We have been waiting a long time to visit Colombia. We visited Caracas, Venezuela in 1986. Jose, our local Caracas guide told us that Venezuela had a terrible Immigration problem. As conditions in Caracas looked so horrible to me, I asked if he didn't mean an "emigration" problem. He told me no, it is immigration. I said to him, "No offense Jose, but who is trying to immigrate into Venezuela?" Jose said, "Oh, senior, it's the Colombians. They are always trying to come here." I said to Jose, "What's it like in Colombia?" Jose said to me, in an extremely serious voice, "Senior, you don't want to go there!"

Colombia, and perhaps particularly back in the 1980's and 1990's was infamous for armed conflicts, drug cartels, kidnappings, and incredible violence. Omar, one of our local Colombian guides told us that the conflict involved four groups fighting in Colombia. It was the far-right Paramilitary groups versus the far-left Guerilla groups, versus the Drug cartels versus the State of Colombia. The military groups were fighting for influence, the drug groups were fighting for themselves, and the state was sort of fighting everyone, including the common people. Omar said they had lived through four times: happy times, extortion times, kidnappings, and drugs, and he said that drugs are still going on, but just on a more localized level, not like when Pablo Escobar was running his cartel.

Today, Colombia has made great strides to curb the violence and drugs. They might still be there, but heck, violence and drugs are everywhere.

Ernesto, our main Colombian guide, started our initial briefing by telling us a few things about Colombia. He said that Colombia has the highest rainfall in the world, high altitude, bad roads, stairs everywhere, slow service, winding mountain roads, minimal English spoken, and it's the size of California and Texas combined. We figured that we were ready for all of it and anxious to get started.

Our first stop in Colombia was in Bogota. Ernesto said that the ancient people originally settled here because this area had water, salt, gold, and emeralds. Vicky, my wife, really perked up when he mentioned emeralds!

Our time in Colombia brought us both many surprises and many things that were expected. We enjoyed them all...except perhaps the continuation of the high altitudes.

We were surprised to learn that Fernando Botero was from Colombia. We had seen his sculptures last year in Armenia and found them very interesting.

I was not surprised to find graffiti in Colombia, but I was surprised to learn the extent to which Colombia has developed graffiti into a more mainstream art form.

Finding fresh fruits and vegetables in the markets was expected and we managed to eat our way through the markets. We even found some new fruits to try.

Utilizing many different forms of transportation was no surprise, since OAT (Overseas Adventure Travel) always makes an effort to do exactly that.

Picking coffee beans wasn't a big surprise, but how many we ended up picking was a bit of a surprise to us. Plus, it was hot, hard work.

Hiking in the Andes Mountains and in a couple of national parks was not a surprise at all. Nothing we like better than a good national park.

And of course, my wife Vicky's everyday behavior was no surprise at all to me.