Girls’ night out, Salento
Transportation:
Moving around the cities and inside the country is quite cheap, but extra caution is needed. The safest way to transport within the cities is by taxi. You’d better avoid public transportation, especially during night, since even moving by taxi could be dangerous depending on where you get it from. Exiting the airport, there is a queue of yellow taxis and white vans. Yellow taxis are cheaper and the prices from the airport to the areas around are pre-fixed. There are people responsible in the airport that guide you after asking for the hotel that you are staying and if you choose to transport by the white van, you pay them directly and they give you a voucher, otherwise you pay yourself the driver of the yellow taxi as soon you arrive at your hotel. The prices to central Bogota from the airport for a half-an-hour distance was: 35.000$(yellow taxi)/63.000$ (white van). It is obvious that when you are fewer than 3 people it is more profitable to move by a yellow taxi, otherwise a white van could be cheaper, depending also on the amount and size of the luggage you have.
For the rest of the country and for longer distances, the cheapest but also safest way to move is by airplane. There are no trains and ‘long-distance’ buses are mostly convenient for relatively short distances, as they travel for hours. The prices for domestic flights are quite cheap and along with the Colombian Avianca and the Chilean Latam, some other low-cost companies also fly, like VivaColombia, Wingo etc. We mainly flied with Avianca.
For our flight to the Amazon we didn’t have many options, as there are only flights with the two big companies from the capital. So we flew with Avianca and returned with Latam and with rather pricey tickets. Our return from Pereira (Zona Cafetera) towards San Andrés island via Bogota was with Avianca. From San Andrés we used the low-cost Wingo to Cartagena and from there to Bogota again Avianca. I do not mention any prices since they were all extraordinarily expensive because of the Catholic Easter, compared to other normal time periods.
Long-distance bus: we used it only once as we wanted to go through the most picturesque route of the country – if we only knew! – from Bogota to Armenia (Zona Cafetera). So we booked seats for 12€/person in a luxurious bus, with WiFi, toilet of the company Bolivariano (there are other similar companies as well) and of course I took a window seat to enjoy the magical view, as we were going to pass through the Andean mountains. If only I had known, poor me, that for 274 km the whole journey would last for more than 8 hours and I would have to take 3 pills and a chewing gum against nausea (I had read some negative comments online but I considered them exaggerating)! The view was indeed wonderful during the whole drive and except for the possessed driver who was driving like crazy, the bus option (instead of the one by airplane) apart from being the cheapest solution, was also quite safe (generally the Zona Cafetera is one of the safest in Colombia).
Local buses: we only used them for a few km from Armenia to Salento and inside the San Andrés island to visit a beach. In both cases, safe and cheap.
Valle de Cocora, Quindío
Locals and entertainment:
Colombians left me with the greatest impressions (regarding locals I personally met). They were friendly, polite, willing to assist me in whatever I might need (even policemen helped me several times, especially in Bogota). Another important issue is the language: they speak only Spanish in the largest part of the country (except for Cartagena and San Andrés where they also speak English) or whenever they work in the tourism industry. However, even if you talk their language at a basic level, they really appreciate they are even more helpful. Therefore, even though it happened several times to get stuck as my Spanish level is average, I never had a serious communication problem, since they were always willing to help me out. They love having fun, like us Greeks, they dance on the first occasion, in bars, even outside at the streets. They go out in large groups and they usually share a bottle of alcohol altogether. It was striking that all of them were always neat, especially the women. They did not give us the impression of miserable people: even though the country is poor, we seldom came across beggars, homeless or drug addicts in central spots of the cities. But again, this varied based on the specific place we visited each time.
- In Bogota people were normal, polite, smiling, already familiar with tourists, especially from south America, but they are even happier to welcome new tourists. Older people spend their time at the parks playing chess or domino, whereas younger ones have fun exactly as in the rest of the planet. We stayed only one day in the capital, so our experience is small compared to the rest of the country.
- In the Amazonia, we met people that always greeted us when passing by, even though they were shy and not used to tourists. They do not yet have the attitude of ‘tourist=money’ like in other places in the country and they face you just as their guest without expecting something in return. I do hope they remain as pure and polite in the future as well (I confess they were my favorites!). Wherever people were simpler, the choices of food and entertainment were more limited. They were going out in the afternoon in small local bars and restaurants or for having just street food, or for only a walk next to the river. Quiet life like in all small towns and villages.
- In Salento (Zona Cafetera), locals were extremely friendly!! They mainly have domestic tourism and people visiting from other South American countries, as well as a few backpackers from around the world. At nights there, they have a lot of fun in small bars with latin, sometimes live, music, constantly dancing and singing until late at night. Typical example is the company in the first picture: these girls were so happy that I took a video of them and several pictures, that they approached me and invited me to buy me some shots! The one and only night we stayed in this fairytale village on the foothills of the Andes was also one of the most intense of the whole trip.
- Cartagena, on the other hand, is already touristic. Yes, a very beautiful, colonial-style town with colorful houses, but also with annoying salesmen and local who face you only as a bunch of dollars $. The cruise ships from Miami have already ruined the locals. The ladies wearing the nice colorful dresses and pretending to sell fresh fruit and sweets do not accept to get photos of them, unless you pay them. On the other hand, if you ignore them, they approach you on their own. I chose to buy some fruit and sweets and then, with no extra charge, I took as many pictures as I wanted. Some other locals ask for money if they help you out in something.
During our walk in the Centenario park right outside the old town, a young guy was stuck to us and of course in the end he asked for a tip (which he found too small by the way). To be honest, he did help us as we visited this park to track some free wild animals (sloths and monkeys), while we wouldn’t have possibly tracked them since they were scattered and hiding within the trees of the park. The locals rest there all day long and they know exactly where to find them. Outside the old town, things were totally different.
In neighborhoods like the Getsemani, children were playing carefreely in the streets, chatting with us every time we took a picture of them. Older people were playing domino or cards without really paying attention to us and latin music was playing everywhere in the streets and alleys through the open windows of the houses. Colombia without music is not Colombia.
Same, in the open market of Bazurto. Dangerous for petty thefts, however authentic Cartagena. Very few tourists, counted with the fingers of one hand, were looking at the food in the chaotic and filthy market (including ourselves of course), with the locals either wondering what we are doing there, or widely smiling, sometimes awkwardly, posing for the photograph! The roles there are inverse: they won’t ask for money for posing: you have to take a picture, no matter what, they won’t accept a ‘no’ as an answer!! Most people in the town speak English fluently, as well as their own Spanish dialect. They said, it is the coastal Spanish, but anyway, we figured it in the end. Entertainment in Cartagena was wild: luxurious restaurants, bars, clubs. Everything there is made for the tourists, as it is not really wise to exit the tourist area after sunset.
- And now, let me take you to the last destination of my trip, the exotic little island of San Andrés, in the middle of the Caribbean Sea. We are out of the country there, not in terms of national boundaries, but in terms of attitude. Away from the Colombian culture, temperament and atmosphere, the island residents, a mixture of Colombians, Caribbean people with English influence and mostly speaking English, together with Spanish and Creole, remind nothing of the mainland people. Having lots of Jamaican immigrants and many domestic problems, their main concern currently is to become independent from Colombia and get their own nation.
Tourism is highly developed, being anyway the most touristic part of the whole country that I visited, as the beaches of the two neighboring islands (San Andrés & Prοvidencia) are considered as the best of Colombia. Mass tourism, backpackers, singles, groups and families, rich, poor people, Colombians but also other South Americans, all in a tropical stripe a few km away from the eastern Nicaraguan coast. In general: nothing extraordinary, except for the sea. You go for holiday and then you leave. Locals have fun mainly out in the streets, sitting on benches, with music next to the beach, holding a bottle of beer, but decently, without getting drunk. There are plenty of bars and restaurants of all categories and budgets and street food is quite spread as well, similarly to the rest of the country. In the island, there are some issues of safety and drugs, to which I will refer in the following post.
San Andrés island, Caribbean Sea
The cuisine of the country is very simple, it includes some local dishes depending on the specific area, but the main dishes consist of meat or fish with rice and plantain (the big green banana that can be eaten only after cooked) as side dishes. Fruits are delicious and you may find varieties that cannot be met anywhere else across the globe. Especially the Amazon region is so diverse in fruits that within a few hours of walking we tasted many different and totally unknown to us species.
So why should somebody visit Colombia?
Is it the amazingly diverse vegetation? The beauty of the colorful colonial cities? The dreamy shores of the Caribbean and of the Pacific coast? The unique landscapes worldwide? Is it the yet unexplored part of Amazonia? Maybe the magical Andean mountains? Or the friendly locals and the indigenous tribes?
The coastal music, the Andean traditional music or the Cali salsa? The Barranquilla carnival, the Amazon rainforest or the lost ancient town of Sierra Nevada? The colorful river Caño Crystales, the Los Nevados volcanoes or the Guajira desert?
Maybe the slums and the museums of Medellin, the most colorful village of the country, Guatapé, or the amazingly scented coffee of Zona Cafetera? Is it the tallest palm trees of the world in Valle de Cocora, the national parks Tayrona in the Caribbean and Isla Gorgona in the Pacific, or….
All the above together and even more!!! Let me add the unbelievably cheap prices and the lack of mass tourism (at the moment).
Why shouldn’t someone go to Colombia now?
Safety and health issues here.