A quick note on Santa Marta. It’s a nice little town in and of its own right. We spent a few nights here before Ciudad Perdida and before and after Palomino. We found a very nice little street market just down the road from the hostel. Very tasty pizza for just a few $$’s a slice, and very nice fruit juices. Oh, and we had a most spectacular storm as well.. just a damn shame about the street lights :(

Spoiler alert: We found it. And it was at the end of a track, so I’m surprised it has been lost for this long.

We arrived into Santa Marta for our trip to Ciudad Perdida (The lost city), on our friend Val’s advice. Ciudad Perdida was built in ~700AD and was “lost” when the Spanish invaded, as the city was abandoned. Some treasure hunters eventually found it in 1973 (getting info out of an old man by getting him drunk :( , and looted it. The story we were told was that three brothers found it. They’d collect gold, bring it back to town and then drink the proceeds. A brother in law got jealous, followed them, shot one and the others escaped. I don’t think the story related what happened to the brother-in-law, but he was chased off anyway. Ultimately though, a hunter who wasn’t getting a fair cut decided to sell the location to the government in 1975, after which it was mostly protected.

The walk is hard enough, and very definitely hot enough. I was so completely drenched in sweat after only 30 minutes or less each day. It’s so hot and humid. Fortunately, at every stopping point there’s a river to bathe in. There’s price-fixing amongst the tour operators, so it’s 900,000 Pesos whether you do the trip in 4, 5 or 6 days. We opted for 4 days, it really doesn’t need any more.

Just a quick side-note here, this is a local carrying Maaike’s bag bag up a big hill after it fell down. What a gentleman. As it’s a Cactus bag it had no damage at all.

There are indigenous in the area, three different tribes. We’d see them daily running past us up the hills etc.

I really enjoyed the city. It’s lovely to be there with relatively few people. I’m not quite sure what the limit is on the number of people, but far less than Manchu Pichu anyway (and it sees far fewer tourists regardless of limits). In the pictures below is a hole. This is where you were put for a week or so if you’d transgressed the rules. Our guide Wilson told us a story of an indigenous friend of his who’d left his wife (and kid) and run off with another. When the village found out they captured him and make him carry sand up a hill, locking him up at night. The sentence was 3 months. He managed to escape, and had to leave the area as they kept looking for 3 years. Actually seems cheaper & more straightforward than getting an actual divorce…

Our group was awesome, really nice bunch of people, and all at similar fitness levels. I had fun introducing (most of) them to werewolves and villagers. Annoyingly the werewolves won every round! even once I’d reduced their numbers! hey ho.

Also annoyingly, I’d left the ISO on the little camera stuck on 800.. so a lot of the pictures were overexposed. I need to get some camera pointers.. for example, look at this picture (taken with my DSLR)…

the brightness? contrast? seems quite off… but I’m not quite sure what I’m doing wrong. The colours just don’t look vibrant at all (and it is ISO 100). Pointers most welcome. The colours on the little camera come out way stronger.

Oh, one thing about the rivers, respect the local advice. We were swimming in this one (after the heavy rains), and the locals came and told us to get out, so we did. 10 minutes later it completely flash flooded…

Oh, a note on the food, or at least the drinks. Fruit juices in Colombia are amazing. Simply amazing. Just had to share.

Another tick on the UNESCO list which I’m not keeping. Cartagena. It was one of the storage points for merchandise sent out from Spain, and for treasure collected from the Americas to be sent back to Spain. It was also heavily fortified and the remains of some of the forts can still be seen and visited. We spent a couple of nights here and had a very nice day walking around the old city, getting properly rained on and enjoying the sights.

The rainy season really is a thing. It lashes down for anywhere between 20-40 minutes and then clears up, usually accompanied by lightning.

We visited Castillo San Felipe de Barajas, a very significant fort back in the day. Riddled with tunnels they still haven’t finished exploring. Maaike wasn’t that impressed when the lights went out while we were in them..

Stunning sunset. This place needs a timelapse ;) Seriously, I’m considering putting a little bit of effort into making my little timelapse website more accessible and then making it into a public geek-art project. It’d be awesome to see timelapses from around the world, especially from groovy views like this one!

We also went for a swim in the sea. Not sure if it’s technically the Caribbean or not, but it was really really warm, even I enjoyed it ;)

I wussed out for Medellin. We’d met some girls in the hostel in Salento who told us that they’d been robbed at gunpoint, at 11am, by the bus station. Also, the hostel owner in Manizales told us that he’d been robbed at knifepoint (though I’m not sure when)… so I wasn’t that keen to go at all, let alone stay a few nights. We did basically have to pass through though, but I negotiated Maaike down to just 1 night.

In the event, Medellin was fine… I’m not sure I’d go so far as to say it was a “nice” town, but it was fine enough. A few years ago it was the most dangerous city in the world (when the drug cartels were more in power), but they have really cleaned up the place. A lot of tourists go there to see where Pablo Escobar had one of his houses, but we didn’t go. Part of the reason for not visiting was the aforementioned wanting to get the hell out of dodge, and the other was that Colombia is (understandably) wanting to move past the drug image.

Anyway, we did the walking tour, it’s great, would recommend. It’s also where Fernando Botero is from, and he has donated a lot of art. Below you can see two birds, one partly destroyed. A bomb was placed there and several people (including children) killed. The authorities were about to take it away when the mayor got a call from Fernando basically saying “don’t you dare take that away”, and he then donated another bird to go beside the bombed out one. A powerful reminder of where they were and hope for a better future.

One of the actions which spurred positive change in the city was electing a new mayor back in early 2000’s. He was a maths professor and prioritized a couple of things.

1. He installed artwork in dodgy parts of town. So, places that had been historically bad areas were rejuvenated.
2. He prioritised libraries. So anyone in whatever part of town had (free) access to libraries.

The other thing was the metro system they have. It connects across the city, from the poorest areas to the richest, and all tickets cost the same, regardless of distance. So this means that no matter where you live you can get to work in the city if that’s what it takes. There is no damage / graffiti to be seen, and from talking to people, it seems like it’s one thing they all agree to look after.

So, I was probably wrong not to give Medellin a longer stay. They really have turned the city around, and while muggings & theft still happen, it’s unlikely that you’ll run into it. Just keep your valuables out of sight (preferably in a money belt), don’t use your smartphone more than necessary walking in the street (snatchings happen), keep things in zip pockets where possible, have a small lock for your bag to prevent opportunistic thefts (thanks Myra for the combination lock!), and once you’re checked into your room, leave most stuff there and only go out with enough cash for what you need. That should do it. Oh, and cover your ATM combination when typing it in!

And yes, it used to be the murder capital of the world.. but no more!

I loved Manizales. Specifically I loved our hostel – if you’re looking for somewhere nice and relaxed (i.e not a party hostel), then definitely go there. The food was amazing, and the place just super relaxing. There are things to do in the area, but we pretty much just chilled. We did a walk down the hill to the stream/river, and completely failed to properly look for the waterfall, however, a nice walk, even in the heat (and that at nearly 1500m ish?)

The owner, a Canadian (of Iranian? extraction?), has a small hobby farm/animals there. It’s the sort of place he couldn’t afford to have in Canada, but way easier in Colombia. Maaike got her animal fix.

I also got the Raspberry Pi out again (I can hear the collective sighs of relief, this blog was getting a little slack on the timelapsin’ front). They gave me an extension cord and all was well. The camera had actually broken on the trip, but I just pressed the sensor back in again and all seemed to be well. There was quite a bit of cloud in the morning – so there’s a good 20 seconds of quite white footage here.

Anyway, loved our stay, would happily recommend.