Colombia

Location Description

Sub-locations

431 photos

My guide Rodrigo's house and borrowed car in Suesca,...
Colombian license plate.
A very sour and tart fruit was contained inside these...
Local potatoes and plantains in my guide's kitchen. ...
My guide, cooking me breakfast. He is also a part time...
At a Sunday morning market, buying some fruit for my...
Cycling seemed very popular in Colombia. We passed...
Scenery of Colombia, east of Bogota. About 3,000 meters...
Plantain chips: these were everywhere and seemed to be...
A view of a building in some town during my bus ride,...
I bought 3 of these for about 75 cents. Not sure what...
Apparently like this. The flesh was raw and fibrous......
View of the next valley we would enter. We would drop...
At the bottom of the valley is a small town called...
Next, we would climb the other side of the valley,...
Single-track road for our 40-passenger bus.
Another shot of the road.
Climbing the other side of the valley, to El Cocuy.
My bedroom in El Cocuy: simple but functional. The...
Kitchen at my place in El Cocuy.
My bedroom window (lit) from the street outside.
For dinner, a group of the local guides came over to the...
I'm the one on the left. After that, Juan Pedro, and 3...
The lechero, i.e. milk-wagon. This was my conveyance to...
Church in El Cocuy.
All aboard!
Another, better shot of the church in El Cocuy.
And so for the next 2 hours or so, I sat on a big milk...
Yum, frothy fresh country milk.
One of my first shot of the foothills to the mountains I...
Typical Colombian farm house (in front). Unusually nice...
Growing some potatoes or some other high altitude crop. ...
My host, Daido (I think that's how it must be spelled)...
Mmmm... breakfast soup. It was sort of a corn chowder. ...
A blurry shot of my breakfast: some eggs and a corn...
Up on top of the hill nearby hill, looking down at La...
John makes some friends.
They blend into the background pretty well!
My new friends. I cannot remember any of their names...
At this point I loaned out my camera and these kids had...
Posing.
Another posing shot.
John and his new best friends. I think the Lonely...
John with his new best friends, again.
John, trying to write something in Spanish in order to...
A soldier posing wearing my sunglasses.
So this whole incident requires a back story: Upon...
John trying desperately to explain something in broken Spanish.
John gets a mug of Colombian coffee, and later lunch...
I'm like a blond Fidel Castro! I need to lose the...
Lying in bed, trying to figure out if I got sunburned.
My bedroom in La Capilla.
Bull horn coat hook. Nice touch.
My noble steed.
All packed up and ready to go. My backpack sure looks...
I liked this hand-painted sign on the building where I stayed.
He looks like he's ready.
Off on another adventure! The whole farm stands on the...
Big sheep and baby sheep (look closely).
Off into the hills!
The cows wish us a happy adventure as well.
John, with some of the high country coming into view. ...
An even better shot of Púlpito Del Diablo and Pan De...
Everything about this sign seemed right, except the...
Frailejones in the sunshine.
Heh, these cute signs were everywhere. Pumas are seen...
Pulpito, looming in the background.
Another cute animal sign.
Here's Dido with the two horses, having made it to base...
Looking back down into the valley of the frailejones.
Another shot of Púlpito and Pan De Azúcar.
My guide, hiking along in front of me.
Another shot of a frailejone.
Finally within view of the glaciers. Here is Pan De...
John, with Pan De Azucar, El Pulpito Del Diablo and...
4,600 meters, or so they claim. I think it was more...
Rodrigo setting up camp, with Concavo in the background.
Monica was here!
On our first morning at camp, we decided to take it easy...
A beautiful day on Portales, which generally means...
The water here was a Caribbean blue. My guide claimed...
Rodrigo prepping a day bag for a short afternoon hike on...
Here is my tent with the rainfly reinstalled in a...
Our camp, around noon. None the complete lack of...
Rodrigo scouting a route through the boulder field.
Heh, this was sort of amusing. Rodrigo thought we could...
The diagonal slash from before is viewed head-on.
Rodrigo tries some easy climbing to skirt around a...
Rodrigo, and one of the alpine lakes near our campsite...
John, self-portrait. I really tried hard to get the...
Case and point, I got him to take a picture of me...
Rodrigo setting up a rope to rappel off the cliff. More...
Rodrigo rappels down.
Where Rodrigo is, there is a painted mark on the rock...
Sunset on El Pulpito.
Our stove. Rodrigo managed to get his MSR stove working...
This was a tasty treat: dried, candied guava. It was...
Starting out not-so-early for our summit of Concavo. ...
Rodrigo, waiting for the winded gringo to catch up.
Rodrigo walking toward the start of the glacier.
The beginning of glacier. Rodrigo sits down for a snack,...
Rodrigo re-packing his backpack before starting out on...
We kept about 50 feet of rope in between us, making sure...
Rodrigo gives me a thumbs up sign.
Taking a short break to drink or take a picture. We are...
Side-stepping up steep section. A false summit of...
Looking back down the glacier at Laguna Granda and our...
Rodrigo inspects where to climb.
Close up of Rodrigo inspecting the cliff band for a good...
Rodrigo, again.
Good shot of another false summit of Concavo. The...
Rodrigo, walking toward the base of our climb.
Making our way up a weakness in the cliff band. The...
Rodrigo gets cell service and is able to call...
John, at the top of the technical climbing section on Portales.
Looking down the eastern side of the mountain range into...
Rodrigo climbs along a knife edge ridge with very...
Drops on either side. I need a wider lens. It would...
Rodrigo rests and prepares lunch at the summit of Portales.
At the summit! Around 4,900 meters or 16,000 feet.
Looking off to the jungle and cloud forest to the east.
John, summit of Portales self-portrait.
Rodrigo apparently had a lot of phone calls to make.
The ridge continued south, getting narrower and shaper...
Rodrigo making some phone calls.
John eating lunch on the summit, with a false summit of...
Another shot of me eating lunch at the summit.
My La Sportiva boot shot. I thought maybe I'd upload...
Rodrigo, looking off at El Pulpito Del Diablo.
Pan De Azucar and El Pulpito up close.
A river and greenery thousands of meters below to the east.
Concavo, the highest peak in this area.
More cloud forest to the east. So pretty!
Rodrigo, on the climb back down.
Rappelling back down the technical section. We spent a...
Walking back down the glacier.
"Skiing" the glacier without skis. This was pretty fun.
Woohooo! Skiing without skis. This is at the toe of...
The morning of climbing Concavo started very promising...
Sadly, this wasn't meant to be. The clouds and fog...
My guide keeping the rope tight as I cross a crevasse on...
Looking into a crevasse. Sorry about my gloved finger...
Climbing at around 5,000 meters on Concavo.
My guide works his way up the last several hundred feet.
Self-portrait on Concavo. Not great weather.
Summit of Concavo! There really wasn't much to see.
Wooo! I made it. 5,150 meters.
This was the view from the top.
After getting a little lost, we decide to leave the...
Almost off the glacier.
Stopping for a snack at the bottom of the glacier.
Crazy growing stuff inside a cave along the hike down. ...
The toe of the glacier, mostly wrapped in fog.
A pretty stream on the hike down.
We were hoping the clouds would be more like this as we...
Flower of eternal youth. I ate a bunch. Tasted fine.
Getting some water from a small glacial melt spring.
Look closely: there are actually cairns along this cliff...
Spot where we stopped to eat lunch.
Lunch on the hike down. More cheese sandwiches.
Clouds billowing up and moving in.
Hiking down off the glacier. It was a smart move to...
Concavo stayed shrouded in clouds the whole day.
Back at camp, I decide to take a shower.
Cutting potatoes for dinner. We ate a lot of potatoes. ...
Yum! Local potatoes from Daido's farm in La Capilla.
Artichoke hearts! I was happy to see these in our food cache.
Yum! Dinner. Pototoes, tomatoes, garlic, onion,...
And the secret ingredient...
Yummm... more calories.
Camp on Friday night.
Why can't it look like this early in the morning??!
A room with a view.
Full moon on Friday night. Or I think the real full...
Once it had gotten a little darker...
And then the sun disappears and that would be the last...
Eating breakfast at 5am in the tent. It had poured rain...
Starting to get a little bored.
Weather looks about the same. Been sitting in the tent...
3 in the afternoon. It actually cleared up enough that...
And just before sunset we get some clear skies. Here is...
Close up shot of Pulpito for the 15 mintues we could see...
Next day: packing up camp and deciding to leave a day...
We put everything we couldn't carry ourselves in...
End of a solid week of mountaineering, with plenty of...
John, happy to be doing something besides sitting in his tent.
Rodrigo packs up for the hike down.
Farewell, Laguna Grande. Not that you can really see it.
Off into the misty abyss... starting our hike down to...
Another self-portrait. This was some of the least...
Getting to a point where we could see a bit further. ...
Beginning to drop below the clouds.
Rodrigo making a cell phone call to alert our...
Another self-portrait! I found my camera actually has...
A small grove of frailejones on the hike down.
Valley of the frailejones, looking west.
John and some frailejones in the foreground. On the hike out.
It just keeps getting clearer and clearer!
The foggy, non-directional light and wet plants made for...
Still hiking down through the trees...
My guide taking a break.
Frailejone flowers.
Starting to see some blue sky above.
The trail back to civilization basically goes down to...
A lone frailejone.
A caterpillar!
Lots and lots of frailejones. Looking back up the valley.
John, stopping for a mid-morning snack.
Rodrigo, getting out some food.
It is easy to believe Colombia is the second-most...
The river of Concavo, the glacier we climbed on our last...
Down at the valley floor. The weather was almost hot at...
Pretty awesome self-portrait again. Man, my beard is...
Another lonely frailejone.
Self-portrait while hiking. Gotta shave that neck beard...
Huge agave!
Some of the signage in this park was just grossly...
The Concavo River.
Cool sign.
Now we have rounded the left-hand bend in the valley and...
A beautiful granite cascade.
Another shot of the same cascade.
Looks like there's a black sheep in this family.
Another cool sign.
Sheep are funny looking animals.
Looks like he needs to be shorn.
A little Catholic saint's shrine of some sort.
Looks like the Windows XP background.
Cow! These animals were very large. I think most are...
Some sheep bounding across a hillside.
Mama sheep and baby sheep.
Informational sign about Parque Nacional Natural El...
A pretty awesome looking horse.
The house where I spent a day acclimating. This is the...
Meal upon returning to La Capilla. Rice, meat,...
Rodrigo had managed to rent a 20 passenger bus for us to...
We went to visit one of his fellow guides who lived...
Nice view to have out your kitchen window.
River running down by the roadside. There was the most...
When we got back to Carmen and Daido's house in La...
Close up shot of the banana-guava bread.
Banana guava bread ready for consumption. It was dark...
Rodrigo enjoying some bread.
Carmen and Daido's daughter who was about 10, I think. ...
By 4:30 in the afternoon, our horse and gear still had...
My first morning in Bogota, I checked into a youth...
So, I took a short walk past the University of the Andes...
From the top of the gondola, it was just a short walk to...
Here is sprawling Bogota. Almost 200 square kilometers....
A zoomed-in shot of La Candelaria, the colonial...
Some tourists gaze out at the city. A large statue of...
Outside the church, framing the statue on the far mountain.
Church steeple of Montserrat.
Inside the church, as mass was just beginning.
Bogota's newer business district. At the left is a...
Another shot of the Montserrat church and surrounding complex.
Instead of riding the gondola, you could walk up stairs...
Some gardens at Montserrat.
What a fun job: these guys got to go out on the cables...
Riding the gondola back down, but looking the other way....
Hard to imagine there's a trail up this. The...
There was a third option to get to the top besides the...
So, my guide sent me to his bank to try to wire him...
I stopped for an empanada on the street. It was...
The window of a hat store. I thought this looked cool. ...
Menu board at a soup shop I meant to check out but never...
Plaza de Bolivar. There were probably more pigeons than people.
Church seemed to be closed for some sort of renovation work.
I think this is the equivalent of the Capitol building...
The gondola to Montserrat as viewed from Plaza de Bolivar.
Pigeons pigeons everywhere. I actually found a kid...
The church and pigeons.
Simon Bolivar gets no respect these days.
I only took this picture to illustrate a business...
Bolivar, looking out over the Andes.
Kids playing with pigeons and eating food. What could go wrong?
The food was surprisingly cosmopolitan, perhaps because...
Arepas: cornmeal pancakes stuffed with queso fresco and...
My 50 cent arepa. The grease on the wrapper is my...
Tourist police (and tourist wondering what I am doing). ...
Colorful ice cream stand.
My friend Walter had told me that there seemed to be a...
Later that day, the weather cleared up dramatically,...
View of the Andes from the courtyard inside the Botero museum.
This was actually by far my favorite museum exhibit in...
Here is a look at the redesigned Swiss passport from a...
I believe this is a Swiss franc note, but I am not sure....
I wanted to make sure I remembered his name.
Some of Roger Pfund's magazine and poster work.
more Roger Pfund artwork, not security-document related.
Here is a painting by Fernando Botero: the man who...
A plump bowl of fruit by Fernando Botero.
A plump couple dancing. Apparently Botero has painted...
Fat bananas.
An original Picasso. I think it was called something...
On my last full day in Colombia, I decided to take the...
Looks like they have Zara (the Spanish version of Gap) here.
So, people never believe me when I tell them that my...
Mega-malls in Bogota. McDonalds, Diesel and D&G. I...
They even have Dunkin' Donuts in Bogota! As a sidenote,...
Catherine, this shot's for you. I thought you'd like...
A rather pretty open drainage canal. North of Zona...
Parque 93. Seemed nice enough. This was a surprisingly...
Nice rug shop.
My last stop was the Museo del Oro, or Museum of Gold,...
Hand-made gold necklace. This was made without molds,...
Gold nose rings that were made to look like bats. ...
Very impressive solid gold boat with shaman and other...
Colombia seemed to be into these combo-eateries of...
In the middle of La Candelaria, a peasant couple leads a...
After the gold museum, I had a few hours to kill before...
Fun trivia tidbit about Colombia: they don't have a...
Monica and I eat breakfast in our hostel in Bogota,...
An old truck on the streets of the Candelaria, Bogota.
Riding the funicular to the top of Monserrate.
Through a tunnel!
Here we are on Monserrate.
Looking down at sprawling Bogota below.
First day in the country, it's easy to find yourself out...
Cow hoof canteen? I wonder if customs would let this...
A snack cart where we obtained a snack on Monserrate.
Animal insides!
Crazy non-GMO #2 corn that other countries without...
A dog, who looked more like a bear.
Students on a field trip at Monserrate. We had to wait...
Vinnie and Monica get a lay of the land.
Getting ready to go back down to town.
During certain hours of the day, the track-based...
We were unable to determine what schedule it was that...
Monica posing on Monserrate.
Another load of passengers in the cable car.
Garden on Monserrate.
Vinnie, relaxing in the garden.
Interesting succulents on Monserrate.
Headed back to town.
Monica enjoys the view.
The monks had integrated a nearly vertical garden below...
Riding back to town.
A retired funicular car.
Monica pointing out a Korean flag.
Crazy man with a pet llama who was coming right toward...
Grains for sale.
Monica, looking skeptical.
Chinese restaurant in Bogota!
Monica taking some photos inside an exhibit at Plaza de Bolivar.
Maze built to promote something. I forget what at this point.
Toyota hilux. Would be cool if you could get a truck...
Vinnie walks past a federal security checkpoint.
Guard and statue.
It looks like a church in pajamas! Sort of reminds me of...
High tech motor barricade.
Monica and Vinnie at the Military / Police Museum.
Fun fact about the National Police Museum: All of the...
What all those insignias mean...
Hats.
Guns, lots of guns.
More guns.
Guns don't kill people...
Why does everybody spell John like this in Latin America?!?
Photographin' guns.
Pretty sweet artwork, no? It's made with a propane cylinder.
Our guide tells us about the surrounding buildings.
Taking a photo of Monserrate through the telescope.
Interesting looking building.
Creative photography from days of yore.
These people are not real.
Part of their police uniform collection.
Confiscated custom Harley Davidson from some cocaine gangster.
As I believe Mahatma Gandhi coined the phrase, live to...
I like this tall, covered atrium style of architecture....
Pretty great photo. The National Police Museum was not a...
Looks fun.
We should get some of these for our next party.
If you want to be happy for a day, drink. If you want to...
Pictures of killed cocaine moguls.
More guns!
Good old reliable uzi.
Most creepy museum display: wax replicas of assassinated...
Pablo Escobar. Who whould have thought purple Tommy...
Also not a real person.
Nice mustache!
All in all some wonderful mug shots.
Robot at the National Police Museum.
Church and Monserrate viewed from Plaza de Bolivar.
Mid-afternoon snack.
In Colombia, the locals enjoy their hot chocolate with...
Interesting wood cut of Paris in the free to the public...
Next stop: tejo! This is the intellectually invigorating...
Our friend Gabe? Abe? Who we met at our hostel.
These disks or stones were very heavy. Sort of like a shot put.
Monica, throwing iron at TNT.
Monica and Vinnie and one of our hosts.
Campo de tejo.
Children are a very natural addition to an environment...
Vinnie taking a break.
I think that's a plastic bottle.
There we go!
One of our hosts retrieves our metal throwing discs from...
Vinnie destroyed part of their brick wall with a mis-aimed shot.
Girl who was on our flight and then later ended up at our hostel.
One of our hosts.
Gabe or Abe celebrating a good shot.
Our friend from L.A.
Monica lining up for the pitch.
Our cab driver turned out to be an alcoholic. Midway...
On to more civilized times, we got back to the hostel,...
Our flight for the Amazon was leaving around lunch, so I...
Garden market a block or two from our hostel.
Breakfast arepas in Bogota.
Off to the Amazon!
Ready for takeoff!
Joel and Vinnie, ready to fly to the southern hemisphere.
My awesome $2 haircut.
Joel, on our Aero Republica flight before take off
Bye bye Bogota!
Hello Amazon!
There are a lot of trees here. And it is very flat. We...
A lot of trees!
More trees.
Localized rainstorm.
The other plane at the airport in Leticia.
Fish of the amazon mural, while we were waiting to pay...
Walking to our hostel.
Joel plays with one of the dogs at our hostel.
Obtaining highly viscous drinks from a street vendor in Leticia.
"Milkshakes" i.e. condensed sweetened milk plus fruit.
Joel, Vinnie and Monica relaxing at night at our jungle...
Insects carrying away a much larger insect.
Oops. I was swimming last night when this sign was...
Walking to town.
Pretty cool lawn ornament.