They were right.

Medellin, Colombia is one of the top 10 places in the world to view Christmas lights!

So, yesterday we had a busy day! The Medellin Botanical Garden in the afternoon, and the Christmas lights displays in the evening. And, a ton of walking.

I didn't measure out how much walking we did, other than knowing the distance from the house we're staying at to the Botanical Gardens...which was 6.0 kms (3.8 miles). Ruth and I decided to walk that route and we met our couchsurfing host Andrea at the gardens because she had some work to do prior to that at the University near there.

First, the big news...

I mentioned in yesterday's post that we were working on an exciting development that would affect our normal travels during the month of February. And yesterday afternoon we signed the deal, so now we can tell you all about it.

We had committed plans between now and February 2nd. Tomorrow (Monday) night, we fly back to Mexico City. Early Tuesday morning, we take the bus from Mexico City back to Valle de Bravo where Sherman (our motorhome) is waiting for us. Then, we're going to relax in one spot for a month. I think we're due for that. And on January 14th, Ruth's cousin Helen and husband Tony are coming from England to spend two and a half weeks with us so we can show them Mexico for the first time. They depart on February 2nd.

And then a new adventure begins for us!

It's Colombia, NOT Columbia

One of the most commonly misspelled countries in the world, there has been a movement afoot since 2013 to educate people about the proper spelling of Colombia's name.

Maybe it's because many people are familiar with the Canadian province of British Columbia that it's easy to get the "o" and the "u" mixed up.

Well, that was a pleasant surprise!

We departed our little cubical room in Guasca at just before 11:00am yesterday. Enjoyed our stay in the countryside...far better than staying in the city of Bogota. But, we were not totally done with Bogota because we were heading for Bogota airport for our flight to Medellin yesterday evening.

We found a bus marked "Terminal" and asked the driver if he was going to the main Bogota bus terminal. It's located relatively close to the Bogota airport, so that would be ideal. And he was...so we hopped on.

Would you go for a walk along a random dirt road in the countryside of Colombia?

As we were doing this yesterday, that was the question that came up. Our guess is that not many people would do the same things that we do, and yet these country road walks have been among our best experiences in Colombia.

There are no other tourists. In fact, I said yesterday that I figure we're probably the only Canadians to ever visit the little isolated town of Gacheta, Colombia.

Day trip to Guatavita, Colombia

Took a little day trip yesterday to the town of Guatavita. It's a tourist town on the Tomine Reservoir...a man made lake formed back in the 1960's to provide hydroelectric and drinking water to the city of Bogota.

The actual town of Guatavita was flooded at the time, and rebuilt at higher altitude.

Exhausted!

We slept just okay in our little cubicle above the noisy restaurant here in the town of Guasca, Colombia (pop 13,000). As we said yesterday, it's not ideal and it's a little overpriced compared to what we've been paying during the last five weeks, but we think we're going to stick it out here until Thursday when we go to Bogota airport for our flight to Medellin.

Because while our accommodation isn't great, the little town itself is nice enough and the scenery surrounding it is beautiful. And there are lots of areas to go for walks.

The Hilton, it is not...

We stayed at the Explora Hostel in the big city of Bogota for seven nights. The hostel itself was great, but seven days in Bogota was about five days too many. It's a big, busy, dirty city, in our opinion. Some may enjoy the "art" that adorns almost every empty space of exterior wall, but to us, it was just a mess.

Bogota, we gave you a chance, but first impressions rang true. You are not for us!

20km (13 mile) hike to Colombia's highest waterfall

They say to get an early start if you're going to visit Colombia's highest waterfall, but it was still after 10:00am by the time we found our way to the small bus terminal at the corner of Calle 6 and Carrera 15 beside the police station.

Chorrera waterfall (Cascada de Chorrera) is located off the road leading to the town of Choachi, only about 30 kms (18 miles) from the center of Bogota.

Change of plans...

We got up yesterday morning all set with a plan to go for a hike to Colombia's highest waterfall. But we made our way down for breakfast to see that it was raining!

So...change of plans. I went to the front desk to see if we could stay here yet another night.