With expat, RA and Bc-1 talking about tourism on the “real age” thread I think it would be interesting to talk about some destinations for tourism in Colombia. My first such trip was to Bahia Solano on the Pacific coast. It was many years back and things have probably changed. There were direct flights from Cali then but now you have to fly into Medellin first. The outpost (as I would call it) of Bahia Solano has a small airport but no beach. Once you land you need to go to either Playa Huina about thirty minutes in lancha where there is a hotel and some other lodging or take the jeep for a 40 minute ride to the tiny fishing pueblo of El Valle on the coast. This is a better choice. The beach is incredibly wide at low tide and the waves are incredibly intense at high tide. There’s a nice but very basic hotel, Hotel El Valle in the village or fancier cabañas out along the beach. During our stay the hotel’s small generator broke down (no big deal, just had to use candles at night). There was an old German “engineer” who lived with a huge Black women in the village who was the only one who could fix those things. The problem was he was drunk all the time and Janeth the hotel owner had to catch him on the rare day when he was sober. I don’t know if he’s still there but at the time there was a guy living with his woman in one of those stilt houses on the beach who everyone called Rambo. They said he was an AWOL FARC but who knows. He was a good guide and took us up river into the mangroves in his dugout canoe. You have to balance carefully in those things, their very tippy. From El Valle you can hike a jungle trail that parallels the beach all the way down to Parque Reserva La Utria (takes better part of a day) which is popular for whale watching because it has a cove that the whales enter with their young so there are close up views. Another place I like a lot and have visited a couple of times is Nuqui also on the Pacific coast. From Bahia Solano it’s about ten hours en lancha by sea. From the interior the way to get to Nuqui also by air from Medellin. The last time I went there was a three hour layover in Quibdo which is the capitol of Choco department. It is a very remote very small “city” along the Rio Atraco in the heart of the Choco jungle and surely has to be the inspiration for Joseph Conrad’s novel “Nostromo”. When we arrived at the airport (brand new and built by the Chinese) I went up to a policia and said hey we want to see the tourist section of Quibdo. (the city certainly doesn’t get much tourism per se just the occasional Euro backpacker but there is a big iglesia and malecon along the river). He took us outside and talked to a taxi driver. I didn’t hear all of it but I’m pretty sure he said to the driver “look you make god dammed sure this gringo and his girlfriend are back here at the airport in three hours or else! The guy just parked by the iglesia and waited for us I think per the cop’s instructions while we walked around El Centro. The population looked to be about 89% Black, 10% Indian and 1% White. When we got back to the airport I really had a sight. There were two Black guys talking in front of us who had the “pinta” of bad guys. One of them had completely gold capped teeth, gold earrings of course and necklaces but of all things all his fingernails were covered in gold…real gold. The flight from Quibdo to Nuqui is another thirty minutes and you arrive at a tiny little landing strip surrounded by jungle. My favorite lodging is the Piedra Piedra Lodge which is reached via a forty five minute ride in lancha south along the coast (bring pancho…it rains a lot). They have a nice Japanese made generator that runs off running water which comes out of the mountain behind the lodge. It can handle the refrigerator compressor that keeps the guests’ food cold, a tv and about ten light bulbs. As well as enjoying the sea you can make jungle hikes to crystal clear streams with deep pools in front of stunning waterfalls. There’s even a natural hot spring pool a half hour’s hike from the lodge. Less remote is another of my favorites: Capurgana, a village that faces the Golfo De Uraba and is only a few kilometers from the border with Panama. It has electricity, phone service and most other modern conveniences. There are a couple of comfortable hotels along the beach that are the principal destination for paisa couples on honeymoon. The last time I was there the hotel Almar (now Nautilus) had a yacht that you could take to the San Blas Island in Panama. It’s the home of the Cuna Indians who use coconuts for currency. Very touristy though and not worth it. The village of Capurgana its self is very scenic with everything painted in bright colors. There are no cars because there is no road system but lots of transport by air and sea. You can also hike into the jungle here. There’s a trail that goes along the edge of the landing strip which continues on into the jungle. It crosses a crystal clear stream about four times and at the end there is a natural pool and waterfall. All the above offer snorkeling and diving, all are reached by small plane from Medellin and each are destinations a guy could take in with a compañera during a two week visit to Colombia. My fourth recommended beach destination is Isla Providencia which is a thirty minute flight further on from San Andres. It has comfortable cabañas with A/C, nearly deserted white sand beaches, a restaurant, Donde Martin owned by a gourmet chef from Bogota where Cangrejo Negro is on the menu and of course the spectacular snorkeling/diving you expect in the Caribbean. If your taste runs to mountain hiking I have another sugestion. Several weeks ago I went up to Salento outside Armenia. I's a typical pueblo except for being heavily geared to tourism. It has 62 hotels and hostals! We stayed in a nice one and and they found us an experienced guide named Oscar. The next day we left at six for the Valle De Cocora. After driving up one of the most scenic valleys in Colombia dotted with the national tree, Palma de Cera you reach a restaurant and some other buildings where you can park. From there we left on foot and continued on a trail that led uphill into the forest. That trail which is well marked will take you eventually all the way up to paramo and then into the snows of Nevado de Tolima but that's a serious multiday backpacking trip with cold weather gear. We hiked uphill until about noon then veared off on another trail that would loop back to the parking area via a trail on the other side of the river. In all we covered fifteen kilometers of trail and had to cross the river seven times on suspended foot bridges. Man was I bushed! This area is really popular with European hikers and we passed maybe thirty foreigners mostly young couples on one two hour stretch. Oscar is kind of a mountain gear junky. He was wearing an expensive Gor-Tex jacket a Canadian had given him and when we got back to the car he asked for my friend's REI day pack instead of payment for his guiding service. Funny. He is a good guide and very enthusiastic but I wonder what his wife said when he got home and showed his wife his new back pack...and no money.
