We drank hot chocolate wtih cheese (yes, floating cheese, inside your hot chocolate). We ate tamales, arequipe (that’s dulce de leche in Colombia), guava and tamarind sweets. We grabbed coffee at Juan Valdez, a Starbucks-like chain with cushy couches and laptop-wielding visitors. Brick buildings, and European-feeling parks, restaurants with impeccable service, people so warm and inviting and yes, a city that understands its problems and works hard to ensure the safety of its inhabitants and visitors. When we arrived, we were taken by what we saw.Ī city set high in the mountains, the air so crisp and fresh. We’re both seasoned travelers and we prepared ourselves to fit in as best we could. Department of State warned of drug trafficking, kidnapping, and robberies. Before we chose Colombia as our destination of choice, we struggled with what we perceived to be mixed recommendations: friends who had been there raved about its modern restaurants, friendly people, incredible history and natural beauty, while the U.S.
Its Old City to rival any other - filled with colorful buildings constructed by the Spaniards in the 1500s, a handful of delightful museums (we visited the Gold Museum and the Botero museum), awe-inspiring churches, fruit vendors, sweets shops, bars, and yes, machine gun-armed military personnel. Where do I begin? We split our time between the grand capital city of Bogota: a mishmash of old and new. In fact, on the plane, coming home, I spent a significant amount of time staring at the map in Continental Airlines’ in-flight magazine, trying to figure out: “What’s next?”Ĭolombia. My thirst for travel is, frankly, insatiable. Not that there’s anything wrong with this type of travel, but for us, travel is about discovering little hole in the walls, talking to people outside of our hotels, getting lost, losing track of time, and understanding culture beyond a resort. We’re not all-inclusive types of travelers. After going back and forth about whether or not we’d even have enough vacation time to go to Thailand, we ultimately decided that we wanted to take a trip, but 10 days was simply not long enough to go to Asia. It was a last minute decision, to be honest. Some of you may know that I recently took a 10 day trip to Colombia, a country in Northern South America, which is bordered by Venezuela, Ecuador, Brazil and Peru.