Any misgivings we had were very quickly dissolved as we were greeted at Medellin airport by some very warm & friendly people (even the taxi drivers were pleasant!), & as we took the 45 minute journey across the Andes from the airport to the city, it became ever more apparent that the Colombia of today is not the Colombia we had imagined. Medellin is a city set in possibly one the most attractive settings we have seen so far on this trip, set in the base of an Andean valley at around 1,500m above sea level, dissected North/South by the River Medellin - it is a stunning sight as you cross the summit of the surrounding mountains at either day or night & take in the panoramic views as you descend the valley into the city.
Medellin is known by most as the city that the infamous drug baron Pablo Escobar & his notorious drugs cartel called home in the '80's & '90's - however since his death in '93, & with gradual poltical stability being regained, the government has made a lot of effort to revitalise the city. Medellin now has a very modern public transport system, including 2 cable cars that link directly into the metro stations, linking the once isolated, dangerous & poverty stricken areas of the city up the valley walls with the main city centre, enabling better access for jobs etc to the communities of these areas. There are now numerous art & culture galleries in the city - with a paricular bias to the Colombian artist 'Botero' - an artist who focus'on the fuller figure, there are now many sculptures & paintings around the main cultural centre.
Medellin also has modern shopping malls like any European city, & a very affluent & modern district called El Poblado - the area where our hostel was.
Hostel Tamarindo was a very nice, modern homely hostel run by a Colombian American girl called Natalie, who spoke perfect English & was able to provide us with lots of useful local information. Natalie even took the 3 of us out one night to a great sushi restuarant & onto a real Colombian locals live salsa club, where we were 3 of only about 5 non Colombians in there. The club was great - small, dark, overcrowded, hot & loud with a really cool live band playing a sort of street salsa. I have to say the locals somewhat put us stiff Brits to shame in the dancing area...not that we actually humiliated ourselves by attempting to dance that night, but needless to say there was some pretty smooth moves going on. It was quite funny to see the cultural difference that they have here, where groups of friends would take it turn to dance one on one with each other some up close & steamy routines...can't quite imagine our groups of mates doing the same thing down the pub back home!
After about 4 days in Medellin we flew to the Carribean coastal city of Cartagena - a UNESCO world heritage site for it's beautifully preserved colonial walled city & fortress'. Cartagena is the one area of Colombia where tourism has actually remained fairly active during the years that the majority of the rest of the country was considered off limits...and unfortunately it shows. In the exact opposite of the way things were in Medellin, where we could freely walk the streets & blend into the cosmopolitan city life quite easily without being hassled at all, as soon as we got to Cartagena there were hustlers on us trying to scam us, 'assist' us with our search for hostels, bars, restuarants (for a very reasonable financial contribution naturally...), not to mention the abundance of tour guides who all seemed to double up as drug dealers, living up to the Colombian stereotype. Literally within the first hour of walking the streets we were offered all manner of drugs at least 10 times by 10 different people. An image that the rest of the country seems to be trying hard to dispel, in Cartagena the simple economics of supply & demand still remains the easiest way to a fast buck.
That said, Caragena was actually quite nice, ridiculously hot again - humidity like you wouldn't believe (averages 90% apparently), as soon as you are out of the shower & dressed you need another shower again. Claire & I both had pretty bad colds while we here (fortunately not swine flu!), so with the added discomfort of the heat we took it as our cue to do very little for the few days we were here - with the exception of a couple of nights out, the main night being at 'Havana Cafe' - which as the name suggests was a Cuban styled bar that specialised in Rum, Mojitos & live music. Needless to say, we all thought better of taking to the dancefloor in fear of upstaging the locals...Leanne on the other hand was up for some more adventure, & decided on our last full day in Cartagena to hit the beach. Unfortunately the beach on the mainland is not particularly pleasant, so it involves a boat ride out to an island to get to the quintessential Caribbean white sand beach of Playa Blanca. True to form as per all the other hustlers in Cartagena, getting a straight answer out of anyone running boat trips about whether they actually go to where you want to go is not an easy process - favouring to tell you what they think you want you want to hear, regardless of whether it's true or not just to get your cash & on board their boat heading to wherever they may be going. This coupled with Leanne's basic grasp of Spanish, the combination resulted in her being taken to an aquarium on the wrong island in a boat full of Colombians, none of whom spoke any English to assist with her plight. When Leanne's irrate English-women rantings finally got her message across, they did eventually take her to Playa Blanca, by which point the sun had gone in & a tropical rainstorm had kicked off...the tan didn't exactly get much of a topping up that day!
Feeling not entirely displeased to be leaving Cartagena - keen to get back to a city atmosphere, we jumped on another flight down to Bogota. Without wishing to sound like heathen, part of the reason we had something of a lack of affinity with Cartagena was down to a case of Colonial fatigue. Whilst all these places in isolation are very spectacular, we had visited quite a number of Latin American picturesque Colonial towns in a relatively short period of time prior to getting here, & you do get a bit tired of the same sort of theme. That, & the scamming, thieving scum bags that prey on the area of course (though to be fair we did also meet some very nice locals there as well).
So we arrived in Bogota, a city also in a rather spectacular setting high in the Andes. At 2650m above sea level it is the third highest capital city in the world behind only Quito (Ecuador) & La Paz (Bolivia). We had found a new hostel on line that boasted an on site bar, daily BBQ's, & all the usual trimmings we have become accustomed to (...a bunk bed, a bathroom, breakfast - the usual 5 star luxuries...) located in the historical old town area - or la Candelaria, the hostel was called 'Destino Nomada' for any of you planning a trip to Bogota soon. It certainly lived up to it's own hype, & in many ways surpassed it. The guys that own & run it are 20/30 somethings who have all been backpackers in the recent past & have basically pulled together their idea of the perfect hostel - which it pretty much was really. The afternoon we arrived, Colombia were playing Argentina in a world cup qualifying match, for which all the locals were fired up for, ready to throw a huge party if Colombia were to win as it had been a number of years since Colombia had beaten Argentina in a football match. We all piled into the on site bar, a good mix of travellers & locals, & proceeded to get stuck into the local brew & cheer on our new favourite team. As promised, BBQ'd burgers & chicken wings were served up at half time & things were shaping up nicely, Colombia looking fairly dominant in the match. Then Argentina scored & Colombia were not able to pull it back. Major city party cancelled, we decided to carry on & make our own party anyway. We made our way out into the city to meet up with an acquaintance of Leanne's - who Claire & I are not actually convinced exists, because after arranging a time & place for us to wait around for him on some dodgy street corner in the Bogota equivalent of Shoreditch, the loser never actually showed. So after looking into a few bars we decided there was as much, if not more fun, to be had back at our onsite bar in the hostel with our new found friends, where we had a really funny mini party through to the following morning.We were only in Bogota for 3 days which was a real shame in the end as it is a great city but takes at least a few days to come around to that way of thinking ie it is so sprawling, you need to experience some of the different areas to get a feel for it properly and that can take a good few days.
There are also some good sights to see just out of the city which we were pushed for time to see however, Claire managed to visit a place called Zipaquira, about 30km away, to see the infamous ´Salt Cathedral´. 
There is a working salt mine there where many years ago the miners built a cathedral within it but it was destroyed in the 1990´s. The miners got together with Architects to design another that is now a key tourist attraction however mining is still a huge part of the community but it is now done in the evening approx. 1000ft away from the Cathedral to avoid disturbing the visitors. It is very impressive!! Huge grand columns, simply designed with lit crosses, quite a feat of engineering.
There is a working salt mine there where many years ago the miners built a cathedral within it but it was destroyed in the 1990´s. The miners got together with Architects to design another that is now a key tourist attraction however mining is still a huge part of the community but it is now done in the evening approx. 1000ft away from the Cathedral to avoid disturbing the visitors. It is very impressive!! Huge grand columns, simply designed with lit crosses, quite a feat of engineering.
We had been told in advance that the journey through the countryside between Bogota and Medellin is absolutely stunning and so we took a bus on this leg... 9 hours of amazing countryside dotted with small villages. We only wished that we had taken more buses intead of planes and spend much more time here... definetely a place to come back to and explore more.We then had another flight booked for Quito, Ecuador but had a few problems trying to get out of the country.... we had changed the dates of the LAN flight but LAN had only changed 2 of the flights... Claire was booked on a different flight that had departed 4 days earlier! After a couple of hours of discussions about our ´fully flexible´tickets, they conceded they had made a mistake and could have simply changed the date of Claire´s flight ... by this time however, the gate had closed and they refused to let us board.... 24 hours later after a night in a not so nice town called Rionegro, close to the airport, we eventually left Colombia & flew to Quito!
