From Bogota we headed north to the Caribbean coast on the night buses stopping at the beatuiful colonial towns of Villa de Leyva and Barichara. Villa de Leyva is a popular town with people from Bogota as it is only a few hours drive from the capital. It has an incredible cobbled square that is one of the largest in South America. We stayed in a lovely hostel and ate in some great restaurants. Barichara was further north. It is a really sleepy town but definitely worth a stop. The architecture is great and I loved taking loads of photographs of the buildings. We could not find anywhere to stay and ended up paying a lady to stay in a room in her house! The drawers had her sons shoes in them and family photographs around the room - very weird! After Baricahra, we headed North once more on another bus...
We arrived on the Caribbean coast and spend a couple of days camping in Tyronna national Park. We hiked for over an hour in the sweltering heat with our back packs until we eventually came across a lonely campsite away from the hundreds of visitors. It was almost empty so we decided to hire a tent there and pitch up for the night. We wondered around to find a beautiful beach at the end of the campsite with not a sole around - perfect! That night it poured it down with rain. It was then we found out that we had a semi-permeable tent! Who would design a tent that is not fully waterproof??? Anyway we woke up and had to put up and umbrella inside the tent to keep the rain out! Funny looking back at it now, but not funny at the time at all - we thought we were going to get hit by lightning as the storm was so fierce. Anyway the next day, we walked along to the main beach in Tayronna. We were happy to see that we had made a great decision (albeit by accident). We found people carting their back packs for over an hour over really muddy, uneven terrain who looked in pain. We arrived to find the main capsite on the beach jam packed full of tents. Hundreds and hundreds of locals had come for the holiday weekend and you couldn't see the ground for tents. We wondered along and did a few hikes around the coastline. Amazing boulders protrude out from the ocean and the forest is almost touching the ocean. It was not as good as we had expected due to the sheer number of visitors there.
From Tayronna we travelled west along the coast to Cartegena which is a beautiful Caribbean town. It has an old colonial area which is surrounded by a high wall, a little like St Malo in France. Again it was busy as it was a public holiday but this did not distract from its beauty. We were booked into a hostel which turned out to be horrible so we found ourselves another one in Gestemini, outside the more expensive old part. We strolled along the paved roads inside the walled city at night and found some lovely bars and restarants. It is a lovely city and one we would highly recommend.
From Cartagena, we headed to Monpox, a town really off the beaten track which is hard to access. To get to it we had to get on a bus, a tug boat, a power boat, a tut tut and a local's car! But it was well worth the trip. It was scorching hot with temperatures reaching well above 40 degrees, Tom was not at all impressed! It was another sleepy town with great architecture and famous for silver jewellery so I made the most of it. We stayed in a hostel called 'Casa amarillo' which was lovely and owned my an english travel writer. He gave us lots of tips about where to go next.
Leaving Monpox, we had an equally tricky journey until we eventually got back on to the main road. We headed to Medillin, which was the murder capital of the world 10 years earlier due to drug barrons. The city has made a remarkable recovery and has turned itself around. They introduced a brilliant train and cable car network that goes from the slums on the hill side outside of the city all the way into the city centre. This has proven to reduce the crime rate by 10 fold. I have never been on a cable car that was a form of transport, it has usually been to see sights or get to the top of ski lifts. This was an inovative idea that looks great and serves a good purpose. After Medillin we returned back to the capital Bogota for one night before heading home to Quito.
