Colombia

Finally we reached Colombia, and just as every single person I talked to about Colombia said: it is insanely beautiful! This is El Penon, outside of lovely Medellin! After climbing this single gigantic rock that remided me of the Sugarloaf in Brazil, an amazing landscape opened up!

The road from Turbo to Medellin was scarred by landslides resulting from the heavy rainfalls of the recent weeks. Sometimes only a few rocks had fallen onto the road, sometimes a whole slope had failed. That´s why you never ask how far a trip is, but always how long a trip takes...

Animal transport on a small scale. The chicken is still alive, just hangin´ out!

Staring contest on the Centro Administrativo de La Alpujarra, Medellin!

The Museo de Antioquia shows many paintings of the famous Colombian artist Fernando Botero. His style features a loose interpretation of proportions, to put it straight, most of his figures appear kind of fat. Dispite some of his paintings putting a grin on my face, a considerable part of his art is very serious. Very recently he drew a fair ammount of attention with his Abu Ghraib series, dealing with reports of the prisoners abuse in Iraq.

This is Boteros interpretation of the shooting of Pablo Escobar on the roofs over Medellin. The Colombian druglord Pablo Emilio Esobar Gaviria is certainly the first association made with the city of Medellin and regarded as one of the most successfull criminals in history. He wasn´t exactely low on cash and so in his 1986 attempt to enter Colombian politics he offered to pay off the nations 10 billion US$ debt. He had a very straight forward policy twoards the law enforcement and the goverment: ¨plata o plomo¨, accept the money or recieve the bullets. In 1992 Escobars struggle to maintain his supremacy lead to an incredible ammount of 27.000 violent deaths that year. Even poor youths were paid rewards for killing policemen by the time. To the poor population Escobar appeared as a modern Robin Hood, building football fields, sponsoring footballt teams, building many churches in Medellin and distributing money to housing projects. Therefor the population of Medellin often acted as outlooks for Escobar and hid information from the authorities. Following pressure from the United States Escobar could be localized by a Colombian electronic surveillance team with help from the US on December 2. 1993 and was shot after a spectacular gunfight.
Famous quote: There are two hundred million idiots, manipulated by a million intelligent men.

 

Another interesting object in the Museo de Antioquia. Not appropriate for Reggae Music, but actually playable!

It´s getting close to Christmas in Medellin! The decorations contain the same ammount of artfulness, creativity and style as in any other given place of the world...

A visit to the Botanical Garden poses a great escape from the city mayhem.

Christmas Dinner! Tons of food shared with good friends! Nothing compares to Christmas at home, but this was certainly as close as it gets!

After spending Christmas in Medellin we went on to spend Newyears in Cali. This is the Crew from left to right: Dave from BC Canada living life to fullest, in the background Laura from Guernsey (don´t tell me you didn´t know Guernsey is an island in the British Channel!!!). Marissa from California teaching me the lingo so I can finally become a real surfer. Hot shit bro! Nifty times ´n´  wicked party! And my lovely Sarah also from BC Canada getting all the good moments on camera and keeping Colombian boys heads turning.

Feria de Cali with my good friend Beneyasa from Oetztal! 
His name derives from the notorious hotel in Kuta, Bali we stayed at last summer, and notorious is he!

No escape from the Espuma! The Feria de Cali is one of the largest Salsafestivals in Southamerica and some serious party is going down in the week before Newyears.

Getting some proper cooking done at Benes place! 

Thunderstruck! Bene had superhuman reaction on this one!

Cali by night!

Found this at our Hostel. That man must know!

Newyears with the girls! Back home you were drinking Schnaps, in Cali we had some Aguardiende! The translatione is ¨firewater¨, it tastes like Ouzo and it definately works!

The last night in Cali! A big trip the Quito, Ecuador is awaiting me and my flight to the Galapagos Isands is already booked!