A truly Colombian welcome
The superlative beauty of Colombia is matched by the generosity with which locals share their culture with travellers, creating unforgettable memories.
Blessed with coastlines kissing both the Caribbean and the Pacific, and boasting some of Latin America’s most exciting cities as well as some of its most biodiverse wilderness areas, it’s only fitting that Colombians are universally proud to showcase their homeland to visitors. Community spirit, resilience, and a readiness to smile, shimmy and share are national characteristics — although it’s impossible to truly sum up this tapestry of 51 million people, with rich customs rooted in European, African and Indigenous cultures. From the chefs serving up tropical flavours in Cartagena to the talented nature guides of the Amazon-Orinoco basins, adventures in Colombia are all the more memorable for the warmth of the welcome awaiting you.
Here three travel writers share their favourite Colombian welcomes.
A home from home on the jungle-backed beaches of the Colombian Pacific
By Amelia Duggan
Hidden away on an uninhabited beach at the edge of Colombia's vast Chocó rainforest, one could wonder whether Mamá Orbe’s chosen guesthouse location was commercially savvy. “Travellers always seem to know where we are,” she explained simply when I found her sitting on the shore, regally dressed in bright fabrics, feet tucked luxuriously into the warm sand, watching a gaggle of grandchildren play in the surf.
Any check-in formalities were bypassed as she ushered the lot of us out of the fast-fading sun and into chairs around a picnic table. Amid a chorus of cicadas and howler monkey cries, Mama Orbe deftly gutted fish, mixed coconut into rice and fried plantain to make patacones. More family members emerged into the glade, drawn from their cabins by the smell of dinner. Hurricane lamps were lit; laughter soon drowned out the sounds of the jungle. I’d simply been absorbed into the family. “Please, just call me Mamá,” my host insisted later on, as her husband, Juan, lit a beach bonfire in honour of my arrival.
My memories of Mamá Orbe’s Family Eco-Farm are still as sharp and bright as if I’d returned from the Colombian Pacific yesterday. I can recall the way the volcanic sands turned silver after tropical deluges; the bitter taste of a home-brewed tea, expertly made for me by Mamá to cure a headache; the incomprehensible magic of seeing humpback whales blow and breach, just off the beach. All of this was heightened by the family’s infectious wonder at nature, and their solemn sense of custodianship.
A knock on my door at dawn on my final day meant one thing: sea turtles were hatching. Dario, Mamá’s son, patrolled the beach throughout the height of olive ridley nesting season, safeguarding the turtle’s eggs from being eaten or taken. He’d patrolled longer and harder since I’d arrived, hoping to be able to share this spectacle with me. Together, as watery sunbeams spread across the horizon, we watched a parade of hatchlings propel themselves towards the waves. The turtles that survived would find their way back here in some years, compelled to return to this beach. I still feel that same draw myself.
Flavors and Friendliness on the Caribbean Coast
By Karen Carmichael
Magic infuses Cartagena de Indias, the jewel of the Greater Colombian Caribbean region. I felt it with every step through the seaside city’s Old Town, still encircled by the centuries-old stone walls that warded off pirates and privateers. Within la ciudad amurallada lies an enchanting world of tree-shaded plazas, brilliantly colored Spanish colonial homes, and cobblestoned streets rumbling with horse-drawn carriages. The city’s vibrant beauty is matched only by the incredible warmth that radiates from its residents, who welcome travelers to experience their paradise—including, I discovered, their marvelous cuisine.
While wandering Cartagena’s intriguing alleyways and hidden courtyards in the spring of 2017, I got a taste of Colombian flavor and hospitality by sampling lovingly prepared local favorites. Smiling street vendors proudly showed me their techniques, producing perfect cheese-stuffed, melt-in-your-mouth arepas and tangy mango biche, slivers of green mango tossed with lime juice and spices. I savored the succulent beef of posta negra at a friendly bistro in Plaza San Diego, where locals gathered to watch street musicians and filled the square with conviviality.
But in Colombia, coffee is the star. I walked to Café del Mural, tucked away in the Getsemani neighborhood, to find the most innovative coffee in Cartagena. Owner David Arzayus delights in sharing with visitors his delectable brews that blend Colombian-grown Arabica beans with unusual ingredients—anise, cumin, Turkish saffron—and hosts coffee tastings on the café’s patio, framed by an exuberant mural of a dazzling sun.
His tastings don’t seek to prove that his coffee is the best, David told me, but to provide an experiential journey through the coffee, its history, and the many different ways we can drink it. “Coffee builds invisible bridges that interweave cultures,” he said. Surrounded by the loveliness of Cartagena, coffee in hand, I basked in the warm welcome of Colombia’s culture.
Walk into the wild
By Sarah Barrell
Far from the roads and river ports of Leticia, deep in the jungle, trekkers are rewarded with a warm welcome at family farms that appear suddenly in the dense forever of rainforest that carpets Colombian’s untamed Amazon-Orinoco region
You can almost see the silence. There it is, creeping between the buttress roots of kapok trees, weaving vine-like through the canopy, hanging in the humidity: the absence of noise. Dawn’s percussion – a buzz, rattle and hum climbing to a crescendo of power tool proportions – has fast receded leaving just the three-note shrill of the screaming piha bird puncturing the stupor that comes with the sudden, intense heat of the day here in the Colombian Amazon-Orinoco region. It’s peaceful, this absence, but not benign. “Now is calm,” says Segundo my guide. “But we must be watching. The jungle is always watching.”
Segundo picks a trail through the trees, pointing out palms in which to find water, bark for tea to treat aches and pains. Otherwise, we walk in companionable silence, steady hours in a meditative movement of sweaty limbs, each step calculated to conserve energy and keep balance on a forest floor bouncy with leaf mulch.
We hear them before we see them: Segundo’s people are signaled by the rallying ruff-ruff of dogs guarding the chacra – the forest farm where we will stay the night. Segundo allows himself a smile: safe arrival in the jungle is never guaranteed, a place where trees walk, and strangler figs entangle trails in an eye-blink. Then, all at once, there are kids and dogs and a shy huddle of women leading me into the maloca, the community longhouse where we eat corn soup, compare beaded bracelets and marvel, a little wryly, at family patriarchs warrior-dancing themselves into a celebratory muddle of red-and-white painted limbs. There are hammocks strung for sleeping and a river – where I’m led, hand-held through the ink dark – to wash in. Then once again, it is still: the welcomingly almost-silence of sleep inside a family house – a cocoon of snores, creaks and dog snuffles against the rising rattling tide of another Amazon night.
