Colourful Colombia: My 10 day trip to Colombia

[snoop1130]

Colourful Colombia: My 10 day trip to Colombia

by Aparna Sharma

 

 

From tropical beaches to colourful street art and coffee farms in the mountains, I absolutely fell in love with Colombia. We flew from Bangkok to Bogota and went to Medellin and Cartagena, the 10 days flew by so fast. There are so many things to see and do in Colombia, it was my first experience travelling to South America so everything felt novel to me. It was completely different from Africa, Asia or Europe. Every cultural experience was unique and I was so happy to visit the park dedicated to Gabriel Garcia Marquez in Bogota. His work has inspired me to write and travel and his depiction of magical realism has always made me curious about Colombia. My Venezuelan friend told me,”You will love South America”, she was absolutely right, I fell in love with the colours of Colombia. I am not sharing a detailed 10 day itinerary in this article, I just want to focus more on my personal ideas and views on what I loved in Colombia.

 

Bogota: A city for street art lovers

 

The street art in Bogota was definitely one of the highlights on my trip. We went on a free walking tour to explore the streets which had some of the most amazing art work I had seen in my life. A few years ago, the graffiti on the streets of Bogota was thought of in the same vein as cocaine and police cracked down on graffiti artists hard. 2011 was a tough year for these artists, police chased down and killed a 16 year old artist when he was spray painting his signature Felix the Cat image. Our guide told us that the police tried to cover it up by tampering with the evidence but his parents and the street art community got him justice. This was a turning point and today, Bogota is one of the most street art friendly cities in the world.

 

La Candelaria, the most historical part of the city, showcases some of the best work from local and international artists like Ciclope (Argentina), Kiptoe (USA), Kike (Argentina), Amazon (Brazil), and Ericailcane (Italy). The art is spread throughout the area: on hostels, storefronts, parks, cultural institutes and even on the shipping containers that house the vendors of La Plaza de la Concordia, the oldest plaza in Bogotá.

 

Bogota is a mix of colonial architecture and rich history, the streets a mural on every corner. Bogotá’s downtown area, including Avenida Caracas and Carrera 10 are the best spots to see big format walls. In the last few years, the city has commissioned some of Bogotá’s tallest walls with many reaching eight floors and up. Above the busy downtown streets are now tower walls from international artists like Mantra (France), Anis (Chile), Mamani Mamani (Bolivia) and Boa Mistura (Spain), as well as collaborative murals from local artists, like the 115 foot high ‘El Beso de Los Invisibles’ on the side of a building at Calle 26 and Carrera 13a. Most are within walking distance from one another.

 

Pablo Escobar tour:

 

I watched Pablo Escobar Del Maa on Netflix a few months ago, it is a Colombian series on Escobar and the tag line of this series is,”Quien No Conoce Su Historia Esta Condenada A Repetirla”. It translates into,”Those who don’t understand their history are doomed to repeat it” Medellín was not on my list of places to go in Colombia when I first started planning a trip to this beautiful country. My husband insisted on going to Medellín and we added it to our list of places to go. I was honestly not interested in doing a full day tour visiting places which are prominent in Pablo Escobar’s life. There is so much media available on whether you should or should not do this tour, I am no authority on morality so I would rather just focus on what we did on the tour and let you decide.

 

If you feel that the tours in Medellín are making money from the crimes of Escobar, you are absolutely right but whether is it right or wrong to do this tour is debatable. If it’s legally allowed by their government and these tours take place openly, I personally don’t see taking this tour as being wrong. I must say that Pablo Escobar’s presence is omnipresent in Medellín because this part of Colombia’s history is very recent. I was in Medellín for four days and spoke to at least a dozen of people from Uber drivers to hotel staff to random strangers. The opinions about him are extremely divided from love to hatred to indifference. I just could not understand why tourists and locals bring flowers to his grave, it’s hard to understand how some Colombians love him despite of the attacks and killings on their fellow countrymen.

 

Full Story: https://expatlifeinthailand.com/travel-and-leisure/colourful-colombia-my-10-day-trip-to-colombia/

 

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[donnacha]

42 minutes ago, snoop1130 said:

I just could not understand why tourists and locals bring flowers to his grave

He was a huge employer worldwide.

 

[thecyclist]

How does it compare with Thailand in terms of costs of living :is it twice as expensive as many reports about South America indicate? 

Edited December 18, 2019 by thecyclist
Forget a word

[uhuh]

A bit cheaper than Thailand. 

Condos and girls are considerably cheaper.