The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta and a warning from the Elder Brothers

The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is a mountain range that contains the highest mountains of Colombia. Amongst others, it is unique in the world for having such high mountains (almost 6000 metres) so close to the coast. On some days, it is possible seeing the snowcovered peaks from a beach on the Caribean coast!

The Sierra Nevada is very special also with regard to culture. One of the indigenous people living there are the Kogi. Some Kogi can now been seen in villages and cities on the foot of the Sierra Nevada. However, a group of Kogi living in the higher parts of the mountain range have chosen to have no contact to the outside world.

The Kogi consider the Sierra Nevada to be the Heart of the Earth and themselves as the "Elder Brothers" responsible for it. In the last years, the Elder Brothers have noticed changes to the Heart of the Earth. Concerned, they broke their isolation and invited a film team from the BBC to transmit a message to us "Younger Brothers". The resulting documentary, "From the Heart of the World: The Elder Brothers' Warning" can be found on youtube.

Fe en la Causa

Colombia is such a diverse country and this entails that besides lots of things that I like here there are also some that I find harder to digest. One example for the latter are the recruitment and motivational videos for the the Colombian army and the war it wages. They are part of "Fe en la Causa", a media campaign by the Colombian armed forces.

Here's a few examples of such videos. The video that has been watched most is the one below. Even if you don't understand Spanish, you'll notice how intense the voice speaks to you telling you about heros and glorious troops. It also tells you about the need for "Fe en la Causa" (Faith in the Cause).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAXA1EHh2eE

The next video refers to some important dates in the history of Colombia, amongst others putting the Colombian Army in an uninterrupted tradition with a rebel force fighting the army of the established power (Simon Bolivar's troops in the struggle for Independence from Spain). When I watched it I thought that the rebel organisation FARC (who are fighting the Colombian Army) probably also claim to be the heirs of Simon Bolivar...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wA0pJZ4HRd8

For X-Mas with the Colombian armed forces click here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmtOVchbD0o

Different worlds in southern Colombia

From Popayan, a nice historic city in southern Colombia, I travelled east crossing the Sierra los Coconucos. To both sides of the road, vegetation was as dense as a wall.

 

It was very misty and the cloud forest looked pretty misterious.

No surprise that this strange landscape is inhabited by strange animals, too.

Even some of the public transport vehicles here looked unusual.

On the eastern side of the mountains, I arrived in another beautiful region, famous for its coffee ...

... but even more well-known as Colombia's main archeological site: San Agustín. The flagship remains of the ancient and mysterious culture of this place are huge stone statues and tombs.

I found some of the common household objects like pots, grinders, etc. (some of which are 3000 years old), that are on display in the site's great little museum, very interesting, too.

A few hour's drive north of San Agustín's cool, rainy and green landscape, ...

... I entered the Desierto de Tatacoa.

This tiny desert is famous for observing the stars. When I was there, the sky was cloudy however and I couldn't see many stars but instead enjoyed the beautiful changing light of sky and desert landscape.

A few hours further north, I arrived in Bogota, yet another completely different world with traffic jams, homeless people sleeping next to the main roads and modern skyrise buildings that are illuminated in different colors at night.

Some more fotos from Peru and Ecuador

After some blog entries without pictures, here are a few fotos from Peru and Ecuador to give an impression of the incredibly diversity of landscapes in these countries.

Mountain road in Peru

Different types of maize put out to dry in the sun

Mountain lake

Lima

My first glimps of the Pacific

Back on mountain roads

A village in the hills

In southern Ecuador

 Chimborazo vulcano

 Quito

A village on the Ecuadorian coast