latinamericaltobelli

An Ecuadorian friend (Luis) and I left from Quito by bus around 2am in the morning. We arrived around 7am at the Columbian border, and after some administrative complications (quickly solved with a discrete 20 US dollars bill), we went for Cali. We left early in the morning to drive by day on this unfortunately famous border crossing road, famous for its FARC attacks, which usually happens by night. We didn’t go unlucky and after 18hours bus we arrived safely in Cali. We aimed to come back by plane 9 days later from this city and decided to visit Cali on the way back.

We left the next day for “Zona Cafetera”, the home-region of the famous coffee “made in Colombia”. At least I drunk my first coffee and Colombia (and it wasn´t a Nescafe). We had in the morning a nice 4 hour walk with beautiful landscapes and finally left in the afternoon for Medellin.

Medellin is the most beautiful city of the 3 I visited (Cali, Medellin, Bogota). You go up hill with a cable car (used as a normal way of transportation, a direct extension of the subway) and enjoy a nice panoramic view of the city. The city center is well developed; some buildings are imposing and the shopping street very lively. The best in the city is the night life, with “la zona rosa” in which concentrate a very impressive number of bars, restaurants, coffees and discotheques!  

We left the next day for Bogota and visited a family friend where we slept the night. We arrived the Friday morning, walked around the city and went out in the evening: nightlife in Bogota is really great. But the city itself is not really worth visiting it, except for 2 or 3 places.  

 We left on Saturday and went back to Cali to enjoy the city´s nightlife. Unfortunately, traffic was very bad and we arrived at 2 in the morning, after a 15 hours trip for a 240km drive! As people here doesn´t party here up to 6 o´clock in the morning, we had to go directly to bed. The nightlife in Cali should be really great, and by day, when I saw all the bars and Co, I could easily imagine this is true. We went on sightseeing the next day, but as there is nothing exceptional there to see, we  decided to go to the “Parque del coffee” the next day.

We thought of a natural park with coffee plantations, but… it was an amusement park, like Disneyworld but smaller and not with Mickey a a guest star, but of course, coffee beans… We had a lot of fun, but I really didn´t expect it.  

The next morning (6am) we left by plane for Quito Airport.

To conclude, this was a very nice but exhausting trip: within 9 days we went through 60 hours of bus! But as my travel in South America is now going to a end, I am happy I had the opportunity to go up to Colombia. :-)

Album to the reated article: http://latinamericaltobelli.over-blog.com/album-1693415.html