JOURNALS: Finally getting to Colombia
I had always wanted to visit Colombia! It was the first country I had on my list when thinking of LATAM - largely to experience the salsa culture. However, wary of Colombia’s dangerous reputation from both online sources and other travellers I met, I initially put it off. I eventually decided to head there after another traveller I met in Guatemala said she wanted to visit too, so we spent a couple of days together in Bogota. Felt safe and comfortable while I was there, and this felt like a huge tick off the gap year travel bucket list!
An early arrival to Bogota
Bogota - Staying at Parque 93, more expensive but very modern and safe. Visited the La Candelaria area of course - many museums!
I arrived in Bogota post a 4am flight from Bolivia, severely lacking sleep. It was a rainy morning with major traffic jams. The first thing I noticed about Bogota was the street art around. There is street art everywhere! It took an hour to get to the hotel and I reached around 9am. After having some breakfast, I took a wander down to a fancy mall in Zona Rosa to avoid the continuous drizzle of rain, and checked myself into the cinema for a couple of hours for a movie / nap before heading back for check in at 3pm.
The neighbourhood I stayed in was called Parque 93, recommended as one of the safest areas to stay in Bogota. It was extremely modern with plenty of international food options. Zona Rosa, the other safe neighbourhood recommended, is just a short walk away, so there doesn’t seem to be much difference in choosing between the two. It is much cheaper to stay in La Candelaria which many travellers also do. They do however warn travellers to be careful when going out after dark there. When I was in La Candelaria in the day it felt fine, but I decided to stay outside of it just to be cautious.
I don’t understand why Bogota draws so much flak from tourists! People say it is boring but there was so much to do there e.g. museums, day trips. The tourist infrastructure is also there + the food is good and there are many excellent coffee shops around. I might understand why locals don’t like Bogota (if there are high levels of inequality between the rich neighborhoods and the poorer areas), but I don’t understand why people say they don’t like it from the tourist perspective.
I very much enjoyed the chance to wander around the La Candelaria area, where I took another free walking tour of course. Bogota has so many free museums, and I hopped into a total of 6 museums that day, including the Botero Museum. I also visited the private emerald museum, which was small and not super impressive but had a good vantage point of the city. The Gold Museum in Bogota is excellent and entry is only a small fee, I would very much recommend - it reminds me of the museums showcasing porcelain in China, and tells you a lot about the culture.
There are many day trips that you can also do from Bogota. On my second full day, I went to the Salt Cathedral just out of Bogota. Personally, I did not think it was particularly worth it, but it was definitely interesting to see the town and areas outside of Bogota.
History and Dancing in Medellin
Next stop Medellin! Medellin is a good place to go a bit more into the history of the place. While there, I went on 2 walking tours for the city center and also for Comuna 13.
Medellin is known for Pablo Escobar, but it is something that the tour guides are now trying to move tourism and conversations away from. They don’t want the young in Medellin to mistakenly idolise him. They encourage visitors to honor and remember the victims, but not Pablo Escobar himself. (P.S. many guides dislike the Netflix Narcos show because of its many inaccuracies.) Comuna 13 used to be one of the most violent districts, but is now extremely touristy. To see how the districts are changing and transforming, there is another tour offered that brings you to Comuna 4. At Comuna 13, we learnt a little about the guerillas and the paramilitary. We also learnt that there is a safety fee that all businesses need to pay to these groups. Even the tour agency has to pay this, and they are required to pay an additional “Christmas bonus” as well at the end of the year.
Medellin is also known to be a good place in Colombia for salsa and bachata, and I’m glad I had a chance to try it out! I had intentionally chosen to stay in Medellin over the weekend, which was the right choice as there was much more happening then. (Visit Guatape and Salento on weekdays instead to avoid the crowds). On my first night in Medellin, I popped over from my hostel to a school called Dancefree which was hosting a language exchange, followed by a free dance class and then social. It was a good chance to mix with both locals and tourists, and the price before 730pm is cheaper to attract people for the language exchange.
Fun fact: You can drink the tap water in Medellin. Our hostel told us this and I did try it once on the last day when I was lazy to go to the supermarket to buy water - all good no issues! But yes do at your own risk.
Fun fact 2: The metro system in Medellin works well (I used it to get around too). The people of Medellin are proud of their metro system and that it got built. Our guide said that because of this, people conduct themselves well on the metro, and FYI eating is not allowed in the metro - both in the station and on the train.
Salento
Salento - a nice and chill stop to visit the palm trees and coffee farms. There are many travellers here so easy to meet people.
Salento is part of Colombia’s coffee region, it’s a quiet little town with many tourists. It was SO easy to make friends. On my first night, I arrived pretty tired in the evening, but as I was walking out to find dinner a Chinese girl stopped me on the street and asked if I was from China. She was looking for someone to join a hiking tour she was going on with a few others - they were looking for one more person to join and split costs. It wasn’t quite what I was looking for, but we did decide to head for dinner together and split lasagne - from Viajero hostel, it was delicious. Along the way out, she went around asking more people to look for someone to join (really gotta learn from her guts!). She suddenly called out to me that there was another Singaporean - the first one I’d seen since the start of my trip! He was travelling for a month - 2 weeks in colombia and then 2 weeks in Guatemala.
I left shortly after - as when I walked into the hostel I bumped straight into a girl called Mara from Ireland who I had previously met on the Comuna 13 tour in Medellin. She mentioned that the others in the hostel were going to play Tejo after dinner. Tejo turned out to be pretty fun!! It’s a game where you toss a rock at a ring of paper triangles with gunpowder inside. When you hit it, or IF you hit it, it explodes! The game turned out to be more challenging than expected, but by the end of the night, I managed to hit the target some 5 times whew. It was also a great opportunity to meet and chat with other travellers, as we had to wait our turn to throw the rock. I met another girl from Norway who was travelling solo, she seemed to be travelling everywhere and even did the sailing trip from Panama to Cartegena - something that I really want to do in future. I was super impressed with how she managed to pack in 4 pairs of shoes, a sleeping bag, a down and snorkel into a 40L osprey bag. HOW. Magic. IDK.
In the centre of Salento, there is a booth in Bolivia Square where you buy tickets to for jeeps to Cocora valley / coffee farms / neighbouring towns, and where you can also buy tickets to visit the coffee farms. I wandered over the next day, and decided to go to Finca Buenas Aires as I had made no prebookings, and heard from from the Norwegian girl that was where she had visited. There are a whole host of fincas to visit though so take your pick! The jeep leaves at the middle of the hour every hour. As I went at 1130, perhaps due to lunch time, it was indeed empty and the tour turned into a private one. I was the only one heading to the fincas and the driver was friendly, trying to make conversation as we went along. Finca Buenas Aires is actually the furthest finca about half an hour away by jeep. The guide brought me around the farm - apparently they only have a total of 3 permanet staff working the area to pick beans, and a total of 7 staff including temps during the main season. Impressive given the size of the area that they manage! One of the cool things was seeing them dry the beans, with a roof contraption to cover it quickly if it rains. (In comparison, I remember visiting a farm in another country where staff would run to cover the beans with a tarp whenever there was rain).
The coffee farm tour wrapped up with a mini tasting. I met another traveller sipping coffee. He had actually cycled 4h to reach to finca. While originally from Europe, he had been living in Medellin for a year and said he loved it so much he could'n’t bring himself to leave. AND apparently he works in Antartica for one week a year, doing something on ships there?? Once he finished his coffee, he cycled off back down the slope.
And on Thursday, I visited Cocora Valley! I had a chat with an Irish couple (also met previously in Medellin lol) enroute while queueing for the jeep. There was another Asian girl on the jeep, and we ended up doing the whole 10km hike with her. It was fantastic because we could then help each other take photos. hahahaha. We took about 5h to do the 10km, but if you are just there for the views you can just do a short loop for the palm trees. The girl I was with was a Chinese living in Canada. If you see this, come visit me when you swing by SG!
To leave Colombia, I took the bus from Salento bus station to Pereira bus station so I could then get to the airport. I met another friendly Australian on the way, who was 5 months into a year long trip in LATAM! It was great, we chatted, she vouched for me after I gave my ticket to the bus driver but didn’t get a receipt. (Bus driver was lovely tho - he helped me put my luggage in the bus, made sure I knew which bus to go to.) We eventually shared an uber to the airport together. Uber driver was nice too - he had to park a little bit away from the pick up point as there was a police driver there - it is a grey area whether uber is allowed in Colombia. He ran back though to help us with our luggages and to cross the road, apologising saying that “it’s complicated”.
And I soon found myself flying out to Panama :>