Accepted bus travel in Colombia takes longer than flying but:

• you see the country,
• the seats are more comfortable,
• you don’t have to arrive hours before departure,
• there is far less bureaucratic sludge to tramp through (all for you good you know!),
• you can make jokes or comments about the driver or baggage handler without threats of prosecution!
• there's no delay waiting for your assigned luggage carousel to start spitting out cases. 
• there’s no luggage lottery hoping to see your suitcase.

In Medellin we were told that Bogota Colombia "is just a big dirty city". From our experience there's nothing further from the truth. While there are parts that are "big" and that there are parts that are "dirty" there’s a lot more to the city than the “big” and “dirty”.

Thanks Medellin! Firstly to the young Paisa woman who came to my assistance and to the Metrocable attendants at Line L who then recovered my phone.

Our Real City Downtown Walking Tour in Medellin gave us an interesting and informative overview of the city and its history. The tour lasted about 3 hours.

Arriving at Jose Maria Cordova International Airport in Medellin and being in a new country our first mission was to buy a SIM card. Where to do this is not immediately obvious as there are no mobile company booths. After some enquiries we discovered that they are only available from a small shop next to the ATM’s on the 2nd floor.

El Peñon or “the rock” is located near the town of La Piedra and a short 5-minute taxi ride away from Guatapé town.

There weren’t any reasonably priced tours with consistently good reviews so we decided to do a self-guided day tour from Medellin. 

This is our story of the rigmarole of getting a Colombia visa for a South African passport. Another story about the irritating visa hassles faced travelling around the world as a South African.