From south to north

5 March 14 Salento - Manizales - Medellin - Santa Marta - Minca - Barranquilla - Tayrona This is the journey of my last weeks in Colombia. Manizales is a nice city in the centre of Colombia. When I arrived to the bus station, I was surprised to discover that to get to the centre I had to take a teleferico. I arrived on Sunday, so almost everything was closed, besides churches. I visited the cathedral, the biggest church of the city. Then I visited a more little church, but more characteristic, with white external walls and wooden walls inside. I was approached by the priest. Suddenly I realised I was wearing a shirt without sleeves (not really appropriate to go to a church) , but he didn't even notice (probably here rules are different from Italy ). He just wanted to give some information about the church and invite me for the ceremony in the evening. I walked a little bit more in the city, every street was full of people. I left the day after to go to Medellin. The landscape before getting to the city was spectacular : mountains and hills completely covered by coffee plants. Unfortunately when I got to the city, there was a big storm, so I decided to leave immediately (in any case, I had only one day to visit the city before heading north). To get a bus to the cost, I had to cross all the city from south to north. I can't say I visited the city, but from what I could see, it seems just a normal big modern city. Nothing to do with all the stories about the Cartel de Medellin. Some tourists told me that here you can book a tour to visit Pablo Escobar's grave and to meet his brother. Now : who really wants to see a grave and meet the brother of a drug dealer ?!? In Santa Marta you can even sleep in a beautiful villa with 2 swimming pools that only few years ago belonged to Pablo Escobar and his friends. After one night on the bus I arrived to Santa Marta. The city is not one of the most beautiful ones, but it's a good place to stay for some side trips: Minca, Taganga, Barranquilla, Tayrona. Minca is a little village in the mountains, few km from Santa Marta. From there it's possible to hike to some waterfalls. I wished I had taken with me some stuff to spend the night in the village instead of Santa Marta. I really liked there. Taganga is another village on the coast. This time I was smarter and I took with me the necessary to spend the night there. There are different beaches in this area, most of them are occupied by fishermen. But I still found my spot, between the rocks to spend the day. After couple of days in Taganga, it was time to go to Barranquilla for the carnaval. Carnaval lasts 4 days, with the Grand Parade on Sunday. Of course I decided to go on Sunday. I left at 6 am and after 8:30 am I was already in Barranquilla. It took me more than one hour to get to the area were the parade had to take place. Only after I got there, I discovered that the beginning time was set around 1 pm and not at 11 am how written in the official website. I bought a ticket for a chair (2$ vs 150$ in Rio de Janeiro) and I went to the supermarket to buy some food. After waiting for hours, the parade started. Thousands of people exhibited in the parade, with colourful costumes and music. When I heard that this was considered the second best carnaval in the world after Rio, I expect to see something similar. I was completely wrong. Most of the costumes were very long, covering all the body. The dances were more traditional (no samba) . And the people... Yes, I was very surprised to see that at least half of the people were over 50. Probably they started when they were young and they still participate at the parade. The cutest ones for sure were the children, but after hours walking under the sun, they were visibly tired. Different groups used same costumes and same music, so after some time it became too repetitive. I'm not used to celebrate carnaval in summer. In Italy it's in the middle of the winter and even costumes needs to be very warm. I liked the colombian carnaval, but I must say that the Italian one deserves the second place after Rio. There is for sure more fantasy in the Italian carnaval. And now I'm at the Tayrona national park on the Caribbean cost. Every tourist I met in the last weeks told me to come here. They described it like on of the most beautiful places in Colombia and they were right. I arrived here yesterday and probably I'll stay here for a week or so. The park entrance was quite expensive, but after seeing the park and the numerous paths built, I can understand why. The park is a mixture of forest and beaches. The vegetation itself is a mixture of plants of the dry forest, humid forest and cloud forest. Palms can be seen everywhere, from the mainland till the cost. The paths that lead to the cost were created in harmony with the nature: plants, roots and rocks are part of the path itself. On the way it's possible to observe different animals and insects : colorful birds, butterflies, monkeys and lot of cutting ants. These are my favourite. You can see long lines of ants that transport pieces of leaves. Once you get to the sea, your eyes can only be amazed by the beauty of the landscape. Sandy beaches, huge rocks, blue-green crystalline water and lot of palms. I didn't thought I couldn't find more beautiful beaches than the ones in Galapagos, but I was wrong. These are absolute the best beaches I've ever seen . Even the sleeping area is very beautiful : I'm renting a hammock for the night, but there are also tents and cabanas, everything surrounded by banana trees and coco palms. I love this place! 9 March 14 My stay at the Tayrona park ended yesterday evening, after days spent between the forest and the beach. I loved to wake up at the sunrise, because this is the best moment to see animals in the forest, in particular birds and monkeys. I manage to see some animals also during the day, but inevitably other tourists came making lot of noise and animals escaped. Many people didn't understand that to observe wild life they must be mute and still. Yesterday evening I came back to Santa Marta and I went out with a girl met in the south. Something was very strange in the city. It looked like a ghost city: many streets were completely empty, no one walking around. This was very strange because I got to know this city quite well and in general every street is full of people. Finally we found a bar open and we ordered a beer. "I'm sorry, today we can't serve beers because of the 'Ley seca' ". Ley seca is a law that doesn't allow you to sell or buy alcohol the day before the elections. It didn't help telling them we were tourists and we weren't suppose to vote... This reminds me another stupid law in Ecuador. On Sunday, between 5pm and 3am, no one can sell alcohol. Why?!?