Colombia: A Rosen-Cooney Travel Story—No Passports Required: Bogota, the Coffee Zone, Cartagena, and Tayrona National Park

By Alexandra Rosen

The country of Colombia, emerging from the fog of its violent past, has been shedding its reputation as a dangerous place. For travel, it is still a little on the edge, with many of the countrys sites as yet undiscovered by tourists. In this travelogue, author Alexandra Rosen shares her experiences journeying to Colombiaa place filled with superlatives and unquestionable charm.

With her longtime travel partner, Donald Cooney, Rosen provides a lively account of their adventures exploring Bogota, the Coffee Zone, Cartagena, and Tayrona National Park. Colombia blends factual information and historical background with engaging anecdotes and descriptions of the countrys people, cuisine, art, music, and natural and manmade surroundings.

Including general tips culled from travel to eighty-nine countries, Rosen describes Colombia as a superb destination as well as a great place for a journey. This guide shares Rosens and Cooneys excursion through Colombias history and time, witnessing its past while experiencing its present. They arrived with a collection of facts and data and left with an appreciation of Colombias diverse culture and a positive belief in its future.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Dec 19, 2012
• ISBN: 9781475952995

Alexandra Rosen

Alexandra Rosen earned a graduate degree in history and is a former business woman from Knoxville, Tennessee. She and her longtime travel partner, Donald Cooney, have been journeying together since 1992, favoring edgy destinations not yet on the international tourist map. In the last twenty years, she has visited eighty-nine countries.

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Copyright © 2012, 2013 ALEXANDRA ROSEN

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ISBN: 978-1-4759-5301-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-5300-8 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-5299-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012918601

iUniverse rev. date: 1/18/2013

Contents

Preface Meet Your New Tour Guides

Acknowledgments

Introduction Getting Started

Chapter 1 First Stop, Bogota

Chapter 2 A Trip To The Coffee Country

Chapter 3 Cartagena

Chapter 4 Tayrona National Park

Epilogue

Bibliography

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Preface

MEET YOUR NEW TOUR GUIDES

When reality strikes, it is a good idea to pay attention. I was completing the course requirements for a PhD in European history when I realized that even though I had two very young children at home, I could finish the course work and could write a dissertation, but I was not going to put forth the effort needed to meet the two foreign language requirements. As I arrived at this crossroad, my life in academia segued into the world of business. I set up a wholesale giftware company and began traveling to Japan and Taiwan several times a year to buy merchandise produced to my specifications. Immediately, I found myself consumed by Asia. For me, it was a magical place. I felt adventurous surrounded by unfamiliar cultures and chaotic street life, offering a kaleidoscope of new sights, sounds, and spicy smells. At the conclusion of each business trip, I boarded a plane, sometimes filled with everything but live animals, and traveled to more distant locales. In the 1980s, I had the opportunity to experience cities such as Shanghai, Beijing, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Kathmandu before they were altered by globalization and mass tourism. I consider this to be the first part of my life, a period that ended with the death of my husband in 1991. I sold off my business and retreated to my kitchen table. I spent my time reading the New York Times, refusing to believe anyone who told me my life would get better. Then in February 1992, I joined a small tour, and with serendipity in the ascendency, I met a fellow traveler named Donald Cooney. On that trip, we traveled through Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Donald was a Vietnam War veteran, and I found it fascinating to see that country through the eyes of someone who had served there. Subsequently, we made numerous return trips to Vietnam, encountering a country and a people rising from the ashes of war and its aftermath. That trip was also the first time we visited Cambodia, and at the time, we had no idea that nine years later, this country and its people would become a major passion in our lives. Acknowledging our shared obsession for Asia, as well as for travel, we united our efforts, and with our passports constantly stocked with additional pages, we have been traveling together ever since.

Beginning in 2001, Donald and I have been spending the winter in Cambodia. We have befriended people in a farming village and have informally adopted them and vice versa. Presently, we are sponsoring one of their brightest young boys to attend school in Siem Reap. Donald, in his former life, was an industrial designer. Today, he is an EAA (Experimental Aircraft Association) award-winning designer and manufacturer of ultralight aircraft. He has flown a two-seater ultralight over a large portion of Cambodia with a wide variety of people in his backseat, including archeologists, conservationists, mine-removal experts, journalists, documentary producers, tour book authors, and travel writers. In March, we leave Cambodia and travel to other Asian destinations, returning to Knoxville, Tennessee, in time to enjoy spring. With the remainder of the year ahead of us, there is still plenty of time for more travel. After our trip through three countries in East Africa, plus Cape Verde, Zanzibar, and Madagascar, I have visited eighty-nine countries. Donald has chalked up a few less, because I have occasionally traveled alone when he returned to his hometown on Long Island, New York, to spend time flying airplanes with his buddies.

Whenever feasible, Donald and I travel by ourselves, never in groups and never on tours. Seeking the adventure of the road, we often rent a car, and while Donald drives, I serve as navigator, surrounded by maps and a GPS. In the less hospitable parts of the world, we hire drivers and guides. We find it never diminishes the thrill of discovery, but only facilitates our experience. Even though the destination spawns the trip, sometimes, it is the journey itself that becomes most significant, satiating our desire for unfamiliar sights and transporting us away from the ordinary. When we become hot and tired, dirty, frustrated, and disappointed, we try hard to maintain a sense of humor and to remember the saying, If you want things the way they are back home, then you should stay there. But on occasion, there are those extra rough moments when it is easier to forget an old adage than to remember.

It did not take twenty years of intense travel for us to realize the insignificance of our place in the world. We strive to leave the best impression possible, arriving in each new place with a respectful humility, not allowing our own standards to interfere with our experiences. With pride, we tell people we are from the United States, and contrary to what has been written about the world’s negative image of Americans, we have always been treated with kindness and hospitality, while usually being expected to answer a lot of questions. Travel has become a way of life, and we are never without thoughts as to where to go next.

Acknowledgments

This travel story exists due to the influence of both my mother and my grandmother before her. My intrepid grandmother left Europe at age sixteen and traveled to New York by herself to start a new life. Spending time with her and listening to her stories instilled within me the desire to seek that which is around the next bend, and it was my mother who encouraged me to write it all down.

Immediately after I had returned from my trip to Colombia, my father informed me that my mother had been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. I rushed to my parents’ retirement home in Florida, and as my mother spent her last days, I entertained her by reading aloud what I had written. She welcomed the distraction, and I appreciated her critique. Thoughts of her encouraged me as I persevered to complete my story.

I will always be grateful to Ebbie Sandberg, who, after my husband died, pushed me away from my kitchen table and suggested I enroll in the docent program at the Knoxville Museum of Art as well as join a tour to Asia, where I had the opportunity to meet Donald. I also thank Mary Harris. She keeps my plants alive while I am traveling, and, more important, she was a source of comfort after the death of my husband.

I owe a debt of gratitude to a very special couple, Ed and Mary Anne Sedlmeier, for reading my manuscript and providing astute comments and critiques. Finally, I offer my most special thanks to Donald. Not only is he a terrific companion, but without his unquenchable sense of adventure, many of our trips would not have been undertaken.

Introduction

GETTING STARTED

Colombia, emerging from the fog of its violent past, has been shedding its reputation as a dangerous place. As a result, this country met our criteria: it was still a little on the edge with many places not yet discovered by tourists. Even though the US Department of State has issued a travel warning for Colombia, peace is prevailing. According to the Colombian Ministry of Commerce, Industry, and Tourism, The only risk is wanting to stay.¹

The first Rosen-Cooney rule of travel is never leave home without reservations. Once we arrive in a new country, our time is valuable, and we are not willing to waste it attempting to make arrangements that could have been made in advance. Therefore, we contacted our travel agent, Tomas Belcik of Footloose Travel Guides ([e-mail]). Excited about visiting Colombia, we solicited his advice, and coupled with our own input, an itinerary was created. Tomas contacted the hotels and made the reservations.

While enjoying the pleasure of anticipation, I spent time in the library familiarizing myself with Colombia’s history, customs, traditions, and cuisine. In addition to such research, I always read novels relevant to the places we intend to visit, as successful fiction invokes the soon-to-be experienced atmosphere and ambience. This time, I wandered through the magical world of Colombia’s Nobel Prize–winning author Gabriel Garcia Marquez and immersed myself in the gritty culture of the drug-trafficking cartels.

In the past, Donald and I have walked the streets of Paris in the footsteps of Manet and Hemingway and have journeyed to Western China along the Silk Road with thoughts of Marco Polo.² We have traveled to Cyprus and Alexandria in search of Lawrence Durrell and have roamed through Italy, Sicily, and Malta pursuing Caravaggio’s paintings. But this time, we visited Colombia for the sheer pleasure of investigating someplace new, seeking the thrill of discovery and the adventure of the road. Our visual dialogue would include cultural encounters, as we were interested in Colombian art, architecture, museums, and churches. We looked forward to eating the local food and listening to their music—salsa, vallenato, and cumbia.

In packing my bag, I tucked in my passion for art history, because everything we would see could be a potential tableau, just waiting to be painted with words. Also, I made room for our sense of irony, as encountering the absurd is part of the travel experience.

Dear Reader: Your tour is about to begin. No need to search for your passport or stock up on bug spray, sunscreen, or cipro. Just accept our invitation and travel along with us as we visit Bogota, the Coffee Zone, Cartagena, and Tayrona National Park. I will provide a concise history when needed, facts when pertinent, and most of all, the story of our experiences.

Your journey begins with the turn of the page.

Chapter 1

FIRST STOP, BOGOTA

Facts

Colombia is located in northwestern South America with a coastline facing the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean. Ecuador and Peru border Colombia on the southwest. Venezuela lies directly to the east, and Brazil is situated to the southeast. Geographically, it is the size of California plus Texas. Stretching out of Ecuador, the northern portion of the Andes Mountains divides into three parallel cordilleras, or mountain ranges, and extends across Colombia from the south to the northeast. According to the US State Department, Colombia has a population of approximately forty-six million people, making it the third largest in Latin America with only Brazil and Mexico being more populous. The population is concentrated in the northern and western part of the country, while two-thirds of the country is lowland jungle, containing less than 3 percent of the people. The United States is Colombia’s major trading partner, importing oil and coal, green coffee beans (remember Juan Valdez?), as well as cut flowers. Colombia is ethnically diverse. Roughly 58 percent of the people are mestizo, a person of mixed European and Native-American ancestry; 20 percent are white; and 14 percent are mulatto, a person of mixed black and white ancestry. The remaining population is Afro-Colombian and indigenous people. They are known to speak the finest Castilian outside of Spain, and approximately 80 percent of the population is Roman Catholic.³