My Adventures and Travels

Even though it's Colombia's 2nd biggest city, I had never heard of Medellin until I started my international job hunt. Due to the climate, it was actually my #1 choice for a job (but they didn't pick me!). Medellin used to have a terrible reputation during the 90's due to lots and lots of drug violence and the infamous Pablo Escobar. Now, though, it's a beautiful city and the local paisas are very proud of their city-and they LOVE tourists! On my first day here I took a free city tour, where most of the photos were taken. Many locals said hello, welcome to Medellin! The tour guide explained that Colombians are just so happy that they are now a popular tourist destination, after so many years of violence. As a free plug, the city tour (Real City Tours) was about 5 hours long and it was amazing!! Highly recommended. There is a lot of history in the city, and the locals are none to eager to paint their city in a negative light, so the tour was a good way to learn abou...

I will come right out and say it: I was prepared to dislike Bogota. I'd read that it is huge, dirty, dangerous, and rainy. The first was true-Bogota is enormous! And certainly the last is normally true, but I had great weather. However, it turned out that I really liked Bogota. This had a lot to do with the fact that I stayed with a good friend I worked with last year, and she and her husband showed me around the city. I think finding my way around otherwise would have been overwhelming! With 2-4 of us going to many sites, taking a taxi was quite affordable so I didn't have much experience with public transit. We saw many different highlights: Plaza de Bolivar What would any South American city be without its huge plaza, after all? Paloquemao Market - a popular, huge market selling everything. Fruits, vegetables, housewares, meat (including whole dead animals!), flowers, and more. It was very colorful and fun to look at the foreign fruits they sell. ...

Although Colombia is famous for its beaches, the beaches right around Cartagena are nothing special. I had heard that Playa Blanca was a great day trip or getaway, though so Beau and I went to check it out. After waiting a million hours in the blazing sun we were off on a boat. Some people did a longer boat tour to many places, but we got off at Playa Blanca right away instead. Getting a place to stay was no problem. You can just walk along the beach asking for prices and to see the accommodations. After checking out a few, we picked this little hut. Here's the view. The main activities here are: sitting/lying/reading on the beach, walking along the beach, getting fancy drinks on the beach, and eating and sleeping. There were people going on Jet-ski rides and riding on inflatable things behind boats, and our little hut guy would have loaned us a kayak as well. That's pretty much it! We had a great time, but were pretty glad we only opted to stay one night instead of two...

I started my long vacation in the beautiful city of Cartagena, Colombia. I stayed in the walled city, which is a great place to just walk around and take pictures of the colorful houses and flowers. As a bonus, there were also lots of Christmas lights up. Here are some shots taken around the city. One of the fun outings you can do here is go see the Castillo de San Felipe de Barajas, a fortress built in the 17th and 18th centuries to protect the Spanish from invasions, and it's one fort that has never been overtaken. By this time in the trip friend and coworker Beau had joined me so we checked it out together.  Another fun thing to do in Cartagena is have dinner or a drink on "the wall." It may not look like anything special...  But if you plan your visit around sunset you'll see what the big deal is! Logistics: Travel in Colombia, especially Cartagena, is more expensive than most South American countries, so budget appropri...

I've been slacking lately. :( Somehow the months are just rushing by me! Now, I am hitting the road again! This time for a month in Colombia and a month back in Patagonia. I'm still alive, but not bringing my laptop and not planning on posting until I get back. I promise I will update when I return!

This is the cabin we stayed in. Well, it turns out I took a LOT of pictures of the place, and they didn't all fit in my last post! Here are some photos from our second day. After a leisurely morning drinking coffee and eating breakfast, we walked into the town of Belen. In these little towns, you have to learn how to entertain yourself! We stopped by a tiny craft fair, walked forever looking for the river, talked to a really old lady who spoke mostly Guarani, got some ice cream, walked through the cemetery, and walked through a lot of mud! All in all it was a good day.  The next morning we walked a few kilometers up to Belen. Belen's claim to fame is that the Tropic of Capricorn runs through it! Cemetary This is the guy that crawled out of the lake!