Ah Santa Marta, the oldest city in Colombia and resting place of Simon Bolivar, the liberator of the majority of South America, it could be so much more than it is. Sadly, most of the colonial charm has been demolished, with its beach full of container ships. Luckily though it's not about Santa Marta, but the surrounding areas, with Tyrona national park (it's on the cover of the lonely planet Colombia) just one example. This could have been a blog about how muc...

Cartagena on the Caribbean coast was the most important port town for colonial Spain in Colombia. All of the gold amassed from the decimated indigenous populations passed through, with pirates frequently attacking as well as the British (Francis Drake) and French. This led to the building of the old town walls as protection and has created a now Unesco world heritage site, with a charming walled city containing narrow streets and brightly coloured colonial buildi...

In the 90s Medellin was one of the most murderous cities in the world. However, during our stay I felt we experienced every dose of Colombian culture, both past and present. Whilst blood was once shed daily, it is now one of the most modern cities we visited in South America. We stayed in the area of El Poblado, here the living is easy. Travellers often say Medellín is one of their favourite cities in South America. In my opinion, what they are actually referr...

We went to Cali on a whim. Rory had watched a documentary on Netflix where they played tejo here (bowling + gunpowder) and that was our reason for going. Logical reasoning... We actually never played the game in Cali having already experienced Rory's new skills in Bogota. However, once there we soon realised we were in the salsa capital. You can dance all day, every day, every night. Our first experience of salsa was arriving to Colombian Home Hostel. We literal...

We had been warned that bus travel in Colombia was a bit interesting, with most of the large cities situated in the middle of valley's accessible only by mountainous windy roads. We therefore decided to book planes to get around. The journey to Salento from Bogota was with Satena airlines (we've all heard of them right) on a two by two seater prop plane. Needless to say my fear of flying wasn't eased after seeing the plane, but with a 40 minute flight rather th...