From its lush landscapes to its diverse population, its beautiful street art to its violent civil war - colourful is the best way to describe Colombia. Around every street corner there are fantastic murals in vivid hues, on every windy bus journey a blanket of vivid green covers the hillsides, salsa music fills the air around every food stall and shopping mall and in the quiet moments you'll spot all kinds of brightly coloured species from humming birds to birds of paradise. All this beauty does a good job of distracting you from the terrible history the country is still trying to put to behind it but, thankfully, the tour guides are able to enlighten us naive tourists, as we marvel at the products of politically outraged artists and the architecture of regeneration projects within the cities, on the causes, effects and current attempts to end the modern world's longest civil war.
My first encounter with Colombia's love of colour came just 5mins after crossing the border from Ecuador. I hopped out of my taxi to find the most brightly coloured bus station, reminiscent of a game of Tetrus. My next taxi ride took me to the equally, if slightly more bizarrely, kaleidoscopic Sanctuario de Las Lajas - a cathedral built in a gorge due to a sighting of the Virgin Mary. The gothic building clinging to the side of the rock with a multi-coloured lit crypt was bound to light up as it got dark - and sure enough as I walked back up towards the road the whole building was bathed in ever-changing disco colours, like a giant fibre optic lamp.
The overarching, more naturally occurring, colour of Colombia is green. From the coca, coffee and banana plantations to the more wild cloud forests and even the water of the Penol reservoir - the green is so intense it has to be seen to be believed. And what better place to marvel at it than Salento, the sleepy hilltop village famous for its outlying coffee fincas, which I daren't visit for fear of bladder malfunction. This place was, nonetheless, a magically quaint area with more horses than cars, the tallest Palm trees in the world and green as far as the eye could see.
My next stop of Medellin - previously the murder capital of the world but now a vibrant city of orange brick tower blocks against a backdrop of forested hills - was where I had my first proper history lesson. Our guide explained the history of Medellin - it's geographically isolated melting pot of Basque and Jewish Spanish settlers that after hundreds of years of cooking time became a Paisa stew - a culture who felt different to the rest of Colombia. With the help of the international political colours of red (left) and blue (right) she summarised the civil war from the assassination of a red politician in the 1940s which led to the creation of red illegal armies (guerrella groups like FARC) which in turn led to the creation of blue illegal armies (paramilitaries) and a war between them, complicated by the drug trade from the late 70s onwards as drug lords paid each of these groups to guard their crops and so drug money fuelled more and more violence. The US waded in with PlanColombia, giving funding for each soldier killed which brought about the deceitful phenomenon of kidnapping homeless people, taking them out to the countryside, dressing them in army uniforms, shooting them and taking photographic evidence of their success against the drug gangs.
From this colourful history comes a beautiful bi-product in the form of street art, giving citizens a way to express their opinions, usually in clever pictorial form such as pineapple grenades, bugs with weapons as legs and piggy presidents. The now legalised activity has become not only a way to redevelop a rundown area, like the modest paintings around Communa 13s new escalator transport system, but also a good way to attract tourism (in 2000 Colombia received 50,000 tourists, in 2015 4million tourists came - thanks to rapidly reducing kidnapping rates and fantastic transformations of the worst parts of the cities into symbols of hope). The incredible portraits, landscapes and cartoons covering the walls of Bogota are a sight to behold and the talent does not go unrecognised as we learnt on our tour - with many of the graphic design graduates going on to have international careers as grafitti artists, getting commissioned by public buildings all over the world.
For my last week in the country, and indeed on the continent, I had decided I wanted some beach time - since Ecuador taxi drivers and tour guides had been using the phrase 'vamos a la playa' to mean let's go (literally meaning 'let's go to the beach') and I hadn't followed their instructions once! The Caribbean coast of Colombia was a fine place to do so though. From the stiflingly hot yet picturesque colonial walled city of Cartagena to the wild jungle clad beaches of Parque Tayrona the natural and man-made beauty of Colombia was a constant treat. I became rather skilled at sleeping in hammocks after a night in 'Casa en el agua' - a hostel in the middle of the ocean where, of course, a thunderstorm raged all night as I attempted to sleep - after that the other hammock nights were a doddle. Between a few jungle hikes and walking tours I managed to fit in a fair amount of beach combing, snorkelling, soaking up the sun and enjoying the clear blue water from which the country's flag gets its blue stripe.
The huge band of gold at the top represents the abundance of gold that brought the Spaniards here (half of which seems to now reside in Bogotas eye-boggling Museo del Oro whilst the red stripe depicts blood - whether that be of the men who fought for Colombian independence, the African slaves brought over to work in the mines (and who are responsible for such a deep culture of dance) or the more recent bloodshed caused by the civil war, I do not know. It's sad that such a fantastic country has so much bloodshed to choose from and the white stripe of the recently rejected peace deal made a beautiful, if short-lived addition to their flag. I hope one day they can replace the red with white once more as our Medellin guide pointed out 'Better an imperfect peace than the perfect war'.
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