Colombia 1.0: Nathaniel's POV

Colombia is a country reborn.

Let me elaborate.

Since our grandparents and great-grandparents can remember, the name "Colombia" summons one word: unrest. Colombia has been at war with itself since forever, constantly being taken over by Para-military troops, Guerrillas and gangs. And recently, Pablo Escobar. Now, however, Colombia is in full rebuild mode. We see so much of how Colombians are trying to not just put their past behind them, but to flourish from it!

One of the hotspots for this revival, is a beautiful city called Medellin. Now, Medellin has been a battleground for YEARS involving too many groups to even count; it was even the headquarters for Pablo Escobar himself! But, the instant we started our city tour we realized that Medellin is the DEFINITION of reborn. Right from the start our tour guide told us that whenever he needed to say "Pablo Escobar" he was going to refer to him as "P.E"! He told us that many people have very bad and very recent memories of their brick houses being pelted daily by heavy machine guns trying to kill members of Pablo's cartel. But another reason he wants to keep the name quiet is the young people of Medellin. Many of them are starting to see Pablo as a Robin Hood because he did actually give tons of money for community projects (which was all so that he could win over the hearts of the citizens who would then protect him when things got heated). But, the young of Medellin today never fully experienced the horrors of what he did, so they wear T-shirts, watch Netflix series and think of him as a hero.

The part of Medellin we where visiting was called "Comuna 13". Comuna 13 used to be one of the most dangerous places in the all the Americas because of drug cartels, moving cocaine and TONS of brutal violence. The thing is, now it is one of the safest neighbourhoods in Medellin! How, you ask? They used their culture of hip-hop and graffiti to help turn it all around.

On the tour we saw how Comuna 13 had started to wash away their past using things like streets FULL of graffiti murals, crazy cool basketball courts and even people dancing and rapping in public. You can see on the faces of the people who live in Comuna 13, they have amazing pride in their neighbourhood and their city. Actually, when our guide was telling us about the cocaine that traveled through Medellin, a man randomly walking by pronounced "Colombia is not cocaine! Colombia is love and peace!" It was super cool and everyone in our group started cheering! As we walked down the main street in Comuna 13, we all admired the amazing murals that had been carefully, and joyfully, painted. Our tour guide told us that each mural had a story behind it and most were painted by people from the community! After getting a haircut to match the vibe, we headed back to a city gondola that swing us back to our campsite.

The campsite we stayed at while we toured around Medellin was AMAZING.

The first thing that we noticed when we pulled up were the 8 dogs. Yup, 8 huge dogs (German Shepards, Dobermans and Rottweilers... yeah, scary) .

The campsite had a pool table, ping pong table, workout area, kitchen, TV and a volleyball net. We especially enjoyed the ping pong table where we all practiced hard to try and beat my mom (but to no avail).

Rewind to the first half of Colombia where we visited and experienced so many cool places, one of which was the Chicamocha canyon. The Chicamocha is the second biggest canyon in the world (just behind the Grand Canyon) and is one of the BEST spots in South America for "Parapente" or paragliding.

Which is exactly what we did.

My mom had to be convinced to do it but, deep down, we all knew that she was eventually going to hurl herself off of a huge canyon ledge (she always does, sooner or later).

I went first.

First, they suited me up and got me paired up to my tandem partner. Then, my partner and I ran around to get some air under our glider. And suddenly, we were off. Instantly, adrenaline coursed through my body and I let out a whoop of excitement! The view was AMAZING - we soared over farms, highways and even some small mountains. I can't even describe the feeling I felt while soaring through the air, thousands of feet above ground.

But, I CAN describe the next feeling I had, except you probably don't want to know. Thats right, I landed with puke all over my shirt and gear (I don't think my tandem partner was too happy with me). Besides the motion sickness, paragliding was one of my favorite activities on the entire trip and I highly recommend it for all of you with stronger stomachs than me.

During our time in Colombia, I have noticed that Colombians have a knack for taking beautiful natural places like the Chicamocha canyon, and completely commercializing them. This is probably due to the fact that most of the land is privately owned and there is very little public land. Buuuuut anyways,

As we drove through the canyon on an extremely narrow road (my mom was FREAKING out), we spotted extremely bright coloured tubes, protruding from around a corner! We went to check it out, and someone had built a full-blown waterpark on the cliff face! It looked extraordinarily out of place, but, we went. The water park included two waterslides, an enormous lazy river and tons of other attractions. By doing this commercializing, Colombia is trying to attract more tourism. Which is good... to the point where you start building waterslides on the edge of one of the most beautiful canyons on earth.

Let's rewind even further. When we originally landed in Colombia, we had to wait for a week for our camper to arrive via shipping. So, during that week, we stayed in an airbnb in a neighbourhood called Bocagrande, which means "big mouth"(I have no clue why) because we had been sleeping in a camper for a very long time and... well... the camper was gone! It was an extremely nice stay and very refreshing to have our own beds and a toilet that flushed toilet paper (we had ZERO toilet paper flushing toilets on our trip up until that point which was pretty annoying).

Every evening during our stay, we watched 007 movies (mostly Daniel Craig but a few Pierce Brosnan) and one evening, we even had a nice little party with some other overlanders from Belgium. My brothers and I actually connected really well with the Belgian kids (we call all the other overlanders by what country they come from, example: the Hungarians, the Belgians, the Germans, etc.). We went to the pool with them, had pillow fights with them, and most importantly, spoke french with them.

Staying in Cartagena for that week was a great refresher from camper life and really gave us the energy we needed to get back on the road again.

Colombia is not perfect. There are still many communities that are dangerous and there is quite a bit of poverty. That being said, for the most part, Colombia really has been changed. They have gone from an absolute warzone, to a hotspot for tourism and amazing natural beauty. I strongly recommend visiting Colombia, It really is amazing.

PS: Stay tuned for Colombia 2.0!