Discover the best of Colombia, from bustling streets to Amazonian hideaways. Photo / Getty Images
If you’re looking for a new adventure for you and your family, look no further than Colombia, writes Kate Wickers
Close to Tayrona National Park, on the Rio Don Diego in northern Colombia, we’re tubing; cast adrift on rubber rings, letting the current guide us past soaring mango trees occupied by curious howler monkeys delivering deep, throaty bellows. My sons, Freddie, aged 17, and Ben, aged 20, are attempting to tip their dad off his float, when the call comes from our guide to look to the bank. There, a small caiman blinks back at us.
“No need to worry! That’s as big as they get on this river,” comes the quick assurance from our guide. Turns out that our scaley, grinning friend is a Cuvier’s dwarf caiman, small fry compared with the 6m-long caimans that we’ve spotted elsewhere. Thrilling wildlife encounters aside, Colombia, now seven years into a peace agreement, is the safest it’s ever been.
Our first two days were spent casting off our jetlag in the drizzly, Andes-hugged, capital, Bogota. The Museo del Oro (one of South America’s finest museums with a collection of more than 55,000 artefacts) gives a fascinating insight into pre-Hispanic cultures, back to when salt was a more highly prized commodity and gold in such abundance that decadent jewellery was worn by all. The bohemian neighbourhood Candelaria, chock-full of 300-year-old houses, is where Bogota began and is now famous for its buskers (Gypsy Kings on the pan pipes anyone?), street art and thriving cafe culture (Plaza de Chorro del Quevedo is the best people-watching spot). Don’t miss nearby Museo Botero with its extensive collection of both sculpture and paintings from Colombia’s most famous living artist (now at the grand old age of 91), known for his iconic proportionally exaggerated comic figures.
Arriving to Santa Marta, in the very north of the country, we peel off the layers as the temperature rises to hover steadily at 30. We’ve come here to explore Tayrona National Park:12,000ha fringed by 30 golden beaches, licked by tempestuous Caribbean waters (the currents here are infamously strong). A 16km round hike takes in many of its highlights, and we’re soon spotting anteater and cotton-top tamarin peering through the leafy canopy, and iguana camouflaged on branches. We buy coconut juice from white-robed, indigenous Kogi (official guardians of the forest), who expertly open the nut with a machete, then fashion a stopper to create a natural drinking bottle. Arriving at Cabo San Juan del Guia beach, a double horseshoe of soft sands and considered one of Colombia’s most beautiful, we take a dip in waters calmed by a natural breakwater of granite boulders. Lunch is a picnic of red snapper and coconut rice eaten on the sand.
Maloka Barlovento is set where the Piedras River rushes into the Caribbean Sea and makes for a perfect retreat. We soon lose all sense of time and take our cues from nature, rising for an early morning beach stroll, accompanied by Snowy egrets and turkey vultures that pick over morsels tossed ashore by night, and heading for cocktails at beach shack Bar Sierra when bats begin to swoop over silhouetted palms on the hunt for supper.
Pirates of the Caribbean springs to mind when we arrive at Cartagena, Colombia’s Caribbean jewel, with its Unesco-protected old town packed with colonial houses built in the 16th century off the spoils of conquistadors’ gold trafficking from South America to Spain, which also made the city a frequent target for plundering pirates. Through cinematic cobbled streets, we wander with strains of Salsa music floating down from the geranium-filled wooden balconies belonging to pastel-hued casas. Horse and carts clip-clop lazily by transporting heat-fatigued tourists, and old men in Panama hats put the world to rights in palm-filled plazas.
While the old town has plenty of romantic allure, Getsemani, lying just beyond las murallas (city walls), pulses day and night, awash with spectacular street art, pretty backpacker’s hostels, hole-in-the-wall bars, and notable eateries, including Celele, ranked at number 19 in the Top 50 Latin-American Restaurants. Pull up a chair at Cafe Trinidad, order a coconut lemonade and watch the young rappers at work, spitting bars to tourists for a few pesos. “More sass than Cameron Diaz,” is the line I like best.
An hour by shared speedboat delivers you to the Islas de Rosario, a long-time playground of wealthy Colombians (some of the tiniest islands have just one private home). We float in crystalline waters among shoals of Yellow Tang and Unicorn fish on a snorkelling excursion; then chill on a powder-soft beach, enjoying the novelty of ordering a mojito from a passing floating “kayak bar”. Shaggy and Hendrix are the soundtracks, and the vibe feels pure Caribbean with fishermen wading ashore with lobster and crab and persuasive offers of a barbecued seafood lunch.
Dedication is required to reach Calanoa Amazonas in the Amazon, a private 50ha reserve that nestles in the Amacayacu National Park close to the border of Peru. We take a flight to Leticia via Bogota, then a taxi to a ramshackle port to catch a canoe along a river tributary to the mighty Rio Amazon, where a speedboat waits to take us a further 60km upriver. At the flash of wing belonging to a Blue and gold macaw, and the glimpse of the cherry-hued nose of a pink dolphin (native to the Amazon), this feels like our greatest adventure. On Conde Nast’s Gold List in 2021, Calanoa has seven unique cabins and is flying the flag for sustainable luxury in the region (although do not arrive expecting air conditioning or an a la carte menu). Our lodging is a two-storey, palm-roofed hut, with mosquito-draped beds and a hammock-strung deck that has views to the river, where we tick off sightings of the horned screamer, great white egret, weaverbird, and Amazon kingfisher (Colombia is home to 20 per cent of the world’s bird species). After dark, we pull on rubber boots and head off for a night walk with Jorge, an indigenous Tikuna guide. Phosphorescent mushrooms glow ghostly white; Brazilian white-knee tarantulas appear from burrows ready to defend their young; and the highlight of this creepy excursion are three ranitomeya amazonica poison dart frogs: their black and white spotted legs and rear so exquisitely incongruous with the black and orange stripe of back and head.
Mocagua Island is reached by motorised canoe and by passing over the invisible border that separates Colombia from Peru. We putter up the Matamata Creek, passing black vultures feeding on the rich red ripe fruit of the kapok tree, to where a small wooden jetty is hidden among the foliage. “Want to see where the film director, Peter Jackson, got the idea for Ents, in Lord of the Rings?” asks Herman, our guide. Freddie fills me in, explaining that Ents are humanoid walking trees, as we cut a winding path to a glade dominated by Socratea exorrhiza with leggy stilt-like roots that can relocate to reach sunlight by “walking” up to 3cm a day. Further in we find a Strangler fig that has wreaked destruction over 100m with vines strong enough to swing on like Tarzan. On small swamps the lotus Victoria amazonica blooms; its huge green pads ablur of dancing butterflies. The highlight is discovering an owl peering out from a tree hollow, which turns out to be an aotus (commonly called an owl-faced monkey), the best disguised and shyest of the Amazon’s primates.
“Come on Mum, what’s the worst that can happen?” comes the shout as I dither on the riverbank. My sons have one more experience to tick off before we head home: to swim in piranha-infested waters (having been assured that Hollywood has much to answer for in demonising these harmless, razor-toothed, nocturnal hunters). Off-grid, there’s been no chance to google if this is sensible or not, so we kayak with a guide to a “safe” swimming creek. The Colombianos’ zest for life, as they enjoy the most freedom they’ve had in decades, has certainly rubbed off on me, and so, with a whoop, I wade in to join my family.
Except for Maloka Barlovento and Calanoa Amazonas, Kate Wickers and her family travelled with Hayes & Jarvis, experts in creating bespoke holiday itineraries. 10-night/11 day tours from NZ$8050 per person based on two people sharing. hayesandjarvis.co.uk
Double rooms at Finca Barlovento start at around 4318 per night, including breakfast. fincabarlovento.com
Calanoa Amazonas costs $325 per person per night. Children under 12 years receive a 10 per cent discount. Included: full board and two activities per day and Spanish-speaking guides. Transfer by boat: $500 round trip for up to four people. English-speaking guides ($115 per day). calanoaamazonas.com
GETTING THERE
Air NZ, American Airlines and LATAM fly from Auckland to Bogota Airport with one stopover in Houston, Dallas or Santiago, Chile.
DETAILS
colombia.travel/en
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