We set off from Medellin to Salento, which is in the coffee region of Colombia. The journey was about 160 miles and we set off early so we would get there in good time. All good plans and all that...this is Colombia and 10 hours later we rolled into our next camp spot in Salento in the dark! This time it was road works that held us up for hours at a time and I managed to read a full book whilst being the driver, at the road works stops!

We stayed in the gardens of a beautiful finca called La Serrana which had spectacular views across 2 valleys, one on either side. We ended up camping here for 5 nights because we met some lovely people and because it was so relaxing! We went on a tour of a coffee plantation and learnt about the production of coffee from the planting, the growing, the picking, the sorting, the drying and the drinking! We had a fabulous guide called Matthias who was the grandson of the owner and we all drank the coffee at the end of the tour. We bought a couple of bags of coffee beans as we have a little grinder.

We met some wonderful people at the finca. There were 2 men from Argentina who were travelling from Argentina to Alaska in their ford chevy camper van, playing music wherever they go. Their  musical style is reggae and we bought one of their CDs and really love them! We also saw them play in Salento one afternoon and we really enjoyed listening to them. They call themselves Los Old Greens, and are well worth a listen. We also met Claudia and David from Switzerland in their ford pickup with demountable camper. These two were awesome! They had bought their car in Canada and were driving down to Argentina, so had already been on the road for a year. We spent a lovely evening sitting around their table inside their van sharing travel stories and such like. They were both social workers in Switzerland, so we had a lot in common! We also met a lovely couple from Australia, Deejay and Shilo, who were back packing for 10 months through South and Central America and who were near the end of their trip. We really hit it off and spent a lovely few days with them.

We did a day trek to the Valle de Cocora. We caught a Willy`s jeep to the start of the hike, about 20km away. The jeep was packed so I got to hang on to the back of it with a young lad from Holland and one from Istanbul. We had a right good chat whilst hanging on for dear life and then the heavens opened and we got drenched! The hike took us to a viewpoint where hummingbirds came to feed and the latter part of the walk was through the Valley de Cocora, which is one of very few places that has enormous wax palm trees. It was wonderful  scenery, the like of which we had never seen before. We met a lovely couple here called Janice and Andrew who were on a 14 months around the world honeymoon!

One evening we went with Deejay and Shilo to play the traditional Colombian game of Tejo. This involves chucking  a metal puck towards a target which contains small paper containing gun powder. When you hit a target-they explode! As you can imagine, this was great fun, particularly with a few beers,  although nothing could improve my poor aim! However, I was delighted to score the point that won the game for my team!!

We used our barbeque for the first time although our first attempt failed miserably! We stoked up the fire, got the homemade coleslaw ready and the tortilla wraps-all we needed were the lovely looking sausages that were on the BBQ. The sausages, however, were disgusting, in fact-we have not tasted a decent one yet in Colombia! The dog got the sausages and we had to make do with coleslaw wraps-we were not amused! We did manage to have a successful BBQ the following evening-with pork, chicken and steak from the local supermarket. Gav and Shilo shopped for the food, although Gav was told off in the grocers as he was handling the veg and apparently this is not the done thing here!

We also need to mention Blondie-the dog as he was also one of our highlights in Salento. On our first day a beautiful Labrador appeared at the finca, and we called him "Blondie". It turned out that he did not belong to the finca, although he looked very well kept. He slept outside our landy and loved a huge fuss. In the mornings, he would be besides himself at the bottom of the roof tent ladder, waiting for us to come down. He also got lots of titbits from us and the others, including the crap sausages, which he loved!  Blondie followed us all the way into Salento one morning (about 20 mins) and even chased the jeep we were in for the Cocora valley-although he gave up after a short time as it was about 15 kilometres away! That evening, none of us had seen Blondie and began to worry that he had got lost or hurt his little paws running after the jeep. During the height of the failed BBQ. he suddenly came slinking back onto the camp site and enjoyed all the fuss and the sausages. The next morning, one of the workers at the finca came over to the landy, under which Blondie was resting, and put a rope around his neck and led him away!  Deejay and I ran after them and saw them put him in a car. Luckily, Santiago was there who could translate and we frantically asked where were they taking him and why as we had visions of a sad ending for Blondie!! However, all was well and they were going to take him to try and find his owner and if not, they were going to take him to their other finca some way away where there were no other dogs.  We asked to say goodbye to Blondie who was sitting quite happily in the back of the car wagging his tail! I even shed a tear or two! Well, we thought that was it. You can probably guess the next bit. Later that evening-guess who slinked back onto the site? Yes, Blondie!! Everyone was so happy to see him and he got such a fuss!!

The time came to leave the lovely finca and our new friends. We were heading for the Tatacoa desert. All started well and we headed out of Salento and through Armenia. The hills were steep and the lorries were so slow-so we ended up in and out of first and second gear. Suddenly, a lorry driver who was overtaking us, frantically pointed to Ruby and Gavin responded really quickly by pulling off the road and turning off the engine. Whoops! Lots of smoke came from Ruby`s bonnet and when we got out-a load of water was on the road. Gav popped the bonnet and saw that one of the core plugs had literally blown out (we found it on the road later!) So how long before we got help? About 30 seconds! This was clearly  a stretch of road where breakdowns are common as within seconds-a mechanic on a motorbike pulled up besides us and we rolled Ruby back down the hill a little bit to his workshop. Within minutes they had the engine in  bits and then one of them went off on a motorbike to get another core plug! We made the rookies mistake of asking them how much it would cost after the engine was in bits. The price was not huge compared to UK prices but was by far the most we had been charged in Colombia so far-but we felt we had little choice given they had the landy in bits! Gav went off with one of them on the back of the motorbike to the nearest cash point about 10 miles away! So after about 3 hours-they told us it was fixed and we paid them the money. We set off again and nearly made it to the top if the big hill and then we saw we were heating up again.  We pulled over and opened the bonnet to find a crack in the expansion tank which meant we were leaking water again! We decided not to return to the mechanics all the way down the hill as we were worried we would never make it  up again, they were unlikely to have the parts and also they were overcharging. So out came the trusty gaffer tape and we taped the crack, refilled the water and drove about 30 more miles to Ibaque where we spent a couple of nights deciding what to do about the repairs.

A phone call to Ben of Black Paw 4x4 confirmed that we needed to get it sorted and not try and limp on to Ecuador with it, and he gave us some ideas of what the problem might be. We decided that we would back track to Bogota, where Alejandro was, as he was a  landy mechanic and we trust him.  I called him on my mobile, however communication was difficult due to my Spanish and his English! He conference called Carlos, who we had met at the landy show who spoke good English-so we had a 3 way conversation about what had gone wrong, what the mechanics had done and how much they had charged. When Carlos heard how much they had charged he exploded! He explained it to Alejandro who also exploded-so all I could hear was the two of them shouting in Spanish to each other about the other mechanics and then in the middle of it all Carlos shouted " the mother effin (he used the real word) robbers"!!! We laughed so much and keep saying it to each other! Carlos wanted to send some "boys" around to get some money back but we explained we had been naive and had learnt a lesson for next time (if there is one??!!).

Anyway, to cut a long story short we are here back in Bogota, it was a 130 miles return trip so not too bad. We checked the water levels every 25 miles (thanks Ben) and drove steadily. We took about 6 hours to get there, the last 2 hours just spent in traffic in the City. So Rubes is securely parked with the mechanic and guess where we are? Yes-another hotel!! I can hear the roar of disapproval but, blimmin heck, it`s a beautiful hotel and we have a suite-consisting of 4 rooms-a bedroom, bathroom, kitchen and lounge!!! We are meeting the lovely honeymoon couple tonight in Bogota and we hope to be away again to the desert next week. I hope we manage to steer clear of any mother effin robbers!

We left  the lovely landy people at Villa De Leyva and headed to the capital of Colombia, Bogota. We had booked another Airbnb in Bogota because there was nowhere to camp in the city and we wanted to be in the middle of things. Yet again Ruby was parked in a secure car park whilst her owners lived in an apartment in the City for a week!

We both loved Bogota. It is a huge, sprawling, gritty, noisy place and there was far more evidence here of social problems, in particular homelessness. That made it feel far more real than some of the more touristy places that we had been to so far. It always felt very safe and the people were as friendly as everywhere else in Colombia.

Our apartment was well placed to walk to all of the places we wanted to visit. On our first day we went to the Sunday flea market, where you could buy almost anything. Here we met a couple of radio DJs who were selling Colombian music. Gav was in his element (he used to be a DJ) as he chatted with the Colombian DJs about music and I was kept entertained by a wonderful 82 year old gentleman , dressed in a tweed jacket and smart trousers, who was doing the salsa next to the DJs stand, with a little grin on his face! We bought a couple of CDs-one of Colombian chill out music and one of different types of music from around the different regions of Colombia. Speaking of music, we also heard some fantastic musicians and singers along one of the main streets of Bogota, Carrera 7, both day and night covering a whole range of music from heavy metal to Salsa. We must mention a wonderful lady called Alba Nur who is a famous Colombian busker-she was mesmerizing to watch as she sang and danced salsa music.

We spent a fascinating 3 hours on the Bogota graffiti tour learning about the techniques, artists, history, socio-political representations and meanings behind the murals. Some graffiti artists focus on Colombia’s social and political struggles. One of the main sources of inspiration is the decades-long armed conflict between the government, paramilitary squads and left-wing guerrilla groups, that has left at least 50,000 dead and forced more than 4 million people to flee their homes.
 
Graffiti in Bogotá is prohibited rather than illegal, which ironically means the capital is now streets ahead when it comes to fine artwork. Other cities, where street art is banned, experience more tagging and poor quality work because artists are on the run from the law. In Bogotá, it’s not unusual to see a team of artists with spray paints and stepladders spending a day on a single mural, often with the owner’s encouragement or payment. The relative freedom Bogotá’s street artists have become accustomed too, however, may be about to change. After 12 years of leftwing leaders, in January the city re-elected a centre-right mayor from the late 1990s, Enrique Peñalosa, who comes down on the side of those who believe the uncontrolled spread of graffiti is a blight on the city. This new mayor is pushing through less tolerant graffiti laws and could even start painting over many works in the city. It will be interesting to see how the city’s thousands of street artists will react.
 
We also went on a walking tour of Bogota which told us some of the history of the City and of the country, including the rise of guerilla groups in Colombia. On the 23rd June 2016, the Colombian government and FARC guerrillas have declared the final day of one of the world’s oldest wars with the signing of a ceasefire agreement to end more than 50 years of bloodshed. Although a final peace deal will require approval in a referendum, the formal cessation of hostilities between the two main combatants and the Farc’s acceptance of disarmament are key steps towards resolving a war that has caused more than 250,000 deaths and the displacement of more than 6 million people.

We visited the famous gold museum in Bogota which contains more than 55,000 pieces of gold and the wonderful Botero museum. Fernando Botero is Colombia`s most famous artist and his paintings and sculptures are dedicated to all things chubby! We also visited the police museum and were guided by a police officer who was serving his year`s military service. It was really interesting and detailed some of the police operations against Pablo Escobar and the narco traffickers and the guerrillas. National service is compulsory in Colombia for 12 months and young people can choose the police or the military.

We stopped one evening in Bogota to watch a street comedian who had a huge crowd around him who were laughing raucously. We picked up some of the gist of what was going on and then poor old Gav was picked on by the comedian to go into the middle and be the butt of the jokes for about 15 minutes!! He was a great sport and laughed along with the comedian and the crowd (and me!) without having a clue what was going on!

In Bogota we also visited Alejandro-a lovely mechanic who we had met at the Villa De Leyva land rover meeting. We had noticed our core plugs leaking and decided to get them replaced by a good mechanic whilst we had the chance.

From Bogota we headed to Medellin, with a stop at Rio Claro to break up the journey. On the way we drove past Hacienda Naples, one of Pablo Escobar`s country retreats which, bizarrely, has been turned into a theme park since his death.
About half a kilometre from our camping stop at Rio Claro, we had to stop because the road was blocked by the protesting truckers. The protests have been going on for about a month and the police and military are out on the roads in force to contain the situation, sometimes resulting in violent confrontation. I approached the truckers who were staffing the road block and explained (in broken Spanish) that we only needed to travel half a km up the road to get tour camp. They eventually allowed us through, and we were really relieved as these road blocks can last for hours.

The following day we headed to Medellin, the second largest city in Colombia. We spent a lovely couple of days here visiting plaza Botero (the wonderful chubby statues) and the museum Antioquia. Our highlight though, was a tour of
, one of the barrios of Medellin, which had previously been plagued by violence from paramilitaries, guerillas and gangs. The neighbourhood has now been transformed, in particular because of young people who were chosen to be community leaders and who used the medium of music and graffiti to appeal to young people. Previously, the 12,000 residents of Communa 13 had to hike the equivalent of 28 stories home after scraping their living in the city. Steep roads made it impossible for vehicles to access this poor neighborhood, leaving the community isolated and impenetrable. However there is now a giant 384-meter orange-roofed escalator that scales the mountain in six sections, with a journey taking just six minutes. We rode the escalator and explored the neighbourhood with a wonderful guide, who was one of the community leaders. He told us about some of the previous problems in the neighbourhood, in particular a lot of extreme violence  and showed us how the neighbourhood had been transformed. He was a rap artist and had us rapping and using spray paint to graffiti our names!

Medellin is also famous because it was the home of
. Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria (December 1, 1949 – December 2, 1993) was a Colombian drug lord and trafficker. His cartel, at the height of his career, supplied an estimated 80% of the cocaine smuggled into the United States. Often called "The King of Cocaine", he was the wealthiest criminal in history, with an estimated known net worth of US $30 billion by the early 1990s. He was also one of the 10 richest men in the world at his prime and lived in his self-built Hacienda Nápoles, which we had briefly visited on the way to Medellin.

After 3 days in Medellin, we were ready to get back into the countryside again...next stop-the coffee region!
 

We left the luxury of our hotel and began the journey South through Colombia. We had spent all of our time so far on the Caribbean coast and whilst this had been lovely-it felt time to move on. We drove about 260 miles and stopped for the night at a truckers` rest stop in Aguachica, having our tea and breakfast with the truckers. The next day we drove to San Gil where we camped for 2 nights. On day 1, about a dozen workmen who were working on the road outside the campsite came huddling around Ruby whilst I gave a guided tour in my limited Spanish. They were so interested and came back for the same tour the following day! San Gil is in the Santander region of Colombia and is known for its adventure sports. We had had enough adventure for the moment on the trek, so we opted for more sedate activities such as short walks  to Park  El Gallineral and to the Juan Curi waterfalls, which are 180 metres high.

The female owner of the campsite was so friendly and talked for ages with us on both nights. She also did our laundry on the first day, with the promise of returning it later that afternoon. We were so tired that we went to bed for an hour or so mid afternoon and were just dropping off to sleep when we heard her outside the rooftent whispering " Senor Gavin...Senor Gavin". Gav poked his head out of the tent and asked her to pop the clean laundry on the chair outside. He then decided to quickly pop down and put it in the landy, as it had the tendency to rain a bit late afternoon. He neglected, however, to put his trousers on. Picture the scene. Gav in his pants, with his farmer`s tan and little belly. You can guess what happened next. The lovely lady returned with some more laundry whilst Gavin was at the bottom of the ladder! I started to giggle and so did she whilst Gav just took it all in his stride. I am sure she took a shine to him however, as she kept making coffee for Senor Gavin for the rest of our stay!

We left San Gill for the short drive into the hills to Barichara, one of the best preserved and most beautiful colonial villages in Colombia, with white buildings, red roofs and cobble stone streets. Many Spanish speaking films have been shot here and we could see why, it was so picturesque. We wild camped for 2 nights on some red clay cliffs overlooking the valley-it was stunning. On both nights, we had torrential rain, thunder and lightning storms, resulting in us sitting inside Ruby, quaking with each clap of thunder and bolt of lightning! We got covered in the wet red clay when we got out to put up the roof tent and we are still finding it in our stuff! It was completely worth it, however, when the sun rose each morning and we were treated to the most amazing views across the valley. We spent some time soaking up the atmosphere in Barichara`s main square, and we walked the historic el Camino Real to the tiny hamlet of Guane. This ancient stone-paved road was built by the indigenous Guane people and was rebuilt continuously over the centuries. It was declared a national monument in 1988. From Barichara, the 9km hike took about two hours to complete. We began the hike by climbing down the rim of a canyon and then traversing a valley filled with cacti and trees. Guane was a tiny little hamlet, with a small square and very pretty buildings. Here we met Pat and Rick from Florida and we chatted to them whilst we waited for the bus back to Barichara. They were so interesting and had travelled a lot. This trip they were travelling around Latin America and they had many more ideas and plans. We ended up being treated to lunch by them in Barichara and spent a lovely few hours chatting away about travels etc.
 
We wanted to leave Barichara early on the Sunday morning as we had a long drive ahead to Sogamosa, including a drive across the mountains. We were thwarted however, as the road out was closed for a few hours because of a local cycle race (cycling is huge in Colombia). We relaxed for a couple of hours back on our cliff. A lovely young Colombian couple came tearing up on a quad bike and stopped to take a look at the views and Ruby! We were delighted when the young man called Ruby a " bad ass car". I am sure that Ruby shook her little landy tush with pride at hearing this! By the time the roads had opened, it was not worth us attempting the drive we had planned so we camped up again at another spot in San Gill.

The next morning, we set off early for the drive to Sogamoso. This was the best drive of the trip so far. The road ran out after about 50 miles, and we then used tracks through the mountains and villages. The views were brilliant and the track was exciting, with sheer drops when we climbed.  As we climbed high and dropped over a mountain, the terrain changed dramatically as we drove though paramo. The area’s páramo ecosystem is  a rare glacier-formed tropical ecosystem exists between 3000m and 5000m in the mountains. It is characterized by lakes and plains rich with peat bogs and wet grasslands mashed with shrub lands and forest patches and it only exists in a few countries in the world, with a large portion in Colombia. We eventually reached Sogamosa after about 6 hours (120 miles) and headed to Finca San Pedro where we camped in their beautiful gardens. This place was stunning and an oasis of calm when outside, the hustle and bustle of the town continued.
 
We really loved camping here and stayed for 4 nights. We met some lovely people and felt really relaxed. This was my birthday and our first wedding anniversary spot and we had a great day. The owner of the finca bought a cake with a candle to breakfast and I got a rendition of happy birthday in English and Danish! I loved it! This was after a great skype call with my Mum and Dad, who had a couple of great congratulations signs! I gave them a skype tour of the finca gardens, animals included!
 
We had a lovely drive to Mongui and Nobsa-spending some time in each. Both were picture postcard villages with a super village square. Ruby continued to get photographed by various local people on their mobile phones. One even broke out of a funeral procession in Nobsa to get a few pics!
 
We went out for our tea and the restaurant had decorated our table with "Feliz Cumpleanos" balloons, a rose, and table decorations. We were really touched and a little giddy! The food was great and very cheap.
 
After saying goodbye to the lovely people at the Finca, we headed towards Lago de Tota, Colombia's highest and largest natural lake, at an altitude of 3,015 m. We drove around it and  planned  to camp on the shores of Play Blanca, and an out-of-the-blue white-sand Andean beach on the shore of the lake! However, it rained all afternoon so we returned to our lovely Finca San Pedro! Poor guys, they thought they had seen the last of us!

 the We then set off for Villa De Leyva where we were attending the national meeting of the Legion Land rover club of Colombia. We reached Villa and had a wander around it`s lovely plaza and cobbled streets. We started to see lots of other land rovers so we asked one of them where the event was located and followed them there. The event was based on a big camp site and so we parked up and met the organisers who were delighted and astonished that we were attending their show from England! We had such a great weekend and want to pay tribute to the lovely people of Colombia and the land rover club who gave us such a tremendous welcome! They were so interested in Ruby, in us and in our trip and we did not stop talking all weekend! On the Friday afternoon, we had crowds of people looking at Ruby. One older man was enthralled! He looked everywhere -in the tent, inside the landrover and then, when we were talking to someone else and turned around, all we could see were his feet sticking out from underneath Ruby as he checked everything out! As we put up our roof tent and got our chairs and tables out-a group of people would watch in awe and take photos of us doing each different thing!

We met so many lovely and interesting people-one man had driven the Dakar rally 5 times and one man worked for national geographic and was about to drive a landrover from Mexico to Antartica.
 
The following day-all of the 200 or so land rovers in attendance drove in convoy through the streets of Villa De Leyva and then we all went off road and ended up on the top of a big hill! It was quite a spectacle and a lot of them had flags attached. It was a little chaotic at times-and people kept getting lost, there were a few breakdowns and a few doors and windows fell out, but it was so much fun!
 
There was a huge party in the evening, with a local band. This show was one of our highlights so far in Colombia, in particular because of the people and we feel really lucky to have been part of it.
 
Next-we head to the Capital City-Bogota!