highway was cleared of rocks—by having a front-end
loader roll large boulders down the hill—causing them
to crash onto the road in front of us. Despite the delay
we arrived–and returned safely.
The second instance involved Cartagena’s Bazurto
Market. We asked the concierge at our hotel in
Cartagena about visiting a local fruit-fish-meatvegetable market. After a moment of hesitation he
mentioned the Mercado Bazurto, but cautioned that
‘tourists’ don’t go there because it’s dangerous—you’ll
get robbed’. His words “we don’t recommend that you
go”, represented the challenge to explore, so we
flagged down a taxi and visited the market. As my
article relates, we found friendly, smiling people and
great photo opportunities.
The Secret of Exploring Colombia
There was no rhyme or reason why we chose to
spend two weeks of our summer holiday in Colombia.
It sounded intriguing and we thought that the
legendary places we would visit- Bogota, Medellin and
Cartagena- were worthy of exploration. The trip was
amazing.
Colonial cities, beautiful small towns,
vibrant, colourful markets, wonderful people, engaging
museums, delicious food and a sense of discovery
every minute of every day. The secret of exploring
Colombia? Just go for it.
After spending a week in Panama, we flew into
Bogota, and almost immediately left for a few days in
Villa de Leyva, via the salt cathedral in Zipaquira and
the town of Chichinquira. We returned to Bogota for
several days before flying to Medellin where we took a
day trip to Guatapé and on another day to Santa Fe
de Antiochia. Finally we flew to Cartagena where we
explored the beach, the old town and the Bazurto
Market, as well as El Totumo, the mud volcano, just
outside of the city.
The museums are also repositories of the secrets to
understanding
Colombia—from
the
amazing
Fernando Botero museums in Bogota and Medellin—
to the gold museums in Bogota and Cartagena. And
there are many small art galleries in all the cities as
well as historic homes, churches, town squares,
artistic and expressive graffiti on buildings and walls,
and impressive scenery just about everywhere.
And then there is the food. Our first meal was at
Mama Lupé’s, just around the corner from Plaza de
Bolivar in Bogota. We took a chance and blindly
ordered the Ajiaco Santafereno (hearty chicken soup
with sweet corn and avocado) and we loved it. At
Carmen in Medellin, the food, service and wine list
was beyond expectation. In Cartagena’s Old Town, El
Bistro features unbelievably great food at surprisingly
affordable prices, in an informal atmosphere.
And there is so much more we would have seen in
Colombia if we had more time. As in all destinations,
it was ultimately the locals with whom we met and
chatted; the smiling faces, the helpful suggestions and
the pride in showing off the bounties of their particular
destination that made this trip so memorable.
Now when I say “just go for it”, I’m not trying to be
pretentious. We hired taxis, took local buses, joined
walking and bicycle tours and generally took the
attitude that one way or another we would see
everything on our list. And sometimes, we had to
think twice. The first instance was our trip to Santa Fe
de Antiochia, where we bought a ticket for the local
bus, and went to the boarding gate, only to find a midsize car, already loaded with a driver and three
passengers, waiting for us. We were told to get in and
we set off for the 90 minute drive,