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One thing that i would like to point out is accessibility. In Chile for exemple, going from the the arid north to Patagonia isn't much of a hassle because it has pretty good infrastructure. Peru is gorgeous but it is a nightmare to get around( other than areas like Cuzco and Machu Picchu). What about Colombia? I've only been there on business so i didn't get to explore much.
Accessibility is easy because many of the cities are already in the Andes. In the Nevados national park you can practically drive upto the snow line. Two budget airlines serve Colombia domestically, the European giant RyanAir and Wingo by Copa so you can fly city to city for $25 bucks if booked in advance.
As the cities are in the Andes flying is the best option because there are 3 Andean mountain ranges which means getting from city to city means you have to drive down to near sea level then back up to 3,000 metres then back down again and depending on what city you need to go to you may need to repeat it...the scenery is great though because you're in the thick of it and in every city you're always surrounded and reminded you're in the middle of nature.
There is only one other Native American people aside from the Mapuche in Chile that militarily resisted the Spanish successfully and managed to get a freedom concession agreement from the king. Those people are known as the Wayuu and they live in the Guajira desert washed by the Caribbean sea. The Guajira is also home to a prominent Muslim population that arrived initially in the late 1800's. The capital of the state was founded by Germans and Vallenato music and the accordion introduced by the Germans is now an icon of the region.
FYI: Vallenato music has a parallel relationship with Dominican Bachata and French Caribbean Chouval-Bwa especially as many popular Vallenato songs inspired the hits of early popular Bachata songs in the Dominican Republic.
Last edited by Pueblofuerte; 06-02-2017 at 06:49 PM..
The variety from Savannah to the high Andean plateau to the desert is wide and diverging. I'm yet to touch on the African components which in and of itself are different from each other. There are 3 distinct African based cultures in Colombia each one extensively different from the other. The Andes too has 5 distinct cultures, the Cundi-Boyacense Plateau is just one of them. The Amazonian culture is smaller than the others but significant. Each one can be said to have parallels with cultures across the continent & beyond.
For me what sets Colombia apart is the strong sense of place created by vastly differing environments, for example; Chile may have a desert, Brazil may have a desert but neither have a people from the desert for thousands of years like the Wayuu or the Arabs that chose to live in and around the desert just as they did in their native countries in the Middle East.
Last edited by Pueblofuerte; 06-03-2017 at 06:04 AM..
Colombia seems to be all of Latin America wrapped up into one. There is a bit of everything there.
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