Rivers, deeps, mountains, highs: first steps on our Colombian Christmas itinerary
Four and a bit weeks in Colombia sounds like a lot of time, until you discover how much this incredible country has to offer.
For a start, it’s twice the size of France (which is four times the size of the UK) and one of Earth’s 17 megadiverse countries that are home to the majority of Earth’s species and high numbers of endemic species. You can’t just go to the Amazon or the Caribbean and say you’ve ‘done’ Colombia. And to think, our original plan took us to The Galapagos as well.
Each of Colombia’s diverse regions has its own culture and a capital city that reflects it. The only universal recommendation seems to be that you should get out of Bogota, the capital, as fast as you can because it’s simultaneously quite dangerous and quite dull. The rolos might disagree.
So here are five things we’ve chatted about for our itinerary. This is not exhaustive list.
1 The Amazon: three countries and monkeys. It’s the mother of all rivers in the heart of the world’s greatest rainforest, and the capital of Amazonian Colombia is a city in three countries. Leticia isn’t just a chavvy-sounding name, it’s the regional capital of Amazonas, where you can cross bridges into the Brazilian city of Tabatinga or Peru’s Santa Rosa.
You can board lazy boats up and downstream, but we’re hoping to go via Isla de los Micos (oh yeah, Monkey frickin’ Island!) to the Yoi Eco Lodge on the Amacayacu river, which is run by members of the indigenous Ticuna tribe from nearby San Martin. It sounds like a great place to get into the river and the rainforest with people who truly know it, and make sure our money stays in the local community.
2 Festivals: so many to choose from. It seems wrong to go to Colombia without taking in a Latin festival, so which one? Wikipedia list a bewildering 25 festivals in Colombia during December and January, but Rove.me lists two highlights: Feria de Cali from Christmas Day to New Year’s Eve, and the Carnival of Blacks and Whites in Pasto in early January. Cali sounds wonderful although I can’t dance for shit, while Pasto’s carnival is one of the most ancient in Latin America and celebrates the liberation of black slaves (among other things). Then there’s the Carnival of Riosucio, or Carnival of the Devil, which only happens every two years and is on in 2019 — although apparently it’s impossible to find accommodation in the small town.
We could probably spend the whole four weeks going to carnivals, but maybe that’s something for another trip. In reality, although most carnivals are a week long they have one key day, and neither of us are going to stick around for the bullfighting that’s still endemic.
3 La Ciudad Perdida: Colombia’s Machu Picchu? The Lost City trail seems to be becoming Colombia’s answer to Machu Picchu, although with the crippling high-altitude climb replaced by a sweltering jungle trek. You start and end in the colonial city of Cartagena, which looks worth a stop, hiking for three or four days through the jungle to the thousand-year-old city abandoned when the Spanish drove the indigenous people back to the Sierra Nevada mountains and to near-extinction. On the way you cross rivers and swim in spectacular waterfalls, and it’s close to the Caribbean coast for chilling out afterwards.
The only danger of spending a week on this is that’s two weeks of rainforest if we also spend time in Amazonas…
4 Scuba and surfing: west-side vs north-side. Sharon loves surfing, or at least the thrill of trying to stay on a surfboard and being in the water. I’ve done just enough diving now that I’m comfortable with the potential deathiness of getting the technical side wrong that I can enjoy the incredible sensation of flying under the sea. Colombia, naturally, doesn’t just have one great place to do these things.
The Caribbean has the clear waters and coral reefs you’d expect, and you can choose from coastal beaches like Playa Blanca and Taganga, or head for the islands of San Andres or Providencia, which has the world’s third-largest barrier reef. They’re a bit of a detour, but then you have to fly everywhere to get anywhere in Colombia, I’m told. It looks like we’re going at the best time for the Caribbean coast.
The Pacific coast is almost undeveloped and looks like it would be incredible even by Colombian standards. It’s probably a great place to surf, or at least spend a lot of time splashing about in huge waves, but the prime time is apparently April to December. The diving is world class, too, with places like Malpelo Island, famous for hammerhead and silky sharks, and even humpback whales — but open water diving in strong currents might be pushing my comfort zone, and it would most likely need an expensive and time-consuming liveaboard trip. One day.
5 Medellin, Guatape and hippos. It would be rude to visit Colombia without stopping in Medellin, not least because we were sold on spending the whole trip in Colombia by Catalina, Sharon’s paisa colleague.
Medellin is famously the cultural capital of Colombia, and the climate’s a lot less intense than the Amazon or the Caribbean coast. We’ve been assured that it’s a lot less murdery and kidnappy than it was in the narco era, although I would like to see the hippos and other animals which are thriving after they escaped from Pablo Escobar’s zoo.
I’d also like to see Guatape, a lakeside town near Medellin (I think near might be a relative term in Colombia). It just sounds like a cool place to have on my travel resume, and while I’m not crazy about bridge-jumping, I do like the sound of Colombia’s longest zipline.
And the rest? All of this doesn’t include items on every list of Colombian must-sees, like the Coffee Region (a whole region missed?!), the Salt Cathedral of Zipaquirá, or Totumo Mud Volcano. It’s going to be a busy month.
