Monthly Archives: October 2014

Scotland

Edinburgh: Inspiration from Afar

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I’m quite excited to write about Scotland!!  Primarily because well, since I was a kid, the one place I really wanted to travel to of all the places was Scotland!!  And though I had obviously traveled to other countries first, it was always in my mind to finally make it to Scotland, and now I was:)

I can’t really take all the credit however, because in all honesty it was an encounter I had with two people in late March/early April of this year (2014) while I was working in Key West that really inspired me to get my rear in gear and travel there!  Kevin and Evelyne… From the moment they came to my bar (which by the way I was coincidentally not even supposed to be working that night) it was like meeting kindred spirits!!  They were supposed to be in town for several days but as life takes turns sometimes, they were only able to stay in Key West for one night, and that one night they happened to wander into my place of work and sit at my bar.

The conversations that ensued and the inspiration I took from them after hearing of their adventures around the world and simply just meeting them, well needless to say they inspired me finally do what I’ve always wanted: go to Scotland!  To this day I feel indebted to them for giving me that little kick in the rear and for being the most incredible hosts anyone could ever dream for.  I miss our conversations and hanging out with them quite a bit and can’t wait for the next time we get to come together!!

Ok, enough nostalgia for now… I left London after only two nights and took the train straight to Edinburgh.  It was quite a long trip, but really it wasn’t bad at all…  Watching the scenery change from the busy bustling city to more rural areas to absolutely stunning countryside’s really made the time passing unnoticeable to me.

I ended up arriving in Edinburgh on one of the coldest and wettest days they had had a while!  But the again, Scotland isn’t really known for it’s warm and sunny weather, so really it was a proper introduction to the Country!  Funnily enough (and luckily) however, the rest of my time there really was filled with several warmish and clear sky days!  Very unlike Scotland apparently, but I really wasn’t complaining one bit!!

I was met at the train station by K&E and whisked away to K’s place and shown to my room, fit for a queen!  For the next 2 weeks or so, I stayed in Edinburgh with the company of K&E and honestly could have simply stayed forever (were it not for Scotland winters being so cold!!) and just gotten a job and rented out a flat!!  I loved Edinburgh (my Glasgow friends will hate me for saying so, lol!!) and for sure plan to get back there not only for my friends being there, but for the city itself!

There is obviously quite a lot to say about my time there, so once again I’ve divided it all up into subjects so as not to overwhelm in one post!  Happy reading!!

On To Volcanic Formation

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England

Areas Not Covered

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Once the tour was over I headed out to see the places not covered by the tour.  Granted there really wasn’t much as we covered quite a bit!!  I was accompanied by another single traveler and together we headed toward the eye o f London.   We walked along the river Thames and viewed the Eye of London from across the street.  It is really MUCH more impressive at night!!  I only had the chance to see it in a nighttime view 4 years ago when I had a 16 hour lay-over in in London and opted to speed walk the city at night instead of just hanging about the airport.  So the pictures of the nighttime shots are from 4 years ago just after new year- not during the current trip of August 2014.

The Eye of London is currently Europe’s tallest Ferris wheel and each passenger capsule (which holds up to 25 people) represents one of the London Boroughs- 35 in total!  From the Eye of London we swung inward toward Piccadilly Circus, one of the best known areas for shopping, shopping and more shopping!!!  It honestly reminds me of Times Square in N.Y.C. since the streets are oddly angled in the center and there is a HUGE TV screen with adverts, etc constantly going.

Anyway, since I’m not a shopping fan I really didn’t have much business there… I just went there so I could see it during the daytime:)  Anyway, at this point it was quite on in the day and both myself and my companion were hungry.  So we set off to Brick Lane, which I had heard from several locals that it was THE PLACE to go for Curry.  Getting there was quite interesting however… We opted to hop an underground train which was no problem at all… However once we got out on to our exit we had a humorous time finding the street!  We walked out of the station and headed aimlessly down the road in the direction that the map “suggested” to go down.  I spotted a street called Brick Street and thought, hey, that must be it!

So down we walked… and walked… and walked… and walked…… The sceneries changed, the scents in the air changed and we thought for sure we HAD to be in the area!!  However, apparently we ended up in a Moroccan area and after several attempts to find someone who spoke English we discovered that Brick STREET was where we were and Brick LANE was where we were supposed to be… So back to the train station we went and lo and behold, had we taken a left out of the station instead of a right, we would have been on the correct street in all of 2 seconds flat!  It really was a good thing I had a patient person walking with me, otherwise the detour could have turned sour!!

Once on the correct path, Brick Lane stretched for what seemed like forever with endless Indian food restaurants on both sides of the “Lane” and each place had a huge banner that hung out front claiming they were voted the BEST Indian food from TripAdvisor in 20XX or the BEST value from TripAdvisor in 20XX and to boot each place also had a man standing in the doorway trying to lure each person in their place!  To be honest it was all just a little overwhelming and though we were hungry trying to choose a place sent my head in a tailspin!  We did eventually settle on a place that seemed to offer the best deal but honestly I wasn’t impressed at all.  The place was fairly packed with people who sounded British so I thought for sure that it should have been a good place.  But then again because we were ordering off the “tourist” menu and not off-roading from their full menu, maybe the quality wasn’t as good… who knows… Anyway Brick Lane to me personally was a bust.  Nothing that special and just over the top with restaurants!!

Once done with lunch it was beer time, so we headed back to the hostel for a little break, then to get a drink!

On to Edinburgh: Inspiration from Afar

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England

Horse Garden, PM House, Westminster & Big Ben

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Horse Garden

  • To be honest I was too distracted by the horses to hear whether there were any interesting stories on this particular area… oh well!!
  • Once again the fur seen on the saddle blankets are real bear though 😦

Prime Minister House

  • We got some interesting stories about this area…one of which involved the placement of where the Prime Minister lived… it is directly across from a park that has quite the reputation to be able to solicit prostitutes at night… so needless to say, many a rumor flew that the reason he picked that house was so he would have close and more discreet access to the ladies of the park
  • Another interesting story: The large yard in front of the house was actually ear marked to have the equestrian events during the Olympics.  However, not wanting his view soiled by the look of hundreds of horses and the smell of them to boot , the venue for the equestrian events was moved to another location and tons upon tons of sand was brought in to that location so that the Prime Ministers view could be that of… Women’s beach volleyball… Obviously he had only the best intentions for the horses when choosing a different venue for them…
  • See the pictures of the Horse Guard Palace to see where the equestrian events were supposed to be (and where the women’s volleyball competition did happen).  It is all just in front of the Prime Ministers house
  • By the way, I can’t say exactly which of the Prime Ministers were the ones involved in the above activities… I can’t say mainly just because I can’t remember, lol!!

Westminster Abbey

  • Most recently famous for being the site of Prince William and Princess Kate’s marriage
  • Housed the Stone of Destiny for many years until taken back and returned to Scotland (more on this story in the Edinburgh castle section)

Big Ben

  • Big Ben is actually the name of the bell, not the tower.  There are several bells that are up in the tower, 4 small ones if memory serves and one large bell: Big ben
  • Big ben actually has a hole in it from being struck so many times.  It now makes somewhat of a dull ‘gong’ sound that it never used to
  • The actual tower is called simply Queen Elizabeth (if memory serves, lol!!)

Ok, now I know that for many of these areas there are a ton of more interesting facts about each place, but if I gave everything away there wouldn’t be any reason for any readers to either want to find out more or go on a tour themselves when in London!  Also, it is quite difficult to recall EVERYTHING from the tour, especially toward the end as my mind and body were getting quite tired!!

On to Areas Not Covered

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England

Trafalgar Square

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Here we come to another fun little story…  The man on the top of the column in Trafalgar square is indeed a man named Nelson, NOT Napoleon…  However Nelson was responsible for winning one of the battles against Napoleon.  Sadly, he also lost his life in that particular battle.  The location of the battle, as you may know (it was news to me!!) took place in Trafalgar, Egypt.

So the story goes (as told by my tour guide) that Nelson fought bravely and valiantly, and with the Royal Navy at his command was able to defeat Napoleon in the battle at Trafalgar.  When Nelson lost his life in the battle, the soldiers, well really all of the United Kingdom wanted to honor his brave acts and his victory on his behalf.  So they decided to bring his body back to England so that it could be properly buried.

However, there was one little issue… The body was on a ship in the waters near Egypt, and it would take several days to actually get back to England… So preserving the body became an interesting challenge.  No worries however, they had several barrels of whisky on board!!  And what is the best way to preserve a body??  Well, dunk it in whiskey!  So they opened a barrel of whiskey (they had 5 or 6 in all) and placed Nelson’s body inside.  They replaced the cap of the barrel and marked it so that they would know which barrel had his body inside, and which were just full of whiskey…

When the ship got back to London, they cracked the barrel labeled with Nelson’s body inside and found it to be curiously only half full of whiskey… hmmm… What happened to the other half???  I thought perhaps the body simply absorbed the whiskey up and the body would therefore be a bloated yucky mess.  However, this was not the case.  What apparently happened instead was that the crew, having been so happy at their victory decided to celebrate all the way back to London.  Along the journey they managed to run out of all the whisky (they drank up 4 or 5 barrels of whiskey on their own!!)…

So… what else were they to do after running out of whiskey yet still wanting more??  Yup, they started to drink out of the whiskey barrel with Nelson’s body inside!!  They apparently felt the best way perhaps to really honor Nelson was to literally drink from him… “eeeewwwwwwww!!!!!”  is all I have to say!!!  And, as my guide noted, it certainly gives a new meaning to the term “full bodied” when describing imbibes!!!

On to Horse Garden, PM House, Westminster & Big Ben

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England

Red Coats & Gentlemen’s Club

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Red Coat Soldiers:

  • The hats are made of real bear fur (poor bears)
  • The soldiers are actual real trained soldiers with skills (one was awarded the longest shot in recorded history- something like 200 meters and he made the target!!) and the weapons are loaded
  • Their coats are red because it was an easier color to spot in the smoke of battlefield gunfire (could tell friend from foe easily) and because it was harder to see if one was injured (a little bit of ego there…)
  • Changed positions every 5 (or was it 10?) minutes to keep skills sharp and their muscles from atrophy
  • There is now a rope and guards between tourists and the soldiers… No more being able to get right in their faces and do silly things to try and make them laugh or break their concentration!!

Gentlemen’s Club:

  • Some of the most expensive real estate properties in all of London
  • True gentlemen’s club, i.e. no ladies allowed ever, or anywhere in the building- this included workers!
  • To join you also had to be filthy rich (in addition to being male) and in some cases had to wait upwards of 20 years to get in!
  • The clubs have nothing to do with strippers or other female entertainment.  Simply a club where the good ol’ boys could get together, drink their liquor, smoke cigars and talk about the affairs of the world… sounds sinister to me if you ask me…

Random comment: Golf (the game) was first invented in Scotland as it’s own “gentlemen’s club” in a way… apparently it’s an acronym (GOLF) that stands for Gentlemen Only Ladies Forbidden!  who knew…

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England

The Palaces

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We met at Green Park then headed out toward Buckingham Palace just in time for the changing of the guards! Now what I had assumed is that the changing of the guards happens hourly.  This is not so.  It apparently only happens officially once daily at 11am in front of Buckingham Palace.  People line up for hours on end (as early as 6 or 7am) to get a good spot to see all the action.  Our guide had a different plan for us… Basically he had us rush a spot (which basically meant elbow our way to the front for a few seconds) take the necessary picts then rush back to him for some stories, then we hauled across the lawn toward Prince Charles’ place to wait for the guards to come and walk right past us without any crowds at all:)  Clever guide…

The only bits I will share from this part of the tour are as follows: First, the original palace wasn’t at all Buckingham palace.  Buckingham palace was built as a private house by the Duke of Buckingham and it was called Buckingham House.  He was quite wealthy and didn’t blink twice about the cost of erecting his home of over 700 rooms…  The actual palace at the time was quite humble and petite compared to the Buckingham House… King George the III occupied the palace and though the history books say that Buckingham House was purchased by legal and proper means, our guide suggested basically that King George III wanted the place for himself, so he took it!  Subsequently the place became called Buckingham Palace.  Ok, well it went through another name change first- it was the Queen’s House after Buckingham House, then to Buckingham Palace.

Moving on, the second story is one of my favorites.  Apparently in the summer of 1982 an Irishman named Michael scaled the gates of Buckingham Palace… Or more correctly, around 5am a very drunk and disorderly Irishman named Michael scaled the gates… While the security alarms did go off to alert that something was very wrong, the security chief (new on the job after only 2 weeks) thought that surely there must be a mistake… a glitch in the system of sorts since there is NO WAY that at 5am someone would try to break in!  So instead of checking the alarm out, he simply had the staff shut the alarm OFF… So Michael scaled the wall and wandered inside the Palace.  Apparently there are signs all over the walls for staff (since it’s such a large place to navigate!!) and Michael, after his exhausting feat of climbing the Palace gate decided he needed a drink!!  Mind you, he was drunk already upon entering and police later even estimated he had been drinking for over 18 hours!!  So he followed the signs on the walls that led to the basement where they had the very best of ports and wines and whiskeys, etc, etc, etc…

After indulging in some more beverages, Michael eventually became hungry.  So he wandered back upstairs and followed the signs to the kitchen.  There he made himself a sandwich.  How he was never spotted by anyone is beyond me, but I guess it just shows how large the place really is!!  And it was quite early still… In any event, after his snack and booze he wandered out into the halls and saw signs for… the Queen’s Bedroom… He wandered into Queen Elizabeth II’s room and sat of the end of her bed.

The Queen woke to find a drunk, smelly, dirty and bloody Irishman on her bed.  The blood he got from scaling the gates, the drunk and smell and dirt was accumulated by his drinking, falling, and eating food sloppily… She miraculously kept her cool and simply greeted a good morning to the man.  He was apparently quite cordial to her and they started to have a pleasant chat (what else could you do I guess??).  During this chat, the Queen was hitting a secret button near her bed to alert security that she needed help.  However, if you recall from above, the security chief had the system turned off, so while she pushed the button, it wasn’t heard by anyone!!

After about 10-15 minutes of no one arriving, the Queen realized that something was not right.  But again she just calmly chatted with Michael and kept her cool.  She offered Michael a cigarette to which he accepted.  So the Queen picked up her phone and asked the reception to bring her a cigarette.  Thankfully the gentlemen on the reception line had some wits about him!!  He knew that the Queen does not smoke and that she would be asking for a cigarette was very strange behavior.  He called the police and had them enter the Queen’s room where they found and arrested Michael.

The best part about this is that Michael never saw more than a few days in jail.  This is so because in fact, up until this incident all royal property was considered public property.  So Michael was not trespassing!  He didn’t even really break and enter since nothing was broken and it was public domain!  He only got charged for drinking the ports and for stealing food from the kitchen, LOL!!!  The laws have obviously changed since then and it IS now considered trespassing if you try and get into the Palace without an invite…

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England

London Walking Tour

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On my first official morning I opted to take part in a “free” walking tour of the “TV” “London”.  I will explain in further detail why quotes are around the three words in the previous sentence in a bit…

Upon first checking into the hostel they mentioned that there was a “free” walking tour that operated daily leaving the hostel at 10am.  They said that the tour covered central London, but that the main attractions (for example Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, etc) would not be covered, but that the tour would end so close to those areas that they would be easy enough to explore after the tour.

Ok, so here was a great example as to the incompetence of the staff (sadly) at the Generator hostel… First off, the “free” walking tour required a not-free train or bus ticket to get you to the meeting point (Green Park) from which the tour would actually begin.  Now, I’m not complaining about having to buy a train ticket, because as it turned out it came in quite handy for the rest of the day (I bought a day pass from the hostel for 9 pounds that allowed unlimited access to all buses and trains for the entire day, and after my day it was definitely worth its price!) I was just irritated that this little bit of important information wasn’t explained to me when the staff talked about the free walking tour.  Now, I’ve been told I’m too literal a person taking what people say quite literally and to that point I admit that I literally did think that the walking tour would be entirely that… walking.  So when the lady who came to pick up the people participating in the walking tour from the hostel (on foot I may add) we started walking out toward the next hostel where we were to pick up more people when she thankfully asked “do you have a train ticket?”.  My first question of course was “For what?  This is a walking tour, yes?”  To which she explained that we would need a train ticket to get to the meeting point.

So I turned around as she waited outside for me while I worked out the details and purchased the all day train pass.  I’m just saying, if the whole procedure for the “free” walking tour was explained to begin with then that little bit of confusion and wasted time would never had occurred… Oh, and one other little thing… Goes along with the incompetence of the staff at the Generator (who otherwise were very friendly) per their knowledge of this free walking tour that they at least informed people about… ok, so a few more points… #1 no one knew how long the tour would last #2 no one knew exactly what time it started (I was told 10am, at 10am asked where the tour met and was told -by the same person who told me 10am- that it met at 10:15… 10:15 rolled around and I was told once again by the same person, “oh they meet between 10:15 and 10:30… GRRRRR!!!!!) #3 the areas that they said would be covered on the tour in fact were NOT covered at all… I’m not complaining on this point again because the tour actually did cover all the areas I wanted to know more about, i.e. the “TV” areas of London (Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, etc).  All I’m saying again is that there was just a HUGE lack of knowledge from the staff at the Generator hostel about this tour.

Now, to the perhaps credit of the staff, the lady that picked me up from there on foot said that the regular staff were on vacation and that she’d never seen the ones that were there that morning before… so maybe the regular staff are more knowledgeable than the apparently new ones that were there… But I will never know for sure…

Ok, so I’m done venting about the frustrating start to the tour… The tour itself was in one word: brilliant!  The tour guide was funny, friendly and incredibly informative!  As I mentioned above we all met (turned out to be about 30 people in total from various hostels around London) at Green Park and from there began the two hour tour entirely on foot:)

Oh, I almost forgot… the above words in quotes!  So “Free” is in quotes above because as you guessed, the tour wasn’t “free”.  It required a train/bus ticket and a tip for the tour guide.  The guides aren’t paid by the organization that provides the free tours, so they only rely on tips.  “TV” is in quotes simply to mean that the areas covered were in fact the most popular tourist destinations in London, and “London” is in quotes because all the areas we went to (TV areas) are actually in Westminster… London, the REAL London is only one about square mile!!  The rest of what people consider to be London is Westminster.  That’s your first bit of info I got from the tour…

To make it a bit easier for reading perhaps, I’m going to break down each part of the tour and associated stories for each area into links below.  That way this page doesn’t drag on forever!  I’m not going to tell every story told during the tour (I’ve got to leave something out to make you all want to go to London and do the tour yourselves!!) but will give you my favorites.  Cheers and happy reading your free tour with accompanying pictures:)

The Palaces

Red Coats & Gentlemen’s Club

Trafalgar Square

Horse Garden/PM House/Westminster Abbey/Big Ben

Areas Not covered (Eye of London/Brick Lane/Piccadilly Circus)

 

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Travel

Hostel Culture Shock…

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Quickly here I wanted to share a few culture shocks I experienced (aside from the prices, lol!!).  Really the only time I had ever before done the whole backpacking hostel thing was when I traveled through Costa Rica, Panama and Colombia.  So really my only basis of comparison was with hostels there…

What I had gotten used to from hostels in Latin America was places where basically younger people (early 20’s to 40’s) would go to sleep cheap.  It was a place for singles or couples of friends, but not large groups per se.  Everyone was also very inviting and curious of the newcomer.  You would tend to meet several people and hang out with them from the hostel.  It was like meeting a new member of a family at each place.  You always had someone to do something with if you wanted and everyone seemed very chill as we were all in the same traveling boat so to speak.  You exchanged information and traveling tips with fellow hostel goers.  It felt like an underground society in a way…  Places where the backpackers would convene nightly to exchange stories and dos and don’ts…

Hostels in London have a completely different feel!!!  First the age range literally included children all the way to senior citizens.  Entire families stayed at the hostel!  And groups of people booked into the hostel.  I’m talking for Stag parties (aka bachelor parties) or gangs of girls wanting to party it up in London.  I was shocked at the dress that people were coming out of the hostel with!  No more sensible travel clothes anywhere to be seen on people, except for a few random ones, but rather short skirts and tall heels!!  These girls are traveling???  No, hostels in London were definitely not for the traveler.  They were simply (at least I believe) the only cheap way to go since I don’t think many people can actually afford hotels in London!!  Or if they were travelers, they weren’t long term, they were just away for the week or weekend on a holiday.  Because of this there was no real camaraderie among the people.  Everyone was out for their own business and no one would really acknowledge others since they had basically all come in their own group anyway.  Personally I didn’t really care if I met people to talk to or not because I’m perfectly comfortable doing what I want on my own anyway, but it just gave such a “cold” feel to the place.  So uninviting.

So, needless to say this aspect was quite a shock to me.  I was very curious at this point how hostels all across Europe would be in general… If they would be what I was used to from my previous travels, or if they would be like the London hostel…

 

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Travel

Keep Calm and Carry On

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I’m no stranger to making fun of myself at any point… and well the title to this particular post is aimed to do just that… it’s actually specifically aimed at showing how uneducated and retarded I can be… I once saw one of my bosses (originally from England) wearing a shirt saying “Keep Calm and Carry On”… and I made the very uneducated comment of, “Oh, is that a spin-off from The Chive slogan of  “keep calm and chive on”???

Yea…. enough said… I can be THAT blonde quite often in life really… and it’s usually ALWAYS when I’m trying to be impressive somehow… Goes to show you should ALWAYS be humble, otherwise stupidity (at least in my case) will always creep out!!!

Moving on, I flew over the pond on British Airways on a fairly cheap one-way ticket I found on my favorite flight site of skyscanner.com:)  Let me tell you, British Airways has it going on!!  The flight was comfortable, the food was actually tasty, and beside a little bit of a hiccup during my movie where it turned off and wouldn’t restart until hours later (which really forced me to get some much needed sleep) it was quite the pleasant flight!

After landing I did what I always do… Sat down and started searching for a place to stay for the night… You would think I would change my ways and plan SOMETHING ahead of time, but hey, that’s kinda part of the adventure of it all, isn’t it??  The only bummer here is that Heathrow airport only gives like 45 minutes of free WiFi to use!!  After that you have to pay for it!!  Seriously???  What if I had a layover there longer than 45 minutes??  Then I would have to PAY for WiFi???  Seemed like a total scam to me, but it was what it was…

Anyway after a bit of researching I did find a hostel that would potentially work.  What I really wasn’t expecting was how absolutely expensive everything was!!  Part of the reason it took me so long to find a hostel was because I was price shopping!!  I knew and had heard that in general Europe is expensive, but seriously London is out of control!! But I’m getting ahead of myself…

So after getting a place in mind to possibly stay, I headed for the ticket booth, got a map and ticket for the Underground tunnel train and headed off.  About 20-30 minutes later I was off the Underground and pounding the pavement of the streets with my feet.  I walked for about 15 minutes until I found the hostel that I thought to stay at.  Why did it take so long?  Well, the map I was given of the streets really wasn’t quite as accurate as it could have been.  So there were several times I wasn’t sure if I was going the right way as some streets were on the map, then the next several were not, then one would pop back up on the map… strange…

Anyway, I stopped into the YHA (Youth Hostels Association- they have a chain of hostels throughout  Europe… Red flag #1 in my book as I think hostels should be more private than corporate) which had prices advertised at 26 pounds per night…. Upon arriving however, it was 32 pounds per night… No thanks!!  That didn’t even include breakfast!!  So I asked about another hostel nearby and was shuttled in the direction of Generator Hostel London.

After another 20 minutes of wandering around somewhat aimlessly while attempting to follow the map but still needing to stop for directions I found the Generator hostel!!  Now, to my miracle, the days I spent in London were actually clear skies and warm!!  You all know by now how much I LOVE warm weather!!  However… when having to walk in it with a 40lb bag on back, it gets annoying quickly!  And I tend to sweat quite a bit.  So needless to say after the first mini-hike to the first hostel, then the second mini-hike to the Generator, I was looking forward to putting my stuff down and showering!  Luckily they did have room and though I was planning originally to stay 3 nights, I only went for 2 since the first 2 nights were 26 pounds each and the third was 40 pounds!!  At the time the rate exchange was $1.71 to 1 pound so 26 pounds was basically well over $40 to stay for each night… Oh and that amount was for ‘no breakfast included’ AND I was sharing the room with 11 other people and the bathroom with the entire floor (which was in the basement and probably had over 100 people at least per floor).

I was definitely missing the hostel prices I was used to in Central and South America!!  This was seriously a completely different ballgame financially!  In any event I paid for my room, headed down to my basement room, changed clothes, made a few calls and sent some emails then headed out for a beer!

 

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Colombia

Colombia Myths and Truths

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I thought I should put in an area for Colombia where I only talked about the myths and truths since one of the more frequent questions I get when telling people I’ve traveled there alone is “Isn’t it dangerous???”.

No, Colombia is just like every other country in the world I’ve been to so far as far as danger is concerned.  If you don’t go looking for danger, and you are at least semi-smart about your actions, there is no danger.  I know that in the past Colombia has had a pretty rough time with drug dealers and cartels, etc that made much of the country unsafe to travel through apparently, however that was quite a long time ago.  And as I’ve heard many others say, basically the drug dealers are now in the business of protecting tourists instead of making the country unsafe to travel through as they’ve apparently learned that tourists can be their clients too!  And it would certainly be bad business to scare them away!  Now, whether this is the actual case or not, who really knows.  I’m just sharing what I’ve heard others say as their opinion on why it’s now so safe to travel around Colombia.

Because of the rocky drug past Colombia has had, people I’ve talked to also seem to have a preconceived idea that everyone there too is somehow involved in drugs or are dealers or are dangerous.  This again is quite false.  Honestly I ran into more people on drugs throughout Costa Rica and Panama than I ever did in the more populated Colombia.  People there are quite nice, respectful and are just living normal life like others do.  I’m not saying no one there does drugs, just that it wasn’t in your face the way I too thought it would be before getting there and hearing the testimonies of others who had already been there.

What is becoming more popular in Colombia are the higher class scams.  All over the walls of each hostel I went to in Bogota at least, there were stories of scenarios to avoid.  What criminals were now into doing was watching for people in vulnerable positions and taking advantage.  It’s best I just describe a scenario:

Say you had to go into a bank for business.  When coming out of the bank, you could be approached by a professional looking person (dressed well, etc) claiming to work for the bank telling you that you forgot to fill out “X” form or sign “Y” form.  However, instead of taking you back into the bank (as it would make sense to do) they would say that it was only possible to finish the business at their other location… then they would basically take you around the corner, down an alley and rob you of all your possessions.  Why anyone would allow a “bank” employee to escort them anywhere other than back into the bank, I’m not sure…

Another scenario involved people claiming to be police officers.  They would be dressed in street clothes claiming to be undercover police and they would claim that you needed to come with them because you were found doing something wrong or there was a problem with “XYZ” somewhere.  Then they would walk you around the corner, down an alley and rob you.

Basically the best defense of any of these scenarios is #1 don’t follow strangers anywhere and #2 there were cops on the streets of Bogota literally everywhere.  They were always in pairs and in full police gear so if there was any doubt whatsoever in a conversation that a stranger had with you, simply walk toward the police to ask for whatever help and chances are if the person who approached you (false banker or false cop) isn’t legit, they would literally run away.

Enough said!

 

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