Colombia

For the last few days I've been meaning to write a post about how much Colombia rules. I just haven't been able to find the time. I spent all morning sorting out fraud on both my bank cards. They're now both shut down and I haven't got much money left. Damn Ecuadorians. Good thing I've only a few days left.

I can't really remember where I left off -- the bull attack in Salento I believe? From Salento I went to Medellin, the city famous for cocaine, bombings and of course, Pablo Escobar. Those days, however, are long gone -- I found Medellin to be one of the nicest, cleanest, safest and most modern cities in South America (expensive too). The highlight of Medellin was an Atletico Nacional soccer game. It was the most terrifying yet fun sporting event I've ever been to. We sat in the popular section with all the mega fans. Basically a mob of teenage boys -- the testosterone was thick in the air. The air was also thick with Marijuana smoke, everybody was smoking; you could see the cloud of weed smoke hovering over the stadium the entire game. The popular section essentially has no seats; everyone stands the whole game. They also sing songs the whole game, my favorite one went something like this (in Spanish of course): "we're high on pot, we're drunk and afterward we are gonna fight with the police." Awesome. It was a hostile environment, we were all pretty terrified and every time a goal was scored the fans would rush forward and jump on top of each other. We did end up making out of the game unscathed. Two days later I saw on the news that 50 people were stabbed in a game in Cali...

From Medellin I went straight to Cartegena, probably the most famous city in Colombia. It's great -- really -- beautiful and all that, but I found it a bit boring so I headed to Santa Marta and left for Cuidad Perdida. Cuidad Perdida was built by the Tairona Indians around 800AD about 650 years before Machu Picchu. It wasn't discovered until 1975 and the only way to reach the place is a 6 day hike through the jungle (3 days there, 3 days back). Until recently, the area has been somewhat unsafe due to FARC activity (the last tourists were kidnapped in 2003) but the area now has an intense military presence and seems to be relatively safe. The hike itself was amazing. Half the time I felt like I was in a Indiana Jones film and the other half I felt like I was in a Vietnam flick. The city is pretty wicked too. It's definitely not as grand as Machu Picchu but like Machu Picchu it is in remarkable condition. And since you have to hike 6 days to see the thing there are essentially no tourists there. Basically, we had the whole place to ourselves (and, of course, the military). The military added a nice touch though. It was great fun talking to these guys. They were so enthused to have people up there to talk to. They were basically all kids. And like any kids given big machine guns and other weapons they were more then happy to show them off. It was the first time in months that I regretted not having a camera -- everyone got great pics of them holding big ass machine guns and I got nothing. It was interesting none the less. They even showed us how to use a mortar.

After Cuidad Perdida I headed to Tayrona park and chilled on the beach for four days. It's one of the most beautiful parks I've ever seen and it definitely has the nicest beaches I've been too(granted before South America the only beaches I've seen have been on Long Island).

Colombia is safe. It's definitely safer than Ecuador. People here are also some of the friendliest people on the continent. They see far less tourists than many other South America countries so many people are very happy to have you here. When people come up to you speaking English in other South American countries they want something. Here, they just want to talk to you, ask if you need anything and welcome you to Colombia. The amount of military and police in Colombia is immense and could easily put you off. I've been searched more in Colombia in one month than 25 years in the States. But because of the searches the country is safe for travel again. It gets annoying, and there is no way I'd put up with it in the States, but they've got much more shit to deal with than us.

I'm back Thursday morning. Looking forward to seeing you all....

Hugo Chavez is a fucking idiot

As most of you probably don´t know Venezuela and Ecuador have amassed troops on the Colombian border. They claim that while conducting a raid against FARC, Colombia flew into Ecuadorian airspace. Thus, troops were sent to Colombia´s borders to send a message or whatever. It´s all a bit silly and stupid. I´m glad I´ve got no more borders to cross.

I arrived in Salento, Colombia yesterday only to sit in amazement as nine people told me about how they were attacked by a bull. This region of Colombia is known as the coffee growing region. It´s a beautiful area of lush green hills, banana trees and coffee plantations. They also breed bullfighting bulls in the area and one of then escaped it´s pen yesterday. The bull happened across nine tourists taking a walk in the nearby hills and proceeded to tear them apart. Seriously, it was one of the most surreal stories I´ve ever heard. Five people were directly attacked by the bull and sent top the hospital. The others had to sit and watch in horror as their friends were being thrown into the air by the bull. A seventy year old man among them was gored, lost his glasses and spent two hours in a tree too terrified to climb down. I almost arrived in Salento one day before and no doubt I would have gone on the walk with them. I´m so glad I decided to stay and extra day in Cali...Anyway, no one was seriously injured -- just a bunch of stitches, bruises and perhaps, some mental scars. And of course the bull was not put down, it did exactly what it was bread to do: tear shit up. Ridiculous.


I´m off to the Caribbean soon enough. Then to Bogota. I´ll be back in three weeks. Can´t wait to see everybody...