I know…let’s start the trip in Colombia, Bogota in fact. Geographically sensible but probably one of the more challenging or downright dangerous (according to a certain pal of ours) locations to kick off our trip.

The first 36 hours were spent cocooned in hotel luxury. Even the whopping 2600m altitude (nearly twice the height of Ben Nevis) didn’t bother us there – maybe the grand club lounge was exempt from such things?

Keen to feel, see and taste the real Bogota we moved into La Candelaria – the oldest quarters in Bogota. Within a few hours we had been scammed by a taxi driver and realised that our hotel was overlooked by 3 friendly armed police. Our hotel wasn’t special it seems – many blocks in this part of town are guarded. Robbery is the main risk so we were very careful and left our Rolex and diamonds in the safe at our 3 star hotel 😂.

Despite the visual drama the city felt pretty safe. We enjoyed a fab food tour, James made friends at the local market and we went up the funicular to Monserrate. The city is pretty hip in places…like us!? Craft brewed beer, dry ice G&Ts and artisan brewed coffee were all readily available. Thanks for having us Bogota – you were fun!

Feeling more settled we jetted off to Medellín excited to be heading to Narcos country. Medellín was hot, but fresh and almost spring like, we were excited, James was…sick. Yup we had our first tummy bug less than a week after departure. James was a trouper but as you do we bunkered down in our (thankfully nice) apartment, with the odd trip to our local coffee shop and waited it out.

We solved the issue by watching reruns of Narcos on Netflix and John did make it out to Comuna 13, formerly the most dangerous barrio in the city run by narcos and guerrillas – Now transformed thanks to the guerrillas’ truce with the government and various community led initiatives.

Onto the Caribbean in Cartagena. Don’t get too excited people…this was a Colombian city version of the Caribbean.

We had a revelation in Cartagena, stupid really as we should have considered this already. If you do exactly what a toddler wants he is much nicer 😆. We therefore spent a few days riding buses, looking in tunnels, sitting beside soft play, eating pancakes, trying out chocolate making, playing on the beach and finally a whole load of swimming pool action. One small error was made with a hot trip to a castle…it wasn’t pretty.

We still had fun – great food, a fab run around the city walls for me and John found loads of stuff to take photos of!

As for our ability to speak Spanish – we managed. The effort to learn paid off even though it was limited!

Next stop Panama City. I think John wants a linen suit and a hat…

Gracias Colombia, hasta luego.

Xx