Por: Maribel Puerta

En 2005 llegó a Medellín, Colombia un Estadounidense (newyorkino) llamado Mark Kaseman. En el 2006 este hombre comenzó a trabajar con niños pobres y familias desplazadas de Medellín que se encuentran ubicadas en El Pinar, una zona rural de Bello. Este hombre viaja todos los días desde su residencia hasta las montañas  para dar a los niños clases de inglés y de computadores en una humilde escuela llamada Leon XIII, la cual no recibe ayuda alguna del gobierno.

Gracias al aporte generoso de uno de sus amigos estadounidense, quien en marzo de 2010 donó 5 equipos, fueron posibles las clases de computadores para más de 250 niños entre los 5 y 17 años de edad.  El 98% de estos niños nunca habían tocado un computador en su vida. Debido a la difusión que este hombre ha hecho de su programa de ayuda y educación llamado ANGELES DE MEDELLÍN, diferentes personas de todo el mundo dan su aporte para comprar continuamente ropa, alimentos, medicinas y útiles escolares para los niños y sus familias.

Todos los días decenas de niños acuden a la escuela en Medellin, no solo para aprender sino para alimentarse y compartir con el hombre que les alegra el presente y les regala la esperanza de un futuro mejor y a quien ellos llaman “el papá de las montañas”.  La mayoría de ellos pertenecen a familias que han sido desplazadas por la violencia y han tenido que huir de sus hogares y territorios tan solo con sus ropas para instalarse en viviendas improvisadas que construyen con láminas de plástico envueltas alrededor de postes de madera clavados sobre el piso de tierra.

“Cada día que trabajo en las montañas me maravillo del amor y la bondad que estos niños y sus familias me dan.  Durante los últimos 5 años he sido bendecido con cientos de nuevos amigos.  Esta gente encantadora es pobre pero feliz y con amor y humildad aprecian lo que hago por ellos cada día…

…Gracias a la generosidad de muchos ángeles se ha podido realizar otras tareas diferentes como  la compra de muletas para Viviana, una jóven de 19 años quien vive en la pobreza absoluta.  Ella nació sin una pierna y le faltan la mayoría de sus dedos.  Sin embargo todos los días ella cocina, mantiene su casa y cuida a sus 3 hermanos mientras su mamá trabaja como empleada del servicio doméstico en la ciudad.   Viviana es mi héroe, ella sonríe y se muestra feliz cada vez que la veo.

Esta es solo una de las muchas historias en las vidas que he podido tocar gracias a la ayuda de quienes se han enterado de mi programa y han decido ayudar también”.  Cuenta Mark  Kaseman.

Este año y una vez más gracias al patrocinio generoso de muchas personas,  este ángel gringo realizó el 18 de diciembre la cuarta fiesta de Navidad para 2.500 niños y 700 familias quienes recibieron alimentos, frutas, juguetes y dulces. Hice parte del grupo de voluntarios para repartir regalos y pintar las caras de los niños y puedo decirles que fue una experiencia maravillosa!!

Pagina Web de Angeles de Medellin

Fotos de la fiesta Angeles de Medellin:

Fotos con su respectiva explicacion para conocer el desarrollo de la historia aqui.

Video de Mark Kaseman y su programa Angeles de Medellin:

Acá les comparto las fotos del evento y un video sobre Mark Kaseman y su programa “Angeles de Medellín”.  Disfrútenlo!

In a recent end of the year poll by the New York Times, Colombia is voted as the number two choice behind Istanbul.  Colombia has recently gained much notoriety as an up and coming tourist destination since 2004-2005 when the security situation began to improve dramatically across the country. The historic colonial beach-side town of Cartagena and the capital city of Bogota lead the pack with recent tourist influx followed by once notorious Medellin, Colombia.

Link to New York Times reader choice travel destinations selecting Colombia as number two favorite.

Excerpt from related travel article about Colombia:

Unfairly or not, Colombia is still known for its cocaine cartels and street violence, but cool-hunting travelers are calling it Latin America’s next affordable hot spot. Bogotá, its capital, has emerged as a role model of urban reinvention. Starting in the late 1990s, the city underwent a breathtaking transformation. Sidewalks, once used mainly for parking, are now lined with bicycle paths and tree-shaded cafes. An innovative bus system zips residents across the traffic-congested city. And museums and restaurants have opened in its historic center, including the refurbished Museo del Oro, which houses pre-Columbian treasures.

Read entire article here

For more travel information about Colombia, South America, visit DiscoverColombia.com

From – Live And Invest Overseas Website

By Kathleen Peddicord

Medellin, Colombia, and Panama City, Panama, are two of the world’s top retirement havens for 2011. Here’s how these top retire-overseas choices compare with each other.

Preparing it, I couldn’t help but compare that city to Panama City, my current home base and a long-standing top retire-overseas choice.

In many ways, these two places are the yin and the yang of each other.

Arriving in Panama City, you recognize instantly that this town is open for business, pushing for growth, and embracing prosperity. Your heart rate quickens, and your mind works quicker, too, trying to keep up with the commotion all around.

Arriving in Medellin has the opposite physical effects. Your heart slows a bit, your mind settles…

Unlike Panama City, Medellin‘s cityscape isn’t all high-rise condo towers and features nary a single building of glass or steel. From any height (the windows of one of the city’s luxury penthouse apartments for example, or the top of one of the surrounding hills), Medellin appears a sea of red clay tiles and red brick buildings interspersed regularly by swatches of foliage and flowers. The effect, again, is calming and peaceful.

You can learn a lot about a place both from and by its taxi drivers. They’re a top source of getting-to-know-a-city information and insights, of course, but they’re also a barometer of the mood of a place. In Panama City, taxi drivers are in a hurry. They honk their horns constantly. They weave in and out of traffic, from lane to lane, pushing for constant progress. They can’t abide sitting still or even slowing down and tend to run traffic lights and ignore things like “Stop” signs.

In Medellin, the taxi drivers, like their city, are gentler and calmer, happy to stop to offer directions or even to chat. During our entire visit, I heard the honking of not a single car horn, not by a taxi driver and not by anyone else either.

It’s also worth noting that, in Medellin, taxis are not only ever-present, but also always painted yellow and metered, unlike in many of the places where we recommend you spend time. Again, orderly…genteel…

Medellin is impressively green, with trees, plants, and small gardens everywhere, and remarkably clean. In the central neighborhoods, you see no litter. The metro, a point of pride for the local population, is spotless and like new. At every station and in every train we boarded, I looked for but was unable to find even a cigarette butt or piece of gum on the ground.

Click here to read the rest of the report comparing Panama City and Medellin, Colombia as retirement choices.

MY OPINION AS AN EXPAT LIVING IN MEDELLIN SINCE MARCH OF 2006:

First off, I would like to commend Katleen Peddicord for even suggesting the notion of retiring in Medellin, Colombia. Although everyone already lives in Colombia knows that it is an amazing place to live and visit, most outsiders are still mind-locked on the stereotype that described the violent days of Medellin past. Granted, some of the violence remains, but you will find the same most everywhere in the world including places such as Miami, Boston, Washington DC, Los Angeles and Detroit just to name a few. Do not let old stereotypes keep you from visiting or considering Colombia as a retirement destination.

I lived in Panama City for 6 months in 2005 and personally did not like the city and its climate. Medellin for me is a far superior place to live and call home due to several factors including climate, cost, culture, friendly locals and ease of transportation to name a few. However, the city does not come without its drawback. The traffic here is difficult at times and the infrastructure is far from perfect. However, we do have the Metro which is a great alternative to buying a car or taking taxis. I take the Metro all the time, but avoid it at peak hours in the morning and evening after work. I would have to say that Medellin‘s biggest drawback for me is the pollution caused by car, bus and motorcycle exhaust. In fact, many of the original expats have already moved away to the countryside where the air is much cleaner. The banks here do not have a great reputation from an ‘ease of use’ perspective. However, I maintain bank accounts in the USA and use the ATM system as my preferred choice of withdrawal. Although I am not retired, I would consider any place in Colombia as a retirement destination once you figure out how to manage your affairs here.

Kathleen failed to mention the ‘pensionado visa’ in her report which is also an effective method to retire here without having to buy property and/or start a business for VISA purposes. There is alot to learn about living in Colombia and although I am no expert, I am learning more every day that I chose to live here. I will add to Kathleen’s excellent reports on Medellin with one of my own soon that will shed some more light on this town my my own unique perspective. Until then, ‘a la orden‘ from Medellin, Colombia!

Read more about us and Colombia here at www.discovercolombia.com.

As tourists swarm Cartagena, the country looks to spread the wealth.

From Chicago Tribune

By Chris Kraul

CARTAGENA, Colombia — Four giant cruise ships recently docked within hours of one another in this Spanish colonial port city and disgorged 6,000 foreign passengers. Most headed to Old Cartagena for a day of sightseeing and shopping, jamming the narrow streets of what many believe is the best preserved colonial city on the continent.

Many of the day-trippers walked the 16th-century stone walls that still ring the historic center. Looking out to the Caribbean, they could imagine the corsairs of Sir Francis Drake, the English pirate who sacked the city in 1586. Others trudged to the top of San Felipe fortress or taxied to a monastery atop La Popa hill for the panoramic view. Or they passed through the forbidding doors of the Palace of the Inquisition to see instruments of torture.

“This is my first time in Colombia, and I love it,” said Ronald Sell, a Swiss accountant, as he shopped for souvenirs in Las Bovedas, the converted dungeons that once housed slaves who were imported to work the colony’s mines and cane fields. “I’ve seen other Colombian cities before arriving here, but this is definitely the highlight.”

The presence of so many foreigners was unthinkable just five years ago, when tourists were put off by the image of a country beset by violence sown by leftist rebels and drug traffickers. But the nation’s improved security, booming economy and rapidly expanding tourism industry have put it on many travelers’ itineraries.

Colombia’s international visitors increased 17 percent last year, to 1.7 million, compared with a global tourism gain of just 2 percent from 2008 to 2009, according to Ernst & Young consultants. The Colombian visitor industry that once consisted mainly of “backpackers and thrill-seekers,” to use a former U.S. ambassador’s term, has gone mainstream.

That figure doesn’t include cruise passengers, who typically stop in Cartagena for just a day, spending on average about $110 each, according to the local tourism office. During the last peak cruise ship season running from October to April, the city saw an average of 25 cruise ships per month, up from just four per month in 2004. Each averages about 1,500 passengers.

Read the entire article about escalating tourism in Cartagena, Colombia here.

Visit us at www.discovercolombia.com for more information about Cartagena and other exciting destinations in Colombia!

Photos of Cartagena, Colombia

The Sierra Nevada del Cocuy in Colombia is a hikers dream. It comprises a total area of 306,000 hectares (756,000+ acres) and is located near the border of Venezuela shared by the departments of Boyaca, Casanare and Arauca. This remote corner of Colombia stretches for more than 18 miles and boasts 23 snow covered peaks surrounded by waterfalls, glacial lakes and streams, highland vegetation, moors, rocky outscapes and valleys as well as native fauna that includes such animals as the spectacled bear, tapirs, eagles, Andean Condors and deer. Colombia has 56 national parks in all, but the Sierra Nevada del Cocuy stands out as one of the most rugged and pristine destinations in the entire country, attracting more and more visitors each year as the word gets out about this premier travel destination.

There are many similarities to other great national parks including Yellowstone and Glacier National Park

The desolate territory of the Sierra Nevada del Cocuy is made up of a neotropical ecosystem known as a páramo. Most páramo is found in the upper parts of the northern Andes, roughly between 11° north and 4.5° south latitude. In fact, more than 57% of all páramo exists in Colombia with the largest in the world known as Sumapaz existing  just outside of Bogota. The highest peak is known as Ritacuba Blanco. It is 17,487 feet and is located in the eastern section of the park. Other mountain peaks in the park include Ritacuba Negro, Puntiagudo, Sirara, Cóncavo, San Pablines Norte, San Pablines Sur, Pan de Azúcar, Concavito, El Púlpito del Diablo, El Castillo, Picos sin nombre, Picacho, Diamante, Toti and Portales. The Sierra Nevada del Cocuy has the largest glacier coverage in Colombia and contains the largest snow-mass in South America north of Ecuador. This snow-mass makes up approximately 3% of the 756,000 acres.

How to get to the Sierra Nevada del Cocuy in Colombia

From Bogota, you will need to travel north on the Autopista Norte (North Highway) until you reach the town of Duitama located in the department of Boyacá 240 kilometers away. From there you will continue to travel north toward the towns of Santa Rosa de Viterbo, Cerinza, Belén, Susacón, and Soatá.

Christmas time in Medellin, Colombia is a time of celebration and holiday spirit as the city begins to light up with amazing decorations. Citizens decorate their yards, balconies and homes with festive decor as everybody prepares for the month of December and its various celebrations. Another big highlight every December is when the city turns on the Christmas lights that they have been busy preparing the entire month of November. This event traditionally begins on the night of December 7th of every year, but varies from time to time depending on the weather, etc. These Christmas lights adorn the entire city and are setup along major thoroughfares, roads, parks and especially along the Medellin River. The concentration of Christmas lights along the Medellin River is truly a sight to be seen as millions of dollars are spent every year creating unique themes that are different from the previous season’s theme. Families come out to visit the Medellin River area as it comes alive with thousands of people who revel in the fantastic array of colors and designs that make up the area. There are vendors selling everything from cotton candy, fast foods, beverages of every sort and flavor as well as street performers who come out to entertain the crowds that include tourists who flock to the city to see the sites and more than 500 different activities and 80 events that take place throughout the entire month.

More than two kilometers of the Medellin River is completely covered in explosive and sparkling colors that can average more than 15 million bulbs!

The public utility provider Empresas Publicas de Medellin or EPM for short is the sponsoring company each year that puts up the Christmas lights in Medellin. Their special website dedicated to Christmas lists all the various sponsored routes around town in which you can view the decorations as well as information about the special events that occur throughout the month. The site even has a countdown clock to Christmas day as well as videos and a gallery of photos from years past. The year 2007 marked the 40th anniversary of this special events and each year seems to become more dramatic that the year before.One thing is for certain is Medellin spares no expense when it come to filling the city with Christmas lights and festive events every year. If you have ever wanted to visit the City of Eternal Spring, the month of December is an excellent choice as tourists and visitors come from around the globe to witness the sights and sounds of Christmas in Medellin, Colombia.

Photos of Christmas Lights in Medellin, Colombia:

Avenida La Playa

Star Catcher

Paseo Carabobo

Cerro Nutibara

Cerro Nutibara

Jardin Botanico

Paseo Carabobo

Avenida Oriental

Medellin River

La Playa

Medellin River

Avenida San Juan

Parque Botero

Avenida Poblado

Cerro Nutibara

Cerro Nutibarra

Hay Festival, Colombia: Beauty and the books in Cartagena

Michael Kerr takes a literary tour of the magical Colombian city of Cartagena that inspired a Nobel Prize-winning writer and is staging next month’s ‘Telegraph’ Hay Festival.

From The Telegraph

By Michael Kerr

A private security guard of middle age and ample gut sat on a doorstep thumbing the buttons of his mobile phone. Hardly the most inspiring subject for my camera. But the frame around him was irresistible. The door against which he leant in his sky-blue shirt was an imposing studded structure in matt green. The architrave was of creamy honeycombed stone. Either side were peeling, pitted walls of a glorious ochre. Colombia’s Caribbean port of Cartagena makes a trans-formative backdrop.

It was this alluring setting that fueled the imaginative powers of Gabriel García Márquez. The Nobel Prize winner, who served his apprenticeship as a journalist in the Spanish-colonial city, has returned to it in both fact and fiction, building a house there, establishing a foundation to school reporters in the skills and ethics of their trade, and, most famously, drawing on it for magical-realist novels such as Love in the Time of Cholera.

Could there be a better venue for a Telegraph Hay Festival? Only if you’re a bibliophile who hates to see a book wilt. Thanks to humidity of around 80 per cent, my copy of García Márquez’s memoir, Living to Tell the Tale, began curling at the corners as soon as I flew in from the cool of Bogotá.

The locals were in a state of heated anticipation – not over the festival but over the Señorita Colombia contest. A British journalist who has lived for several years in the city told me that the contest (which has been running since 1934 with the declared aim of “integrating Colombia through the beauty of its women”) was “less of a big deal than it used to be”. What must it have been like before?

For days the papers were full of it: the parading through the streets of the girls, the awards for the contestant who cooked best and the one who was most punctual, the what-if-it’s-not-all-right-on-the-night worries of the television producer and, finally, the crowning of Catalina Robayo, of the department of Valle, as Señorita Colombia 2010/2011.

Read the entire article here about the annual Hay Festival in Cartagena.

Visit us at www.discovercolombia.com for more information regarding Cartagena and other exciting destination in Colombia!

Photos of Cartagena, Colombia

Slideshow: Spreading the bamboo gospel

A Colombian architect is uprooting notions of what we can do with bamboo.

By Nadja Drost – GlobalPost
Published: December 6, 2010

SAN ALBERTO, Colombia — Colombian architect Simon Velez is changing notions about what bamboo can do.

Velez has used bamboo to build massive domes, cathedrals and long-span bridges that soar across highways.

His stunning designs and his pioneering use of bamboo make him a one-of-a-kind architect who has won awards around the world. But his constructions are also drawing attention because they’re providing a more environmentally sustainable way of building.

Read entire article about Colombia and building with native bamboo here.

Visit us at www.discovercolombia.com for more information about Colombia and its steady rise as a tourism destination and global export leader in South America.

In Search of the Lost Frog of Colombia

From The Telegraph

By Lucy Cooke

I am looking for a lost frog. The Mesopotamian beaked toad, to be precise, which has been missing for almost 100 years. The last person to see it, an American biologist, Gladwin Noble, was also the man who discovered it. I wonder whether the fact that it has been mislaid for so long has anything to do with the misleading name he gave it, which suggests we should be looking under rocks in Turkey instead of scrabbling through leaf litter, as we are, in the Colombia jungle.

The reality is that this toad is just one of thousands of amphibians vanishing off the face of the planet. These cold-blooded creatures are in the grip of the worst extinction crisis since the dinosaurs were wiped out, with more than a third of all species now fighting for survival. In many cases they are disappearing rapidly, largely because of the holy trinity of environmental bogeymen: climate change, pollution and habitat loss – and also a killer fungus that attacks their skin, preventing it from absorbing essential salts and causing cardiac arrest.

My quest begins in Medellín, Colombia‘s second largest city, where I join a team of four leading international herpetologists who have been dispatched here to track down the elusive beaked toad as part of the charity Conservation International’s global search for lost frogs. Over the next few months there will be expeditions in 18 countries across Latin America, Africa and Asia to track down 100 amphibians believed to be missing in action. Many are evolutionary oddities, distinct in their class, such as the gastric brooding frog of Australia, which incubates its young in its stomach. Their loss is significant, not only to nature but also to science. The hope is that this campaign will uncover secret populations still clinging on in pockets of wilderness that can then be conserved.

‘Colombia is frog central,’ the expedition leader, Dr Robin Moore, says. ‘With nearly 800 recorded species, it almost certainly has the highest diversity. Brazil officially has a few more, but it’s seven times the size of Colombia and more thoroughly surveyed. The exciting thing about this country is that so much of it has yet to be explored.’

Read the entire article about Colombia’s lost frogs here.

For more information about Colombia, visit us at www.discovercolombia.com.

Medellin, Colombia, from drug violence to tourist destination

From the Washington Post

By Nancy Trejos
Washington Post Staff Writer

At 7 p.m. on a Friday, the patio of Basilica, a Peruvian-Asian restaurant on one of the most prized street corners in Medellin, Colombia, is bustling. Young men in polo shirts and blue jeans are passing around a bottle of rum at the bar, and women in miniskirts and stilettos are being seated at tables marked “Reserved.” Sushi chefs are busily making California rolls against a fake waterfall backdrop, their movements almost in sync with the Lady Gaga and Madonna tunes reverberating all around.

As the night wears on, the party spills out onto the sidewalk and into the street, which is closed off by police barricades. Young boys accost the revelers, hawking everything from chewing gum to bracelets. (“Una fresa para la princesa?” asks one, offering me strawberry-flavored Trident. “A strawberry for the princess?”) A bar outside the restaurant Barcelona is selling “political shots,” including the Hugo Chavez, an arguably toxic mix of vodka, creme de cafe, tequila and soda.

At the Parque Lleras, the park in the square, partyers drink Club Colombia beer as vendors entice them with empanadas and other street food. But there’s no need for BYOB, because the many open-air bars surrounding the park are literally giving the drinks away. When my friend Daphne and I order two caipirinhas at Barcelona, the waiter insists that we take advantage of the three-for-one drink special.

Daphne and I observe the mayhem from the patio, comforted by the presence of police officers on several blocks.

Not long ago the mayhem on Medellin‘s streets was controlled by notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar. In the 1980s and ’90s, Medellin was the largest cocaine producer in the world, and Escobar guarded his empire so ferociously that the city became one of the most dangerous in Latin America.

Read the entire article about Medellin, Colombia here.

For more information regarding Medellin and other exciting Colombia destinations, visit us at www.discovercolombia.com.

Photos of Medellin, Colombia

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