So, after our first few weeks exploring Colombia and getting exhausted from running races (see more about that here), it was time for my lovely friend Katie to visit.

I’ve known Katie for about 16 years. I used to go out with one of her friends, and after that went the way of most teenage romances, I continued the friendship. A very nice fallout from young love.

Katie had muted the idea of coming to Colombia for a while. It was hard for us to know when we were going to be there, and it was hard for her to make that final step to commit. It took me dramatically checking myself into hospital in El Salvador to push Katie into booking flights. That was it, in 6 weeks time, she would be landing in Bogota.

Those six weeks passed surprisingly quickly – and then, there it was, she was here. Picking up her bag from the baggage carousel, trying to navigate a completely Spanish customs form with absolutely no Spanish, and looking rather sleepy from the stress of a Trans-Atlantic flight.

So, before I start to tell the story of mine and Katie’s little trip round Colombia, it is worth putting a little context here. We have a little bit of a running joke about Katie’s ‘unluckiness’. Somehow, Katie does seem to attract bad things, unlucky things. Very undeserving for the lovely lady, but rather true all the same.

Therefore, it wasn’t much surprise that we had a major gas leak in our airbnb flat on the first day. And it chucked it down with rain. But, gas leaks and rain aside, we were able to get out in the city and start our very intense schedule. No-one said going on holiday with me was going to be FUN.

First up, coffee. I may be a bit of a tyrant when it comes to a schedule, BUT I do make sure one is adequately fuelled for the occasion. And, there’s nothing like gourmet Colombian coffee. I don’t even “officially” drink coffee, but I do drink this.

Next up, fat people. Loved this, turns out Botero was an artistic comedian. And, a bit of a Colombian national treasure.

And, finally, trudging through the rain to take 100s of pictures of Bogota’s AMAZING street art.

Day 1 was finished, and we had a pretty knackered Katie. Success!

Day 2 saw us getting up early and visiting the Colombian Police Museum. Odd stop on a schedule you may think…but bloody interesting. The police have a number of English speaking guides who show you round – we were joined by the super cute Angely who was very informative and gave us a long list of places we SHOULDN’T visit in Colombia and her WhatsApp number if we got into trouble. It’s not what you know, it’s who you know, right?

On from Police we visited the GOLD museum. Glorious Gold. The South Americans had a lot of it (before some pesky Europeans came and stole most of it, urgh). The museum was super interesting – going into lots of detail about how it is forged and the different meanings and uses of gold over the years.

Another intense day – everyone was pretty tired. We needed to get back to our airbnb place, relax, get some food, maybe have a nap before the evenings agenda. Alas, you know that bad luck of Katie’s? Well, turns out its catching. About 200m from our airbnb place, I reached over to get out of the uber. But, completely and utterly stupidly, I didn’t look before opening my door. Unforgivable behaviour for a cyclist, but I suppose everyone makes mistakes.

We heard the crash before we realised what was happening. A motorcyclist had been speeding along by the side of all the parked cars and I had completely doored him. Cue over two hours of standing around on the side of the road trying to work out how to adequately solve the fact his motorbike was now not running, he had a massive gash on his leg (thankfully, although awful, that was the only injury) and that uber was actually illegal and so we shouldn’t have really been using it. Not the funnest situation – particularly when all you want is some food and a beer.

But, as was our experience with Colombians up to this point, everyone was actually very lovely – particularly the floored motorcyclist. In the end I paid the equivalent of £50 to the motorcyclist and £50 to the uber driver. Possibly too much for Colombia – but seeing as the uber drivers door was hanging off and wasn’t shutting, and the motorcyclist had missed some very important lectures, was barely standing and had a massive bend in his motorbike frame…I think it was okay.

Anyway, after nearly killing a Colombian, we were all feeling a bit out of sorts. We’d been planning to go to a salsa club that evening, but we were pretty tired and feeling pretty emotional after all the drama of the late afternoon. Could we be bothered? Konstantin and I are not party animals. You’re lucky if you see me out of bed after 9pm (8pm while cycling!!).

But, we pulled ourselves together, bought some beers and some pasta and got ready to party the night away. Ah, are we pleased we did! It was one of those nights where you go in with no expectations and it ends up being completely classic.

Katie has a friend from the UK who has a Colombian aunt who owns a salsa club in Bogota. We made our way there – were greeted with a massive hug and a beer from the aunt and given a table. We were definitely the odd ones out, the glaring white beacons of non-localness who definitely did not know what to do. None of us could dance salsa. We sat awkwardly at our table watching the incredibly sexy and sensual dancers move around the room.

“Do you want to dance?” A lady approached Konstantin.

Katie and I started laughing and Konstantin was forced up onto the dance floor. The laughing didn’t stop as he showed off his, erm, interesting interpretation of salsa.

From that point on the floodgates were opened, Katie was up next and finally (obviously looking very sorry for myself!) I got asked. All through the night we danced our varying forms of terrible salsa with very obliging, very patient and very friendly Bogotanos. I even stayed out way past 9pm….!

Waking up far too early for the amount of beer (and straight rum, double urgh!) we had found ourselves consuming the night before, we headed out to Bogota airport to get up to Cartagena. I wasn’t too bothered about finding myself back in 35 degree sweat madness, but it seemed silly to leave such an iconic Colombian destination out of out action packed schedule.

It was definitely one of those ‘whoosh’ heat hitting you as you step off the plane moments. More urgh. But we made our way to our lovely hostel and got into the pool (what a treat!). And then headed out for lunch and to explore the very beautiful city.

Despite having been out the night before, Katie’s bad influence on me meant we went out for TWO NIGHTS in a row. Incredible. We headed to the Bazurto Social Club for a night of synchronised dancing – basically a a zumba class in a club. Wasn’t what we were expecting, but fun all the same.

Next day we headed out to see a slightly different side of Cartagena – a local market. This was certainly a little rough around the edges. One of those places where you clutch dramatically at your bag and make yourself stand out even more as “PROBABLY GOT MONEY AND NOT FROM ROUND HERE”. Thankfully, this wasn’t the time for us to get robbed at knife point (more on that classic South American experience later).

But, it was the time for Katie to try out her Spanish and get us our lunch. We stopped in at a very busy food stall/restaurant thing. We weren’t really sure what the deal was.

“Shall I go up and order then?” Katie asked.
“Yeah cool. Just ask for the menu del día” (Lots of smaller local places just have one thing on the menu, it makes choosing very easy!).
“Got it”

I watched from a distance as there was a bit of arm waving and then Katie appeared to make herself understood. She paid and came back and sat down. Without food. We waited. And waited. And waited.

A man nearby took pity, and pointed at a nearby juice stand. We smiled, nodded, and wondered why he thought we wanted juice. We’d ordered rice and meat.

More time passed. No food arrived.

“Katie, can I see the receipt?”.
“Of course” she said, taking out the crumpled paper.
“Katie, this is for two juices! How the hell did two plates of food become two juices?!”

She looked blankly.
“I think I need to work on my Spanish”.

After much amusement we were able to enjoy not only two lovely juices, but also some very large plates of food.

On our way back into town we stopped in at the castle in the old town for a bit of culture and a lot of sweating.

The next day we headed out on some bicycles along the coast of Cartagena. This was interesting. I’d heard so many good things about cycling in Colombia that I wasn’t really prepared for the 3 lane roads, speeding lorries and complete lack of hard shoulder.

“Welcome to my cycling life” I laughed at Katie, feeling slightly awful for having taken her out on a near death experience.  Eventually we came across a cycle path and then went and sat on the beach for a while with a beer. Lovely.

On from Cartagena we were heading to the mountain town of Minca. I had this all very well planned out – we’d go and take a bus from the bus station, simple. But as we were waiting for our taxi in the morning, the guy at the hostel intervened.

“Oh no, you don’t want to do that, you can get a bus from here to Minca”. Sounded good. “I’ll book it for you now, it’ll be here at 10am”.

At 9.30 Katie had a light bulb organisational moment.

“Do we have any money?”

“Erm no”.

“Is there a cash point in Minca?”

“Erm no”.

Cue running out and trying to get money as quickly as possible. We were back at the hostel at 9.45, only to hear our bus had gone without us. Oops.

Anyway, we jumped in a taxi and were able to catch it up, and a mere 5 hours later we were in Minca.

Now, generally, I don’t think I’m a bad person to travel with. But, you know, every so often one maybe isn’t as rational as one could be. After a pretty stressful day of shitty buses and transfers that shouldn’t have existed, we ended up in the town of Minca. We were heading up to Mundo Nuevo and needed to take a motorbike up there. There was no other way.

This motorbike cost £5 per person. Not huge amounts in the scheme of European prices, but quite a lot for Colombia. I was a little grumpy about this and didn’t really disguise it. Poor old Katie.

Anyway, they definitely earned their £5. The ride was absolutely terrifying – up a very steep, technical muddy track for about 3km. And once at the top, well, the place was so special. A gorgeous retreat in the mountains, and a lot, lot cooler than Cartagena.

On from Minca we skipped out on going to Tayrona National Park. Yeah, I know, it’s amazing, yadda yadda yadda. Sometimes you just have to go with your gut feel. Are Katie and me beach people? Yeah, deserted, beautiful UK beaches. Could we bothered to hike for 3 hours through hideous hot rainforest to sit on a crowded beach and be ripped off for a beer? Nah mate.

We moved on from Minca to a 12 hour overnight bus to the town of Bucharamanga. Colombian buses are actually pretty impressive – and this one was no exception. Little food package on arrival, individual TV screens with a good selection of (unfortunately dubbed) movies, and reclining seats.

Ah, reclining seats. Katie is quite tall. Colombians are not. We got onto the bus, and before we’d even had a chance to look out the window, the gentleman in front of Katie had fully reclined his head into Katie’s lap. She couldn’t even get her legs under. It was going to be a long night. But at least we could whack on Shaggy’s greatest hits on the TV.

The next day we arrived in Bucaramanga and got a bus out to the very cute town of Barichara straight away. This was going to be about relaxing – and meeting back up with Konstantin.

The streets were super cute:

We hiked the Camino Real to Guane and Villanueva. Poor old Katie wasn’t feeling too well so we had a fairly quiet evening with our ant bums (a local specialty).

The next day we went out to the local town of Villanueva for a festival. The taxi driver on the way there had decided that an adequate protection for his awful driving was to just cross himself every time he went round a blind corner. Not slow down, just ‘pray’. The logic of it baffles me. But hey ho, that’s different cultures for you right? Anyway, the festival continued in a slightly surreal fashion – not least the competing cars with varying forms of (dare I say it, awful) latino music, also the huge amounts of Aguardiente being drank and passed around – whether we wanted it or not.

After the few relaxing days in Barichara we transferred to San Gil – the ‘adventure capital’ of Colombia, where we hired some mountain bikes and went over to Chicamocha Canyon. We sped down the hills near the canyon and got treated with snacks at organised rest stops. At one of these stops, Katie beckoned me over. She was sat on a rock, looking a little worse for wear.

“Janneke, can you come over here”. She called. Oh no, I thought, it’s happened. She’s not been able to control her stomach issues. It’s happened to the best of us.

“Janneke, I’m going to faint”. She whispered, the colour draining from her face. Oh thank God, I thought. That’s way less messy. Katie has very low blood pressure and is fairly used to randomly fainting. Me, on the other hand, have no experience in this.

“Argh, okay, what shall I do? Do you want some pineapple? Eat some pineapple? Here’s a watermelon. Water!!!!” I rushed around, not good at the old calm malarky.

Slowly but surely the colour returned to Katie’s face. Thankfully she didn’t actually pass out!

We were able to continue and enjoy many punctures (something like 6 between Katie, me and Knut).

On from San Gil it was back to Bogota – Knut and I needed to get ready for cycling again and Katie needed to prepare to go home.

But, well, there was one big experience missing from Katie’s fairly action packed Colombian holiday. One for the South American bucket list – being robbed at knife point. After a lovely evening watching a John Coltrane tribute act at a local jazz club, we made the, possibly rookie, error of walking back to the hostel.

As we were walking along, a very ragged man came up to Knut and was like “give me your money or I’ll stab you” and then showed him a knife. But he ended the sentence with “Okay?” At which point Knut was like ermmm not really mate, and kept pretending not to understand to give Katie and I time to escape.

At the same time Katie and I h ignorantly wandered a little bit ahead and are like…what is the hold up?!

“Knut, just walk away” I shout back (Having no idea what is actually happening…). Katie started walking back and attempts to translate the man’s Spanish to English, not realising he was just speaking English.

“Give me your money or I’ll stab you” Robber man tries again, flashing the handle of his knife. I was still not really getting what’s happening.

“He’s got a fucking knife, RUN”. Knut shouted, having tried more subtle signals to get us to move away that obviously hadn’t worked. Finally we get the message!

We all ran down the road (which, incidentally, was one of the main roads in Bogota, and not even that quiet!) and junkie robber man didn’t even attempt to follow. Which is just as well, as running at altitude is bloody difficult and we only got about 200m down the road before stopping panting. Anyway, we were all fine – in possession of our money and with no stab wounds – putting it down to all part of the adventure!

And, rather than having that be Katie’s lasting memory of Colombia, we went out in style. We toke a cable car up to Monserrate, watched the sunset and ate amazing food. It was a lovely end to an amazing holiday!

And then it was time to get back on the bicycles……