My Year in Colombia in 100 Photos

I have discovered it's really helpful for me (and quite fun too) to go through my photos in any particular year and choose a sort of 'best of' - the photos that, for me, capture the moments, places and people that made that experience what it was. My time in Colombia has been truly unforgettable, so I wanted to commemorate it with this collection - obviously, not absolutely everything is on there, but I've tried to show the essence of life on the Colombo-Caribbean coast, and also the great variety of cultures and climates that this great country has to offer. As the motto of Colombia Tourism goes, 'el riesgo es que te quieras quedar' - the risk is that you'll want to stay.

1. Arrival at Bogotá - grey skies welcome me to the Colombian capital.

T.I.C. (This Is Colombia)

View from Monserrate, Bogotá

Barely a week has passed since I arrived in this country and it's been a crazy mix of new experiences, words and faces. Having made it on the 11-hour flight from London to Bogotá, I was very glad to be met at the airport by a group of similarly tired English people also waiting to be picked up. We were promptly whisked away to a hotel in the middle of the city, to be greeted with 4-star service, and - more importantly - some beds to crash out on for a couple of hours and regain our strength. When we eventually surfaced, we headed out to see what Colombia's capital city had to offer - and at a height of 3,152m above sea level, Monserrate mountain definitely delivered! From the top, the sprawling mass of the city stretches as far as the eye can see, giving a stunning impression of what it must be like to live in this huge metropolis, and leaving you, quite literally, breathless (altitude is a strange phenomenon).