A family adventure around South America

Tayrona National Park From Medellin we flew up to Santa Marta, on the Caribbean coast of Colombia. We looked at the options of taking an overnight bus for this journey, but it was at least 18 hours of travelling in mountainous roads, with very few suitable places to break the journey, and the internal flight was not significantly more expensive. We’re trying to minimise use of flights during our trip, but this one felt like the right decision to ensure that we arrived on the coast ready to enjoy our time there. The second the plane doors opened we could tell we were in a very different climate than we had experienced so far. Santa Marta is firmly in the tropics and the heat and humidity greeted us immediately as we found our way to our one hour transfer along the coast towards Tayrona. This was one of the most carefully thought out and anticipated parts of our adventure as it covered Hannah’s tenth birthday on August 24th. As we would be away from friends and family for her birthday sh...

Guatape is often a day trip that tourists take from Medellin, but we had been recommended to spend a few days there, and as we are trying to embrace slower travel, that’s what we did. Guatape is a very pretty town, with brightly coloured buildings, set on the banks of the huge man made lake. It is famous for ‘the rock’ of Penol and for being the base for water sports on the lake. We took a local bus for less than £5 each from Medellin up the winding roads to Guatape. It took a couple of hours and offered some great views along the way. We stayed at Lake View Hostel on the recommendation of Becky’s cousin, and it was a nice spot, at the edge of town overlooking the water. The staff were very helpful (more on that later) and they offered activities out on the lake. The town itself is packed with cafes, restaurants, bars, and craft shops. It has become a firm fixture on the backpacker trail, and a popular place for daytrippers. For the kids we were delighted to find a large playground in ...

Now, I think that this blog needs to be prefaced by two things - firstly, on the basis of recommendations from friends and research we had done, we had high hopes for Medellin, and second, we have always found cities more difficult with kids (and we were coming off the back of a week of delightful travelling around the coffee region). We still enjoyed our time in Medellin, but having expected it to be one of the highlights of our Colombian adventure we were left a little underwhelmed. It felt like the city was much more set up for younger travellers wanting to party, and we certainly saw lots of people having a great time. We traveled on the bus from Chinchina, and I think it’s fair to say that this wasn’t a typical tourist route… The more regular route would be to go from Pereira, but we didn’t like the idea of backtracking and wanted to minimise the amount of time we would have to be on the bus so opted for this route. Chinhina was a bustling town, famous apparently for its agricultu...

  Santa Rosa de Cabal The traditional tourist trail would have us heading straight to Medellin next, but as we have the benefit of time we chose to have a few more days in the coffee region and head to the town of Santa Rosa de Cabal. We took the bus to Pereira from Solento, which was remarkably simple with the help of the local staff, and then a taxi over to our finca accommodation in the countryside around the town. We’d found a place with a pool for the kids that was famous for a spectacular view point, and that most certainly did not disappoint. Finca Villa del Campo was offered basic rooms, but great value with the pool, the use of the outside kitchen and a traditional Columbian breakfast (I’ve never eaten so many eggs as I have in the past few weeks). The owners were very friendly and helpful and it's well placed for a short walk up the hill to the Finca Del Cafe which offers tours of the coffee farm, a more upmarket restaurant and a bamboo lookout point. The main reason for ...