Tuesday 27 August - Wednesday 4 September Bogota, Colombia A very early morning arrival, meant we even beat the sun to Bogota - so a little coffee assisted breather at the station and into a non-negotiable cab and we arrived at our aptly named hostel (Cranky Croc) waaaaaay before check in time. No room ready, funny that, so we were shown to the frosty lounge where we could curl up and rest for a few hours, aided by the supply of bottomless coffee.....luckil...

Saturday 24 August - Monday 26 August Salento, Colombia Although Salento is still part of the coffee region, our choice to stop off here was not to see and taste more beans but to get a glimpse of country life and hike through the Valle de Cocora, where they have the tallest palm trees in the world. So another local bus trip south from Manizales through Perreira to Armenia and a change of buses to get to Salento from there. No fuss other than an industrial ...

Thursday 22 August - Saturday 24 August Zona Cafetera - Manizales, Colombia Okay, now I know I keep on mentioning how hectic some of our bus rides have been, but I don't think anything can top the minibus ride we had to endure from Medellin to Manizales. The young macho bus driver with a huge scar cut across his face to his ear was in a major hurry to get there, which meant speeding whilst overtaking trucks, buses, motorbikes and the occasional donkey at th...

Tuesday 20 August - Wednesday 21 August Guatape, Colombia So with our big city fix suitably quenched, we headed off to the picturesque weekend getaway for Medellinians........Guatape and the big rock El Penol or 'La Piedra' as its come to be known. We'd booked into a lakeside hostel called El Encuentro just on the outskirts of town and arrived just before sunset. Simply put.....a nice time to arrive. We were so full from the lunch time pig-out (an obscenely...

Friday 16 August - Monday 19 August Medellin, Colombia Another overnight bus journey via Bucaramanga brought us to the sprawling city of Medellin, nestled comfortably in a valley flanked by two mountains, infamous for it's hosting of drug lord Pablo Escobar, who met his bloody demise in '94 whilst fleeing police across the rooftops of Medellin. But the less said about him the better, because, as pointed out by our city tour guide, whose name was also Pablo,...