!”​​

All right, it's not that flowery of a quote but it gets the point across.

There's so much we didn't see in Colombia. We didn't see the Caribbean or the Pacific coasts, we didn't see the rainforest, we didn't see any of the pre-colonial archaeological sites, and we just barely saw the Andes. 

There's lots to do here, we'd love to go back.