Twice the size of France, 1,141,748 km2, Colombia is located under the isthmus of Panama and is the only country in the world straddling the Pacific and Atlantic. It borders Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru and Brazil. The Andean region, where three cordilleras juxtapose, is the most populated.

It is there that are located the big cities, Bogota, the capital, at 2600 meters of altitude, Medellin or Cali. The Sierra de Santa Marta is the highest coastal massif in the world, over 5000 meters! To the east, the Orinoco plains dominate, while the south belongs to the Amazon basin, which represents a third of the territory.
It is populated by Indians, divided into 80 ethnic groups, and difficult to access, with the exception of the city of Leticia, on the banks of the Amazon, not far from Peru and Brazil. The Caribbean coast, 1,600 km long, hosts the largest hotels in Colombia.
with Santa Marta as its epicentre, but also the famous Cartagena, an ancient fortified city with picturesque charm. The coconut beaches and coral reefs of Tayrona National Park, 35 km south of Santa Marta, attract visitors from all over the world. Another exceptional National Park located in the same region: Islas del Rosario, a rosary of 25 coral islands.
The diversity of its population constitutes one of the main riches of Colombia, this El Dorado where Christopher Columbus, by the way, never set foot. The criollos, descendants of Spanish families, live next door to the zambos, who mix the blood of the natives with that of the Africans, forced by the slave trade to work in the mines from the fifteenth century. Indians are, today, very minority. The fauna, exceptional, offers a reservoir among the richest in the world, after Madagascar and Brazil. It includes the largest rodent on the planet, the capybara, the spectacled bear or the armadillo.

If 1,700 species of birds, including the Andean Condor, turn the heads of ornithologists, what about botanists, struggling with 130,000 species of plants including 3,000 orchids? 36 national parks and 15 zones protect this unique biodiversity on 9 million hectares. For those who prefer a less studious holiday, this adventure land is also suitable for experienced climbers, hikers or scuba divers. The night life is generally hectic, marked by many festivals, and all travel in Colombia also passes by an exit in bars and discotheques where the aguardiente, the rum and the decibels flow with floods.
From the humid tropical climate of the Amazon or the Caribbean to the sandy desert of the Gajira peninsula, passing through the icy temperatures of the Sierra Navada de Santa Marta or the Purace volcano in the central cordillera, the country covers practically the entire climatic spectrum.
However, there are only two seasons, the dry season, verano, from December to April, and the wet season, invierno, from May to November. For the rest, the climatic conditions vary mainly according to altitude: warm up to 1000 meters, temperate from 1000 to 2000 meters and cold above. In Bogota, for example, the average temperature is 15°C with a difference of only 1°C between the hottest and coldest month. However, the thermal difference night day is high, more than 10°C.

Art and culture in Colombia
Gabo, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the author of One Hundred Years of Solitude and Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982, is of course a national monument, but it is music that dominates cultural life. From this point of view, indigenous, African and Spanish influences have given birth to many modalities, the best known of which is the cumbia, a mix of African rhythms and indigenous melodies where percussion alternates with flutes. National dance, it imitates the movements of slaves moving a cannonball at their feet. In addition to the anthology of Latin rhythms such as bullerengue, chalupa and guaracha, the vallenato, a symbiosis of Caribbean rhythms and the accordion of the old continent, or champeta, has recently been added.

What to visit in Colombia
Less known than the Peruvian Macchu Pichu, the pre-Hispanic Colombian sites of the Ciudad Perdida, San Agustin or Tierradentro, are nevertheless amazing, even more if you decide to discover them on horseback. On the Caribbean coast, Cartagena de Indias, is worth a detour if only for its beaches and turquoise waters, just like the bohemian village of Taganga, near Santa Marta. The proximity of Tayrona and Islas de Rosario National Parks does not spoil anything. Despite the altitude and the dangerousness of some of its districts, the cosmopolitan Bogota is not to be missed under any pretext with its Museum of Gold, its National Museum and, of course, the picturesque districts of La Candaleria or Usaquén