Goodbye Colombia - Hello Venezuela..

After 4 amazing weeks in Colombia I will be going on a 24 hour bus ride tomorrow to go to Caracas and start exploring Venezuela. The last 3 days in the beautiful country I spent at Tayrona national park - which is a great beach park on the carribean coast of Colombia. See for yourself:

Ciudad Perdida !

The last 5 days I was hiking to the "Lost City" - 5 days of more or less hard hiking in stunning nature! Walking in "tropical" rain, crossing rivers up to hip-hight, tropical heat so that you sweat like you actually think it rained on you, constantly wet feet, shoes and cloth.... But as we had a great group formed of a Spaniard, an Austrian, two swedish Girls and a super-tranquilo guide everything was bareable !!!

Great times guys and hopefully see you again !!



P.S.: Yes guys I know you will make fun of my lovely dress code :-)

Colombia....

Is a beautiful country - and I have to admit I think I fell in love with it by now !! The people are welcoming and open, it is safe (contraer to what people usually think of Colombia), it has beautiful cities, stunning nature and great food.
After my days on the coffee finca I went to the party town Medellin, which has not much to offer other than stunningly beautiful women and parties until the morning (this is not a complaint - those two factors are fine with me :-)), so after a weekend of good parties I moved on to Cartagena, which is a beautiful colonial city and worth a trip to Colombia itself:



I wanted to dedicate this post entry also to a former co-worker of mine - Clayton Bell - who passed away yesterday caused by lung cancer. Clayton was a person never short of a smile, always helping and up for any fun or serious talk when you needed. The world lost a great person !! Rest in Peace Clayton !!

Joe

Colombia...

after a couple of days in Bogota (pictures of the Sal Cathedral - a cathedral in a sal-mine) - I decided to spend the weekend on a "Coffee Finca" rather than partying in Medellin (yes I know I am getting old) - but I was right in doing so - stunning nature, great food and a chilled long weekend :-). See for yourself:

Goodbye Ecuador...

... and thank you for everything - I had a wonderful time. I cant believe that originally I had such a hard time with deciding to quit my job and doubts from time to time if it was the right decision. But since starting this adventure and working in Casa Hogar de Jesus I am asking myself why it took me so long to make this decision - cause I havent regret the decision any second so far with making experiences like:
- Riding a bike along an ecuadorian highway, taking a break drinking and eating a fresh coco-nut
- Eating types of fruits that I never new existed - btw. Ecuador made Mango (in all sorts of forms) to my new favourite fruit
- Build a roof for a family in need
- Took a spontaneous dip in a river in the middle of a jungle
- Experience a culture full of love for life, music and food - who take things a bit more relaxed than we Germans or anybody in the US or UK
- Experiencing ecuadorian hospitality in full
- Spending time day in day out with kids who enjoy their life even though they had fatal hits of faith which we will never experience
- Learned a new language (ok - I am far from being fluent in spanish - but basic communciation works :-))
- and much much more....
Since yesterday I arrived in Bogota, Colombia and am living in a very chilled Hostel. Bogota is smaller than I though and I guess I am going to move on by Thursday or Friday but it has a beautiful old town and police and military at any corner so that I havent felt safer in any other big city in this world than in Bogota. As I dont have access to my Ecuador pictures at the moment and to give you an impression I am going to attach a few pictures....