Originally,\nwe didn\u2019t plan to go to Colombia. I guess you all know the stereotypes you hear\nabout this country, but during our stay on the ABC islands, we\u2019ve met a lot of\nsailors heading to Colombia. We\u2019ve stayed in touch with a few of them and all\nof them were quite impressed and liked Colombia a lot. Additionally, we\u2019ve\nstarted to read a bit about the country and became more and more euphoric to\nget there too. Now, we are about one and a half month in Colombia and have to\nsay that it is above expectations. Maybe we are easy to impress after we\u2019ve\nspent several months on more or less dry and deserted Caribbean islands. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, Colombia is also a bit bureaucratic, some marinas are expensive and you need to clear in and out whenever you leave from one marina (or anchorage place) to another. That\u2019s why we\u2019ve decided to have only one stop on the Colombian Caribbean side with our boat and to do some inland travels by bus or collective. We decided to go to Marina Puerto Velero (close to Barranquilla) and plan all our trips from there. Hostels and buses are rather cheap in Colombia. We also enjoyed getting really fresh fruits for good prices (which is sometimes difficult to get in the Caribbean, in particular on the ABC islands). Overall, we found Colombia surprisingly wonderful!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We opted for Marina Puerto Velero as the only stop in Colombia (Caribbean side, maybe we will stop also at the Pacific coast later on our trip) because it is rather central, a safe place and the costs for the berth are ok-ish. The marina also acts as an agent which makes the clearance process pretty easy, but it is necessary to go to Barranquilla for the migration (basically to get the stamp in the passport). The people from the marina are really friendly and helpful. It\u2019s a good place where you can leave the boat for some time to do inland travels. <\/p>\n\n\n\n