Colombia Dec 22 – Jan 23

Santa Marta

Next up on our travels, after a fast, furious and bumpy sail via Aruba, we arrived in Colombia. We began our South American travels in Santa Marta, Colombia’s oldest city, which is fringed by tropical beaches and backed by the stunning, snow topped Sierra Nevada. Here we caught up with kid boat friends on SV Amani, SV Cinnamon and SV Miles Away and spent a few days exploring the city.

Bogota

Having left Mowzer in a marina in Santa Marta we flew inland for some land travel. First stop, Bogota, Colombia’s banging capital. Here highlights included breakfasting on the traditional cheese, hot chocolate and tamales at La Falsa Restaurant, the exquisite Gold Museum, acquiring some dodgy haircuts, watching the World Cup final, taking a funicular to Mount Monserrate at over 3000m elevation, and exploring the city’s closed roads for Ciclovia.

Leticia

From Bogota we took a two-hour flight across hundreds of miles of dense rainforests to Leticia, located on the Amazon River, where Colombia meets Peru and Brazil. Here we spent an epic day in the jungle canopy, ziplining through ancient trees at Omegua nature reserve.

Amazon

From Leticia, we took a two-hour boat ride up the Amazon to Puerto Narino, a small community, mostly from the indigenous Ticuna community. Day one of our stay here saw us visiting Friar Hector and his neighbouring troop of greedy capuchins.

Amazon Jungle at Night

One of our Amazon highlights was a night-hike, with our guide, Sebastian, to find wild critters in the jungle. We spotted praying mantises, enormous tarantulas and our favourites, the poison dart frogs, one of which was carrying it’s tadpoles on it’s back!

Rio Amazonas

We spent a day on the Rio Amazonas on a peque-peque, a low-slung wooden boat. We navigated 4km up the Loretyacu River, through the Ramsar biosphere reserve to Lago Tarapoto, a stunning jungle lake. Here we were lucky to spot the Amazon river dolphin or boto, a pink species of toothless whale, and the Tucuxi, another species of freshwater dolphin that lives alongside its pink cousins

Amazonas Peru

For our third day in the Amazon, we crossed the river to Isla Cacoa in Peru, and visited the community of San Antonio. Here we met an inquisitive capybara called Bebe and hiked through the floodplain forest where we spotted several three-toed sloths. Other highlights included visiting some ancient trees and giant water lilies, spotting some wonderfully bizarre birdlife, treading carefully amongst armies of leaf-cutter ants and a swarm of wasps.

Ticuna Community

For our final day in the Amazon our guide Sebastian, took us an hour down river to visit his adoptive family in Amacayacu a local Ticuna community. Here we watched part of a coming-of-age ritual known as the Pelazon and drank masato, a jungle beer made from fermented yucca. We helped collect fire wood for the community and Barnaby went fishing and caught his lunch. Later, we all learnt how to make natural dyes and made some souvenirs.

Salento

From Puerto Nariño we took a two-hour boat trip back to Leticia where we flew to Bogota and then on to Pereira, which was followed by a bus trip to our final destination, Salento.
Salento, in Zona Cafetera, is a small town at 2000m altitude, set amongst gorgeous green mountains and coffee plantations in the Andean mountains.
Here we hiked to the neighbouring Corcora Valley, visited a plantation to learn about coffee production, rode in the back of Willy jeeps, swam in chilly waterfalls at Santa Rita, spent a day down-hill mountain biking and, best of all, we learnt to play Tejo.

Tejo is considered the Colombian national sport and has been described as being like lawn bowls on steroids or like badminton using hand grenades. Players take turns to lob steel discs down an alley towards a clay pit containing paper wrapped triangular targets, each containing gunpowder. Points are awarded for detonating the most explosives. We all had a blast!

Medellin

Next up on our tour of Colombia was the city of Medellin, previously dubbed ‘the world’s most dangerous city’. In the 1980’s, under the control of Pablo Escabar and his violent cartels, Medellin became the capital of the world’s cocaine trade. Since Escabar’s death in 1993, the city has undergone an impressive transformation and now is a hub for digital nomads and tourism.

We arrived in Medellin late on Christmas Eve and checked into a fancy hotel to compensate for spending the festive period away from family and friends. Here we feasted on the buffet breakfast before exploring the El Poblabo district and took in Medellin’s impressive Christmas lights, named by National Geographic as being some of the best in the world.

We rode the Metrocable high above the rooftops of the barrios and visited Parque Arvi, a nature reserve and Pre-Hispanic archaeological site set at 2600m elevation.

After moving to an Air BnB in gorgeously green Laureles, we went on to take in the awesome Explora Science Museum (think the Science Museum in London on steroids and without the crowds).

We also toured the Museo de Antioquia which houses a large collection of sculptures by Medellín native Fernando Botero. We hiked to El Cerro de Moravia – once the city’s rubbish dump and a shanty town which has recently been transformed into a flower filled hillside and model urban centre. In the Botanical Gardens we visited an incredible butterfly garden and ran into some enormous, and very handsome iguanas.

The highlight of our time in Medellin was a tour of La Communa 13; once the most dangerous neighbourhood in the world’s most dangerous city. The community has re-invented itself as a vibrant district, awash with murals and graffiti, cool bars, galleries and hang-outs, with spectacular views over the rest of the city.

Cartagena

From Medellin, we flew back to Mowzer in Santa Marta and celebrated the New Year with cruising friends. After a few days reprovisioning, we sailed South to Puerto Valero for an overnight stop and then onto Cartagena. We LOVED everything about Cartagena. It is undisputedly Colombia’s most beautiful city. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Old Town lies within 13km of centuries old colonial stone walls. We were fortunate to be able to anchor Mowzer in the heart of the Getsemini, off Club de Pesca, and in view of the 16th century walls built to protect the city after a siege by Sir Francis Drake. Highlights in Cartagena included a visit to the Naval Museum, walking the streets of picturesque El Centro, mural spotting in Getsemeni, and getting lost in the tunnels of the mighty Castollo San Felipe.