Adán's english blog

fantastic places to visit in colombia

San Andres' Island

San Andres' island is a exciting place that have a lots of beautiful beaches. The site is in the north of Colombia and is out of the South American continent (800 kilometres from mainland Colombia), so If you want to go there, take a plane or boat, the flights take two and a half hours, and depart from the principal cities in this country. San Andres is surrounded of clear and crystal water, that seems to have several colours, receiving the name of sea of seven colours. There is a lot of spots where you can do diving or snorkelling. If you want to relax, take a shade under a palm and sip a delicious coconut. If you loves caimans, there is a small body of water is home to a number of caiman.

"El Peñon"

El Peñon is a magesty place. It's in a beautiful and colourful village in east of Medellín. There is a reservoir of water, being the biggest lake in that country. The main razon for maintaing the lake is that it provides mechanic enegy to a hydroelectric for generating energy for the region. Near lake is a big stone called "el Peñón". If you want to have a good view of the lake and its surroundings that you will never forget, you can go to the top of this hill but remember that there are exactly 740 steps, but it's secure the access. It's a good experience to explore the lake by kayak. You can hide a kayak and then stay on the lake the time that you like. You can pass half an hour in a zipline. It isn't scary or very exciting because are 680 metres, so It's perfect to shy people. 

"El valle de Cocora"

Cocora's valley offers and incredible experience to tourists that love going for walk in the nature. The place is near a small town called Salento. In this village you can wait for other tourist in the square and plan the hike with them, but remember go early if you want to enjoy the entire walking. You can choose between two options: short a long hiking. The short hiking could be completed in 60-90 minutes and is a good options if you arrived to square late, in the afternoon, or if you are feeling bad. But if you are an adventurer tourist, you can go for walking through long way that takes 5-6 hours to be completed. You'll stay near to the nature with this option  and walk along steep hiking tracks.

Minca

Minca is a tiny beautiful town that perched in the top of the mountain Sierra nevada de Santa Marta. The population is 800 but is very kindy. You can enjoy a amazing overlooking of Santamarta and the Caribbean coast. The place is 45 minutes away from Santa Marta and 5 hours from Cartagena. You can get there by bus (shared shuttle) or taxi, but the first option is cheaper. You can go to Pozo Azul. It is a natural swimming area. there is a waterfall and it's perfect to do cliff jumping. Another attraction for the spot is to get relax in a giant hammock. you'll find the world's largest hammock in the hostel "casa elemento". It's a two hours hike from the town, but the views are amazing. Teyuna was a small village of Tayrona indians, but I was abandoned for them, because the conquistadors were very violent with this people. Currently, the place is a touristic spot to four days to way.

El cabo de la vela

This was one of the first places to be discovered by the Spanish and currently, it's an exciting experience for tourist of other parts to the world. The traveling to cabo de la vela is very long and you have to do stops in three cities if you can go there. The start to the journey would be in Santa Marta. After that your next stop is in Riohacha. Then, you have to take a bus to go to Uribia, and finally, you can go to "cabo de la vela".  In this place you can stay at nights in a  basic hut by the sea or you can hire a hammock in a hostel. You could eat a delicious typical dish, fried fish accompanied with coconut rice and "patacones". You can visit Pilon de azucar that is a sacred conical hill for Wayuu. If you go climbing this hill, you have an overlooking of 360° to the surrounding desert and caribbean sea. The beaches and sea rea the the calmest and nicest water in Colombia according to the opinion of several visitors.