In Cartagena we made a big decision.For weeks we have been vacillating about whether to even go to Venezuela. So many travelers we have met and talked to, who seem quite adventurous, have left Venezuela off their itinerary.Should we be leaving it off too?"Too dangerous" they all say. “You'll get mugged” others say.“You’ll be express kidnapped” (kidnapping until they empty your bank accounts via ATM’s)“But we have al...

T. S. Eliot once famously and concisely wrote, "The journey, not the arrival, matters." Mompos (Sometimes called Mompox), Colombia was all about the journey.Mompos is a little visited, right off the tourist radar, river port. Once it was a thriving and important Port on the Rio Magdalena, where all merchandise crossed to the interior of the country from the coastal port of Cartagena.Mompos is now stranded, physically, because it is on an island between two branch...

'"You must go to Salento!" the Australian backpackers we met in Popayan had said. "There are coffee plantation tours and a beautiful hike in the Valle de Cocora, where you can see hummingbirds". "Salento should be on everyone's list no matter how short their trip" trumpets the Lonely Planet". Well, we had planned to see the Coffee growing landscapes anyway, Colombia being the third largest producer of coffee in the world (after Brazil and Vietnam) and no...

Colombia has had some pretty bad press. There is a 40 year long civil war that is not yet over. Guerrillas, Cocaine, Drug Lords, Coffee and Kidnapping are all emotive words that stain Colombia. But this is NOT the Colombia we are seeing - not yet anyway! The Colombia we are seeing is beautiful, jungle clad mountains, with the deepest of ravines under dark threatening thunder clouds. The Colombia we are seeing has unkempt city outskirts with traffic snarls and bel...

Election Day!We find ourselves stranded for a day longer than planned in a little village, San Andres de Pisimbala (population 800) for Election Day. Hardly anyone apart from Colombians ever visits. Of no small interest is the fact that this area has been closed to tourism for some time, due to its reputation as a guerrilla stronghold and has only just begun to see tourists. There are only two other non-Colombians in town, a Melbourne Author updating for Lonely P...