Heading into our final leg of Colombia, we arrived in Medellin - a city transformed from the most dangerous in the world in 1991, to the most welcoming and intriguing in 2022. Surrounded by mountains and jungle, Medellin is in a strategic position in the country, and well connected with world-class infrastructure. The climate was similar to Bogotá, at a higher elevation in the mountains than the Caribbean coast, the temperatures were a lot cooler, and the rain came right on schedule at 3pm daily. Not just a small sprinkle of rain; pouring rain and thunderstorms which often lasted through the night.
We were a little jaded from our constant travels, and didn’t get to experience Medellin by night (famous for its epic nightclub scene), but had a blast exploring by day on the exceptional metro, tram and cable car system which enable the diverse ‘comunas’ of the city to connect and integrate. It was clean, efficient, and affordable and we enjoyed it so much that we spent an entire day just taking transport to the different areas of the city. Popular with expats and common for many tourists to base themselves in Medellin for several weeks, we quickly understood the attraction, and really enjoyed our time in this diverse city.
One of the highlights of our visit, and a shining example of the transformation which has taken place here, was a visit to Comuna 13. It was inspiring to see firsthand how investment of public funds into school facilities can change lives and safety of an area. The tour meandered through the weaving streets of Comuna 13 which intertwined like a spiderweb. Every day, locals line the streets of the area showing off their creative skills, be it grafiti, breakdancing, rapping or dj-ing. We learnt how these elements of hip-hop have provided hope to the next generation, with pathways to success that don’t involve the drug trade or gangs.
A friend of Jelley’s had completed a university exchange in the city in 2016, and along with other foreign exchange students, volunteered to teach English to locals in Comuna 13, one of the poorest areas of the city which had been in the heart of the atrocities of the city in the '90s and '00s. Our tour guide, Steven, was one of the students who learnt English as a fresh local youth, and has since gone on to found this walking tour company with his classmates, bringing tourists to learn about their incredible neighbourhood, and creating opportunities never seen before for these people. It was captivating to hear Steven’s personal accounts of growing up in Comuna 13 and the violence that he endured. His passion for the community and the transformation since his childhood came through strongly in his tour.Another surprising feature of Medellin was the number of quality museums and art galleries available. One of the highlights was the extensive Botero collection at the Museo de Antioquia (photos not allowed), and his bronze sculptures adorning the neighbouring plaza. It was a popular spot for locals and tourists alike on a busy Saturday, the high energy of local bands performing adding to the experience. Botero was a famous Colombian artist, known best for creating larger, chubby things, be it people, animals or objects, in many different mediums.
We made just a brief visit to El Poblado, the classic gringo tourist suburb, and although it was refreshing to have limitless access to amazing Western food and hear English spoken as the primary language, we were glad to have stayed in the slightly more local suburb of Laureles.
Just a short bus journey from Medellin lies the beautiful lake-side village of Guatapé. The ‘Embalse El Peñol-Guatape’ is one of the largest lakes/reservoirs in Colombia and is where many of Medellin’s wealthy politicians and celebrities have their holiday homes. It is also home to the famous Peñol rock which is a 200 metre high monolithic rock that towers over the surrounding lake and has steps up to the top. Guatapé is a quaint little town with winding streets that are lined with colourful buildings hand-painted by locals. Some of the buildings even had little stories illustrated on the along the bottoms of them.
We stumbled upon our travel friend Jaia again who happened to be eating lunch at a restaurant that we were walking by. We reconnected and took a stroll through town and up to a serendipitous lookout point. We also planned a boat tour together the next day to check out the area by water. An epic thunderstorm meant an early night, before our early start to hike up Peñol rock. Always keen to keep our steps up, we tagged on the extra 7km from town, mostly along a path but some on the highway, before taking the over 600 steps up to the lookout. Unfortunately it was a slightly cloudy morning and we didn’t quite get the 360 degree panoramic views, but it was still a worthwhile adventure!
The boat tour was a great way to gain another perspective of the area, learn more about the rivalries between Guatapé and neighbouring town of Peñol and their battle for naming rights of the rock, and see some of the mansions up close, including the remaining shell of one of Pablo Escobar, which was blown up with dynamite. The majority of locals we came across didn’t want to talk a lot about ‘PE’ (as he was locally known), and were saddened that Colombia is still defined by the egregious actions of a criminal whose industry caused so much destruction to so many people. Others have a different perspective, and continue to monetise from the death of the infamous Colombian. After learning more about this, we decided not to go on any of the ‘Pablo Escobar tours’, and were glad to have made this decision.
After a lovely time in Guatape, we bused back to Medellin for a brief stopover before continuing our journey south to La Zona Cafetera, or ‘The Coffee Region’. It was a 2.30am start to get out to the airport, followed by a 1.5 hour flight down to Pereira (tough name to pronounce!), before taking another taxi to the bus station and bus to Filandia where we waited about 5 hours until our jeep ride to our next accommodation. A huge travel day, but it was still better than the alternative option of doing the entire journey via bus from Medellin, which due to recent landslides and roadworks was taking some travellers 12-14 hours !!
It was one of the many public holiday weekends in Colombia, and the usually quieter town of Filandia was extremely crowded, making it hard to wander the streets. We were happy finding reliable WiFi, good coffee, and catching up on admin before the jeep journey to our accommodation called Tukawa Hostel. Tukawa is a recently opened accommodation on a coffee farm, purchased by 4 French friends just before the pandemic, but isn’t your ordinary hostel. It was a bumpy adventure to travel there, and once we eventually arrived, we realised we would probably be spending our last 3 days in Colombia based right there among the coffee plants and in the infinity pool. We also felt cold for the first time in Colombia (at 24 degrees celsius/75 fahrenheit), and utilised our puffy jackets for the first time since leaving winter in the US!
Matt, one of the French owners, gave us an informative tour of their coffee and platanos farm. He was refreshingly honest about his lack of any knowledge or experience in coffee before starting the venture. His dream was to open a beachfront hostel near Santa Marta, but when he discovered how difficult that was, he switched to buying a coffee farm and building a hostel instead. It was inspiring to learn about the journey they had been on, the invaluable locals who continue to work hard to produce world class coffee, and their quest to become certified organic in the future. The land in this region they found to be so fertile, that the food scraps thrown to the chickens started to grow various fruits and vegetables in the soil.
In addition to the fun facts we learnt on our coffee tour in Minca, we also learnt:
The purchaser with the highest price, and highest quality coffee beans is Starbucks, which is thought to be a shame by the locals as Starbucks often adds mountains of sugar and other nasties to it which destroys the taste of the quality beans.
All coffee beans (and cacao beans) are exported raw, not roasted, to ensure quality control and also improve shelf life - they can last around 2 years raw before roasting, but only around 2 months once roasted.
Bats are a protected animal in Colombia, and if they live in your coffee storehouse, you can’t really make them leave (lol).
Diseases like brown-eye spot disease kills coffee plants and can be prevented with pesticides, which makes the organic label on coffee really tough to get.
Tukawa was quite remote so we nearly resigned ourselves to the fact that we wouldn’t be able to travel out to other destinations in the area like the famed Cocora Valley (home to Colombia’s national palm tree). Looking at a map, it felt impossible to get there using public transportation. We later learned some other travellers from our hostel attempted the epic journey to Cocora Valley using public transportation and described it as 'nightmarish'. Luckily, where there is a will, there is a way. After explaining our dilemma, our host Matt had a much easier solution in mind, and arranged for a local driver to pick us up directly in his 4WD car and take us on a private tour to not only Cocora Valley, but also neighbouring town Salento, and another stop in Filandia on the way home to see the town without the local tourists.
So the next day, our trusty driver, Albierto, drove us directly to Cocora Valley and gave us a great local flavour along the way with his entertaining personal stories growing up between the US and Colombia. It was an epic walk throughout Colombia’s epic towering national trees, rising up to 60m high above the ground. We were so glad to have made the journey to witness them in person, and had a great morning exploring the cool valley before the fog surrounded us on our descent. Stopping in the colourful town of Salento on the way home, we tasted the local trout (although Jelley’s choice of a sweet mango dressing was a bit of a miss), and wandered through the colourful streets. We were stoked to spend our last full day in Colombia here, and happy with our decision to stay out on the Finca (coffee farm) to enjoy the serenity of the countryside.
While we hadn’t been overly inspired with Colombian food along our journey here, one of the last meals we had in Colombia was ceremoniously one of our favourites. It was a home-cooked lunch prepared by a local priest who welcomes visitors into his house in the rural countryside. The house was a little colourful cottage amongst coffee plantations and animals like cacatoos, goats, and whatever local dogs wander in on the day. According to the priest, the menu is made up of an assortment of ‘whatever he feels like’ and we were treated with a delectable assortment of soups, salads, fresh bread, chicken, deserts, and more! We were also joined by a group of other intrepid travellers which always makes an already enjoyable experience 10x better.
Ready to finally say goodbye to Colombia (for now!), we had a well-planned journey from La Zona Cafetera all the way back to Denver, Colorado. However, what would travel be without a few proverbial bumps in the road? The bumps are what make the best stories.
We arrived back at Pereira Airport (still hard to pronounce) and stumbled upon a mammoth queue of people waiting to check-in and what appeared to be a riot of unhappy customers shouting at airport personnel. We couldn’t really work out what was going on, but after 4.5 hours of waiting, confusion, and frustration, we finally made it through the battling crowds to our gate. While waiting to board, we met a Canadian man who kindly filled us in on what the commotion was all about. Apparently, there had been a volcanic eruption nearby and the volcanic ash caused heaps of flight delays and cancellations which is likely what the crowd was protesting. When it finally came time for us to board, the flight crew decided to (kid you not) call each passenger by name up one-by-one to board. It was utter chaos. People were screaming and shoving to get to the front of a mob of people all desperate to get on the plane. We were feeling the pressure, too. We couldn’t miss this flight because we had other non-connecting flights to catch from Bogotá to the US the next day. Jelley took a leap of faith and elbowed her way through the swarms of people who were all pleading to get their tickets scanned in what was a frenzy. Somehow, Jelley got to the front and scanned her boarding pass on the kiosk, but it flashed red! The stewardess informed her that we were actually at the wrong gate (again). It turned out there were 4 concurrent flights to Bogotá with the same airline and all of them had some sort of system failure following the volcanic disruption. The final boarding was being called for our flight at a neighbouring gate and in one last sprint, we checked in and were seated just in time before the aircraft doors were locked. We were so relieved to be in our seats after a wild 6 hours of complete confusion. One last adventure to close out our month of adventures!
We felt lucky to land in Bogota at around midnight, before a quick airport hotel sleep and a very early start back for our next flight. It was a bit of a dramatic ending to our time in the country, where up until this day we had found the transportation networks to be surprisingly efficient, and we were very happy to make it onto our subsequent flights and eventually touch down in Denver.
Some final observations of our time in Colombia that we may not have mentioned yet:
Colombians are extremely proud of their country, and happy to share it with tourists. If you’re ever lost, even if there is a language barrier, a friendly local will always offer to help you find the right direction
The efficiency of public transport in cities far surpasses that in many of the ‘first world’ cities we have experienced. Our experiences were of clean, regular and on time departures and feeling safe.
Some things in Colombia are really confusing that make you go “huh?” But that’s just how things work.
There are so many incredible places in Colombia, it is a very diverse country, and one month was not enough to discover it all. Our list for future trips here keeps growing, and includes epic, harder-to-reach destinations like the Amazon rainforest, San Agustín archaeological site, the San Bernardo Islands and the Pacific coast.
Needless to say, we had a blast in Colombia and loved the experience travelling through this wonderful corner of the world. It has inspired us to return to South America in the future to continue our journey with the Spanish language, and explore more of this beautiful continent.
As we post, we have travelled a considerable distance around the globe, from Denver to Nebraska to Boston to London and now landing in Turkey, over 6,000km from Colombia. We can’t wait to fill you in our highlights from the past few weeks, which have revolved around some very special family and friends.
Until then,
- A Kiwi and A Cali
No need to get out any library books. Your writing is so interesting to read. Did the coffee trees have a coffee perfume so to speak. Love Gran
Can't wait to hear what you guys have to say about Boston!!