When we first arrived at Jardin, we took a Jeep up to the coffee farm that we were staying at. It had a beautiful view, horses, a tire swing and very nice couple called Imelda and Javier.

Javier took us down to the coffee farm to teach us how to pick coffee beans. then he told Us how to separate the good beans and the bad beans. then he told us how to dry the beans. the beans were very sticky and it was a bit of a Easter egg hunt to find the right tree. we hade to find the right coloured beans, which was red, because if we didn’t then we would have to throw them a way, if they were black or green. I love the coffee, like all ways, but as usual, Anna and Amelie are the total opposite: they hate coffee.

We went horseback riding and I shared a horse named Carmelo with my dad. it wasn’t my first time horseback riding but I still really liked it.

I think Steve (on Instagram @puddy_steve) and Anna managed to capture our experience in Panama. It was an unexpected stop, but certainly worthwhile.

I was nervous about Colombia. Growing up, I knew it to be a country of war and violence. I never imagined that in the process of healing and rebuilding over the past 23 years, it would become one of the most beautiful and friendly places I have ever visited.

Our first stop was Medellin (as captured by Amelie), the second densest city in the world. Medellin is situated in a valley, surrounded by mountains and greenery, and the drive into the city from the airport provided most magnificent views into the city. We stayed in Poblado, the city’s safest neighbourhood, and Metro systems throughout the city are second to none, including an aerial tram up to some of Medellin’s mountainside neighbourhoods and national parks.

Our commitment to learning enough spanish to feel safe traveling through the continent with three young girls has been worthwhile already. Through the school experience, we met so many wonderful Costa Ricans and Colombians. Our first week of Blink Spanish school in Medellin turned to two when all three Mathias girls voted to continue on. The backbacker crowd at Blink was happy to have a family of five tag along on their excursions, including a night of Tejo (Colombian national game involving throwing a rock at gun powder filled papers, creating explosions to gain points) and an exciting soccer match between Medellin’s two rival teams.

Four weeks of spanish school has given us enough skill to navigate conversations with so many Colombians. They are some of the most helpful, friendly people- we have yet to meet an unfriendly Colombian, or anyone without the patience to tolerate our poor verb tenses. People stop us on the street to offer direction and suggestions, others offer their phone number on the metro in case we have any troubles.

To break up our two weeks of school in the city, we hopped on a bus and headed off on the 2 hour, windy bus ride to Guatapé. Guatapé is a resort town for Medellin locals, A small town situated on a series of many small lakes. On the outskirts of town lies the “piedra”, a huge rock with stairs up one side. Views from the top are spectacular (see Amelie’s Medellin post).

Unfortunately, Guatapé provided us with a hard lesson about drinking tap water outside the major Colombian cities. It was a rough go for all 3 girls and I, but we are back up and at it again, making up for lost calories with more deep fried cheese bread and empanadas. Vegetables seem to be a thing of the past for the moment.

We made our way into the Andes. Travel days can be intense. The roads are incredibly narrow, windy, and often washed out in places. The buses hug the mountainside with steep drops on one side. The views make up for all of this. Rolling hillsides, vast mountains, lakes, waterfalls, and villages along the way.

Our stop in Jardin at a coffee farm was a special one. The farm has been in Javier’s family for over 100 years, a spectacular property with a 360 degree views of the Andes terrain at 2200 ft elevation. He and his family were incredible hosts and the girls loved learning about the coffee making process. We learned first hand that picking coffee beans from trees at elevation on a steep mountain is no easy feat! We were treated to farm to table meals and exploration of the property and farm on horseback. While most of our time was spent in the mountains 20 minutes out of town, we did enjoy a walk through the town on Sunday afternoon, giving us the impression that Jardin is a true Colombian gem, off the tourist track. With a very Western feel to it, locals spend Sunday afternoons in one of many small bars dressed in cowboy attire drinking, dancing, singing and socializing.

Another (scary!) travel day via Jeep and bus to Salento made us realize just how far off the beaten track we had been. Salento definitely had a more touristy feel, though the landscapes were equally vast and beautiful. Here, we stayed on the property of a Canadian expat and his beautiful Colombian family. Salento will always be remembered for its long, beautiful hikes (including the Corcora Valley, captured by Anna on her post) and for the Tarantula in our bedroom. OMG.

Continuing south towards the Ecuador border, we spent a couple of days in Popayan, a beautiful colonial town and UNESCO site for gastronomy. We walked and ate our way through town, enjoying the streets lined with white buildings and many churches before continuing our journey south. The trek from Popayan to Ipiales was our longest day yet. Eleven hours, many spent gripping the edges of our seats, to arrive in the somewhat seedy border town. Arriving at our hotel at 10pm, we were greeted with lion printed bed covers and grimy bathrooms (note- the beds did NOT vibrate). I am still recovering from that night. Ew. However, the gem in Ipiales is La Sanctuario de las Lajas, a most beautiful church situated in a deep valley, surrounded by waterfalls and green cliffs, where we stopped on our way to the border. It was nothing short of spectacular. The walkways are lined with plaques from thousands of individuals, families, and groups who have contributed to the building and maintainence of the church over the past 60+ years. Pilgrims parade to this site during Holy Week every year and celebrations are plentiful.

Colombia far exceeded our expectations. Our time here was unbelievably special. The girls have gained confidence in meeting new people, exploring new environments, trying new foods, using new language skills, and embracing new experiences. As a family, we have settled into our new lifestyle. We look forward to venturing further south over the next two months in South America.

We only stayed in Armenia for one night because there was a parade we had heard of and it sounded very interesting. The parade was 4 hours long, with plenty of jeeps that had as many things in the back as posible. There was a section of fruit, furniture, and rice. Some jeeps even had little villages on them. It was so heavy the jeeps were only on two wheels. There were also dancers and bands. There were people dressed up like queens on top of cars and people in animal costumes. There were people dressed like birds on stilts. We watched the parade from our hotel because we were staying on the same street.

Cocora Valley Hike: a very hard experience. On our first day in Salento, we had a nice breakfast with a German couple who had done the Cocora valley hike. They showed us pictures and it was funny to hear what they had to say about it, the lady said they meant to go on a two hour hike but then half way through the hike her husband led them on the wrong trail and ended up going on a five hour long hike. She was not happy about that. So of course we now had to do this long long hike. We called our friend Freddie the taxi driver to pick us up and drove off. When we got there, it looked like it was about to rain. We were hoping it wouldn’t and then we began the hike. At the beginning we saw wax palms, they are like palm trees but were so much taller and they produce wax. We were all happy until it started to rain and go up hill like the Grouse grind. Boy we were muddy and wet. We also came across some very funky bridges like one that looked like a tree had fallen over a river, some very slippery ones and another bridge the Elise thought would be fun to turn into a catwalk and didn’t know that a stranger was filming her. After that, we all had a laugh. When we got to the end of the trail we chose to go check out the humming bird garden. When we got there, there was so many humming birds and the bonus was that you could get very close to them and they wouldn’t move. We were starving so we got a snack and tried cheese dipped in hot chocolate and it was absolutely disgusting. Amelie and Elise also played with their hot chocolate. After snack, we kept on going until we reached the top. We actually sang ourselves to the top. When we got to the top, these people tricked us, saying “ sorry you can’t come up this way”. We thought that they were telling the truth but thank goodness they were not. At the top we took pictures and in this one we are mostly all smiling but those were definitely fake. We were exhausted. Then it was time to go down. Wow, that was fun and exhausting!

The soccer game was awesome. We ordered a taxi and while we were waiting for it to arrive we got our Medellin shirts on. When the taxi pullled up in front of our hostel, we all were wondering were on earth we were supposed to go when we got there. The only directions we had was to go to the red zone and we were like “ huh?” So we got out of the taxi and walked around the red zone.  The red zone and the green zone were different zones that you had to go in depending on which team you were chearing for. This was so that the two teams  wouldn’t fight. The teams were the Medellin team vs the Columbian team so it was a big deal. We finally found our friends from Blink the Spanish school that we were going to and had dinner with them. After dinner we headed towards the stadium. In line we were so excited but then we heard the bad news.The zone that we had got our tickets for was a zone for fourteen years and older and they told us that we had to go to the family section. It was so frustrating. So when that issue was sorted we went to the family section.When the game started the players entered the stadium with some guys spraying blue and red smoke/paint. It was so cool! After that the game started there was a ton of footwork, a lot of injuries, and goals. Every time someone faked or actually got hurt, we would joke around that a Jeep would come on the field to get the injured one. They would bring him to the side line and he would jump out of the Jeep and run back onto the field and we would always say “oh there goes the ambulance”. At the end of the game, the final score was 2-1 for us. Woohoo! As we made our way out of the stadium, we saw some drunk people balancing on a safety bar on the highest level. If they had fallen they would be doomed.

 

No goal!

 

We arrived in Medellin Colombia almost a month after we left Vancouver, we arrived on the 21. We got settled into our homestay, went to blink our Spanish school for the week and went for a walk around our neighbourhood with the oner of blink, Christian. On Saturday, we went to parque explora the science centre it was lots of fun we saw some very venomous snakes, some fish and did some science stuff. On Sunday, we went for a very interesting gondola ride. We started at the metro, took it to the gondola, and took the gondola over a little neighbourhood, it was beautiful. We got out at a place called Parque Arvi, we went for a walk around and tried some very interesting foods like a bright orange thing that I did not really like. We tried a marshmallow food that I loved. A lot of empanadas. And a coffee caramel pudding that I also enjoyed. The next day was our first day of school and we had a teacher named Olga. We just learned things you would have in a house. Our homework was fun but hard. We drew our dream house on a piece of paper, then at school we made mini people and played in the houses with them but the hole thing had to be in Spanish. On Wednesday we learned new things and we went over the things we had done in the last couple days. The next day we learned how to say different jobs and did another little game. On Friday we made dresses out of paper. We went for a weekend trip to Guatape and I loved that it was super fun we went for a lot of walks, climbed a huge rock with 659 stairs and went to com fama the water park on a lake.

We were only going to stay in Medellin for a week but we loved it so we stayed for two weeks!!!