After much thought, I decided I could probably narrow it down to five(5) with the caveat that I might change my mind if I later discover any better cities in Latin America.  I did not rank them in any particular order.   If you just want a topical look, you can see my comments below on this post.  If you want a little more depth about each one you can read about them on www.travelblur.com along with some great posts from Charlie.  If you click here you can see my top 5 Latin Cities posts all grouped together on his site. 

Here are some teaser comments:

1.  Buenos Aires, Argentina–The Paris of Latin America.  Lots to do here, great food.

2.  Bogota, Colombia–If you want a sense of adventure in a beautiful city, then Bogota is the place for you. 

3.  Cartagena, Colombia-There is an old part and a new part to Cartagena.  Spend your time in the beautiful old city located on the coast.  Sitting in a sidewalk cafe on the narrow streets of Cartagena is day well spent.

4.  Quito, Ecuador-You really feel like you are in South America when you visit Quito.  Lots to do in the city, but the best part can be outside of Quito in the beautiful countryside.

5.  San Cristobal de las Casas in Chiapas, Mexico–This is a great town located in the southernmost state of Mexico.  Lots of arts and crafts. 

Now that you have learned just a little about each one, don’t forget to get the in-depth review about each one here

If you have any questions, please feel free to e-mail me:

Steve Barrymore ssb11@prodigy.net

Don’t forget to return to my blog site here on www.newsok.com often and check for additional travel news. If you are interested in reading about all my travels click here

She took me to a number of stores and gave me her opinion on many of the products on the shelves. She would tell me which products were overpriced and which ones she thought were reasonable.The most interesting store was one named “Exito”. It was like the Wal-Mart of Cartagena, but on a smaller scale. She walked me down aisle after aisle often times running into people she knew. All of her friends were extremely polite to me and all wanted to know my opinion of Colombia    

Exito store, the Wal-Mart of Cartagena 

After spending the afternoon shopping, we stopped at a sidewalk café for coffee. Jenny told me about her life and her goals for her family. Sitting in a sidewalk café, far away from home, drinking rich Colombian coffee with a relative stranger with whom you have shared their home for only 72 hours, reaches deep into your travel soul. Whether it is going to language schools with other people from around the world, talking with Dr. Olga in her country home, walking the streets of Cartagena with Jenny, or having Germán giving us the “Pablo Escobar tour”, this type of travel in my opinion, is about as good as it gets. 

Here’s a twilight shot of one of the town squares where the Colombianos would stroll through in the evening.

The next morning it was time to leave Cartagena. Jenny and Gustavo wanted to take us to the airport. We agreed, but only with the promise that we would help with the cost of the gas. At the airport, they insisted on taking us inside, patiently waited for us while we stood in the ticket line, and wanted some last minute conversation with us before we cleared security. They were genuinely interested in helping us and making sure we left Colombia with a positive image of the country and the people. I can assure you, we did. It was a great trip and one that I will remember forever. I hope you enjoyed this blog about Colombia. I am interested in any and all comments or questions you may have.  Feel free to post a comment here.

My next series of blogs will be about a recent trip through Southern Mexico. 

Until the next trip,

–Steve

See my other travel blogs on NewsOk.com:

Colombia:http://blog.newsok.com/thewanderer/category/colombia/   Mexico:http://blog.newsok.com/thewanderer/category/mexico/    

Caribbean island of Barbuda:                    http://blog.newsok.com/thewanderer/category/barbuda/     

San Juan with a 5 hour layover:                                  http://blog.newsok.com/thewanderer/category/san-juan-puerto-rico/        

Fly around the U.S. for the day:                                                http://blog.newsok.com/thewanderer/category/day-trip/

 The food is my house was very good and quite diversified. For breakfast I would usually have juice, Colombian coffee, and fruit or eggs. One morning for breakfast, I was served a toasted ham and cheese sandwich with fruit. Strange combination, but good. I would eat lunch out everyday and dinner at the apartment. The family usually didn’t eat with me but someone in the house was always at the table talking with me.   Here is representative photo of breakfast one morning.  That is eggs in the plate with a couple of bowls of fruit.                      Jenny was always concerned about how I felt about my accommodations and she went out of her way to make sure I was comfortable. There was no air conditioning in the apartment and it was very hot, but I kept the windows open all the time. She seemed concerned that I never turned on the fan in my room so she would come in every night and turn it on for me.

One day while I was doing homework in my room, Jenny insisted I come out to meet a friend of hers. Her friend was a vendor of homemade desserts and sold them door to door. Her bowl of desserts was full and she balanced it on her head. Jenny insisted we take some pictures. I bought some desserts to share with Jenny. Talk about carbs!! I was on a sugar high for hours after that. Here is a pic of the vendor and her desserts.  She looks a little unhappy.  I guess you would be too if you walked around all day with that bowl of desserts on your head!

Hang with me, there is only one more post about my Colombia trip and it will be my final one. 

Next-My journey to Colombia comes to an end–

See my other travel blogs on NewsOk.com:

Colombia:http://blog.newsok.com/thewanderer/category/colombia/   Mexico:http://blog.newsok.com/thewanderer/category/mexico/    

Caribbean island of Barbuda:                    http://blog.newsok.com/thewanderer/category/barbuda/     

San Juan with a 5 hour layover:                                  http://blog.newsok.com/thewanderer/category/san-juan-puerto-rico/        

Fly around the U.S. for the day:                                                http://blog.newsok.com/thewanderer/category/day-trip/

The overall structure of each day was pretty much the same: Breakfast at 6:45, walk in the heat to school, classes begin at 8 a.m. and finish at noon. We would have a 15 minute break each morning where they would serve us “Cafe Tinto” which was very black, strong, Colombian coffee.

During the break the students would all intermingle and discuss options for the afternoon. The school offered gratis tours in the afternoons for those interested.  Usually several of us would eat lunch together and then go our separate ways for the afternoons. I would sometimes walk back to my apartment (about 1.5 miles) just to check in with Jenny or rest a little while before venturing back out into the heat.  Often times, Jay and I would meet in the afternoons at an internet cafe and then spend the rest of the day walking through the old walled city of Cartagena. Sometimes we would meet up with other students to visit various tourist sites or just meet for “cafe tinto” to discuss what we were each discovering on our own.

Many of the streets in Cartagena are very narrow and it is easy to get run over. Taxi drivers abound. You have to nail down the price with the taxi driver in advance. You can take a taxi anywhere for around $2

Shopping in Cartagena is diverse. There are many vendors on the streets mainly selling jewelry and assorted crafts. Colombia is known for emeralds and there are plenty of opportunities to purchase them. There are people on the street that will sometimes try to steer you towards a particular store for “special emerald discounts” but I wasn’t a buyer.

 I had read on the internet that the accent of the Cartageneros (persons that live in Cartagena) would be quite different than the rest of the country. I found that to be very true. At first I was quite intimidated by the heavy accent, but the school director told me if I could understand the Spanish of Cartagena then I could understand it any place in the world. After a few days I relished the challenge of going into the streets to talk to the people to help my ear get accustomed to the special accent. I’m not sure how much I really got, but it was a confidence booster!

Everyone I met would ask me: “What is the perception of Colombia in the U.S?”. I always told them the truth: “From afar, many people in the U.S. consider Colombia to be a very dangerous place with killings, kidnappings, and drugs”. The Colombians always agreed that they knew their reputation is not always good, but it is a reputation of the past. Then they would ask me what my perception was after being in their country after a few days. I always told them I was really surprised it wasn’t the terribly dangerous place that everyone thought it was. It was a beautiful country and the Colombians were very friendly people. Of course, there were plenty of opportunities for danger in Colombia–you had to watch what you were doing and where you were going—just like any big city. The F.A.R.C. guerillas don’t help the cause any. With over 700 hostages it does make you think a little. For me, it really wasn’t too different from any other Latin American country to which I have traveled –or Los Angeles or Miami for that matter!

Next-Cartagena-Interaction with my family

See my other travel blogs on NewsOk.com:

Colombia:http://blog.newsok.com/thewanderer/category/colombia/   Mexico:http://blog.newsok.com/thewanderer/category/mexico/    

Caribbean island of Barbuda:                    http://blog.newsok.com/thewanderer/category/barbuda/     

San Juan with a 5 hour layover:                                  http://blog.newsok.com/thewanderer/category/san-juan-puerto-rico/        

Fly around the U.S. for the day:                                                http://blog.newsok.com/thewanderer/category/day-trip/

It was located in a neighborhood named Getsemaní.Here are some photos of the neighborhood:

Inside the school we met Jesús, the director, who gave us a brief interview in Spanish to check our verbal skills. After that we took a grueling, written exam. It was one of the toughest Spanish exams I have ever taken at any immersion language school. There were a total of 10 students in the school. I found the administration to be friendly and helpful and I liked all the other students and teachers.

Jay was assigned to a class with 4 other students, all of which were from countries other than the U.S. I had 2 classmates: Margarite who was a 60 year old doctor from Manhattan and Travis, a 42 year old software engineer from California. Travis was retired and just traveled the world. Rough life.

Class was 4 hours per day and totally in Spanish. The teacher allowed us to structure our own curriculum which we all agreed should be made up mostly of conversation. Travis and Margarite were both more advanced than I, but I felt it was a good opportunity to learn from them.

Here is a photo inside the school and their website address. 

www.nuevalengua.com

After class on the first day, 5 of us walked to a small neighborhood restaurant for lunch. Inside it was hot, busy, loud, and chaotic, but it was exactly what I like to experience in foreign countries! We were now totally immersed. There was not another foreigner in sight. We had become just another group of neighborhood people doing their own thing in Cartagena, Colombia. Life had become seamless.

Next-Cartagena-Living our Daily Lives

See my other travel blogs on NewsOk.com:

Colombia:http://blog.newsok.com/thewanderer/category/colombia/   Mexico:http://blog.newsok.com/thewanderer/category/mexico/    

Caribbean island of Barbuda:                    http://blog.newsok.com/thewanderer/category/barbuda/     

San Juan with a 5 hour layover:                                  http://blog.newsok.com/thewanderer/category/san-juan-puerto-rico/        

Fly around the U.S. for the day:                                                http://blog.newsok.com/thewanderer/category/day-trip/

Here is where I lived.  click on the photos for the description and to enlarge.

Based on the info packet that the school had sent me I had concluded that my accommodations would be in a two bedroom, 1 bath apartment with 2 women: Jenny the owner and Rosa her maid. Turns out, it was a 3 bedroom apartment, but the other bedroom was rented to another boarder named Jamie who was a newscaster for the Colombia Radio Network in Cartagena. Okay, so now we are up to 4 people and 1 bath. Then Gustavo, Jenny’s son shows up. Apparently he lives there too!! That makes 5 and one bath! Over the course of the next 5 days there would be other family members that would come and go. I never did know exactly how many people really stayed there but there were times it seemed to bump up against 6 or 7. However, I will say, they were all very courteous to me and let me have the bathroom in the mornings when I was getting ready for school.

The interesting thing here is that Rosa, the maid, slept on a bed in the kitchen. No kidding!! Turns out that is fairly common in Colombia. At first, I was a little uncomfortable when I would go into the kitchen for water and Rosa would be laying on the bed in her nightgown, but she didn’t seem to mind and after a day I just got used to it too. There was no air conditioning in the apartment and Cartagena is very, very, hot. I had a very small room with a single bed and a fan. We were on the 4th floor and at night I opened the window for a little cool air. The cost for my room and 2 meals a day for a week was $140 including laundry service and all the Spanish I could handle. They did not speak English. I liked them all from the moment I met them.  

Here are some pics of the family:

(I’m the one in the red shirt in the back)

Jay’s Colombian mom, Rubi, had a very nice well decorated apartment. She was a gourmet cook. He had a private bath.

 We had  arrived at our final destination in Colombia.  It would be here in Cartagena that we would spend the next 5 days weaving ourselves into the fabric of Colombian life.  The nice hotels of Bogotá and Medellin were behind us.  Now, we were sharing apartments with people we had never met and who did not speak our language. 

Stay tuned—school starts the next morning

See my other travel blogs on NewsOk.com:

Colombia:http://blog.newsok.com/thewanderer/category/colombia/   Mexico:http://blog.newsok.com/thewanderer/category/mexico/    

Caribbean island of Barbuda:                    http://blog.newsok.com/thewanderer/category/barbuda/     

San Juan with a 5 hour layover:                                  http://blog.newsok.com/thewanderer/category/san-juan-puerto-rico/        

Fly around the U.S. for the day:                                                http://blog.newsok.com/thewanderer/category/day-trip/

Here is a photo of the town square of Retiro:

Germán was a little nervous about what we were getting into so he didn’t want to leave us until he met Olga. He spoke with her and her sister for a few minutes and when he felt everything was fine he gave us the “thumbs up” and left. We piled into her SUV, luggage and all. Olga drove us a couple of miles through beautiful countryside where there were a number of what I would call very nice, “weekend country homes”. When we got to their house, they introduced us to the other 2 family members: another sister and their 82 year old father. They showed us around the house, walked outside with us on the beautifully manicured grounds while explaining about the different types of plants. Then we all went inside and for 2 hours drank Colombian coffee, ate cookies, and had very stimulating conversation about the economic and political climate of South America and the relationship with the U.S. It helped to have done a little research on Colombia before our trip. The family was all very highly educated and well-read. They knew all about what was happening on the campaign trail in the U.S. Presidential race It was a great experience to spend those 2 hours with such a nice family.At 4:30, Olga and her sister drove us to the airport for our 6 p.m. flight to Cartagena where we would spend the next 5 days in a very different kind of life.Next-Cartagena and my new family

Here is the breakfast buffet:

First stop was the house where the final battle occurred when Pablo and his driver were killed in a hail of gunfire. I had seen photos of the house on the internet so when we drove up we recognized it immediately. I had to have my picture taken in front of it! This is now a quiet neighborhood and many people were on the streets walking to church while I am having my picture taken in front of the house. I am sure they thought “crazy tourists”. Germán described the battle in detail and it pretty well matched up with what I had read. It was unbelievable, just having finished the book, and now I am standing in front of the very house! It was like living the story. 

Next, it was off to the cemetery to see the tomb of Pablo. Again, as soon as we walked onto the cemetery grounds I recognized the tomb after seeing pictures of it on the internet. Quite an impressive little plot of dirt! Several family members are buried right there next to him. Germán told us that Pablo was considered the “Robin Hood” of Colombia and that people still bring flowers to his grave every day.

Here German is giving Jay a little history of the events surrounding the burial of Pablo:

For the next 4 hours Germán drove us around Medellin visiting various sites which were major points of interest including many of the buildings that Pablo used to own and some of the apartments where he lived. We finally got our fill of Pablo.

One more thing I wanted us to do was to ride the cable car that is an extension of the metro system in Medellin. The cable car is part of a transit system that serves a rather large, lower socio-economic neighborhood that is built up into the hills. It is the main system of transportation for this neighborhood and connects with the metro for travel throughout the city. It is a series of 3 different cable car stations; each one located a little higher up the hill than the other–similar to a ski lift. We jumped on a car and rode it through all 3 stations and back while Germán waited on the street for us.

It was quite interesting to go over the top of the neighborhoods and see how people are living below you. Each car held about 6 people. The other passengers were all very friendly so we chatted with them a little in Spanish.

As you can see, it is an interesting way to travel through your neighborhood:

(click on the photos to enlarge them)

By this time it was 12 noon and we still needed to call Dr. Olga. Germán dropped us off in the park where we had dinner the night before. We used a pay phone to call Olga. Olga wasn’t there but her sister answered and said she was aware we might come by the farm. She said Olga would return in an hour and suggested we call back then. We used the hour to have lunch at an outdoor restaurant. Great cheeseburgers!

When we returned to the hotel we called Olga again and this time she answered. She suggested we get Germán to drive us to the little town of Retiro which she said was on the way to the airport (sort of). She told us to have him drop us off in the town square and she and her sister would pick us up at 2:30. So, on a wing and a prayer we told Germán…”It’s Retiro for us, Amigo”!

Next-Retiro and meeting the family of Dr.Olga

The drive from the airport to our hotel was about 45 minutes so we had plenty of time to talk with Germán about our plans for the next day in Medellin. We needed to maximize our time in the city because our flight would leave for Cartagena at 6 p.m. the next day.

You probably know that Medellin was previously the drug capital of the world when Pablo Escobar was alive and ran the famous Medellin drug cartel. Before we had left OKC on our trip, Jay and I had both just finished reading the book “Killing Pablo” by Mark Bowden. It is a riveting story about the life of Pablo Escobar and how they finally tracked him down and killed him. Colombia has a violent history, and reading certain parts of the book made cold chills run up my spine. But, it also made me want to learn more about this fascinating story. As luck would have it, guess who had met Pablo, knew his story well, and also knew many of the places that Pablo had lived? You guessed it……our very own driver…..Germán!! At that instant, Germán became our designated driver for the next day in Medellin. He agreed that he would not only take us on a tour of Medellin but would take us on the Pablo Escobar tour of Medellin!! What a stroke of luck! We were elated.

It was already 8 p.m. when we checked into the Park 10 hotel in the El Poblado area which is supposedly the best area in which to stay. The weekend rate is $100 per night and includes a buffet breakfast.  As you can see from the photos it is a very nice hotel.

By now, it was dinner time so we got directions to a popular restaurant area in a park near the hotel. We walked about 8 blocks through some fairly dark streets, but never felt unsafe because there were a few other people out on the streets. Around the park were tons of open air restaurants and bars. We found a table on the sidewalk and just sat there and watched the people. It was Saturday night in Medellin!!

To celebrate surviving Bogotá we decided to splurge on the food. We both had steak and dessert. The steak was about $18. After dinner we walked back to the hotel in the dark in a light rain. We had a big day ahead of us. The excitement was building.

Next-Medellin, the Pablo Escobar tour.

The small terminal is much older and very basic. Check in was much easier than we had anticipated so we had plenty of extra time to visit a number of shops in the airport. I bought some post cards and then tried to find a t-shirt that said “Bogotá” on it. Huh uhh…no t-shirts that said Bogotá. Can you believe it? Our Avianca flight to Medellin was a continuation of one from Cali, but it was late so we now had another hour to wait in the airport. However, our wait turned out to be fortuitous.

While waiting for our flight, we met a woman who spoke almost perfect English. Her name was Olga and she was one of a family of Colombian doctors that had all previously lived in the U.S. for a short period of time. She was traveling to Medellin where she lived. She seemed intrigued by our travels through Colombia and told us her family had a weekend getaway that she called a “farm” located outside of Medellin. She asked us if we would like to come out to visit her and her family and see Colombia from a different perspective. Now, my last promise to Carol when she dropped me off at the airport in OKC was, “I promise I will heed the warnings of my Colombian friends and not travel out into the countryside”. But, my memory was fading fast when offered yet another opportunity to travel off the beaten path. Remember…..”it’s all about the journey”.

Olga gave us her cell phone number and asked us to call her the next day when we were leaving Medellin. She said we could come by their country home on the way to the airport and have coffee with them. We said we would call her. Jay and I agreed it was something we should talk about before just venturing into the countryside to spend time with a strange woman and her family. You will get more of this story in a later post.

After the delay our flight finally departed Bogotá. I was a little concerned because the hotel in Medellin was sending a driver for us and I knew he would be waiting for our flight that was late.

Next-Medellin, our driver agrees to help us enter the world of Pablo Escobar