DEREK's Blogs

It’s with a little trepidation that we plan our trip to Colombia. It’s not long ago that the country was infamous for its drug cartels, ‘disappearances’, and the horribly violent hostilities between its political and would-be political parties. But as we step out of the airport terminal in Bogota and meet Andrea, our guide in Bogota, there’s a feeling of normality about the country which happily continues throughout our visit.

This evening we have our first Colombian cuisine experience at Cumbia House restaurant. It’s a restaurant that combines food with entertainment and the clientele are primarily parties of workmates out to enjoy the evening. Beer is in easy supply at the table but it’s the first time that we have ever had our bottle of wine served in a carrier bag as we leave the restaurant. Perhaps this is some strange Colombian custom?

The following night we have a fun evening at the ‘Andres Carne de Res’ restaurant in Bogota. The restaurant is famous for its extravagantly colourful décor and entertainment. There’s a stage, but the music is brought right out to the tables in outrageously costumed performances. The evening is buzzing with music, dancing, and strangely-dressed people doing strange things.

One group, black from head to foot and painted skeletal faces, act as pretend security guards for the people queuing to enter. They make everyone raise their arms and then they do a body scan using a large soup spoon. Every now and then, randomly, the scanner mimics an alarm sound and the person is taken to one side for extra security. Occasionally, just for variation, the punter is asked to do a chicken imitation with their arms. Some people look a little put out by all this but most see the fun. And it’s hilarious watching it from our table, especially after a few drinks.

This is one of the restaurants where the cost of the meal was included in the complete tour package, arranged and paid for in advance. So at the end of the evening we leave the restaurant happy, and in the knowledge that the meal has already been paid for by the tour company. But half way down the street the waitress comes running after us and we have to go back and pay the bill. It’s the first time that we’ve done a runner from a restaurant, but we’ve got a taste for it now and next time we’ll run faster.

After Bogota it’s a flight up to Santa Marta and a drive to our hotel at Cayenna Beach. The hotel is more of the rustic variety than we expected, but nice people, a comfortable bed, and a tasty line in gin and tonics.

The next day is a hike in the Tayrona National Park. Our guide for the day is Martin. Ex-army, medalled for saving a life, and a DJ in a Santa Marta club when not saving lives.

He arrives with all the kit – a huge backpack with all his life-saving equipment, his Colombian equivalent of the Swiss Army knife,  and even a portable tank with piped water via a tap on his right arm. He is a little shocked to find that he has a band of septuagenarians to look after and has, I think, some second thoughts about the challenging day’s hike. But he overcomes his doubts and starts, I suspect, to look forward to the opportunity of saving some more lives during the trek.

Anyway, we all make it there, and we all make it back. And in between we have a lovely swim at the beautiful Cabo San Juan, and a delicious lunch of fresh tilapia and coconut rice on the beach.

The following day Martin arrives to take us to a cocoa farm in the hills of the Sierra Nevada. His back pack is smaller today and he tells us that we can judge the extent of the day’s challenge by the size of his back pack. We have a four-wheel drive car because for much of the route we are bouncing along in hilly uneven terrain. Martin puts a spin on this by telling us, before we set out, that we’ll be getting a free massage along the way. Robin and I are disappointed when we discover what he means.

The cocoa farm is on the other side of a fast-flowing river with no bridge. We have to cross by stepping on stones and hanging on to an overhead rope. We all make it across without any need for life-support from Martin.

I had not expected a visit to see some cocoa trees to be so interesting. Cocoa farming is explained to us in fascinating detail by the farmer. Here’s a quick precis, to prove I was listening:

There are black cocoa plants and white cocoa plants. But if you farm them close together pollination from the stronger black plants turns the white ones rosé.

White cocoa plants are known as ‘MACAMBO’. The plants are very rare – due I think to the cross-pollination with black cocoa plants. They are not used in chocolate production but the beans – nicknamed the ‘Brain Beans’  have health benefits – apparently they do wonders for cognitive ability, emotional well-being, they aid digestion, give an energy boost, and even have anti-cancer potential. They are only recently being commercialised and health-conscious Germany (we might have guessed) is the first target  market.

(White chocolate – as we know it – is not made from white cocoa plants. It’s made from black cocoa but without the non-fat components, and with added milk solids. Some people argue that it shouldn’t therefore be called chocolate)

The farmer takes us around his plantation. He opens a freshly-picked cocoa fruit for us and we suck it. It’s very fruity, not chocolaty at this stage, and we are left with the nut which, after fermenting in a box for ten days, drying in the sun, being roasted and ground, had sugar and cinnamon added, becomes rustic chocolate.

The detailed explanation  is followed by a chocolate facial for each of us – probably the best use of rustic chocolate. The facial is good fun for all of us – and possibly even good for our skin.

This evening we break a record – the furthest distance we have ever driven to get a pizza. Our guide for the pizza outing is Fernando, twenty-one years old and living in the family apartment with his eighteen year-old sister who is studying psychology at the University in Santa Marta. They cook for each other and seem to get on well. The only downside seems to be her habit of regularly psycho-analysing him. Fernando’s mum is only sixteen years older than him – she was pregnant at fifteen. He has a brother in London and two step-siblings living with his mum and step-dad in Riyadh. London is their family get-together city. With this international pedigree it’s no wonder he has near-perfect English.

It’s 50km to the pizza restaurant and the road is a slow one. Robin regales Fernando with a non-stop account of the challenges we have had with the tour to date, so perhaps the drive seems shorter to them. But for the rest of us it feels like an agonising eternity.

But the pizza is a good one and afterwards it’s nice to be out in Santa Marta’s lovely central square with music playing in every corner, and families enjoying an early celebration of the Feast of Saint Peter and Saint Paul.

The next day it’s a visit to the coffee factory and Martin has the smallest backpack that could still be called a backpack. It must be an easy day. The factory is up the valley of the Rio Gaira, south of Santa Marta. The really interesting thing about this factory is how it is almost totally driven by water. The coffee plantation is further up the river valley and water is piped from the river, through the plantation, and down to the factory. As the coffee beans are collected they are poured into the piping and the water carries them down to the factory. In the factory, the beans float through various water channels where the heavier beans sink and the lighter ones are taken forward, thereby automatically sorting the beans. And there is even spare water power to generate electricity for the village. What a green factory!

After the factory the itinerary includes a visit to a nearby waterfall with an option for swimming. But Martin doesn’t really want to take us there for some reason, and since 75% of us don’t want to go, the visit is abandoned. So much for democracy!

But any lack of excitement at the waterfall is more than made up for by the thrilling evening to come. Martin tells us we are going to a restaurant close to our hotel and the taxi will collect us. Sure enough the taxi driver arrives, speaking only Spanish, and we pile in to the car, expecting a short ride. We drive – in the dark – for about 30 minutes and then turn off the main road and onto a deeply rutted dirt road passing squalid, unlit, crumbling buildings. Exactly the kind of place where masked men hang out, only appearing after dark. We finally arrive at a car park, empty apart from some surprisingly up-market sofas where we are invited to sit and wait by a solitary unsmiling man waiting in the shadows.

After about ten minutes of suspense the guy gestures for us to follow him down a path. We are not sure if it’s a request or a demand, but we follow. The path leads to a river where a boat is just arriving. We clamber into the boat which then speeds off into the dark. Now we are sure we are being kidnapped and Margaret is desperately working out how we can get a message to the kids to ask them to track us. It feels like we are travelling quite a distance but then suddenly we arrive at a sandy bank with a girl and a dog waiting for us. We are lead along what we now realize is the beach and arrive at a beautifully laid-out ‘table for 4’. It’s our very own private restaurant on the beach. There’s just the boatman, his partner, the dog, a cat, a couple of kittens, and a completely deserted beach, at night, and they serve us a really top-notch meal. We don’t know how they do it.

From Tayrona it’s a five or six hour car journey  to Cartagena, passing Barranquilla on the way. The itinerary has us lunching in a seafood restaurant in the town, but Robin is keen instead for us all to stop by a nice beach on the way, have a lovely swim, and lunch overlooking the sea. Sounds good, but it turns out that the devil is in the detail:- the place has the feel of New Brighton out of season, and the sea is too shallow to swim no matter how far we walk out. In the end we splash about for a minute or two to convince ourselves we’ve had a swim, and then return to Margaret and Patti, who have opted out. They’re also opting out of using the dubious toilet facilities where the water has already dried up.

Then it’s forward to Cartagena.

Our hotel in Cartagena is a lovely building within the walled city, boasting Barrack Obama as a past guest. It’s welcoming, comfortable, and perfect for strolling around the city and enjoying the vibrant atmosphere.

Cartagena walled city is great – a buzzy, beautiful, and sophisticated place with tons of history. Digital Nomads have adopted the place – there are many thousands of them living here – so it’s bound to be good.

Cartagena was one of the most important staging posts in colonial Latin America, trading slaves from Africa in, and gold and silver back out to Spain. The walls are a reminder of the need to protect this great wealth from pirates and other invaders. The most famous pirate was our very own Sir Francis Drake, a privateer (a ‘commercial pirate’) who attacked the city, occupied it, and eventually made off with a huge gold ransom, which he took back to his shareholders in Britain to distribute a nice return on investment!

We visit the sanctuary of San Pedro Claver, who dedicated his life to helping the slaves traded in the city at that time. An unusual feature of the sanctuary is the use of coral as a building material, including an impressive coral staircase. San Pedro’s story is a moving one, and, as if to bring it to life, there’s the most beautiful singing coming from the church, holding us completely entranced.

Close by the church is a group of African ladies carrying baskets of fruit on their heads, making their living from tourist photos. They are from San Basilio de Palenque, a town 50km from Cartagena that was built by escaped slaves and eventually became the first officially free African town in Latin America. To this day it preserves its own customs and way of life, and even its own language.

In the evening we are due to go to a salsa club but Margaret is ill so I join Robin and Patti on the roof of the hotel with a gin and tonic to watch the sunset over the Caribbean. Unfortunately it’s cloudy over there on the horizon, so no picturesque sunset tonight. But technology rescues the experience for us – I type ‘sunsets’ into ‘photos’ on my iPhone and up pops all the sunsets that I have ever recorded, and each one has a story. So we pass a pleasant hour of virtual sunsets.

The following day is the day before we leave and we are visiting the Rosario islands. As we are getting into the boat Robin’s most expensive Swiss-ski sunglasses slip off his face and into the water. With no hesitation a couple of Colombian lads dive into the water to try to find them. A while later we are ready to leave for the islands and they are still searching. We speed off across the Cartagena bay and into the Caribbean sea. Just before we arrive at the island the captain of the boat receives a photo of the lost and now found sunglasses – the lads had not given up searching. And by the time we are ready to leave the island, the sunglasses have even arrived at the boat! It’s a good example of Colombian hospitality, genuine friendliness, determination, and efficiency!

It’s lovely swimming in the bay at the island and there’s even a beautiful white egret strutting the beach while I swim. It seems to quite like humans and I almost get to talk to it on the way out of the water.

Then, after a visit to the changing rooms, it’s my turn for an accident. I could walk down the steps and along to our sun-beds, just above the beach. But no, it’s a second or two quicker to jump over the wall, so that’s what I do. The wall, in common with much building in these parts, is made from coral – a very hard and unfriendly material. A loud crack and a damaged foot tell me I’ve probably broken a toe. There’s no NHS 111 on the Rosario islands but a quick consultation with AI tells me to attach the toe to a neighbouring healthy toe – a ‘buddy’ as AI likes to call it. So that’s what I do.

The next morning it’s Saturday, the end of the holiday, and we are heading home, via Bogota and Madrid.

Back at Bogota airport we are looking forward to meeting the lovely Isabella, the architect of our Colombian holiday. But Isabella is listening to Robin, who is by now well-rehearsed in cataloguing the challenges of the trip and is not holding back. Isabella looks captivated and unable to tear herself away so we don’t get a chance to chat to her. She’s new to this business and all novice entrepreneurs need encouragement so I make a mental note to give her a good report on TripAdvisor when I get home.

And so it’s time to leave and head for home. It’s been a good trip – we’ve learned a lot about Colombian politics in the past, present, and hopefully the future; we’ve learned about cocoa farming and coffee production; stories of Cartagena, it’s gold, slave trade, and fending off the Brits; and as an unexpected bonus we’ve learned about Robin’s passion for bird-watching, his musical talents, and even what he grows in the garden.

I’ve also gradually learned not to throw toilet paper down the loo, and now I’m coming home I’ll need to try to unlearn the habit as soon as I can.

It’s with a little trepidation that we plan our trip to Colombia. It’s not long ago that the country was infamous for its drug cartels, ‘disappearances’, and the horribly violent hostilities between its political and would-be political parties. But as we step out of the airport terminal in Bogota and meet Andrea, our guide in Bogota, there’s a feeling of normality about the country which happily continues throughout our visit.

This evening we have our first Colombian cuisine experience at Cumbia House restaurant. It’s a restaurant that combines food with entertainment and the clientele are primarily parties of workmates out to enjoy the evening. Beer is in easy supply at the table but it’s the first time that we have ever had our bottle of wine served in a carrier bag as we leave the restaurant. Perhaps this is some strange Colombian custom?

The following night we have a fun evening at the ‘Andres Carne de Res’ restaurant in Bogota. The restaurant is famous for its extravagantly colourful décor and entertainment. There’s a stage, but the music is brought right out to the tables in outrageously costumed performances. The evening is buzzing with music, dancing, and strangely-dressed people doing strange things.

One group, black from head to foot and painted skeletal faces, act as pretend security guards for the people queuing to enter. They make everyone raise their arms and then they do a body scan using a large soup spoon. Every now and then, randomly, the scanner mimics an alarm sound and the person is taken to one side for extra security. Occasionally, just for variation, the punter is asked to do a chicken imitation with their arms. Some people look a little put out by all this but most see the fun. And it’s hilarious watching it from our table, especially after a few drinks.

This is one of the restaurants where the cost of the meal was included in the complete tour package, arranged and paid for in advance. So at the end of the evening we leave the restaurant happy, and in the knowledge that the meal has already been paid for by the tour company. But half way down the street the waitress comes running after us and we have to go back and pay the bill. It’s the first time that we’ve done a runner from a restaurant, but we’ve got a taste for it now and next time we’ll run faster.

After Bogota it’s a flight up to Santa Marta and a drive to our hotel at Cayenna Beach. The hotel is more of the rustic variety than we expected, but nice people, a comfortable bed, and a tasty line in gin and tonics.

The next day is a hike in the Tayrona National Park. Our guide for the day is Martin. Ex-army, medalled for saving a life, and a DJ in a Santa Marta club when not saving lives.

He arrives with all the kit – a huge backpack with all his life-saving equipment, his Colombian equivalent of the Swiss Army knife,  and even a portable tank with piped water via a tap on his right arm. He is a little shocked to find that he has a band of septuagenarians to look after and has, I think, some second thoughts about the challenging day’s hike. But he overcomes his doubts and starts, I suspect, to look forward to the opportunity of saving some more lives during the trek.

Anyway, we all make it there, and we all make it back. And in between we have a lovely swim at the beautiful Cabo San Juan, and a delicious lunch of fresh tilapia and coconut rice on the beach.

The following day Martin arrives to take us to a cocoa farm in the hills of the Sierra Nevada. His back pack is smaller today and he tells us that we can judge the extent of the day’s challenge by the size of his back pack. We have a four-wheel drive car because for much of the route we are bouncing along in hilly uneven terrain. Martin puts a spin on this by telling us, before we set out, that we’ll be getting a free massage along the way. Robin and I are disappointed when we discover what he means.

The cocoa farm is on the other side of a fast-flowing river with no bridge. We have to cross by stepping on stones and hanging on to an overhead rope. We all make it across without any need for life-support from Martin.

I had not expected a visit to see some cocoa trees to be so interesting. Cocoa farming is explained to us in fascinating detail by the farmer. Here’s a quick precis, to prove I was listening:

There are black cocoa plants and white cocoa plants. But if you farm them close together pollination from the stronger black plants turns the white ones rosé.

White cocoa plants are known as ‘MACAMBO’. The plants are very rare – due I think to the cross-pollination with black cocoa plants. They are not used in chocolate production but the beans – nicknamed the ‘Brain Beans’  have health benefits – apparently they do wonders for cognitive ability, emotional well-being, they aid digestion, give an energy boost, and even have anti-cancer potential. They are only recently being commercialised and health-conscious Germany (we might have guessed) is the first target  market.

(White chocolate – as we know it – is not made from white cocoa plants. It’s made from black cocoa but without the non-fat components, and with added milk solids. Some people argue that it shouldn’t therefore be called chocolate)

The farmer takes us around his plantation. He opens a freshly-picked cocoa fruit for us and we suck it. It’s very fruity, not chocolaty at this stage, and we are left with the nut which, after fermenting in a box for ten days, drying in the sun, being roasted and ground, had sugar and cinnamon added, becomes rustic chocolate.

The detailed explanation  is followed by a chocolate facial for each of us – probably the best use of rustic chocolate. The facial is good fun for all of us – and possibly even good for our skin.

This evening we break a record – the furthest distance we have ever driven to get a pizza. Our guide for the pizza outing is Fernando, twenty-one years old and living in the family apartment with his eighteen year-old sister who is studying psychology at the University in Santa Marta. They cook for each other and seem to get on well. The only downside seems to be her habit of regularly psycho-analysing him. Fernando’s mum is only sixteen years older than him – she was pregnant at fifteen. He has a brother in London and two step-siblings living with his mum and step-dad in Riyadh. London is their family get-together city. With this international pedigree it’s no wonder he has near-perfect English.

It’s 50km to the pizza restaurant and the road is a slow one. Robin regales Fernando with a non-stop account of the challenges we have had with the tour to date, so perhaps the drive seems shorter to them. But for the rest of us it feels like an agonising eternity.

But the pizza is a good one and afterwards it’s nice to be out in Santa Marta’s lovely central square with music playing in every corner, and families enjoying an early celebration of the Feast of Saint Peter and Saint Paul.

The next day it’s a visit to the coffee factory and Martin has the smallest backpack that could still be called a backpack. It must be an easy day. The factory is up the valley of the Rio Gaira, south of Santa Marta. The really interesting thing about this factory is how it is almost totally driven by water. The coffee plantation is further up the river valley and water is piped from the river, through the plantation, and down to the factory. As the coffee beans are collected they are poured into the piping and the water carries them down to the factory. In the factory, the beans float through various water channels where the heavier beans sink and the lighter ones are taken forward, thereby automatically sorting the beans. And there is even spare water power to generate electricity for the village. What a green factory!

After the factory the itinerary includes a visit to a nearby waterfall with an option for swimming. But Martin doesn’t really want to take us there for some reason, and since 75% of us don’t want to go, the visit is abandoned. So much for democracy!

But any lack of excitement at the waterfall is more than made up for by the thrilling evening to come. Martin tells us we are going to a restaurant close to our hotel and the taxi will collect us. Sure enough the taxi driver arrives, speaking only Spanish, and we pile in to the car, expecting a short ride. We drive – in the dark – for about 30 minutes and then turn off the main road and onto a deeply rutted dirt road passing squalid, unlit, crumbling buildings. Exactly the kind of place where masked men hang out, only appearing after dark. We finally arrive at a car park, empty apart from some surprisingly up-market sofas where we are invited to sit and wait by a solitary unsmiling man waiting in the shadows.

After about ten minutes of suspense the guy gestures for us to follow him down a path. We are not sure if it’s a request or a demand, but we follow. The path leads to a river where a boat is just arriving. We clamber into the boat which then speeds off into the dark. Now we are sure we are being kidnapped and Margaret is desperately working out how we can get a message to the kids to ask them to track us. It feels like we are travelling quite a distance but then suddenly we arrive at a sandy bank with a girl and a dog waiting for us. We are lead along what we now realize is the beach and arrive at a beautifully laid-out ‘table for 4’. It’s our very own private restaurant on the beach. There’s just the boatman, his partner, the dog, a cat, a couple of kittens, and a completely deserted beach, at night, and they serve us a really top-notch meal. We don’t know how they do it.

From Tayrona it’s a five or six hour car journey  to Cartagena, passing Barranquilla on the way. The itinerary has us lunching in a seafood restaurant in the town, but Robin is keen instead for us all to stop by a nice beach on the way, have a lovely swim, and lunch overlooking the sea. Sounds good, but it turns out that the devil is in the detail:- the place has the feel of New Brighton out of season, and the sea is too shallow to swim no matter how far we walk out. In the end we splash about for a minute or two to convince ourselves we’ve had a swim, and then return to Margaret and Patti, who have opted out. They’re also opting out of using the dubious toilet facilities where the water has already dried up.

Then it’s forward to Cartagena.

Our hotel in Cartagena is a lovely building within the walled city, boasting Barrack Obama as a past guest. It’s welcoming, comfortable, and perfect for strolling around the city and enjoying the vibrant atmosphere.

Cartagena walled city is great – a buzzy, beautiful, and sophisticated place with tons of history. Digital Nomads have adopted the place – there are many thousands of them living here – so it’s bound to be good.

Cartagena was one of the most important staging posts in colonial Latin America, trading slaves from Africa in, and gold and silver back out to Spain. The walls are a reminder of the need to protect this great wealth from pirates and other invaders. The most famous pirate was our very own Sir Francis Drake, a privateer (a ‘commercial pirate’) who attacked the city, occupied it, and eventually made off with a huge gold ransom, which he took back to his shareholders in Britain to distribute a nice return on investment!

We visit the sanctuary of San Pedro Claver, who dedicated his life to helping the slaves traded in the city at that time. An unusual feature of the sanctuary is the use of coral as a building material, including an impressive coral staircase. San Pedro’s story is a moving one, and, as if to bring it to life, there’s the most beautiful singing coming from the church, holding us completely entranced.

Close by the church is a group of African ladies carrying baskets of fruit on their heads, making their living from tourist photos. They are from San Basilio de Palenque, a town 50km from Cartagena that was built by escaped slaves and eventually became the first officially free African town in Latin America. To this day it preserves its own customs and way of life, and even its own language.

In the evening we are due to go to a salsa club but Margaret is ill so I join Robin and Patti on the roof of the hotel with a gin and tonic to watch the sunset over the Caribbean. Unfortunately it’s cloudy over there on the horizon, so no picturesque sunset tonight. But technology rescues the experience for us – I type ‘sunsets’ into ‘photos’ on my iPhone and up pops all the sunsets that I have ever recorded, and each one has a story. So we pass a pleasant hour of virtual sunsets.

The following day is the day before we leave and we are visiting the Rosario islands. As we are getting into the boat Robin’s most expensive Swiss-ski sunglasses slip off his face and into the water. With no hesitation a couple of Colombian lads dive into the water to try to find them. A while later we are ready to leave for the islands and they are still searching. We speed off across the Cartagena bay and into the Caribbean sea. Just before we arrive at the island the captain of the boat receives a photo of the lost and now found sunglasses – the lads had not given up searching. And by the time we are ready to leave the island, the sunglasses have even arrived at the boat! It’s a good example of Colombian hospitality, genuine friendliness, determination, and efficiency!

It’s lovely swimming in the bay at the island and there’s even a beautiful white egret strutting the beach while I swim. It seems to quite like humans and I almost get to talk to it on the way out of the water.

Then, after a visit to the changing rooms, it’s my turn for an accident. I could walk down the steps and along to our sun-beds, just above the beach. But no, it’s a second or two quicker to jump over the wall, so that’s what I do. The wall, in common with much building in these parts, is made from coral – a very hard and unfriendly material. A loud crack and a damaged foot tell me I’ve probably broken a toe. There’s no NHS 111 on the Rosario islands but a quick consultation with AI tells me to attach the toe to a neighbouring healthy toe – a ‘buddy’ as AI likes to call it. So that’s what I do.

The next morning it’s Saturday, the end of the holiday, and we are heading home, via Bogota and Madrid.

Back at Bogota airport we are looking forward to meeting the lovely Isabella, the architect of our Colombian holiday. But Isabella is listening to Robin, who is by now well-rehearsed in cataloguing the challenges of the trip and is not holding back. Isabella looks captivated and unable to tear herself away so we don’t get a chance to chat to her. She’s new to this business and all novice entrepreneurs need encouragement so I make a mental note to give her a good report on TripAdvisor when I get home.

And so it’s time to leave and head for home. It’s been a good trip – we’ve learned a lot about Colombian politics in the past, present, and hopefully the future; we’ve learned about cocoa farming and coffee production; stories of Cartagena, it’s gold, slave trade, and fending off the Brits; and as an unexpected bonus we’ve learned about Robin’s passion for bird-watching, his musical talents, and even what he grows in the garden.

I’ve also gradually learned not to throw toilet paper down the loo, and now I’m coming home I’ll need to try to unlearn the habit as soon as I can.

It’s with a little trepidation that we plan our trip to Colombia. It’s not long ago that the country was infamous for its drug cartels, ‘disappearances’, and the horribly violent hostilities between its political and would-be political parties. But as we step out of the airport terminal in Bogota and meet Andrea, our guide in Bogota, there’s a feeling of normality about the country which happily continues throughout our visit.

This evening we have our first Colombian cuisine experience at Cumbia House restaurant. It’s a restaurant that combines food with entertainment and the clientele are primarily parties of workmates out to enjoy the evening. Beer is in easy supply at the table but it’s the first time that we have ever had our bottle of wine served in a carrier bag as we leave the restaurant. Perhaps this is some strange Colombian custom?

The following night we have a fun evening at the ‘Andres Carne de Res’ restaurant in Bogota. The restaurant is famous for its extravagantly colourful décor and entertainment. There’s a stage, but the music is brought right out to the tables in outrageously costumed performances. The evening is buzzing with music, dancing, and strangely-dressed people doing strange things.

One group, black from head to foot and painted skeletal faces, act as pretend security guards for the people queuing to enter. They make everyone raise their arms and then they do a body scan using a large soup spoon. Every now and then, randomly, the scanner mimics an alarm sound and the person is taken to one side for extra security. Occasionally, just for variation, the punter is asked to do a chicken imitation with their arms. Some people look a little put out by all this but most see the fun. And it’s hilarious watching it from our table, especially after a few drinks.

This is one of the restaurants where the cost of the meal was included in the complete tour package, arranged and paid for in advance. So at the end of the evening we leave the restaurant happy, and in the knowledge that the meal has already been paid for by the tour company. But half way down the street the waitress comes running after us and we have to go back and pay the bill. It’s the first time that we’ve done a runner from a restaurant, but we’ve got a taste for it now and next time we’ll run faster.

After Bogota it’s a flight up to Santa Marta and a drive to our hotel at Cayenna Beach. The hotel is more of the rustic variety than we expected, but nice people, a comfortable bed, and a tasty line in gin and tonics.

The next day is a hike in the Tayrona National Park. Our guide for the day is Martin. Ex-army, medalled for saving a life, and a DJ in a Santa Marta club when not saving lives.

He arrives with all the kit – a huge backpack with all his life-saving equipment, his Colombian equivalent of the Swiss Army knife,  and even a portable tank with piped water via a tap on his right arm. He is a little shocked to find that he has a band of septuagenarians to look after and has, I think, some second thoughts about the challenging day’s hike. But he overcomes his doubts and starts, I suspect, to look forward to the opportunity of saving some more lives during the trek.

Anyway, we all make it there, and we all make it back. And in between we have a lovely swim at the beautiful Cabo San Juan, and a delicious lunch of fresh tilapia and coconut rice on the beach.

The following day Martin arrives to take us to a cocoa farm in the hills of the Sierra Nevada. His back pack is smaller today and he tells us that we can judge the extent of the day’s challenge by the size of his back pack. We have a four-wheel drive car because for much of the route we are bouncing along in hilly uneven terrain. Martin puts a spin on this by telling us, before we set out, that we’ll be getting a free massage along the way. Robin and I are disappointed when we discover what he means.

The cocoa farm is on the other side of a fast-flowing river with no bridge. We have to cross by stepping on stones and hanging on to an overhead rope. We all make it across without any need for life-support from Martin.

I had not expected a visit to see some cocoa trees to be so interesting. Cocoa farming is explained to us in fascinating detail by the farmer. Here’s a quick precis, to prove I was listening:

There are black cocoa plants and white cocoa plants. But if you farm them close together pollination from the stronger black plants turns the white ones rosé.

White cocoa plants are known as ‘MACAMBO’. The plants are very rare – due I think to the cross-pollination with black cocoa plants. They are not used in chocolate production but the beans – nicknamed the ‘Brain Beans’  have health benefits – apparently they do wonders for cognitive ability, emotional well-being, they aid digestion, give an energy boost, and even have anti-cancer potential. They are only recently being commercialised and health-conscious Germany (we might have guessed) is the first target  market.

(White chocolate – as we know it – is not made from white cocoa plants. It’s made from black cocoa but without the non-fat components, and with added milk solids. Some people argue that it shouldn’t therefore be called chocolate)

The farmer takes us around his plantation. He opens a freshly-picked cocoa fruit for us and we suck it. It’s very fruity, not chocolaty at this stage, and we are left with the nut which, after fermenting in a box for ten days, drying in the sun, being roasted and ground, had sugar and cinnamon added, becomes rustic chocolate.

The detailed explanation  is followed by a chocolate facial for each of us – probably the best use of rustic chocolate. The facial is good fun for all of us – and possibly even good for our skin.

This evening we break a record – the furthest distance we have ever driven to get a pizza. Our guide for the pizza outing is Fernando, twenty-one years old and living in the family apartment with his eighteen year-old sister who is studying psychology at the University in Santa Marta. They cook for each other and seem to get on well. The only downside seems to be her habit of regularly psycho-analysing him. Fernando’s mum is only sixteen years older than him – she was pregnant at fifteen. He has a brother in London and two step-siblings living with his mum and step-dad in Riyadh. London is their family get-together city. With this international pedigree it’s no wonder he has near-perfect English.

It’s 50km to the pizza restaurant and the road is a slow one. Robin regales Fernando with a non-stop account of the challenges we have had with the tour to date, so perhaps the drive seems shorter to them. But for the rest of us it feels like an agonising eternity.

But the pizza is a good one and afterwards it’s nice to be out in Santa Marta’s lovely central square with music playing in every corner, and families enjoying an early celebration of the Feast of Saint Peter and Saint Paul.

The next day it’s a visit to the coffee factory and Martin has the smallest backpack that could still be called a backpack. It must be an easy day. The factory is up the valley of the Rio Gaira, south of Santa Marta. The really interesting thing about this factory is how it is almost totally driven by water. The coffee plantation is further up the river valley and water is piped from the river, through the plantation, and down to the factory. As the coffee beans are collected they are poured into the piping and the water carries them down to the factory. In the factory, the beans float through various water channels where the heavier beans sink and the lighter ones are taken forward, thereby automatically sorting the beans. And there is even spare water power to generate electricity for the village. What a green factory!

After the factory the itinerary includes a visit to a nearby waterfall with an option for swimming. But Martin doesn’t really want to take us there for some reason, and since 75% of us don’t want to go, the visit is abandoned. So much for democracy!

But any lack of excitement at the waterfall is more than made up for by the thrilling evening to come. Martin tells us we are going to a restaurant close to our hotel and the taxi will collect us. Sure enough the taxi driver arrives, speaking only Spanish, and we pile in to the car, expecting a short ride. We drive – in the dark – for about 30 minutes and then turn off the main road and onto a deeply rutted dirt road passing squalid, unlit, crumbling buildings. Exactly the kind of place where masked men hang out, only appearing after dark. We finally arrive at a car park, empty apart from some surprisingly up-market sofas where we are invited to sit and wait by a solitary unsmiling man waiting in the shadows.

After about ten minutes of suspense the guy gestures for us to follow him down a path. We are not sure if it’s a request or a demand, but we follow. The path leads to a river where a boat is just arriving. We clamber into the boat which then speeds off into the dark. Now we are sure we are being kidnapped and Margaret is desperately working out how we can get a message to the kids to ask them to track us. It feels like we are travelling quite a distance but then suddenly we arrive at a sandy bank with a girl and a dog waiting for us. We are lead along what we now realize is the beach and arrive at a beautifully laid-out ‘table for 4’. It’s our very own private restaurant on the beach. There’s just the boatman, his partner, the dog, a cat, a couple of kittens, and a completely deserted beach, at night, and they serve us a really top-notch meal. We don’t know how they do it.

From Tayrona it’s a five or six hour car journey  to Cartagena, passing Barranquilla on the way. The itinerary has us lunching in a seafood restaurant in the town, but Robin is keen instead for us all to stop by a nice beach on the way, have a lovely swim, and lunch overlooking the sea. Sounds good, but it turns out that the devil is in the detail:- the place has the feel of New Brighton out of season, and the sea is too shallow to swim no matter how far we walk out. In the end we splash about for a minute or two to convince ourselves we’ve had a swim, and then return to Margaret and Patti, who have opted out. They’re also opting out of using the dubious toilet facilities where the water has already dried up.

Then it’s forward to Cartagena.

Our hotel in Cartagena is a lovely building within the walled city, boasting Barrack Obama as a past guest. It’s welcoming, comfortable, and perfect for strolling around the city and enjoying the vibrant atmosphere.

Cartagena walled city is great – a buzzy, beautiful, and sophisticated place with tons of history. Digital Nomads have adopted the place – there are many thousands of them living here – so it’s bound to be good.

Cartagena was one of the most important staging posts in colonial Latin America, trading slaves from Africa in, and gold and silver back out to Spain. The walls are a reminder of the need to protect this great wealth from pirates and other invaders. The most famous pirate was our very own Sir Francis Drake, a privateer (a ‘commercial pirate’) who attacked the city, occupied it, and eventually made off with a huge gold ransom, which he took back to his shareholders in Britain to distribute a nice return on investment!

We visit the sanctuary of San Pedro Claver, who dedicated his life to helping the slaves traded in the city at that time. An unusual feature of the sanctuary is the use of coral as a building material, including an impressive coral staircase. San Pedro’s story is a moving one, and, as if to bring it to life, there’s the most beautiful singing coming from the church, holding us completely entranced.

Close by the church is a group of African ladies carrying baskets of fruit on their heads, making their living from tourist photos. They are from San Basilio de Palenque, a town 50km from Cartagena that was built by escaped slaves and eventually became the first officially free African town in Latin America. To this day it preserves its own customs and way of life, and even its own language.

In the evening we are due to go to a salsa club but Margaret is ill so I join Robin and Patti on the roof of the hotel with a gin and tonic to watch the sunset over the Caribbean. Unfortunately it’s cloudy over there on the horizon, so no picturesque sunset tonight. But technology rescues the experience for us – I type ‘sunsets’ into ‘photos’ on my iPhone and up pops all the sunsets that I have ever recorded, and each one has a story. So we pass a pleasant hour of virtual sunsets.

The following day is the day before we leave and we are visiting the Rosario islands. As we are getting into the boat Robin’s most expensive Swiss-ski sunglasses slip off his face and into the water. With no hesitation a couple of Colombian lads dive into the water to try to find them. A while later we are ready to leave for the islands and they are still searching. We speed off across the Cartagena bay and into the Caribbean sea. Just before we arrive at the island the captain of the boat receives a photo of the lost and now found sunglasses – the lads had not given up searching. And by the time we are ready to leave the island, the sunglasses have even arrived at the boat! It’s a good example of Colombian hospitality, genuine friendliness, determination, and efficiency!

It’s lovely swimming in the bay at the island and there’s even a beautiful white egret strutting the beach while I swim. It seems to quite like humans and I almost get to talk to it on the way out of the water.

Then, after a visit to the changing rooms, it’s my turn for an accident. I could walk down the steps and along to our sun-beds, just above the beach. But no, it’s a second or two quicker to jump over the wall, so that’s what I do. The wall, in common with much building in these parts, is made from coral – a very hard and unfriendly material. A loud crack and a damaged foot tell me I’ve probably broken a toe. There’s no NHS 111 on the Rosario islands but a quick consultation with AI tells me to attach the toe to a neighbouring healthy toe – a ‘buddy’ as AI likes to call it. So that’s what I do.

The next morning it’s Saturday, the end of the holiday, and we are heading home, via Bogota and Madrid.

Back at Bogota airport we are looking forward to meeting the lovely Isabella, the architect of our Colombian holiday. But Isabella is listening to Robin, who is by now well-rehearsed in cataloguing the challenges of the trip and is not holding back. Isabella looks captivated and unable to tear herself away so we don’t get a chance to chat to her. She’s new to this business and all novice entrepreneurs need encouragement so I make a mental note to give her a good report on TripAdvisor when I get home.

And so it’s time to leave and head for home. It’s been a good trip – we’ve learned a lot about Colombian politics in the past, present, and hopefully the future; we’ve learned about cocoa farming and coffee production; stories of Cartagena, it’s gold, slave trade, and fending off the Brits; and as an unexpected bonus we’ve learned about Robin’s passion for bird-watching, his musical talents, and even what he grows in the garden.

I’ve also gradually learned not to throw toilet paper down the loo, and now I’m coming home I’ll need to try to unlearn the habit as soon as I can.