Raw Hide!!

Of all the countries we´ve visited on this trip, none is as much maligned, especially by those who have never visited, as Colombia. Government websites advise against travel, news stories focus on kidnappings and guerilla warfare and National Geographic Channel is still fond of the odd documentary about the exploits of the Medellin and Cali Cocaine Cartels of the 1980s and 90s (I should know - I worked on one less than two years ago).


That´s not to say that Colombia doesn´t play a little on its famous bad boys - the National Police Museum in Bogota is well worth a visit for its exhibition on the escape and capture of Pablo Escobar and includes such items as Pablo´s personal pager (he was the first to have one in South America - very high tec for the 1980s), his police radio for spying in on the opposition, the jacket he was shot in and even the bloodstained tile from the rooftop he was killed on.

Medellin is still a gangland city, only these days the violence is orchestrated by paramilitary groups connected to the government rather than Pablo.

As a tourist wandering through the city centre´s Botero (Colombia´s most famous artist) sculpture park, you would honestly never know these problems even existed; as a rationalist, you could easily compare them to gang problems in Philadelphia or LA, and yet that hardly stops people from visiting the USA. The reality is that Colombia is safer than ever, and as we passed through Bogota (like London in Autumn - freezing cold, a bit grey, fabulous night life and culture); Medellin (like turning up in Bradford and expecting there to be something to do) and Cali (smart, sophisticated and extremely cool) we felt that nowhere we´d seen was as moody as some of the areas of London we´ve lived in over the last few years.


Southern Colombia - in years gone by a virtual no-go area for all but the bravest traveller - has also largely opened up to tourists. It´s now safe to travel by bus (very stylish with lots of leg room) all the way from Cali to the Ecuadorian border, but the most rewarding parts of the south still require a bit more effort and long bumpy bus journeys. San Augustin - a charming little colonial town - is tucked away from the main tourist trail, but soon became my favourite place in Colombia for both scenery and culture. Here in the foothills of the Andes, Pre-Columbian civilisations left behind the only evidence of their existence in the form of dozens of carved enigmatic statues and tombs, before being invaded by the Incas at the end of the 15th century. It was also here that many of the beautiful Gold artefacts in Bogota´s Museo d´Oro were originally found.



The best way to visit these wonderful monuments, scattered as they are across kilometres of hillside, is on horseback. Seeing as the last time we´d got on horses Jonny had nearly been thrown off a cliff, he was understandably a bit nervous about the prospect but, hat´s off to him, he duly got back on the horse.

The horses provided by our guide Humberto were absolutely fantastic and even seemed to enjoy cantering up steep hillsides. Before we knew it we were galloping between the various archeological sites, only dismounting our noble steeds to gawp at some pretty explicit evidence of child sacrifice and marvel at the implicit cleverness of the imagery and craftsmanship. On top of that, the tour was conducted completely in Spanish, and we ended up translating for those who spoke less than we did - a real sign of how much our Spanish has improved in such a short space of time.

At one of the sites, a girl was reading the Mayan Calendar for people, and mine, "Red Rhythmnic Earth" apparently meant that I was often in the right place at the right time. She looked up my birth date, and the sign that corresponded to 2008 was indeed slap bang on Colombia on her printed world map. You can´t beat a bit of mysticism when you´re travelling, and I certainly felt like I was in the right place at the right time.