1-Bogotá
Colombia’s capital is a city that divides opinion. Its
detractors cite poverty, gridlock traffic and crime, as well as depressingly
regular rain, and with over eight million tightly packed inhabitants and some
decidedly drab neighbourhoods, Bogotá rarely elicits love at first sight. Given
a day or two, however, most people do fall for this cosmopolitan city with its
colonial architecture, numerous restaurants and raucous nightlife. In any case,
love it or hate it, odds are you’ll have to pass through it at some stage
during your travels in Colombia. Bogotá is bounded on its western side by the
River Bogotá, and to its east by the Cerro de Monserrate, a mountain ridge
topped by a church that can be seen from pretty much anywhere in town, making
it a very useful landmark. Thus constricted (although seeping out beyond its
traditional boundary on the west side), the city’s expansion has largely been
to the north and south. The southern end of town consists of down-at-heel barrios
largely inhabited by people who’ve come in from the countryside seeking work.
To the north by contrast, Bogotá has swallowed up former satellite towns that
have now become pleasant uptown neighbourhoods such as Chapinero, fresh and
hilly, full of trendy cafés, and home to the city’s epicentre of gourmet
dining, the “Zona G”. At the far northern end of town, Usaquén, formerly a
village and indigenous reserve, is now a posh suburb with a popular Sunday
market. The city’s oldest neighbourhood, La Candelaria, lies at what was once
the junction of two rivers, the Río San Agustín (which now runs under Calle 7),
and the Río San Francisco, which still flows through the centre of town to this
day, in a channel down Avenida Jiménez. La Candelaria is home to some of South
America’s most impressive colonial buildings, and is the neighbourhood where
most tourists – and certainly most backpackers – choose to stay. The downtown city
centre, though more modern than La Candelaria, gives the impression of having
gone slightly to seed, and is nowadays to a large extent upstaged as a
commercial and business district by smarter uptown neighbourhoods such as the Zona
Rosa, the city’s nightlife zone, positively heaving with clubs and restaurants,
which only really comes to life after nightfall. All over town, one thing
you’ll notice is the vibrant and colourful graffiti and street art, a result of
the city’s liberal attitude to graffiti, which has made it a mecca for street
artists from around the world. Situated on the Sabana de Bogotá, Colombia’s
highest plateau and 2600m up in the Andes, Bogotá can be cold and wet year-round.
March to May and September to November are the wettest periods, while late
December through January is the sunniest time of year.
2-North of Bogotá
North of Bogotá, the Eastern Cordillera stretches up
towards – and indeed along – the Venezuelan border. These mountainous highlands
played a pivotal role in forging Colombia’s national identity, for this is the
region that was so crucial to Simón Bolívar’s forces in the struggle for
independence, and the homeland of Bolívar’s great ally and rival Francisco de
Paula Santander. Even before that, it was the heartland of the comunero
revolt of the 1780s. It’s a rugged and very beautiful region, with national
parks such as the Parque Nacional el Cocuy, with its glacial lakes and
snowcapped peaks, and the Parque Nacional del Chicamocha, where you can gape in
awe at the scenic Río Chicamocha canyon. Divided between the departamentos
of Cundinamarca, Boyacá, Santander and Norte de Santander, this is Colombia’s
geographical heart. Before the Spanish conquest it was largely occupied by the
Muiscas, whose gold and emeralds sparked such a feeding frenzy of greed among
the Spanish conquistadores.
To this day, Boyacá remains the source of Colombia’s famous emeralds, although
it’s not particularly the best place to buy them. And as for the Muiscas’ own
main medium of exchange – salt – that too is still being mined in Cundinamarca,
although methods of extraction have evolved somewhat since Muisca days. On the
southern edge of the region, in Cundinamarca, the departamento
immediately surrounding Bogotá, attractions such as the salt cathedral at Zipaquirá,
the rock climbing centre of Suesca, and the Muiscas’ sacred lake, the Laguna de
Guatavita, can all be visited on day-trips from the capital. Further afield, in
Boyacá, the departamento’s
capital of Tunja, one of Colombia’s oldest cities, is famous for its
sixteenth-century churches and frescoes, while an hour further northwest is one
of Colombia’s best-preserved colonial towns, Villa de Levya, its surrounding
countryside studded with archeological treasures. Heading further north, the
two departamentos
of Santander and Norte de Santander straddle the Eastern Cordillera, getting
noticeably nippier as you rise towards the border between them. The departamento
of Santander is dominated by its capital, the lively, modern – and warm – city
of Bucaramanga, but the state’s big draw from a tourist point of view is the
adventure-sports centre of SAN GIL, where you can mountain bike, paraglide,
abseil, kayak and spelunk to your heart’s content. Not far off, the beautiful
old town of Barichara joins Villa de Leyva – at which it rather looks down its
nose – as one of Colombia’s best-preserved colonial settlements. And if you
haven’t had your fill of colonial architecture, there’s also Girón,
conveniently located so close to Bucaramanga that it’s almost a suburb. Over
the cordillera’s
watershed, Norte de Santander’s exhilarating capital of Pamplona is the last
mountain town before you head inexorably down towards the coastal plain of
Venezuela via the sweltering but surprisingly amiable border-town of Cúcuta.
Here you can stop to check out nearby historical Villa del Rosario, where
Francisco de Paula Santander was born and where Colombia’s independence from
Spain was signed and sealed.
3-The Caribbean coast
From the untamed jungles of the Darién Gap to the arid salt
plains of the Guajira peninsula, Colombia’s Caribbean coast runs for sixteen
hundred sweltering kilometres, a series of dazzling white-sand beaches, vast
mangrove forests and ravishing colonial towns that attract millions of visitors
each year. It’s where the country’s beautiful blend of ethnicities is at its
most diverse, from African, indigenous, European and even Lebanese roots, and
where life always seems far louder and more intense than Colombia’s Andean
heartland: car horns blare constantly, vallenato and salsa beats boom out of every door, and
shop assistants flirt with customers. Even the language is different, an
Español costeño (“Coastal Spanish”) that can be difficult to grasp for other
Colombians, never mind foreigners. Writer Gabriel García Márquez, who grew up
here, loved the raucous, rebellious costeño culture: “the boarders from the coast,” he
says in Living
to Tell the Tale, had a “well-deserved reputation for rowdiness and
ill-breeding”. Ever since Spanish conquistador Rodrigo de Bastidas waded ashore near
Santa Marta in 1525, Colombia’s coast has looked outwards towards the Caribbean
islands and beyond. In the nineteenth century, trade with Jamaica and the Dutch
colony of Curaçao in particular increased cultural exchanges, in stark contrast
to the conservative interior, and the eastern provinces blurred with Venezuela
for centuries, people and goods crossing the border freely until very recently.
It’s a dynamic culture that has spawned great footballers, baseball players,
models, singers, artists and writers, from Barranquilla’s Shakira and Paulina
Vega (Miss Universe 2015), to artist Alejandro Obregón and eccentric footballer
Carlos Valderrama. Most trips begin in Cartagena, Colombia’s booming colonial
gem and, for all the tourist development, still one of South America’s most
intoxicating cities. To the south lie the pristine islands of the San Bernardo
chain, the low-key resort of Tolú and a string of progressively wilder beaches
all the way to Panama. To the east feisty Barranquilla is gradually regaining
its position as cultural hub, while historic Santa Marta is undergoing a
revival of its own, at the heart of an enticing area that includes the
unspoiled jungles and beaches of Parque Nacional Natural Tayrona and the
translucent waters around the fishing village of Taganga, one of the most
inexpensive places in the world to learn to scuba dive. From here you can take
a mesmerizing five-day trek to the Ciudad Perdida or explore the still undeveloped
Guajira Peninsula, home of the fiercely independent Wayuu. Inland, the mighty
Magdalena flows through the pancake-flat grasslands of the Depresión Momposina,
where the spires and towers of Mompox rise like a sixteenth-century apparition.
Closer to the Venezuelan border, near Valledupar, the Sierra Nevada massif is
home to some of the nation’s highest peaks and its most intriguing indigenous
groups. Wherever you go, prepare to sweat; the Caribbean coast is blisteringly
hot, all year round.
4-San Andrés and Providencia
A world apart from the rest of Colombia, both
geographically and culturally, San Andrés and Providencia sit in the Caribbean
Sea 220km off the coast of Nicaragua, with Providencia (74km north of San
Andrés) atop the third-largest barrier reef in the world. Visitors come all
this way for the glittering white-sand beaches, the best diving in Colombia,
and the unique Raizal culture; the Afro-Caribbean residents of Providencia in
particular speak an English-based Creole with a Caribbean lilt that is
reminiscent of Jamaica, and the influence of Bogotá seems remote indeed. English
is an official language alongside Spanish on both islands, but on larger, more
developed San Andrés, the Raizal culture is much more diluted. For many
Colombians, one of San Andrés’ draws is its duty-free status, making it a much
cheaper place to shop than the mainland. Tourism on the island is dominated by
all-inclusive resorts and packages, and in general sleepy Providencia, with its
empty beaches, reggae bars and protected reef is by far the more enticing
destination – there’s little point in coming to San Andrés without going on to
its northerly neighbour. Colombia’s very own Caribbean island of sandy cays,
reggae bars and spectacular azure waters rich in marine life, San Andrés is a
full-on resort destination for middle-class Colombians, especially busy during
the long school holidays (December to January), Easter, and in July and August.
Diving off San Andrés is absolutely sensational; the water is warm all year
round, the visibility is (mostly) spectacular and the reefs are some of the
richest and most beautiful in the Caribbean. Though the Raizal here are now a
minority thanks to immigration from the mainland, they continue to cling to a
very distinctive Afro-Caribbean culture – everyone speaks Spanish of course,
but the locals also speak a Creole that has more in common with English, albeit
with a West Indian twang. Beyond the all-inclusive resorts that dominate
tourism on the island, parts of the interior remain surprisingly rustic,
studded with old wooden houses with Antillean-style verandas. Indeed, two
competing images loom large over modern San Andrés – Bob Marley, adopted saint
of the local Raizal population (along with all things Jamaican, seemingly), and
Johnny Depp, fictional hero of the Pirates of the Caribbean movie franchise and
a symbol of everything “pirate” to the local tourism industry. It’s a bizarre
combination, certainly unique in Colombia. Most accommodation is concentrated
in San Andrés Town, the capital – a busy whirl of modern concrete buildings, duty-free
shops and careering motorbikes. Visitors usually take at least one day to tour
the island, sticking to the 30km coastal ring-road, though there are a few
places where you can head inland. The most popular transport these days are
souped-up golf carts , but you can also rent scooters and small cars. Travelling by public bus is
possible, but not especially convenient if you want to see the whole island.
Note, however, that the best beaches and snorkelling can be found on Johnny
Cay, Cayo Bolívar and Acuario, which are only accessible by boat – much of the
main island’s coastline is rocky, devoid of sand and offers only mediocre
snorkelling.
5-Medellín and the Zona Cafetera
The metropolis of Medellín has made a remarkable turnaround
since its days as Colombia’s murder capital in the early 1990s, and is now an
attractive, cosmopolitan city. Medellín sits in the middle of the huge,
mountainous departamento
of Antioquia, whose capital it has been since 1826. The
previous capital, Santa Fe de Antioquia, remains a lovely old colonial town
within striking distance of Medellín, and it competes with lakeside Guatapé to
attract day-trippers from the city. To the south of Antioquia, the compact departamentos
of Caldas, Risaralda and Quindío form the Zona Cafetera, Colombia’s main
coffee-growing region. Medellín is at the heart of “Paisa” country. Although
strictly speaking it means someone from Antioquia, the term Paisa can also by
extension refer to people from the departamentos of Caldas, Risaralda and Quindío, which
were largely created by immigrants from Antioquia. Paisas are alternately the
butt of jokes and the object of envy for many Colombians. What makes them stand
out is their rugged individualism and reputation for industriousness, which
dates back to the early nineteenth century, when they cleared Colombia’s
hinterland for farming in exchange for the government’s carrot of free land.
One of the Paisas’ biggest contributions to Colombia has been their role in the
spread of coffee. The Zona Cafetera is based around the three modern cities of Manizales,
Pereira and Armenia, all victims of earthquakes that have devastated them in
modern times, yet each with its own charms in the way of scenery, innovation
and entertainment. Easily accessible from Armenia or Pereira, the incredibly photogenic
village of Salento is the gateway to some great hiking in the misty Valle de
Cocoro, while Salento, Pereira and Manizales all serve as possible bases for
exploring one of Colombia’s most postcard-perfect national parks, Parque
Nacional Natural Los Nevados, with its snow-capped peaks and ominously rumbling
volcanoes. Out of town, many of the picturesque coffee-growing fincas – almost
all established by Paisa homesteaders – have opened their estates to tourists.
During harvest time you can partake in the picking process, and all year round
you can learn about how the world’s most popular beverage is grown and
processed.
6-Cali and the southwest
Ravishing colonial cities, the mystifying remnants of
pre-Hispanic civilizations, indigenous markets, a raw, untouched Andean
landscape and the booming salsa-soaked city of Cali await in Colombia’s
southwest. Though the Pan-American Highway down into Ecuador sees a steady
stream of travellers, much of the region remains lightly visited and unless
it’s a Colombian festival or holiday, you are likely to see very few tourists –
for now. Indeed, few regions boast so much tourism potential, from the painted
subterranean tombs of Tierradentro and ancient, haunting statues of San
Agustín, to indigenous cultures that have retained a distinctive character to
the present day, from the Nasa to the Guambiano. Though it’s something of an
acquired taste, if you like big cities you’ll love Cali and its dizzying
nightlife, with day-trips out to the microbrewery at Buga, kitesurfing at Calima
and refreshing mountain streams at Pance. Further south, across the vast plains
of sugar cane in the Valle de Cauca – between the cordilleras Occidental and
Central – lies the elegant town of Popayán, known for its blindingly white
colonial architecture and surrounding hot springs, snow-capped volcano and Guambiano
market. Heading deeper into the Andes, Pasto is the capital of Nariño, a region
ripe for adventure travel and littered with remote, crystal-clear lagoons, foaming
waterfalls and smouldering volcanoes all the way to Ecuador. For most visitors
(and most Colombians) CALI means one thing: salsa. Colombia’s third-largest
metropolis, with a population of 2.4 million, the city stakes a powerful claim
to being Colombia’s party capital, and you’ll hear Colombian-style salsa
blaring throughout the day and night. Dance schools are cheap, clubs stay open
till dawn and every month Delirio offers an extravaganza of salsa,
cabaret and pure adrenaline. During the day Cali doesn’t boast any major
sights, though its Centro Histórico has plenty of character, a blend of shabby
streets, modern skyscrapers, colonial museums and market vendors; to the south San
Antonio is an attractive historic residential district now littered with hip
restaurants, cafés and shops, while to the north affluent Granada is crammed
with bars and clubs.The city was founded in 1536 by Spanish conquistador
Sebastián de Belalcázar, but only shed its provincial backwater status in the
early 1900s, when the profits brought in by its sugar plantations prompted
industrialization. It remains one of Colombia’s most prosperous cities, in part
because of its central role in the drug trade since the dismantling of the rival
Medellín cartel in the early 1990s; however, Cali is now more famous for its
salsa dancers than white powder. Indeed, the large numbers of African slaves
brought to work the sugar mills left a notable impact on Cali’s culture (the
Afro-Colombian population is almost 25 percent), nowhere more so than in its
music. Today, despite the scary crime statistics, Cali is generally safe for
tourists (take the usual precautions at night), and Caleños are likely to be
some of the friendliest people you’ll meet in the whole country. At weekends it
can seem like the entire city descends on nearby Pance and Parque Nacional
Natural Farallones, the colonial gem of Buga, and huge Lago Calima.
7-The Pacific coast
Welcome to Colombia’s wild west coast, where empty volcanic
beaches, palm-fringed islands, isolated indigenous villages and a vibrant
Afro-Colombian culture make for a dramatic contrast to the Andes – made all the
more vivid by the rainy, humid and broiling hot climate. Author Gabriel García
Márquez, who toured the Chocó departamento in the 1950s, called it “the most
forgotten region in the country”, a “magical homeland of flowering jungle and
eternal downpours” in Living to Tell the Tale. Even today tourism has yet to
make a big impact, though the region’s ecotourism potential is beginning to be
ramped up. Getting here can be time-consuming and expensive, but you’ll likely
have much of the place to yourself. Until relatively recently, much of the
coast was considered dangerous, riddled with guerrillas, paramilitary groups
and drug-runners. Though blackspots remain, the situation has much improved and
you are highly unlikely to encounter any problems. Indeed, communication and
transport are likely to be your biggest headaches, as the region still lags far
behind the rest of the country; roads only connect the coast with the interior
at Buenaventura and Tumaco, and access is otherwise by cargo boat, basic
lanchas or tiny turboprop planes. Electricity is rarely available 24 hours (be
prepared for cold showers and candles), internet and wi-fi are hard to find and
mobile phone coverage is extremely limited. Lounging on one of the region’s
wide, empty beaches, backed by jungle-smothered mountains, it’s easy to feel
you’ve travelled back to the eighteenth century. An easy-going Afro-Colombian
culture dominates most of the settlements along the coast, but you’ll also
encounter members of the Emberá and Wounaan indigenous peoples here – visiting
their villages is possible, a genuinely enlightening experience that for now at
least, remains uncommercialized. Yet it’s the ruggedly beautiful landscapes and
natural attractions of the Pacific coast that most people come for: the endless
beaches of the Bahía Málaga, Bahía Solano and Nuquí; pristine reserves such as
the Parque Nacional Natural Utría; whales and dolphins frolicking just
offshore; hot spring pools; and enough parrots and hummingbirds to fill a
football stadium.
8-Los Llanos and the Amazon
Accounting for around a third of Colombia in size and
largely inaccessible to visitors, the Amazon basin feels unlike any other part
of the country, with its pristine rainforest, fantastic wildlife and indigenous
peoples living deep in the jungle, their cultures still preserved intact. The
capital of the Amazonas province, the steamy jungle town of Leticia, is only
accessible by air and river, and thus retains a somewhat isolated feel.
Travellers head to Leticia for a taste of jungle adventure, to cross over into
Brazil or Peru, and to visit the charming little eco-town of Puerto Nariño. The
Amazon region is separated from the rest of Colombia by the vast tropical
grasslands known as Los Llanos (“The Plains”). Most of this belongs to another
great river system, that of the Orinoco, and indeed it is officially called La Región
de la Orinoquía. Largely inaccessible to visitors, it’s a land where guerrillas
and paramilitaries still hold sway, and although it is now possible to travel
into the area south and east of Bogotá, it is not safe to travel independently
much beyond Villavicencio, 75km southeast of the capital. Certainly, it would
be most inadvisable at present to attempt to reach the Amazon via Los Llanos –
the only safe way to reach it without flying would be by river via Ecuador and
Peru, a journey of some weeks, which you would have to be pretty intrepid to
embark upon. Flying, or indeed coming by river, you will arrive at the very
southern tip of Colombia, where it meets Brazil and Peru. This point is known
as the three-way frontier, and if you’re heading into Brazil, it’s somewhere
you may end up staying for a few days waiting for a boat. For many centuries
the three-way frontier has been home to the Ticunas, once large in number, but
today down to a population of around 10,000. Their excellent handicrafts – mainly
string bags and hammocks – can be bought in Leticia.
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