Ok, so i have been in Colombia one month now and I must say I absolutely love it. It is the most beautiful country I've been to and the people are all very friendly. I guess because there are so few tourists that come through here, there are also fewer people who make a living off tourists and thus, people are more genuine and less interested in your money. So anyway, here is what I have done, bear with me (or just look at the pics).

I left Quito last Monday, or rather Tuesday morning at 5 am and bused it to the Ecuador-Colombia border. From there I got another smaller bus (20 passengers) to the little Colonial town of Popayán. The drive from the border is supposed to be one of the most beautiful in Colombia and it definately wasn't disappointing. Although, Michaelle, it did bring back some memories of that terrifying drive along the Peruvian coast, with the edge of the road dropping straight down several hundred feet. Popayán is a really nice little town. Its known as the Pearl of Colombia because of the town's white washed buildings. All the buildings in the centre of the city are (I assume) required to be painted white and business' signs or names must be written in gold lettering. What I liked most about Popayán was the central park. I think it rates second of my favourite parks - after Antigua (obviously first because of serious amount of time invested there) and before Arequipa, Peru.

The next destination was to Cali, the biggest city near the Paficic ocean. This is/was probably the route most susceptible to guerrilla attacks (from what I've been warned) but at this time the police have it pretty well monitored. Our bus was stopped 3 times on the 2.5 hr ride to Cali, once by military and twice by Police. The first and last stops we had to get off the bus and have our bags checked and the men were patted down. The second stop what so that the police could ride the bus for a kilometre or two to make sure the speedometre was set correctly (buses aren't allowed to exceed 80km/h). This part of the drive I thought was more beautiful than the last (and so this pattern seems to continue to where I am now!!). The landscape was more lush with banana trees and coffee bushes, but still defined by the rolling Andes. Anyway, Cali likes to call itself the Salsa capital of the world. Unfortunately for me (and my moves) I was there during the week when the night life is actually quite boring. However, I am considering going back before I return to Ecuador. The city was ok from what I saw - they have a Subway (sandwiches) and people actually rent movies here from Blockbuster! This was a shock to see since every other store in Quito is a pirated movie shop. While in Cali, Elia and I picked up another Canadian guy (Sam) from BC.

Having had enough of the city the three of us went off to the little coffee town of Salento, nestled in the mountains and surrounded by beautiful vistas and coffee fincas. Salento was such a nice little quiet town with only about 3-4 thousand inhabitants and a great country feel to it. There were lots of men with cowboy hats and white, yellow, blue, and red Colombian scarves wrapped around their necks prancing around on extremely well trained horses. Saturday morning we hired some horses to take us down to a river. As I described before, horseback riding is not my favourite mode of transportation. This experience was actually quite enjoyable though. The only part that made me worry about my bladder control (yeah, sorry) was when we decide to go off road and went down a steep, STEEP, narrow dirt path. In the end it was actually quite a lot of fun. That afternoon we walked miles and miles down another narrow dirt road to visit a coffee finca (farm). Thinking we were lost, we asked some nice young military along the way for directions. Wow, I wish I had takend a picture of these kids (seriously, very young). One of them was actually armed with one of those machine guns (or whatever) with the big round barrel thing in the middle. You know what I'm talking about? Anyway, they were very nice and helpful though. haha. Sunday we hiked 12 km into the Valle de Cocora. This is a really nice valley with a cloud forest, tons of humming birds, and tucans. Its also the home of the Wax Palms, I think some of the tallest trees in the world. Really nice.

Ok, trying to keep this short and not too boring.... yesterday we left Salento and bused it to the dirty shabby city of Chinchina, right in the heart of coffee country (Check the label on your coffee bag sometime, might have Chinchina on it if its Colombia). The two guys were put off by the unpleasantness of the city and continued on to Manizales, but myself and Niamh (an Irish girl) stayed to visit the coffee farm here. It was terrific. The guys really missed out. The farm was situated at the top of a very steep hill looking over the town. We walked part way and hung off the back of a jeep the rest of the way. It took about 45 mins. On the way up we chatted with some very nice workers picking the mature coffee pods. They weren't used to getting tourist attention so it was really nice talking with them and asking them questions. At the end of the tour we visited a plant where they process and roast the coffee beans, and the staff there let us flavour some freshly toasted beans and then made us the freshed coffee possible. It was great and everyone was SOOOO nice!

Anyway, now I am in the University city of Manizales. The city is quite cold and surrounded by snow capped mountains and volcanoes. Think tomorrow we will head on to Medellín, the former home of the infamous Pablo Escobar and once one of the most dangerous cities in the world with over 4000 murders a year. Today it has cleaned up though and is considered one of the safest cities in Latin America with lots to offer. Hope that wasn't too much information at once. I will report back again in a few days.