Lago Calima, Colombia - Windsurfing School!

After Medellin, we spent the day on the bus going south towards Lago Calima to get in some windsurfing action. Pete was really keen for us to get some lessons and found a school run by an ex-champ known as fish. Calima's a man-made dammed lake in the countryside that has perfect winds that make it a wind & kite surfers paradise! It's the place to go on the weekends for Colombians but we found it seriously quiet mid-week...

We stayed in a sweet hostel in Darien just by the lake - a bustling but very chilled little town - and did a couple of days at Escuela de Windsurf. Day 1 our instructor didn't know his boom from his sail but day 2 we had an ace instructor who got us up and sailing. Pete was even let loose on the lake by himself, sadly the same cannot be said for me. Still, can't wait to test our new found skills with some sea and sun some time soon... hopefully I won't end up in Cuba!

Colombia, Medellin - Out & About

After all the excitment of hospital visits & dengue fever, it was great to be able to get out and about and enjoy Medellin! It's a real city, not one that's really on the tourist trail but we found lots of fun things to do...

We rode the metro cable car up the mountain to an area called Santa Domingo to check out the views of the city. Built to connect the barrios on the side of the valley with the rest of the city, it's a really neat idea and a fun way of getting around town! You only get 6 people in each car and it zips up the valley side super quick. Here's some snaps of the rooftops and of Pete checking the view from their new library, it's a really cool building.

The Museo de Antioquia was also brilliant, there was lots of beautiful art and scultpures from Colombian artists. Our favourite was Botero's work - loved the sculptures and cartoon like paintings - which was just as well because most of the museum and the square outside it was filled with his work. I thought this tubby horse was pretty cute!

We also took a trip to the Modern Art Museum but it didn't have a patch on the Antioquia - didn't look like it had been updated in a while. The saving grace was it had a good cafe next door where we got a yummy Menu del Dia for only 3 bucks - nice!

And today we took a trip to the Botanical Gardens which is like a tropical Kew Gardens, only free! It had lovely herb gardens, an orchid 'house', boat-loving igunas and beautiful butterflies! We also had a very special lunch at their restaurant 'In Situ'! Here's a snap of Pete about to tuck into an exotic looking French Onion Soup!

During our adventures we also checked out the world's biggest cathedral built souly with bricks (not so pretty but quite impressive), had a brilliant Spanish lesson (must do my homework!), met some of the loveliest Colombian people you could meet and discovered Crepes and Waffles Cafe. I recommend the Colombian tourist board add it to their next campaign - Amazing!

Colombia - Medellin, Hostels and Hospitals

Poor Maudie was brought down by the Dengy Fever after we'd been bitten to death in the Lost City trek (there is a Dengy epidemic in Colombia)

After a week in Cartagena she still wasnt right and the flight down to Medellin took her down further. So after the doctor was called out and she had some shots we hoped she'd make a quick recovery. But this was not to be... after a hot fevery night we went to the hospital here to see a doctor recommended to us.

The hospital was amazing - Salud Sura was the name of the private brand here in Colombia (http://www.susalud.com.co/) and they are the cleanest, most efficient state-of-the-art hospitals that AMEX can buy. Maudie's blood tests showed she was down to half her white blood cells and she needed to go on a drip for the afternoon and we went back for many more tests the following days.

Thanfully Maudie made a rapid recovery and the amazing new hostel we checked into Geo Hostel (http://www.geohostel.com/) with its roof top jaccuzzi and sun deck helped both her and me recover from the shock of the dengy diagnosis!

This morning she spent time on Topshop.com, went to get her hair done and spent 2 hours in spanish lessons - glad to see her back to normal!

Colombia - Cuidad Perdida 'The Lost City' trek

Cuidad Perdida lays in the Sierra Nevada mountain range off the Carribean sea in the north of Colombia. Maudie decided to punish me with a 5 day 4 night trek to the ruins of this 'lost city', and neither of us were disapointed with the hype - it's spectacular.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciudad_Perdida

The city is believed to have been founded in 800AD and it was lost to the jungle until its discovery by treasure looters in the 1970's. The loot soon found its way onto the black market and the Colombian government decided to police and restore the site in 1975. The result of 10 years of careful rebuilding have left an amazing destination high up in the mountains. It's unbelievable to think that over 8000 people lived and worked in this landscape, with water channels, a surplus of maize, trading, gold manufacture and a stable political system - over one thousand years ago.

We started our trek with a 2 hour jeep ride from Taganga up steep roads cut through the valley side. Our companions for the trip were 2 German girls, 3 French guys and a nice chap from Spain. Our guide, Jose, had been doing the trip for many years and brought sweets and treats for the people of the indigenous tribes who we passed on the way.

As the trek went up and down the valleys, the intense heat and humidity soaked us to the skin - but the promise of many cool natural pools along the way kept us going. Some of the pools were 10 meters deep, so we climbed up the sides and dived in for a refreshing dip!

We went with a company called Magic Tours, the food was great and sleeping in hammocks every night made it feel like a proper rough expedition!

Santa Marta & Taganga - Colombia

We're currently in Taganga, a little bay that's perfect for chilling out and meeting other nice travellers and Colombians. As you can see it has beautiful sunsets, this picture was taken from the roof of our hostel, Casa Felipe (the best place to stay in town). We met up with Flavie again and a couple of other cool French chicks, Marie and Julie! In honour we had some delicious steaks for dinner last night down by the beach.

Before getting here yesterday, we stopped off in Santa Marta for a night to check out the town, its just a 5km drive from Taganga. We flew in from Bogota, no bus, which was such a treat! It's a bustling port town with a promenade and little beach. The streets are full of delicious food and juice vendors, the fresh lemonade is to die for, especially given the 35 degree heat.

We also booked onto the tour of Cuidad Perdida (the 'lost city') with Magic Tours, it's a 6 day hike through the jungle leaving tomorrow, so lets hope it does turn out to be magic!

Museo de Oro, Bogota - Colombia

The Museo de Oro in Bogota is one of the most important Gold Museums in the world, containing a massive collection of pre-Colombian artifacts. Me and Flavie wanted to take it all home as it was so shiny and beautiful (like magpies) but it's no wonder as the collection is worth over $200 million! We learnt about all the techniques of goldsmith's that the pre-Colombian tribes people used to make the pieces and that form the basis of the art today.

Here's some pictures of our favourites from the tour...

Colombia - Bogota - Big night out

As Bogota hosts some of the best bars and clubs in Colombia we decided to go out for a big night, our first in six months.

Our new friend Flavie joined, we started off close to the hostel with sushi and drinks at a place called Satsuma in.... turns out this place is owned by a really nice guy called Seb from old London town.

Afterwards he took us over to the very cool, bustling area known as Zona Rosa. There were 1000's of cool young Colombians going from bar to bar in a 8 block area.

We ended up in Atlantic Records, a cool rooftop bar/club with roaring fireplaces and pumping electro rock. The Colombia people are very welcoming and were excited to chat to us.

At 3am we headed to a club called The End, set on the 33rd floor of the former Hilton hotel, this place rocked it until 9am. We made a swift exit when the sun came up about 6am and headed back to the hostel, exhausted!

Our first experience of South American nightlife did not disappoint! Here are a few links to the evening

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5340259565

http://www.residentadvisor.net/club-detail.aspx?id=25932