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Colours of Colombia: Capture the Colour Photo Contest

Among the travel blogger sphere, there's been a lot of buzz about Capture the Colour contest started by TravelSupermarket. I was recently tagged to participate in the contest by my friend and talented photographer Andi of My Beautiful Adventures. The contest winner gets £2000, which would make for heaps of pesos...

As I am currently travelling in Colombia, which is one of the most colourful and photographically inspiring countries I've ever seen, I'm only posting photos from Colombia.

Let me know which colour you enjoy the most in a comment below.

BLUE

Silvia, Colombia

We took a near 2-hour bus journey to arrive at this market, and right as we pulled up we realized it was going to be a blue day. With all the locals dressed in bright traditional Colombian blue, we got our cameras out and were ready to take photos the magic before us. We quickly realized it was going to be a challenge, as a few of the people turned away from the camera or said no when we asked if we could take a photo. Disappointed, with our hearts beaming with amazement and joy for the sights before us, one woman smiled and waved us over to her corner. She then pulled out a beaded necklace and chatted away with my friend in Spanish as I snuck a few photos. She then offered for us to take more photos, and cracked a huge laugh at seeing herself on the camera. It was a lovely start to our morning in the market.

GREEN

Salento, Colombia

The green hills and quiet winds of Salento soothed my soul upon arrival, and my heart smiled when I saw a guitar free for the playing in the hostel common area. I grabbed it, and found a spot overlooking the hills to strum and relax. After a few chords and lines, this cow walked up out of nowhere and stared right at me. I wondered if it was listening to my songs, or if it cared at all that I was there. We shared the view of the hills and a song or two together that afternoon.

YELLOW

Cartagena, Colombia

My first stop in Colombia was Cartagena, and I couldn't have started in a more colourful city. Everywhere we walked, the crumbling vivid walls begged to be photographed. This scene above is at the entrance of the old town in Cartagena, and we walked past this magazine stand every morning. The man greeted us with an "hola chicas" and a smile, and this bright photo reminds me of the friendliness of strangers all over Colombia.

WHITE

Salento, Colombia

Salento is in the middle of Colombia, and is one of the most famous coffee-growing regions in all of Colombia. After a few days riding horses and hiking the nearby mountains, we thought a coffee farm tour was in order. Luckily, we found a sweet local guide at the Don Elias coffee farm who took us around the grounds of his family business. You can read in more detail about the coffee tour in my blogpost here. In the photo above, the organic beans are in the drying stage of the coffee-making process. They are a gorgeous white when they come out of the red beans, and turn to the familiar black colour we know and love after they are roasted.

RED

Salento, Colombia

After an hour of intense horseback riding - the kind where you feel like Indiana Jones as your horse trots through wandering rivers and takes you down steep hills on rolling stones - you begin to feel at one with nature. Now add a cloud of beautiful butterflies to the mix. Now you feel like Indiana Jones at a party with real-life confetti being thrown at you as you wade through the water and make it to the other side. That's how we felt that day, and I was lucky enough to catch a close glimpse of just one of the hundreds of butterflies who scurried around us as we trotted by.

The memories preserved in these photos are moments in time from a journey I'm still on. I look back at each one and remember a time and a place when I was welcomed in this beautiful country.

I hope to keep capturing colours and moments like these for the rest of my travels.

Thank you to Travelsupermarket for creating this contest, and for giving all of us travel bloggers a challenging way to showcase our photos.

My 3 Favourite Travel Moments - The Blogger Relay!

Thank you to Stephen of Bohemian Traveler for passing on the proverbial blogging relay baton to me. I now join the Green Team train of travel bloggers, led by the folks at Overyonderlust.

Our task is to choose our three favourite travel memories and tag another travel blogger when we're done. The team with the longest running chain of bloggers will win a small prize from the Lowcost Travel blog, as well as major travel blog gloating status.

It is always a challenge to narrow down and pick favourites, but after a while looking back on travels, I realize the moments below are some of my happiest, craziest, and simply best moments on the road.

Enjoy!

1 - Finding the diamond at Schwedagon Paya, Burma

Walking up to Schwedagon Paya is the closest I've ever felt to heaven. In a land of curious smiles and cawing roosters, the paya glows bright like the sun. Once up close to the pagoda, I lost myself in the magnificence of it all. When a guard approached me and gestured to see my ticket, I was so in my own world of gratitude I couldn't even find mine. Worried I would be kicked out, I apologized frantically. Clearly not a problem, he pulled out a ticket from his pocket and pointed to the writing on the back of it. In English, I read to myself an explanation of the diamond-encrusted top of the pagoda. Squinting to the top, I couldn't see a diamond from a reflection of the sun, and the guard could see my struggle. He pointed to a particular spot on the tiled ground, stood on that spot, and then pointed up to the top. Following him, I stood in that precise spot, and I saw the sparkle of a blue diamond come into view. I'll never forget that kind guard, or the way that diamond sparkled all the way from the top of the pagoda.

2 - Having my ear ripped off by an elephant, Thailand

In keeping with the theme of Shaun's pink dolphin bite, I present to you my second travel memory:

When you're at an elephant sanctuary in Chiang Mai, it's very easy to feel like fast friends with the elephants. Within minutes of arriving we were feeding the elephants sugar cane right into their mouths with our bare hands. In hindsight, it's obvious that I thought I had a little more of a bond with the elephants than they felt toward me. After an elephant reached out its trunk to check me out, I ended up on the ground with dirt and mud all over me, and a severed ear. Three countries and two rounds of stitches later, I still have my ear, and one helluva story for the grandkids.

To read the whole crazy story, you can read the blog post.

3 - Feeding pigeons in Piazza San Marco, Italy

I love pigeons. People say they are dirty and diseased, but I find them charming. For a traveler, the sight of pigeons is familiar, and it can feel like a tiny taste of home when you're feeling miles away. Pigeons also don't discriminate between a rubbish bin or the statue of a saint - they will go anywhere. So when I was in Venice, and a man offered me a bag of birdseed for a Euro, I happily paid him. The pigeons flocked to me in a dusty, feathery flurry, and I maintain it was the best Euro I spent in all of Italy.

And there you have it, another successful post of travel memories for the Green Team!

Team Green: As jam packed with surprise and zest as the green limes of Colombia!

I now tag my travel partner in crime ThisBatteredSuitcase to share her top three travel stories. I'm sure she'll give the Green Team something to be proud of.

Let the relay continue with every memory!