Thrilled to be a winner from Sunday Times Travel Magazine
I experience life in Colombia’s beautiful coffee region Armenia, staying in a traditional hacienda overlooking beautiful gardens with large flowers, and the most colourful birds. After a La Cabaña breakfast, a cornucopia of tropical fruits, eggs, cheese and arepas (corn cakes), I head off to Salento with its colourful buildings and pretty town square. Walking up the coloured stairs I experience a beautiful view of rolling coffee trees and banana fields in the surrounding valley and mountains.
A hike through the Corocora valley in Los Nevados, renowned for its wax palms, (the tallest palm tree on Earth), with their slender trunks reaching up to 60 metres high made an astonishing spectacle.
Next a neighbourhood orientation tour of the barrios (Spanish for neighbourhoods) in Medellin, Colombia’s 2nd largest city with shops, green parks, churches, museums and delicious cuisine it gave me a good insight into how the locals live. I also got a unique opportunity to see another side of Medellin, electric outdoor escalators, ( Comuna 13). These are the longest outdoor escalators in the world and have transformed a Colombian neighbourhood. More than 12,000 residents used to have to hike a very long way up to their poor hillside homes (favelas) until the government installed this 384 metre escalator.
I join in a controversial Pablo Escobar tour where I’m reminded of the devastation of the city’s terrible past and how it is now transforming.
My final destination, Cartagena, a World Heritage Site. My goodness the people, the Old Walled Town of 16th-century plazas, cobblestone streets and the most colourful of colonial buildings were all picture perfect and breathtakingly beautiful.
A fitting end to my winning tour of Colombia was the most spectacular sunset, witnessed by the port in Cartagena as the sun went down in spectacular style on the Caribbean coast
