The final countdown, 10 days in Colombia.

[writing this blog post I realised how much I miss Colombia, we spent such little time there and the people are one of the most welcoming we came across]

Once we had stamped out of Ecuador, we just needed to cross the bridge to the Ipiales checkpoint for Colombia. It involved just crossing a bridge but there were army guys all over the place and barriers, in the end I asked one of them which way to get across and he pointed the way. Once across the bridge we had the easiest immigration crossing ever, managed to get some Colombian pesos at a slightly less rip off rate (the guy later ripped us off on a taxi but it was only $2 extra, we expected that). We got a taxi to Ipiales bus station (arriving 4.15 pm) and arranged our onward travel to our next stop of Popayán. We had a few hours in Ipiales to kill which was exactly what I wanted. We put our bags into storage rather randomly located at the back of a shop and had just under 3 hours before we needed to be back to collect them before the shop closed. Moments later we were in a taxi on our way to the famous Las Lajas Sanctuary….

Our lovely and friendly taxi driver stopped at a Mirador (viewpoint) for us to get our first glimpse of Las Lajas Sanctuary. You can just make it out in this photo, A little tiny speck in the centre. Amazing!

Its build over a narrow gorge, over a site at which the Virgin Mary appeared and some miraculous healing occurred- so some of the stories go anyway. Other than that it is an excellent example of the neo-gothic style.

From Ipiales, the Sanctuary is only 15 mins drive away. Then its about a 10-15 min walk down the gorge to the sanctuary,

Its a well run pilgrimage spot with lots of statues on the way (local saints).

Statue of Manuel Rivera, he was involved in the construction of the second temple on the site- I think anyway, my Spanish has almost disappeared in the 6 months we’ve been back.

Another statue, but check out the dustbin, looks like a little person. Sadly this was the only place we saw them.

Halfway down..

This place is pretty cool…

..on the way down the closer you get to the church (or minor basilica, as it actually is) the more plaques and dedications there are on the walls.

At the top of the gorge there is also a small waterfall, which you can also walk round to.

A statue to the builders of the sanctuary.

The bridge across the gorge is 100m high

Inside the Sanctuary.

View up the valley….

You can get a cable car, we weren’t sure where it ended up.

By the waterfall

See we were here! So cool!

Stained glass on the way to the museum

Inside the lower levels on the way to the museum.

The museum here is surprisingly good, even if your Spanish is terrible.

Having the place almost to ourselves was great but by 5.50pm we were almost the only people left and it was getting dark. Time to head back up to get a taxi back. By some stroke of luck there was one taxi (well collectivo/car share) left and two girls who were waiting for two more people to join them. They had almost given up hope of getting anyone else when the spotted us! So we got a super cheap return journey back to the bus station, got our bags, some dinner and most importantly found a cleaners plug to charge our phones before getting the bus at 9 pm- the recommended Bolivariano bus (60,000 COP/£14.28/$20 for both of us).

Up until recently it was recommended not to travel at night due to holdups, muggings and related nasty business but now it is actually recommended as being the safest way to travel due to limited stops and higher security. Bolivariano was actually the more expensive of the coaches (but had the best reputation). That night turned out to be the worst most terrifying bus journey we had. He was speeding so much we arrived into Popayán over two hours early! It was like being on a rollercoaster. The most horrific bit was probably going to the toilet, apart from having to negotiate the way down the pitch black bus avoiding being catapulted onto someone as we careened around corners, once I did get into the toilet (I should be thankful there was one I suppose) I was faced with one with no cover over the tank so the waste was sloshing up the sides. I’ve never wanted to be a man so much in my life but managed to use it without getting destroyed but nevertheless feeling quite traumatised after it! I barely got any sleep as the driver had music on full blast the whole way and even with earphones you could still hear it. For the last hour I couldn’t work out who was singing though my earplugs but Gav informed me later it was the driver. So at 3.50 am rather unexpectedly we arrived into Popayán. Where luckily there happened to be a taxi there as we seemed to be the only tourists on the bus and everyone else had people there for them. Our home for the few days we were in Popayán was Hotel Krone with our amazing host Bernardo. Who made us feel very welcome despite us showing up in the middle of the night.

So why did we choose to stop in Popayán, a place most travellers we met had never heard of rather than go on to the more vibrant Cali? Well it was for food. Popayán is the first UNESCO city for gastronomy due to the wide variety of different dishes specific to the city  and to the intangible patrimony of Colombian culture. (The Easter Week processions here are also listed as by UNESCO as a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Patrimony of Humanity).

So we settled in to wander about and eat for a few days. After a week of not eating very well in the Galapagos this, for me, was heaven.

For breakfast the following morning we went to a fast food and fruit place. Burgers and fruit- interesting mix. The menu was interesting too- Aphrodisiac juices,,,, I wasn’t going to risk the potential to get naranjilla though.

This was a Lulo juice- when I asked the guy what the flavour was he said it was “sweet with acid”. That was a fair description. Lulo was the Colombian name for Naranjilla. Yuck. Gav drank it…

Juice was a disaster but the fruit salad wasn’t. Breakfast of champions! Fruit salad and ice-cream with cheese and coconut. Yes it had cheese. Not as bad as it sounds actually. (FYI mango and cheese do not go together).

Catedral Basilica Metropolitana and the Clock Tower on the Parque Caldas

Inside the basilica

Suitably intrigued by these Arepas!

I got the very Colombian “arepa hawaiana”, Gav went for the mushroom one. Washed down with Poker Beer.

This was a nut cake- it was very dry unfortunately.

Another beer, Club Colombia.

cheviche with prawns (for Gav)

Chicken with fruit salad and rice. Colombia is great.

Catedral Basilica Metropolitana

View to the Clock tower across the square. The clock from the tower was actually made in England.

Iglesia San José- the first Jesuit church in the city.

Humilladero Bridge..

..connecting the two sides of the city

We also went to the Museo Nacional Guillermo Valencia. He was one of Colombia’s presidents (1962-66), we kinda just wandered in. Interesting place but I think it would have meant more if we had known who he was rather than piecing it together as we went round.

The following day was more eating and we walked to the bus station to arrange out onward travel to Bogotá.

Breakfast in Hotel Krone, probably the best breakfast we had in South America

San Francisco church

Other bloggers have moaned about the animalistic tendencies of the bus company employees behind glass screaming to get your attention. Honestly not that bad by any stretch of the imagination. Again we went with Bolivariano Bus- I was hoping this ride would be better….

Back into town and this was the Teatro Guillermo Valencia

Juan Valdez Cafe- a Colombian coffee chain- like Costa but much nicer.

From a lovely street vendor- A virgin Margarita- I could have drank these all day, delicious!

A stray dog (or regular dog) feeding and watering station.

Empanaditas de pipian (with spicy dip), we grabbed these in a little cafe called La Fresa.

Iglesia Santo Domingo

Menu at Mora Castilla (a bit touristy but actually really good- we tried some of these items elsewhere and this was better than others)

Gav went for Champus (corn, lulo, pineapple sweetended with sugar cane syrup (panela)), I went for Salpicón Payanes (blackberry, lulo and guava smoothie). The plate was a sort of poppadom called Carantana con Hogao.

Patacón con queso- flattened fried plantain with cheese

Tamal de Pipián – aged dough filled with pureed potatoes, homemade tomato sauce and peanuts).

Hervido – a traditional hot drink from Nariño made with fruit pulp and aguardiente (alcohol)

Popayán is great fun to walk about, as elsewhere in South America it has the narrow streets in colonial style and the people are extremely friendly. English is not widely spoken though outside the larger cities. We felt quite safe here but we did take care where to stick to the historic centre.

Cake!

This was a sort of spiced rice pudding. It was quite pleasant but sweet, took a few goes to eat it all.

They recommend you go to the tourist office when you arrive-which we did (not that we made much use of them elsewhere) and the lovely young army chap gave us a map of the area and recommended we check out a place for Aplanchados. We did go check them out but they were a sort of dry sugary pastry that the locals adore but we weren’t fans.

The following evening we were due to leave for Bogotá so we had one almost full day in Popayán. We decided to check out the Natural History Museum (really interesting collection there).

Museo de Historia Natural..

..it had an excellent taxidermy collection in addition to a large amount of pre-Colombian artifacts.

We popped into a place called Sabores del Mar (this was for Gav, the strong fish smell was too much for me), Gav had a two course soup and main, the main was Toyo (a type of shark).

This was a sort of fruit salad drink (and more cake- we seemed to have a lot of cake here!)

They love this in Colombia, its a non-alcoholic malt drink. I didn’t care for it. Full of vitamins though.

Mora juice and Champús

Champús- tasted like citusy christmas: containing crushed maize with panela, lulo, pineapple, cinnamon, cloves and orange tree leaves.

Helados de Paila. a sorbet made by pouring fruit juice into a copper pan cooled by ice. (I’m unclear as to whether there are other ingredients such as egg white used).

Back through the main square, Parque Caldas to our hotel to wait for the taxi to the station.

We also picked up some bit for the bus that evening.

The bus left at 8 pm (ended up being a Fronteras bus-cost of travel was 194,000 COP/£46/$69) but luckily it was a very uneventful journey and 12 hours later we arrived into the Main Bus station in Bogotá. After a quick freshen up and chill out in our room we went off to explore the historic La Candalaria district of downtown Bogotá, get our bearings etc.

Gav had a guy pretty much sleeping on his lap right up to when the bus pulled into the station. Everyone else had been awake for ages.

This roundabout looked like something out of Independence Day.

The bus station filled with tasty treats.

We had a massive lunch of BBQ beef, pork and chicken and chips, beer and pineapple and mint juice. We didn’t need to eat again after this.

We were staying in a place called Hostal Yepeto (they gave us breakfast while we waited for our room-lovely people!). There was a shop down at the corner where they had these….

.. fig and dulce de leche. Amazingly good!

The following morning after another lovely breakfast with the friendly ladies at our hostel we headed for Cerro Monserrate and then in the afternoon we checked out the Museo de Oro all the while taking in the amazing street art that the city had to offer. You could even do a street art tour if you wanted to.

Around La Candelaria there were little people hidden on rooftops, balconies by one of the many artist in the city. There was a game you could play to see if you could find them all. In the end I think we spotted 5 or 6 of them.

To get to the Cerro Monserrate, the options were normally funicular railway or cable car- since we had been on quite a few funiculars we fancied the cable car but alas that day it wasn’t running.

View was great from the top…

…when asked to smile, damn it Gav!

I think this is Iglesia del Carmen

It was a popular pilgrimage spot too.

Complete with rather graphic tortured Jesus.

Better 🙂

And back down the mountain we go.

Arepas.

Museo de Oro

Gav heading to the vault

I actually really liked this Museum but it was quite rambley.

Like any international city you can get all sorts of food- this was Lebanese.

A cheeky beer at the Bogota Beer Company. Great spot.

So it was now Sunday, which rather handily in Colombia is also the day the museums are free so we tried to make the most of it. First by going to the Military Museum, as luck would have it we were the first in the door so we got some special attention from the general in charge. He was great. We had noticed that there were lots of army out (the closer we got to the centre the more we saw. We asked the general why this was and he laughed and said that Colombians feel safer when they can see army and security services about. So there was nothing going on it was all normal Anyway as we were in the area we also checked out the  main government buildings such as the Capitolio Nacional….

Into the military museum, it had a really good exhibition on the Narcos war but alas it was all in Spanish so we were limited in what we could read.

All the different flags of Colombia over the years.

The general was telling Gav about all the guns and then “do you want to try sir?”. So Gav got to play with it. That wasn’t the last of them either there were another 2-3 he got to hold too.

We continued on to the main square…

The Plaza de Bolívar.

Plaza de Bolívar.

Capilla Del Sagrario

From the Plaza de Bolívar we continued to walk down by the Capitolio Nacional. The area was surrounded by army and police and everyone had their bags checked. I went to take a picture through the bars and got told off by one of the guards. He took my phone off me and then started telling me where to stand for photos…

.. then Gav was told to get in. Colombians are great.

We spotted a cart selling these. I’m still not sure what they are like a coffee marshmallow..

..Gav managed to eat it, I gave up.

More tasty treats-we tried these the following day.

Another hidden statue.

In case you thought Bogotá was warm it wasn’t. It has some sort of micro-climate so it is mostly cold (ish) and wet, its also at a relatively high altitude  as the third highest capital in South America.

We had one full day left and despite the constant threat of rain we had only one chance to do the Bike Tour of Bogotá, we had heard great things about this so we really didn’t want to miss it.

Ready for our biking tour of Bogota.

Our guide buying some treats for us…

.. big bottomed ants. Tasted like sour nuts, In addition we got the full history of the square including being told which ones Pablo Escobar attacked.

The national game of Colombia, Tejo- an angled clay board with a circle of paper triangles filled with gun powder. The aim is to throw a weight into the centre and have it stick without bursting any of the triangles. ..

…Gav having a go.

I was awful at it.

..there would be teams playing back to back across the room- it gets very noisy!

Fruit tasting! We got to try: cape gooseberry, soursop, starfruit, tree tomato, lulo (kiwi like as a fruit, actually quite nice), papaya, tiny banana, guyabana, passionfruit, avocado (with salt)

We passed through some heavily graffitied areas where local artists try out ideas.

Father and son pimped bikes, complete with boombox. Brilliant.

Street sculpture by Fernando Botero

The tour lasted around 3-4 hours and involved a tour of the city’s red light district which was incredibly grim

….lots of strung out people and ladies from teen up with their pimps. All the girls had to stay at the front of the group just in case. We had a few addicts near where we were staying but they were mostly asleep during the day. Legacy of the cocaine wars here.

Our last stop was a local coffee roaster..

Most Colombian coffee is sent abroad leaving only the crap stuff, so this place has probably one of the best coffees in the city.

Gav cappuccino, me Coffee- de los dios- with cardamom and condensed milk)

Memorial to the victims of the drug war. There is also a film http://lifeissacred-film.com/

The tour ended where it started back in La Candelaria so we decided to do one last thing here. A visit to the Museo Botero.

Tourist trap for tea (but it did have good reviews- La Puerta Falsa: From the back clockwise: Ajiacho, Chocolate completo and Tamales..

The chocolate came with cheese (to melt in the chocolate) and bread. The star was the Ajiacho, a chicken soup. Lovely. I also had a Soursop juice, Gav’s was some other juice in milk- tasted like a mix of citrus and coffee. Soursop juice is amazing.

We went next door for dessert- a peanut caramel thing.

This was a blob of jam in icing sugar..

..or thats the closest decription. Blackberry (mora) flavour. Nice to try but I wouldn’t have it again,

We had a fantastic few days in Colombia and would have really loved to have spent more time here, but we got a taste of it and will be back, we still have Cali, Medellín, Cartagena, San Agustín, the emerald mines, coffee growing area, Colombian Amazon….so much stuff left to see!

Early the following morning we were off to the airport for our final destination Havana, Cuba for a family holiday before we headed back to the UK. So this is my final destination post the next two posts will be a video and wrap up post!