Late last month, I flew up to Bogota, then on to Santa Marta, Colombia to celebrate Thanksgiving on the beach. While Bogota's a great city to explore, I chose just to spend a day there, then two days in Medellin, before heading up north. Medellin is an emotional city to visit because it experienced some of the most gruesome attacks by FARC as well as by Pablo Escobar. There's a small plaza in the central part of Medellin where there are two identical statues of birds, sculpted by Fernando Botero. The first partially destroyed sculpture had a bomb detonated under it in 1995, killing 23 people. Botero replaced the sculpture with an identical one nearby as a symbol of peace. You can see them side-by-side in the photo below.
Santa Marta is home to Parque Tayrona, Colombia's most famous national park and home to Cabo San Juan, included regularly in many "top 20 worldwide beach" reports. While there, I spent several days hiking, snorkeling and swimming in Cabo San Juan, Playa del Muerto, Playa Blanca and several other beaches within the national park.
Taking what was supposed to be a four hour bus ride (which turned into nearly eight), I arrived in Cartagena, where I spent a week. The best part of Cartagena was taking a private catamaran to the islands of Baru and Rosario, where I snorkeled over the former plane of Escobar and cruised past his 50 room mansion on the island.
Click here to see more photos from my latest adventure.
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