Colombia is notorious for a particular crop, but as a visitor you’re not very likely to visit any farm growing that! However, they are very openly proud of their coffee and many farms welcome visitors. We visited a typical farm with a guide, Juan-Paolo, who was a former employee.
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Historically, Getsemani is the area of Cartagena where African slaves lived during colonial times. The Spanish had imported them (after they’d killed off most of the native population) to build their fortifications: the city walls and the Castillo San Felipe de Barajas. They were housed here, outside the city walls, away from the grand homes of the soldiers and merchants who controlled it.
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Cocora was a princess, daughter of Acaime, chief of the local Quimbaya indigenous people. Today she lends her name to Colombia’s Cocora Valley, where the native wax palms (the national tree) grow up to 60 metres and live for about 200 years.
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How do you find peace in a city rife with crime and violence? During the 1980s and most of the 1990s Medellín had the reputation of being one of the most violent cities in the world.
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Colombia’s Villa de Leyva is one of those places where time seems to have stopped still. Or at least, it would seem that way were it not for the large number of visitors, both Colombian and international, who descend on the town to see its perfectly preserved colonial architecture and huge main square. This is a town that is as much museum as place to live.
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Patan is said to be one of the oldest Buddhist cities in the world. It is also known as Lalitpur, which means the City of Beauty. The name recognises its tradition of arts and crafts which continue to define the city.
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The oft-quoted line, ‘when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life’ comes from a discussion between Johnson and James Boswell about whether or not Boswell's affection for London would wear thin should he be living there as Johnson did, rather than enjoying the city on occasional visits.
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At the southern tip of a spit of land on the coast of Senegal, which separates the sea from the waters of the Saloum, lies the small village of Djiffer. Its narrow strip of houses is thus squeezed between the waters of the Atlantic to the west and the lagoons of the Sine Saloum delta to the east. The Atlantic Ocean to the west is continually nibbling at its sandy shores in an effort to meet up with the waters of the Saloum. People living here are doing so on borrowed time.
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Just a few miles north of built-up post-industrial Tyneside lies the wide expanse of Druridge Bay. Its seven miles of sands are lined with sand dunes and are just perfect for a winter walk. The landscape is an interesting mix, with wind turbines visible in the distance but otherwise feeling rather remote.
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All of us who love to travel, and are fortunate enough to be able to do so, will I hope be looking back on a year filled with both familiar and foreign places. For most of us, 2022 was the year in which we began to feel comfortable travelling again. When, despite a few new forms to fill in and masks to be worn, perhaps reluctantly, on planes, the world opened up again and we could scratch that travel itch, relieve that homesickness ‘for the places we have never known’.
