While Colombia offers up a certain unsavoury stereotype as a destination famous for Pablo Escobar and drug cartels, the reality is that this South American nation has plenty of sights, delights, activities, museums and incredible biodiversity that warrant greater investigation and positive recognition.
This 13-day adventure aims to break down those stereotypes and take you inside the country’s heart through its historic cities, people, culture, museums, national parks and beaches.
The journey starts in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s birthplace Bogota, with a walking tour and introduction to the history and intricacies of current Colombian culture. You’ll visit the Botero Museum, the Casa de la Moneda, where you’ll learn the history of Bogota through the currency, and the Gold Museum, which houses one of the finest collections of pre-Hispanic gold in the world.
A full day’s trekking in Chicaque National Park among oak forests and waterfalls should get the heart rate pumping and the senses activated as you play spot the spectacled bear, deer, tapir, puma, Andean condor, jaguar, woolly monkey, ocelot and toucan.
En route to Villa de Leyva, one of the few towns in Colombia to have preserved much of its original colonial architecture, a pit stop will be made at Zipaquirá, famous for its Salt Cathedral carved underground in a functioning salt mine.
During a full-day tour of Iguaque National Park you’ll see its eight lakes and numerous plants and animals – watch out for the famous frailejon, a high-altitude succulent that’s endemic to the Andean region.
The following days are spent leisurely exploring Medellín and the once troubled Santa Marta, Colombia’s first Spanish settlement. Once known as a hide-out for insurgents, Santa Marta is the gateway to the Tayrona National Natural Park and Colombia’s premier beach destination. The region was once home to the ancient Tairona culture, whose traditions still exist today among the highland indigenous peoples, including the Kogi, Arhuaco, Wiwa and Kankuamo tribal groupings.
The remaining three days are spent in Cartagena, where you’ll be welcomed into the fold by locals at La Boquilla fishing village. You’ll explore the mangroves by canoe, learning about life on the water and identifying the wealth of flora and fauna that inhabits this rich ecosystem.
Later a visit to the Colombia National Aviary, which features 2000 birds representing 140 species, should keep the budding ornithologists happy as they spot toucans, herons, harpy eagles, flamingos and Colombia’s national bird, the Andean condor.
The final day before the flight back to Bogota is a free day, but spending time soaking up the sun at Gente de Ma, a resort in the Rosario Islands and one of the most beautiful archipelagos in the Caribbean, is highly recommended. This group of 27 islands is surrounded by coral reefs, and is one of the 46 Natural National Parks of Colombia. Soak it up.
Before heading to Argentina, I had heard all about the sensuality of tango: the beautiful women, the revealing dresses, the sultry looks and the sexy music. But now, as a hot-blooded heterosexual in the midst of my first Buenos Aires tango experience, I’m slightly disconcerted to find I can’t keep my eyes off a dancer named Carlos.
He’s tall and dark with the Italian features of many of his compatriots, and has deep black eyes like the subject of a European master – the kind that seem to follow you around the room. And, although he’s stuck to the side of a stunning brunette almost bursting from her red dress, those big black eyes have me in a trance.
When I arrived in the boulevard-lined South American capital yesterday, my head was full of a very different idea of Latino machismo – one based on the gauchos of Bruce Chatwin’s classic, In Patagonia. Ever since reading it as a teenager, these South America hombres have remained in my imagination, where freedom and adventure sit side-by-side. Tough men on piebald ponies drinking mate, swathed in ponchos, with long-bladed knives jutting from the folds of their waistbands.
It all started well. Our taxi driver from the airport, Martin, introduced himself with a humble reference to the great South American liberator General San Martin and listed his three greatest loves: “I like football very much,” he said, declaring loyalty to the famous Boca Juniors. “And tango is my passion,” he added, moving his shoulders in a dance. “But women,” he continued, locking eyes with me in an intense stare: “Women I love!”
Twenty-four hours later, bathed in the soft red light of the Rojo Tango show, a five-piece band filling the room with songs of lost love, there are no ponchos and not a long-blade in sight, but it would be a brave gaucho to doubt Carlos’s machismo. The women in the room swoon with his rhythm. When the show ends, white light dissipates the fog of desire and I stumble from the tango restaurant and into a bar next door, my companions teasing me about my first, albeit short-lived, Latino man-crush.
The next day, wandering the gritty, pastel-coloured streets of La Boca, I’m told tango originated as a dance among men in the late 1800s. With thousands of male immigrants pouring into the capital, the city’s bordellos were busy places, where brawls were common. Out of the fights and pent up anger, tango was born, with men dancing together while they waited their turn. The bordello staff joined them and tango evolved into what it is today.
Three days later, despite a night at an estancia in the wild northeast region of Esteros del Ibera, and a brush with a khaki-clad safari ranger who looked like a young Harrison Ford in the jungles around Iguazu Falls, I’m yet to experience the Argentinean machismo I’d expected. But although I only have a few days left in the country, and Patagonia is 2,000 kilometres to the south, there is still hope. Sitting on a plane circling the north-west colonial city of Salta, I notice a map on which the silhouette of a horse-mounted gaucho trots across the Salta and Tucumán plains. Although the region is now famous for its wines, this is also cowboy country.
Nestled hard up against the Andean foothills, Salta has the appearance of a quaint European provincial capital, despite its population of just half-a-million. From the plane window, the landscape is a patchwork of orange-leafed vineyards. To the northwest, one of the world’s highest railways – Tren a las Nubes (Train to the Clouds) – climbs 4,220 metres into the grey mountains.
At 1,200 metres above sea level, Salta and the surrounding region is home to some of the highest vineyards on the globe, famous for producing the dry white wine torrontes that we’re chasing on a three-day trip that will take us south from Salta to Tucumán, the home of Argentinean independence.
On the way into town, our guide Noah tells us that Salteños love wine, music and a good time. “The secret is not to get the guitar player drunk or else the music is over very early,” Noah declares with a burst of laughter, as we pass llamas grazing in green paddocks and roadside empanada stalls.
Salta is famous for its empanadas, which Noah assures us are the best in the country. Nearing our hotel, he offers one last note on local culture: “If the waiter takes his time to take your order, it takes even longer for your order to arrive, and even longer to get the bill, then you know you’re in Salta.”
It’s Sunday and the sidewalks are almost empty as I stroll along narrow streets lined with terraced colonial buildings. Old men gather on street corners talking in soft Spanish. In a dusty park, hawkers cluster below tall palm trees and pigeon-soiled statues, flogging the red-and-white tops of the River Plate football team, which is in town for the weekend.
I make my way along a side street and stumble onto Plaza 9 de Julio, the city’s colonial heart. Classical French and Italian architecture lines the square. Passing the pink basilica I cross the sunny plaza to a cafe. Chairs and tables are laid out on the wide footpath, where I order a coffee and sit back to take in the afternoon. A busker plays a violin, teenagers stroll arm in arm and children slurp ice creams under mandarin trees laden with ripe fruit. My coffee never arrives. I mention it to the waiter as I leave. He shrugs as if to say: “What did you expect? You’re in Salta now gringo.”
Having experienced Salta time, I’m keen to taste the Salteños’s other great passions: music and wine. But first we decide to take in some of the town’s bricks-and-mortar attractions. Founded in 1582, the city is known colloquially as ‘Salta La Linda’ – Salta the Beautiful – and is home to some of the country’s finest colonial architecture, which hints at the former wealth of the regional capital.
Next door, the Museum of High Altitude Archeology houses three child mummies, found in 1999 on the cold slopes of a 6,700 metre volcano. It’s believed the mummies were child sacrifices made to Incan gods.
A couple of doors down is a small bakery, shelves glistening with Salteño treats: melon marmalade wrapped in dry pastry and sprinkled with icing sugar, fig paste wrapped in pastry with sliced walnuts and dulce de leche – caramelised sweetened milk, incased in a hard icing sugar shell.
Already light-headed from our sugar hit, we hit a peña. Local bars where Salteños gather to drink, eat and sing, peñas are the best place to get a real taste of the region’s culture. Noah has assured us this peña, La Casona del Molino, is as local as they come.
It’s 9pm when we arrive and the place is deserted – Salteños are famous for the late hours they keep – so we order wine and empanadas, and wait. A former mansion, La Casona is a jumble of high-ceilinged rooms cluttered with wooden tables. By the time the first musicians shuffle into the place, three empty bottles of Malbec clutter our table. By 11pm the place is full, each room with its own musicians and audience, all drinking, eating and dancing to the acoustic folkloric sounds. It’s 4am when we spill like guitar music onto the street.
The next morning the temperature has dropped and the sky is pewter. I emerge from the hotel wearing a coat and nursing a robust hangover. We’re about to drive through the heart of Argentina’s north-west wine region and the thought of another glass of the stuff gives me shivers. But, with a little machismo of my own, I decide the best defense is to tackle the dilemma head on.
We take the Route 68 south from Salta toward Valles Calchaqui and the northwest wine growing capital of Cafayate. The landscape is a windswept canvas of rugged ochre-coloured mountains and wide flats of low scrub, towering cacti and dry, rockstrewn riverbeds. We taste ruby red Malbec and delightfully dry torrontes wines before visiting the Devil’s Throat, a cylindrical incision in the red valley walls where a pan piper fills the air with haunting notes that seem to hover inside the rock formation. But still, despite the Wild West landscape, there’s not a gaucho in sight.
The following day we continue south toward the town of Tafi del Valle in Tucumán Province. Our new guide, Hugo, assures me this is real gaucho country and that our destination, the 230-year-old Estancia Las Carreras, is a working ranch and brimming with cowboys.
We leave Cafayate and traverse the traditional lands of the indigenous Diaguita people. It’s a harsh country of barren rolling hills. At the pre-Columbian Ruinas de Quilmes we explore the remains of what was once a town of 5,000. Our indigenous guide, Nicolas, explains how the people fought the Spanish with bows and arrows and slingshots, the women fighting beside their men, resisting colonisation for 130 years. When the conquistadors finally won, many Quilmes people killed themselves rather than surrender.
Route 307 takes us out of Valles Calchaqui to the 3,000 metre pass, El Infiernillo. The air is crisp and a flock of llama blocks the road as we crest the pass, a shepherd slowly walking behind. I step from the car to take a photograph. As the shutter clicks, a mob of horses thunders over a nearby ridge, in pursuit are two gauchos riding high and proud in their saddles. I stand and stare. One of the gauchos waves. I nod. Then they’re gone.
That night, huddled around an open fire sipping Malbec, our hosts at Las Carreras inform us they have something special planned: a night ride through the valley with one of their cowboys. An hour later, swathed in a red poncho, I’m riding beside Moreno listening to tales of a life spent in the saddle. We climb to the top of a ridge overlooking the estancia. The homestead lights of Las Carreras twinkle below and I ask Moreno if he knows any gaucho songs.
Moreno leans back in his saddle and begins to sing. It’s a soft, heart-broken ballad of freedom and loss, passed on by his grandfather years ago riding these same hills in search of scattered cattle. The melody rises from Moreno’s throat in puffs of fog, floating on the frigid night air. The horses’ hooves strike a beat on the rocky trail and the ballad echoes across the valley. A full moon throws our shadows forward; two gauchos riding side by side.
It’s taken a week to shake my Carlos man-crush, but finally I’ve found my macho gaucho. And wouldn’t you know it, he’s singing.
It is said there are three simple steps to happiness: find something to do, someone to love and something to look forward to. I might add to this list, find yourself a bike. One day, on my way to the office, an unlicensed driver ignored a stop sign, drove through an intersection and crashed into me and my bicycle. I hobbled away with a broken kneecap, a $20,000 insurance settlement and the powerful reminder that life is precious, time is limited and I’ll really miss my knees when they’re gone. I quit my job and went travelling around the world on a quixotic quest to tick off the items on my bucket list.
All of which brings me to the dusty Chilean town of San Pedro de Atacama. For an outpost on the edge of the world’s driest non-polar desert, the town offers fine hotels, gourmet restaurants and excursions into a truly remarkable slice of South America. One such activity is to rent a bike and pedal 13 kilometres west into the Valley of the Moon, a protected nature sanctuary famous for its stark lunar landscape. I arrive at the park gates with my front tyre wobbling with all the stability of a Central African government. Parched for oil, my chain clatters in desperation. I make a note that from now on I will check the condition of any bike before I rent it. Sound advice, and I could have used some more. For example: under no circumstances should you leave your bike on the side of the road to hike around looking for better views of volcanoes. Soon enough, I am lost in the desert with no form of communication, directions, food or warmth. It is late afternoon in March, and the baking day will soon transform into a chilly night. My last update to my family was the previous week when I was in Bolivia. Not a single person on the planet knows where I am.
Before I set out on my journey, a friend asked what I hoped to achieve. My mates were settling down, building careers and starting families, so why would I choose to be that one older guy you typically meet in backpacker hostels? You know, the one who looks a little out of joint, has great stories, and often smells like Marmite. My reply? At some point during my adventure I will stumble into a transcendent moment of pure isolation, a challenge that can only be surmounted with deep soul-searching and personal inner strength. My friend looked at me askew, so I also explained there would be copious amounts of beer and beautiful women.
Just a few months after that conversation, there is neither beer nor babe for miles as I desperately scan the sprawling Atacama Desert for my rickety rentabike. Panic begins to tickle my throat. It appears my Moment of Zen has arrived. I sit down on a slab of rock, and breathe in. The dusky sun casts a pink glow over perfect pyramid-shaped volcanoes. Early evening stars begin to glitter. A cool breeze rouses goosebumps on the back of my neck, along with my long-awaited epiphany. I am here for a reason. Everything happens for a reason. The bike accident, the decision to travel, the dodgy rental bike, the walk into the desert…wherever I am is where I am supposed to be. Slowly, I relax into the fear and excitement, slipping into the moment the way one cautiously eases into a too-hot bubble bath. Then I hear a voice. A Japanese backpacker had seen my bike on the side of the road and figured there must be something to see. Soon enough, he got lost too, but somehow he found me just as I was busy finding myself.
As the night sky vanquished the peach-fuzz sunset, we see headlights in the distance. Relieved, we find our way to the road, recover our bikes, and pedal in darkness back to San Pedro. That night we get blindingly drunk to celebrate our good fortune, and I have my second epiphany: it is the people we meet who create the paradise we find.
Ten years and a hundred countries later, there have been several other moments of life-affirming clarity. As for those three simple steps, they sorted themselves out beyond my wildest dreams. Whenever I find myself lost, at home or on the road, I simply remind myself: wherever you are is where you’re supposed to be.
With granite spires and glaciated mountain ranges that sprawl across Argentina and Chile, Patagonia is one of the most diverse and visually spectacular locations in the world.
Wild and isolated, Patagonia is South America’s playground for intrepid adventurers – its wind-swept plains, temperate rainforests and turquoise lakes stretch for thousands of miles, and despite its desolation, it holds a wealth of unique flora and fauna.
Exploring this amazing landscape by sea with Aurora Expeditions is a bucket list trip. On their Patagonia and Chilean Fjords Expeditions you can kayak through ice calvings, waterways and glistening fjords teeming with wildlife, and drift through some of the most secluded areas of Torres del Paine National Park.
Once you reach your destination, you’ll have the chance to kayak at least once a day and anywhere between 5 to 15 kilometres (2 to 4 hours) per outing, sometimes taking a snack and a flask of hot chocolate to enjoy on the excursion. The Aurora guides have years of kayaking experience and will lead the group on each excursion, explaining facts about the wildlife and landscape as they pass by.
Highlights include seeing flamingos, ibis and swans on the shores of Lake Argentino, or befriending a charismatic guanaco as you cross the Patagonian steppes.
Who would have thought a marine safari could be so exciting? I’m on a boat swaying by a rocky platform where male sea lions are guarding their harems with strangled croaks. The persistent Patagonian wind ruffles their manes – surprisingly dry, for the males dare not dive into the sea.
If they did, competitors would steal their females in a flash. The harems are delineated with virtual walls – should any other male step beyond an imaginary partition, a fight ensues. But not for long. Every macho on the platform is worried about the teenagers swimming in the sea below. Not as well built but horny and tenacious, they wait for an opportunity to pounce when a herder isn’t looking. Suddenly all hell breaks loose. One harem disappears under the manic flapping of a million seagull wings. A male chases them off only to be attacked by a flock of South American terns. Other males scoot away awkwardly on their flippers. Their females follow them with the pups flapping clumsily behind. The teenagers swimming under the rock ledge prick up their ears. A giant petrel dives imperiously, disperses the terns with authority and picks up something bloody with its beak.
It’s a sea lion placenta, and I’ve just witnessed a birth; Patagonia certainly humbles you in more ways than one.
It’s difficult to believe the pup hasn’t been pecked to death, but there it is, tucked safely under its mother. She’s pushing to birth the last bit of placenta under the hungry eyes of a kelp gull. In a week she’ll be in heat, her mate will demand her favours and she’ll conceive next year’s baby.
Watching wildlife is a big tourist industry on Peninsula Valdes and every season has something different to attract the traveller. Although the southern right whales that migrate between June and December to give birth in the safe waters around Valdes have disappeared by the time I arrive, Magellanic penguins are still feeding their chicks along the Patagonian shore. At Estancia San Lorenzo, at the northern tip of Valdes, the overwhelming smell of regurgitated fish makes me wish I had not stuffed myself with barbecued lamb an hour earlier. Here, the penguin parents are doing their silly walks to the sea to catch fish, and their chicks open their beaks trustingly at anything remotely big and black, like my Nikon camera. When the Almighty created birds, She certainly had fun fashioning the penguins.
Most other wildlife is best seen around the artificial irrigation systems of the estancias (farms). Apart from the ubiquitous sheep, the easiest animals to spot are the graceful guanacos, always eyeing humans curiously as if debating whether we’re harmless enough for a closer look. Rheas, the stumpy cousins of the ostrich, have made up their minds and keep a respectful distance.
The next day I’m on my way to the mountains, hitching a ride with Gustavo and Paula who are working in Puerto Madryn, the gateway to Valdes, and are visiting family in Esquel, the regional administrative centre in the Andes. Leaving Valdes, I become acquainted with the tinamu, a pheasant-like bird. Unlike rheas, tinamus don’t just cross the road in front of us – they panic and change trajectory halfway across. Gustavo slams on the brakes, raising huge amounts of dust so we can never tell whether we’ve dodged or flattened them. It’s hard to put hand on heart and swear we left the roadside tinamu population as we found it, but I promise we tried.
Ever since Bruce Chatwin immersed himself in its vastness and praised its beauty, Patagonia has had a permanent hold on our imaginations. Although geographically it includes the densely forested Andes and a coast that teems with life, it is the plain between that defines it. Focusing in the distance on this interminable stretch of land is akin to revisiting your childhood, when the world was a vast unknowable universe and everything seemed so far away – the future included.
Patagonia may be flat, dry and windy, but it’s certainly not featureless. Humans have played their role here. At Loma Blanca wind turbines break the horizontal monotony. Beyond the cities of Trelew and Gaiman the landscape becomes exciting, as the Ruta Nacional 25, which stretches from Rawson to Tecka, follows the Chubut River, the life-giving aquatic lord of the province.
The ever-present gold-and-green tufts of the coirón, a tussock that has been our main companion in the marine zone, are now giving way to the scrub of the inland steppe. Some of the plants are in bloom: for several kilometres a yolk-yellow carpet of buttercups presses from both sides onto the highway. They are called botón-de-oro and women collect them in baskets. The Tehuelche Indians use them in tea as a remedy against colds.
At kilometre 255, we stop by the Carbon Canyon to exercise our legs. The canyon, with its coal-black walls, is a newly protected area and the walk through the long grass to a small waterfall is short and easy. We find a flat granite surface with recesses clearly carved by humans. Here, the Tehuelche used to sharpen their arrows. It’s a choice location, because opposite grows a duraznillo bush, bearing highly noxious berries. After sharpening their points, the Tehuelche dipped them in its poison. Like a yellow danger sign, the decomposing carcass of a guanaco is lying by the bush.
At Los Altares, our journey’s midpoint, there are signs triumphantly announcing mobile reception: Acá hay siñal cellular. It is the clincher to whether we’ll have a sit-down meal or grab a sandwich and move on. We decide to stay and stare at our smartphones while we eat at Marta’s, the only village inn. There are just three options: chicken with fries, empanadas (meat pies) or hamburgers. Paula points at a recess above our table draped in red with an icon in the middle. She explains to me reverentially that it’s a shrine to Gauchito Gil. He’s a Robin Hood figure of the pampas, who has been performing miracles all over Argentina since he healed, from beyond the grave, the son of the policeman who killed him. Although not canonised, he’s the choice figure for prayer in Argentina’s vast interior.
After Los Altares the road becomes narrower and distinctly worse. There’s more foliage than dusty rock and the sheep herds are larger. By kilometre 411 the mountain ranges first appear, yet they’re still 350 kilometres away. At Tecka, we can finally discern snow on the mountaintops. We fill up at the last petrol station before Esquel. It’s around here we finally lose the quilimbai, a thorny thistle with yellow flowers that’s followed us all the way from the ocean. The sky is cloudy and grey and, for the first time, we notice cows in the fields. The only thing that disturbs the serenity of the uniform, green landscape is the occasional row of cypresses announcing an estancia.
We have been travelling for nine hours when, just before sunset, we reach the gate of the Los Alerces National Park. Gustavo and Sandra drop me off at Hosteria Futalaufquen, a 1940s stone-built hotel that looks upon a glacial lake surrounded by southern birch and cedars.
I’m here to see some giants, but unlike the Patagons of lore, these ones are real.
When the Spanish arrived, this region was full of enormous trees they casually dubbed alerces (larches). The local Mapuche Indians called them lahuán (grandfathers) because they were the oldest and grandest beings in the forest. The Mapuche were right. These titans are closely related to the Californian redwoods and are some of the oldest living things on the planet. All too predictably the Spanish felled them, since their timber was perfect for shipbuilding: tough, yet pliable and light. In 1937 the park was established to protect them, but the trees were still being cut; the last conviction for illegal felling was in Chile only three years ago. Nowadays they are endangered. Although the odd tree might grow alone in some solitary spot, the alerce forest, called the Alerzal, exists in a remote corner where a restricted number of visitors may enter every day.
There is no walking path to the Alerzal, so I board a boat from Puerto Chucao, a small harbour on Lake Menendez. Our 50-strong crowd must dip our shoes in an antiseptic bath before we’re allowed on board. There are deadly fungal spores in the forest and someone has finally started caring about the health of the trees that remain.
It’s a 45-minute trip on the lake to the rather grandiose-sounding Puerto Sagrario, consisting of a single hut where a solitary ranger keeps watch over the forest. This is also Patagonia, captain, but not as we know it. The weather is as changeable as on the plains, but any sunny interludes alternate with dark, saturated clouds that spit their load on us and move on. Patagonia’s landscape varies dramatically because so does the rainfall. On Valdes it’s only 200 millimetres per year. As we go west it rises exponentially: at Esquel it’s 700; at Puerto Chucao 2500; and at the Alerzal it’s 4000.
The alerce that welcomes us is 57 metres high. It has us craning our necks and moving back in a vain attempt to capture its majesty with our cameras. This colossus was alive when Homer wrote his epics; its age is estimated at a whopping 2600 years. Another alerce lies on its side, the hollow of its trunk gazing at us like a haunting museum exhibit. We pass it and follow the path under a gallery of colihue, a perennial bamboo that flowers every 70 years. The stems are brown and withering, because the last time this happened was the year before. At the time, the park was invaded by rats that consumed the seeds covering the forest floor. The rats disappeared as mysteriously and suddenly as they’d arrived when there were no more colihue seeds.
At the end of the trail, we reach a waterfall at Lago Cisne. Several alerces stand around the lake, as they have for centuries, but the ranger draws our attention to a small sapling, no more than 60 centimetres tall with leaves that look like basil. It’s a baby lahuán, only 12 years old. Will it survive the next century? The next millennium? It could, but I know I won’t.
Patagonia certainly humbles you in more ways than one.
I was warned about getting shot in Colombia. The balaclava, reflective sunglasses and combat fatigues in the southern city of Pasto (San Juan de Pasto by its official name) are a giveaway. I should have just run. Instead, I’m hit twice – not with bullets but with white foam shot out of a metal canister by a 12-year old boy shouting “Viva Pasto!”
That gushing “spsssttt” is my intro to El Carnaval de Negros y Blancos (Blacks and Whites’ Carnival), a five-day party held in January each year that also happens to be the world’s biggest foam fight. This carnival is the loudest, longest and messiest festival in southern Colombia, and a real celebration of cultures.
To be fair, at the time the trigger is pulled I’m distracted by street vendors yelling, “Some goggles for you, senõr? A sombrero, cheap?” Now I understand why. Of course, in true horse-bolted fashion, I purchase a ridiculously oversized sombrero and a ‘foam-proof’ poncho to protect myself.
Post-splatter, I sheepishly make my way back to the hotel. The security-conscious manager, Jamie, is waiting behind a locked door. Letting me in with a chuckle, he looks at me with pity. “You got shot on your first day?! Bienvenido a Colombia!”
After cleaning myself up, I cautiously head towards Plaza del Carnaval, the main square of Pasto and the centrepiece of all things Carnaval. My peripheral vision is working overtime – it seems like every second person is armed with a carioca, an aluminium foam canister, cocked at the ready. Squeezing in next to a family, I proudly introduce myself in halting Spanish, adding “Viva Pasto!” as if it is some sort of protective cloak.
We are jostling among the thousands who have gathered to celebrate La Familia Castañeda – a colourful family who, when they arrived in Pasto in 1929, walked smack-bang into the middle of a horse parade and started randomly waving to the crowd. The Castañeda family became so popular they now have a dedicated parade in their honour.
The vibe is electric. We cheer on the performers dressed in 1920s attire as they dance and sing their way past the masses, their vibrant costumes lighting up the parade like the hot Colombian sun.
The performance is barely finished before I am hit with foam again, but this time it gets me in the mouth. In an attempt to escape, I hurtle down the main street and find myself at a security checkpoint to a concert, being patted down by a member of the policia. What an entry to Colombia I’ve made. I decide to take it all in my festival-stride and finish the night with a chorizo and a few local Poker pale ales.
The next morning Jamie intercepts me as I’m leaving to hit the streets on day four of the Carnaval. “Hey, you got Vaseline?” he whispers. It seems like an oddly personal question. “Huh?” I reply. “Your face,” he says, “the Vaseline, to get grease off.” This is his not-so-subtle way of warning me that it is Dia de Negros (Day of the Blacks). This event marks the day African slaves were freed, and it’s now celebrated with partygoers taking to the streets with black paint smeared across their faces as a sign of respect, symbolising the unity between all ethnicities.
Paint decorates the faces of the masses, and before long I realise I should have taken his advice and packed the Vaseline. My own face gets smudged and I’m greeted back at the hotel with a shake of the head and a smile from Jamie sending a telepathic ‘I told you so’.
The pinnacle of the Carnaval is the Grand Parade that falls on Dia de Blancos (The Day of the Whites). This is the cause of all the foam, flour bombs and talcum powder, but before the war starts, a spectacular kaleidoscope of floats takes to the streets.
It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before. The floats are covered in colourful and intricate details, and showers of confetti and streamers rain down as tiers of performers dance atop the four-storey-high structures. Cumbia rhythms blast from massive speakers and mechanical heads roar and bob about to the beat alongside the larger-than-life costumed characters who dance along the streets lined with an enthusiastic crowd.
I feel a hand close around my arm and I’m pulled towards a woman. It’s La Llorona, the legendary ghost who steals children, and she is not to be denied. As I do my best not to look uncoordinated, we salsa Cali-style, spinning and twirling throughout the parade to the sound of laughter, cheers and applause from my fellow spectators.
After five hours the show finally comes to an end. Looking around, there is now more white stuff on the ground than in any episode of Narcos. The foam battles have already started up again so I’m pretty grateful there is only 200 metres between my hotel room and my location.
Not close enough, it would seem.
The powder hits me square on the ear, and it’s impossible not to grin from that one to the other.
Street photography is about story and the way a subject interacts with the surroundings. Rather than trying to nail the right settings or striving for the best possible image quality, simply go for it. Some of the most intriguing street photos are blurry, grainy and even out of focus.
It’s about sharing moments, emotions and perspectives. You want to give your viewer a sense of what the experience felt like. Did the moment make you cheery or miserable? Was it funny or curious or just incredibly boring?
In a great street shot the audience can feel the photographer’s emotion, or that of the subject, because they are invited into a scene that might have lasted only a fraction of a second, yet tells a much deeper narrative.
When it comes to snapping those experiences I might ditch the usual rules, but there are a few things I try to do to increase my chances of capturing them.
Go Wide
Long lenses might seem tempting at first – they allow you to feel less awkward by keeping you at a distance – but using one also means you are roaming the streets with a huge piece of equipment that you have to point directly at your subject. Noticing someone watching you from behind a giant lens can be intimidating and this paparazzi-style method is likely to make a subject feel uncomfortable.
Instead, ditch the creep factor, get in close, smile and shoot with a wider lens. Your images will look and feel much more dynamic and your audience will have a sense of being placed right in the middle of the scene.
Anything between 12 and 50mm is usually a great starting point, and my recommended lens for this is the Olympus M.Zuiko 12-40mm f/2.8 PRO, as it covers most of that focal range. Prime lenses (lenses without zoom) are a good way to go as they force you to move around to get the right composition, and you don’t get too complacent by standing in one spot and just framing the shot by zooming in or out. Another advantage of wide prime lenses is that they are usually very compact and less in your face, so you’re not as likely to stand out in the crowd.
When you’re close to people be friendly and grin a lot. People tend to return a smile with a smile, so it’s not only healthy, but it also breaks the initial barrier of awkwardness and allows you to capture a more authentic image.
Be Prepared
I tend to leave my camera on if I think I might want to take a photo. There’s nothing worse than spotting a great scene, raising your camera for the shot and watching the opportunity pass through the viewfinder because your camera isn’t switched on. Candid moments are fleeting and you don’t want to waste time with last-minute adjustments.
Usually a shutter speed of at least 1/200sec will freeze most of the movement in a street scene. Alternatively, sometimes a slow shutter speed (1/10sec) can be useful to capture movement as a blur around a stationary subject, adding atmosphere to the shot. You’ll need a very steady hand or great sensor/lens stabilisation for this to work effectively though, which the Olympus OM-D E-M1 offers with its five-axis stabilisation.
Pick Your Subject
Street scenes can be incredibly busy. There’s traffic, constant movement and all sorts of activity going on around the base of buildings. Instead of trying to photograph the whole scene, isolate specific details that tell a story. Find people who are doing something interesting; a stallholder cooking street food, old men chatting over a game of chess outside a cafe, someone walking alone down a street and children playing all make for great shots. Strip it back and hone in on your subject. Simplicity is the key.
Shoot From The Hip
Be quick! To go completely unnoticed, and to get a different perspective, it’s best to keep your camera away from your face while taking a shot. Instead, put it on burst mode (or continuous shooting) and try photographing blindly from the hip by just pointing it towards your subject and taking several photographs in quick succession.
Shooting from the hip can be incredibly helpful in teaching you how to observe your surroundings, as well as familiarising you with your camera’s field of vision. Later, when you do decide to lift your camera to your eye, you’ll know exactly what will fit inside your frame and you’ll be faster at composing a photo.
If you like to have a little more control many new cameras have a flip-up screen, which can be a great tool for taking photos on the street incognito.
Have fun!
Street photography is all about blending in and not being afraid to break the rules, but most of all it is about exploring where you are. Enjoy the walk and soak up the atmosphere of the life around you. Toy with composition to juxtapose people and objects. Capture emotions, contradictions, the tall and the short, the large and the small, the warm and the cold, the light and the dark. Think outside the box and practise, practise, practise!
The Colca Canyon is one of the deepest in the world (twice as deep as the Grand Canyon, in fact) and a magnet for tourists who visit to spot giant birds of prey at Cruz del Condor and see the pre-Incan ruins of Kallimarka. But few venture into the canyon itself, a rugged knee-crunching hike that rewards the energetic with a valley-floor dip that’s not to be missed.
The oasis of Sangalle is where the desert becomes sub-tropical and lush vegetation surrounds a surprising series of man-made swimming pools filled with spring water. Most do the three-hour downhill hike from the town of Cabanaconde and stay overnight before hitting the trail for the steep walk back.
If you go to Peru, but don’t visit Machu Picchu, did you really go? We’re all for getting lost (pun intended), but there are some destinations, that no matter how well trodden, are simply too epic not to witness or experience.
Located on the border of where the soaring Andes meet the lush Amazon Jungle, Machu Picchu is an immense and jaw-dropping archaeological site. Built by the Incas around 1450 AD, it was occupied for a just over a century before it was abandoned when the Spanish Conquest arrived. In fact, the Spanish never discovered it during their time there. I wouldn’t be uncovered again until one fateful day in 1911 when Hiram Bingham, an American historian, would stumble upon it – more than 350 years later. Since then the ancient Incan estate has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is the most popular attraction in Peru, if not in all South America. Better still, your journey there can be experienced two ways – take the scenic train ride or embark on the hiking trail to reach its magnificence on Intrepid Travel’s Inca Trail Express.
Sitting among the clouds and often shrouded in mist, the site has a mysterious otherworldly quality and, despite its popularity, rarely feels as crowded as many other similar archaeological sites around the world given it’s spread across such a large area. This makes it easy to get around and really take it in without feeling the need to move on or rush through it.
A local expert guide will give you the history of the site (the local llamas that live here also make it easy to imagine what life was like in this incredible city in the clouds). A guide is a must as, unlike other sites, there are no markers or plaques explaining the significance of each area, so your options are a flimsy pamphlet or a knowledgeable and passionate local who knows the area inside out and will ensure its an depth and enjoyable experience (plus, who wants to be reading when they could be looking anyway?) A visit here isn’t just about seeing though, it’s about feeling and wondering and imagining – and this part of it? That’s an experience you can’t buy.
With unparalleled views of the mountainous Torres, EcoCamp Patagonia is the obvious choice after a long day exploring the wonders of Torres del Paine National Park in Chilean Patagonia. This camp not only offers the kind of cosiness one craves – think fireplace, hand-stitched blankets and plush bed – but it’s also one of the few hotels permitted to be in the national park and the epitome of sustainability.
Each dome implements a combination of hydraulic and solar power and recycled water, while thick insulated walls crafted from pinewood withstand the harsh Patagonian winds. Techy, yes; but without being stingy on comfort and design. The interior is spacious and decorated with locally made furniture and beautiful bed linen, rugs and curtains, all made from natural fibres. The wood-stove, private bathroom and sweeping views pitch comfort levels to grand heights, ensuring a peaceful and well-deserved sleep.
It’s a destination that demands your attention, so you won’t find wi-fi here. Instead the camp has a collection of four large community domes that act as the hub of the hotel where guests come together for meals, meet other travellers and soak up the surrounds.
Spend your days on treks through mountain passes and over glaciers, spotting resident wildlife and embarking on multi-sport adventures – EcoCamp create tailor made itineraries for all guests, so you’ll be spoilt for choice – then rest comfortably in both body and mind, knowing that you’re leaving a shadow of a footprint on this natural wonder.
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