I have quite a few things I want to do in Colombia, which came about almost by accident, since the start of my tour in Guyana would have left me with 2 1/2 days to kill, which is almost not enough to digest a decent meal. So I pushed that tour back an additional week and got hot tips from my friend Andrew, who just recently travelled the country extensively with his family (and could not stop raving about it all).
I will leave out Bogota, where I spent a few days some years back, and emphasize Medellin and the Amazon, with Santa Marta and Cartagena thrown in at the end for good measure.
Getting to Colombia was an adventure by itself. I had a ticket from Galapagos-Baltra to Guayaquil, another to Bogota and a third to Medellin. The idea was to do this all in one day. In Baltra they told me I would not be able to check my baggage through, because the flights were different tickets. In Baltra they could not change that, I would have to do that in Bogota. I knew that it could be tight in Bogota since I only had an hour. Could I change the flight? I would have to do that in Bogota. On the flight they gave me a seat close to the front so I would be one of the first out. In Bogota, I had to get my luggage and check back in. I ended up getting to the check-in counter 4 minutes after it closed. This resulted in a no-show penalty of USD 350!
I took the next flight and even hurrying, I ended up being the third last person to board the flight to Medellin. I only had time to put on my belt (which I had to remove at security) once I was safely on the plane.