Argentina: last country of the trip

Argentina is my last country of this trip, the one I thought 20 months ago would be the only country of South America I would have enough time to visit and apart from Bolivia it will be the one I have spent the shortest time in.

At the same time I have entered more or less the last month of my trip and instead of thinking that I decided to act as if it was my only month and as if I had this one month to relax from my daily routime of  home. So my chedule is light and I do not oblige myself to see or visit anything ieven if it is supposed to be the highlight of a place. Instead, reading books or newspapers, chatting with other travelers, eating icecreams or having siestas of 2/3 hours are things I do most. Another thing is that the food in Argentina is undoubtedly a step up from Bolivia and even from Peru: the meat especially and also the empanadas are excellent.

New albums with pictures

With the four new articles here are some albums of (until now) commentless pictures:


La Paz and the treks of Sorrata and the one unfinished in the Yungaz in this album,
Sucre the colonial city,
Potosi the famous historical place of both wealth and tragedy,
The salar de Uyuni, my four days tour there,
Tupiza with its canyons presented as the Far West of Bolivia.

Also there is the album of the province of Jujuy with three places such as Humahuaca, Ticalra and Pumamarca along the Quebrada de Humahuaca.

And finally I publish the album of Puerto Maldonado in Peru where you will see me almost in the jungle and you will see my first steps using a machete.

Uyuni: salar, great group and stains

The salar de Uyuni is the turistic highlight of Bolivia. This is a huge slat sea at 4,000m high. The tour of 3/4 days include 1/2 days on the salar itself and 2 days in the nearby desert once a sea bottom full of unusual rock formations, volcanoes and lakes.

My tour was divided in two parts. Almost no one wants a 4 days tour so the agency adapted a schedule for me so that I could spend one day near a volcano with a view on the salar before going on with a group for 3 days.

And I loved it, to be almost the only tourist on this "island", climb closer to the crater of the volcano and then be really lucky with a really international group in which we had an excellent atmosphere. These 4 days together have gone really fast, cruising through the beautiful landscapes and inventing choregraphics for the pictures.

Talking about the pictures I have to admit that I am not happy with mines. Since my last day in Maras when kids dropped my camera I have dust on my lens and this has really taken down the quality og my pictures, especially the ones with a bright sky like in the salar. But somehow a bit as a miracle they receded after the second fay of the tour!!!!

Bolivia, difficult start / Pas trop de bol en Bolivie

My first days in Bolivia have been difficult. You know about the drunk people in Sorrata and on top of that I got an inflammation of teh articulation of the jaw. It happened because I extracted a wisdom tooth just before leaving Peru for the cheapest price ever (7 euros) but for such a price it was not made with the sweetest delicacy.. Because of that I had to stay 10 days in La Paz instead of the 3 days I was planning. Next to the fact that it is really painful, I could not open my mouth (to date I still have not fully recovered) and eating had become really annoying as it would take me 4 times longer to eat half of what I am used to. Luckily for me I was with Aurore otherwise these 10 days would have felt much more difficult. My biggest fear of traveler is to be ill at a moment I am alone. Although I had my share of diseases in this trip just once I had one when I was alone (in Cuenca, Ecuador).

But now I am on the road again, I must say I love it. Sucre was really relaxed and beautiful, Potosi was intersting, the salar de Uyuni brought me nature as I love it and I have been again in contacts with the travelers community which is something I missed during my time in Cusco.

Elections in Peru

Early October there were local elections in Peru. Here are a few remarks on and after the campaign.

A typical way to do politics in Peru seems to makie a picture of a candidate, put a giant poster on a 4*4 and drive around town with loud speakers.
A typical program is to announced a huge list of new projects/buildings never mentioning how to finance them. Next to this program even Chirac would soumd like a serious politician.
Shows of supporters are sometimes arranged by giving money for people to show up at rallyes.
Everyone denounces corruption but the vast majority of incumbents is corrupted. SOme candidates give themselves the title engineer or doctor to appear more serious (and to impress uneducated people) even if they have made no studies.
Corruption plagues Peruvian politics. A candidate said that 30% of all budgets disappear because of  corruption and some people estimate the reality to be higher than this.
A candidate in a rough neighbourhood fakes to have been shot (in his car) by people paid by its opponent.
On election day and even on the day before, alcohol is prohibited. This is the same in all South American countries. My Chilean friend explained to me that on election day in the past in Chile there were gatherings where a candidate would give free alcohol and at the end of teh day would ask the people to go and vote for him.
A few days after the elections, among many accusations of rigged elections, there was one case near Cusco where people went to burn down the house of the winning candidate becase they said he was corrupted.
In Maras where I taught, the corrupted mayor lost the elections. He decided to cut the budget for the teacher of computing for the school as a retaliation because the Head of teh school had never been a supporter of him.
A you can see Peru is a democracy but it has some flaws...

Bad combination

I met Aurore on the slopes of the canyon to get to Choquequirao.
Since then we did three treks together and it has always happened something:
1) in Ausangate our guide abandoned us on the last day forcing us to carry our bags for the last 10 kms (that luckily were flat).

We then met in La Paz for two other treks:
2) the first in Sorrata, supposedly a great place to trek which reminded me of the South of Colombia but less nice. The event on the day we went to an high altitude lake was that when we came back we got problems with two heavily drunk miners of the small village that makes the departure and the end of the trek. To avoid  more problems that some endless and fuitless discussions with some idiots determined to get money from us we paid them little and went away because one never knows where this could end with drunk people feeling they are above the laws. The incident reflects both the racism of a part of the Bolivian popuplation toward foreigners and a change of attitude of some people since Bolivia has an indigeneous president.

3) the last rek was a 2 days descent of an Inca trail through a rain forest. It was really humid with dense vegetation. I would have been happy with a machete! We were a group of 6 when our guide (the one of us who had done this trek 4 times) slipped on a wooden bridge and fell 4 meters as well as banged his head on a rock and did himself s deep cut. This was the end of the rek and luckily after the help of one of us who is a doctor he could come back to the start and get treated at the hospital.

The bridge

 and under the bridge...

The conclusion of all this is that Aurore and I decided no to trek anymore together.

Update is coming and survey

Hey all,

I did not forget my blog but in Bolivia updating a blog using Internet sounds like a challenge so I just delayed it and will do it in a couple of days with my adventures in La Paz, Sorrata, Sucre, Potosi, Uyuni and Tupiza.

I am now in the north of Argentina and I will show you as well the first pictures.

 Finally I just launch a small survey about which country would you prefer to come and visit me if I get the chance to live in South America (see on the right).

Call me profe

I have not written for a while and probably to the surprise of many (considering my past articles) I am still in Cusco. But the main difference with July is that I switched from a traveler to a volunteer.

I had this idea for a while as many travelers have met do in general a volunteering at some point. After more than 18 months of continuously moving on I felt I was ready to give it a try and stay a bitm ore in one place. The irony is that it takes place in Cusco whereas I would have loved to stay in Colombia or I have even tried to go to help Chile when there was the earthquake last February.

Since late August I am an English teacher in the school of Maras. I teach twice a week to 6 classes (1h30 each class) of a primary school. I found this opportunity knowing the family of the restaurant Muña (see specific album). Maras lays one hour away from Cusco (which means to get up as early as 5h30!!!), close to the famous Moray, and is a country-side school. Here it is not about training the future generations of leaders for the country, it is about learning Spanish to the kids who all speak Quechau as a native language, the it is about learning them to brush their teeth, it is something really social for kids who help their family in the fields when they are not at school.

The site of Moray where Incas did some experinces for agriculture

Although Maras has Moray nearby the turistic boom has not spread over its population: there is water only 2 hours per day, really few people in the village have a car (all the kids go hme walking) and there is no internet, and none of the kids has a computer has a computer at home. I was also told that two years ago some Canadians made a study that showed that many kids suffer malnutrition which hinders their capacity to learn. Therefore although the kids are really happy to have classes of English, it is not a priority for them: almost no one does his homework and most of the time half the pupils do not bring its materials of the week before. English is then more having some good time and learning a bit.

On my side I learn a lot. I am not a teacher and having kids that young (the youngest are 6, the oldest 13), keeping them interested, making sure they ALL learn something is quite a challenge for me. Although sometimes I wonder what I do here when no one brings what I asked to bring I love doing it and will do it until the end of October.

I am also really grateful to the professors who have welcomed me in such a nice way. We have "breakfast" all together each day at the first break (10am); they cook what would be rather for me a lunch but I want once to have a French breakfast with croissant, baguette, yogurts, fruit juices and cakes.

I went to see the teachers in the "teachers Olympics" of the surroundings of Maras where competition does not only include sports but also reading out loud a text, traditional dance, sapo (a game where you throw tokens in holes to get points) etc... Unfortunately I was not allowed to participate due to the fact that 2 years ago a gringo won all the disciplines of athletics.

All in all this makes a wonderful new experience and a new step in my trip.

Update on pictures

Hola

Because this has been a while I made links on my blog I will for once post all of the new albums in a post

Since my trek spree I went to see nearby Cusco for two weeks the family of a friend. They run a restaurant for tourists  and I gave them a hand at various works. Although you won´t see it a lot n the pictures there is a sharp contrast between the quality of the erstaurant (I really love it) and the simple life these people are living (no fridge, no hot water...). Find all the photos in this album.

Then I have the album of my time at the school of Maras as well as the surroundings of Maras/Moray.

As I stayed more than three months in Peru I had to renew my passport. I then crossed to Bolivia for less than two days but it gave me the time to got o the Isla del Sol on the lake Titicaca and I loved it.

Finally two albums that will keep growing because they represent the two sides of Cusco:
The turistic side of the center of Cusco
The other side of Cusco, the one I am experiencing since I left the centre, simply more much Peruvian.


Plus I have published two new articles below....
Enjoy your readings and the pictures.

The shoe challenge

Life is full of unexpected events. When I started my trip I bought a new pair of hiking shoes because I knew I would trek. But I never knew that my trip would last so long and that I would not be able to replace them in South America...

I was tough with my shoes and especially in Patagonia they have been tested many times...

The extremely wet Caleta Tortel in Chile (I took the pic but the same happened to me) and the hardest day of teh Torres del Paine.

 This means that since the end of January when I came back from Santiago I could easily have considered getting a new pair. The problem is that in Chile I could not find size 47 (I admit I did not look a lot).

The months passed by and my shoes automatically got a new ventilation system of 4 holes, rotten laces and all sorts of signes that mean "we are tired". The look of most South Americans has also changed as I see many people staring at my feet in surprise and sometimes disdain: "How can a gringo wear this rubbish!!!"

I will take another picture to show you how bas they look.

A little background explanation; in South America you still have everywhere shoe-polishers to make sure your shoes look clean and I am convinced this is a sign of social differenciation, especially from the really poor who just have sandals barely big enough for their swollen feet. So my shoes put me in a category that does not suit with my "gringohood" and the widespread perception here that gringos are so rich that they can pay 5 times the usual price without being bothered, that my house is made of gold and that each morning when I open my door to the garden I find the $ (Euros in Europe) that have fallen down during the night like rain because this is how easy is life for us gringos, right? (thanks to MTV for showing the life of the rich and conveying these myths).

To come back to my shoes that is now 4 months I´m trying to get some new ones and no, 47 does not exist in a country where 44 is the biggest size. This has been confirmed by the 50 or more shops I have visited.

As a consequence my shoes will have to survive until the end of the trip and I will continue seeing the look of the South Americans wondering about this strange combination gringo/rotten shoes.

The return of the croissant

Many of you my friends from home or from the road have asked me you have not spoken aout croissants or baguettes for a while!!!!

Well, did not post on it but it is still part of my trip. I love wandering in the side streets or in the marketplaces in hope of finding this one bakery that would become the one.
In all honesty I found 4 great bakeries where either croissants or baguettes (or both) were excellent.

All these bakeries had a common point: they were pretty expensive and were not really local. In Ventiane, Cuzco and in Sydney they were French owned. Japan is really crazy about France and French products; what they do there, they send apprentice bakers for internship in France so that they get the French technique and then the bakeries import all ingredients (flour....) and as far as the oven to make sure they get the same taste. They also get French names such as Delices de France. But they also put a Japanese touch to it with a croissant having orange taste (it´s delicious). The best bakeries in Japan were in the luxury department stores.

The famous croissant a l orange

I have never found a really good baguette anywhere else and I am more or less convinced by now that my taste is too biased to find one outside France.


As for croissants, well, I have had good surprises with decent ones at times in Ecuador and Peru. But opne thing about croissants: so many countries like to have them with ham and cheese, what a sacrilege!!!! I sometimes even think about the morning croissant of AH (in Holland) as quite good that is to sy hopw few times I have found some.

During my trip I have added a few items to the list of bakery items I was craving for:
The first one, much easier to find than croissant, is the pain au chocolat. Ok, a good pain au chocolat is not so easy to find because many bakeries lay think that a pan au chocolat Scandinavian style is better: the difference is that chocolate is spread on the tpo instead of a bar inside. Anyway since when Vikings are good at making delicacies?

The good and the pale copy

Then they are the chiffones or kind of yoghurt cakes called chiffon with a vanilla or orange taste. I could find them in most of the countries of South America I have been and they re really good (mention speciale a Cuenca and Cuzco) and are perfect for trekking.

Ok, they are not small but I do not mind carry them

Oh, I have to mention the amazing chocolate cookies of the premium brand of W (I do not make ad for supermakets). First they have converted me to cookies and secondly everyone who tasted them on my advice agreed on their quality.

Also the fruits ice creams Dolci + Gelati in Cairns just made with fruits were exceptional (pineapple, strawberry and mango) and even beat the ones of my mum!!!.

from the website

And I cannot finish without speaking about the crepe au Nutella from Thomas in Cuenca. I was just coming from a week of illness and they were perfect to recover.

So overall, where do I stand on bread?
Well, Thailand is a bread desert while Australia and New Zealand are swamped with toast bread (ie, this is not bread to me).

Boooooohh

South America is not a baguette continent but luck can make you cross the way of a decent ciabatta or some local bread usually with the form of a bun (petit pain). (the ironic thing is that it is usually found in supermarkets which shows how bread as I like it is not part of the local culture).

Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam really are a step-up for baguette-like bread and that made my life easier for breakfast.

Japan still tops my list for the reasons I have explained earlier.

This ranking (where New Caledonia does not appear because this is too close culturaly to France) does not reflect how I liked countries because except Thailand and to a lesser extent Vietnam I loved them all. But even these two I would be happy to visit again to change my opinion. At the moment Japan remains the most exotic (= different) country I have ever been to, the natures of New Zealand, Patagonia are dreamlands for me, the Asian food is the most delicious, the beaches of Thailand, New Caledonia and Australia the most beautiful, the people of New Zealand, Colombia and Chile the most friendly, Laos the most relaxed country and South America my favourite continent because I feel so good here!!

Trekking spree

In the last month and a half I have spent 17 days doing multi-days trekking because this is the activity I like most Huayhash, Choquequirao and Ausangate all brought me wonderful moments in the nature.



I know there are many reasons to wonder why I love it:
It´s freezing cold at night (-10/-15 degrees in Ausangate) and when it´s not cold mosquitoes see me as fresh meat for their meal,
Usually it´s almost impossible to have a shower except if you like showering in water less than 10 degrees (I hear some of you saying, whatever, you´re French you almost never shower anyway!!!),
Average food feels like a treat to your mouth (I love puree), and
as soon as the sun is down you feel the only place you could be comfortable in is your sleeping bag.

But I love the absolute silence when at times even the wind stays quiet, I love the panoramic views that come as a reward after ascents, I love drinking water from stream, seeing wild animals/birds, small stone/wooden houses in huge spaces, stars at night in the sky or the moon highlighting the snow of the highest peaks.



And because I love trekking so much I decided to try to do a lot before the end of my trip. Because, yes, this time I can say it with more or less certainty that I will be home for Christmas (maman, tant que je n´aurais pas achete mon billet et posé le pied en France ça peut encore changer mais cette fois cést sur à 95% que j´ai une date de retour) so I want to enjoy my last 5 months of travel.

Then it will be time for me to come back to reality and this will probably mean for me a few months between France and the Netherlands before trying my luck probably in Chile or Colombia (but this can change) finding a job and living a few years outside Europe.

But before this I really wanna see more landscapes because Bolivia and the North of Argentina are said to be full of beauties. And I feel like going again to Patagonia. I saw it in summer and I would love to see it in Spring. y only fear is that if I get there I will never be back in 2010.....

Cuzco / Machu Picchu or the horrors of mass tourism

I hesitated before coming to Cuzco: the guidebook says that if there is only one place to visit in South America it should be here. Hummm, sounds like a tourist trap. Even Peruvians say it is really expensive and full of tourists, especially by now that we are in the middle of summer school holidays in Europe and the US. But I would have regretted to skip it so I came.

And guess what? I both hate and love Cuzco. I hate that 20 people come per day to sell me pictures I do not need, I hate that prices are more expensive than the rest of the country and that when I mention it to the people who sell these stuff they look at me as if I was the one having no idea of what I am talking about, I hate that I am offered drugs more here than other places, I hate that the music here is more Western than Latina, the same goes for the food and finally I hate more than everything that Cuzco has more tourists than travelers.

Before you start telling me: "Hey so you hate me each time I go as a tourist somewhere?" I want to point out that I mean here the tourists who not only do not learn the language at all (I can understand it if you just have 2/3 weeks) but who behave as if they were in a colony. And because these people keep having home as their reference, each price they pay is cheap even if they pay double the normal prce. And then I come behind and when I am asked the same price I say "no way!" and it is almost impossible to bargain it down. Another irritating thing is that so many people think I am Anglo-saxon (Australian or North American is what I hear most) so they talk to me in English.

But this morning as I was thinking about this article I also thought about the streets of Cuzco, one of the few cities in South America that has a real character (like Popayan, Cuanca or Cartagena),



some history, and that you are really happy to walk through. So I took my camera and went to shoot it as it is, torn between it sbeauty and its uglyness.



I will do it again one day at 6am to get rid of the uglyness and I hope I will make nicer shots of the then empty streets.

Then I thought about Europe: Venice, Florence, Brugges. some parts of Paris etc... and then I knew that Peruvians were not to blame, they just copy what we do with our nicest spots. Mass tourism is to blame, the one that transforms almost any nice building of our nicest citiues in vending machines. I hate it but at the same time I am part of it because it is mass tourism that makes things cheaper so that I can travel longer...

Finally I also met really nice people whether travelers or locals with whom I speak only Spanish and I will go next to the family of Susan whom I met in Australia. I want also to mention that some people like Mama Cuzco, the owner of my hospedaje or some street/market vendors are genuinely nice and it is a pleasure to speak with them and wander away from the main plaza (= square).

If mass tourism is the plague of Cuzco then Aguas Calientes (the village at the bottom of the mountain Machu Picchu where you have to go through to visit the site) is a plague in itself. This village has no life outside Machu Picchu and has only restaurants, handicraft shops and hotels, all this time even more expensive than Cuzco (example: a bottle of water costs 3 soles in Cuzco, 5 in Aguas Calientes whereas it is 2.10 /2.50 in the rest of the Peru). It has only one access through a train which costs more than a 1$ per Km (probably a world record) and its inhabitants are all but friendly (and this is the sadest in all this). This is a place where making you pay something at a ridiculous price is not a scam because it is the norm like our restaurant that invoiced a servicio coming out of nowhere and accepted that we did not pay it when we became furious... You know what, the most irritating thing with the train is that it belongs to an English company (Orient Express, I checked in their annual report) so the money does not even go directly to Peruvians. And even backpackers usually take it at least once because the only two ways to avoid it are challenges in themselves: a full day of 1 bus, 2 collectivos and 10 kms walk alongside train tracks or an exhausting 28 kms walk along train or on train tracks then 2 collectivos and 1 bus.

Don´t worry it was not always that narrow

But it is worth it (I did both) as I paid 37 soles return against a minimum of 60 $ ( apprx 180 soles); Sometimes it´s good to be more stubborn than a donkey.

And Machu Picchu in all this?

Machu Picchu, vu de la porte du soleil (at 2pm)

Well there is no doubt having such a city there is impressive, the fog in the morning and the little sunlight I had were cool but I cannot help being a bit disappointed by Machu Picchu and not only because I just had an ok weather.

If I compare it to the temples of Angkor built a few centuries beforee I notice that none of the rocks were decorated and that even the temples of the city have been almost completely destroyed. I was told this is the Inca architecture that is just meant to be simple. There would not be all this hype around MP I guess I would not feel that but I have heard so much bout it that I was expecting something else....

Huayhash, my longest trek ever

After two weeks spent in Ecuador relaxing a bit after my 7 weeks in Colombia I set sight on Peru and its mountains this time after visiting the coast last February.

My first stop has been Huaraz, the mecca of trekking in Peru and a place I really enjoyed because I did a trek of 8 days around the cordillera Huayhash, classified as the second best trek in the world according to National Geographic.

During these 8 days we went through 9 pathes, all over 4,000 meters and our maximum was 5,050m for a mirador that gave us great views.

My at the path at 5,000m and the group

It was cold at night but the view of the snowy mountains and the stars were worth the cold (in the minus probably).

All in all I loved these 8 days and I really recommend you having a look at the photo album that for once I have uploaded at best resolution so you can enjoy similar views as I did.

I have no idea if this is really the second best trek in the world but for sure it gave me the feeling to trek more and I am now going in the direction of Cuzco to see the heritage of the Incas.

The update of Colombia

More than 15 months and 13 countries into my dream trip and I find it hard to keep the pace of the blog so I finally have made an update including Colombia.

I have first made a best of my pictures of Colombia if you don´t wanna see my 600 pictures (I would still recommend the album of la Ciudad perdida) and then I have four posts hoping to explain why I loved this country.

So, what´s next. A couple of things. I have decided to visit Argentina (the North and Buenos Aires), do a few treks in Peru and see some friends in Santiago. I have more or less given up my idea to see the world cup in Chile or Argentina but I would have to rush too many places and football is not worth skipping them. This should get me busy in the next months (I´d say 2/3 months but it could always change).

Colombia, video presentation

Before getting to my pictures this is a video of Colombia showing the main touristic attractions of the country and that I saw at the school I visited. It should get you an idea of what Colombia can offer to tourists (I had this without the sun)

Colombia, the only risk is to want to stay more

My trip to Colombia started a year ago, in Koh Tao (Thailand) hwne Erika my diving buddy told me I should go to Colombia because it was one amazing country.

What did I know about Colombia? The FARC, Pablo Escobar, Valderama, bananas and 100 years of loneliness. Hummm...it does not really sound exciting and with less than 3 months in SOuth America, flying to Santiago and out of Buenos Aires, I had no time to go. Moreover the overall reputation of the country is bad: the French governement has a map of the country with the usual color schemes to tell you where it is safe or not. I reproduce it below and believe me a few months ago there was just one green stain on it. I read also on a forum that two girls who went to Colombia and who got robbed got a lecture from the embassy when they asked for help instead of getting help. Once again bravo to the French diplomatic personel!!!

Throughout the following months the people I mewt who had been to Colombia usualy found Colombia the country they had preferred in South America. So, when I decided not to fly back to Europe and after checking several sources about safety in Colombia I decided it would be my next adventure after Patagonia.

2 months later, when I crossed the bridge from Ecuador into Colombia I remmeber I has a bit of anxiety but it all vanished really quickly because COLOMBIA IS SAFE. To me it is much safer than Peru or Ecuador. 7 weeks and not at any moment I felt threathened . I walked in the streets (incl late at night), I took taxis, went to markets, it was all fine. I had locals helping me many times, advising me on where to get and where not to go. There are still places where tourists should not go but they are remote. Colombians are great they love their country and want to share it with you. They are also aware of the bad reputation their country has (8 years ago they could not get our ot fthe cities irt was too dangerous) and they are eager to show thsi is undue. For instance all the taxis we took in Medellin where really helpful and probably among the nicest I have taken in my life and they all said please tell the people around you Medellin is not the bad city everyone thinks it is.

So it´s my turn to relay to you that the idea that Colombia is too dangerous is one the myths from the medias
Next time you meet a Colombia instead of talking about the FARC or drugs ask him/her about la ciudad perdida, la vallee de Cocora or el rio de la 5 colores, I am sure he/she wiull be delighted to tell you more about that.

Rio de las 5 colores and the vallee del Cocora

Colombia como te quierro

It happened again it almost strats to be boring: I fell in love with a country I visited. 7 weeks in Colombia 3 more than the 4 I was planning first to spend in this country. And it´s gone really fast. Why? Mostly because Colombian people are so nice.

The best instances are Bogota and Medellin. These two big cities are nice but do not have incredible touristic attractions. My time there has been amazing because the friends of friends we met gave us so such a warm welcome, made us taste local food and took us to real Colombian places.


In Medellin we went to a Colombian bar where everybody danced including me, sat in the street and drunk beers like the students, tried typical païsa food (païsa = from the region of Medellin) and our friend cooked for us.

Views of a water reserve near Medellin and of the river crossing the city (with lights systems for night time)

In Bogota I met many Colombians introducing me to Colombian politics and the coming presidential election, spent an afternoon with 7/10 years old school kids met in the street, went to cafes on the hills of the city with a beautiful view, had a typical Bogotan sunday visiting a salt cathedral and having a desert at the local milk factory and got invited at a local farm for a birthday party.

The school kids and the girls I played with at the birthday party

I have now one embassador in each city because without them I would simply have been one more gringo sticking to the gringo trail and I am really grateful to Andrea and Carolina for what they did.

My ambassadors: Andrea (left) and Carolina (left as well)

I met also really nice Colombians in Cali, Tierradentro, Villa de Leyva and San Gil, basically in almost all places I have been to.
One funny thing about Colombia is that i´s the country where I spoke most French with locals. Many Colombians know French because they have been studying there.