The survey is not yet officially published, but some results were spilled already to the media. It was the result of the Cultural Biennial Survey 2009, the fifth one during the government of Samuel Moreno Rojas. 13,019 persons older than 13 years old were consulted in 19 districts of the 10 million inhabitants capital. The survey that was realized during 2009, asked for culture, politics, democracy, art, consume, patrimony, free time, sport and recreation. According to the Secretary of Culture and Education of Bogotá, the survey is a tool for the governance of the city.

The Bogotans are a big group of people coming from different regions of Colombia and even foreign migrants. The 50.58 percent of Bogotans were born in the city, according to the survey, but the 66.6 of them were children of parents who came to the city from other regions.

Bogotá is divided in 20 localities, 19 of them are urban. The 58 percent of inhabitants use the Internet, though most of them belong to younger generations, as it is happening around the globe so far. The 88.95 percent of Internet users are between 13 and 17 years old, while Bogotans older than 50 years old reach the 23.43 percent.

As for political views, the 35.74 percent of Bogotans say that they do not have political party, the 33.66 percent say they stay in the center, the 8.54 percent manifested to be of left and 22.07 percent of right wing.

Surely, you will not find the Chinese town or the Little India in Bogotá… not yet! But it is a city where you can find a wide offering of international restaurants, hotels at the highest international standards and a busy nightlife to enjoy. Plus, its universities have foreign students.

The enrichment of a human variety in the second largest capital of South America, is producing a population with different faces, from Bogotans with ancestors in other regions of Colombia, to persons who are children of other South American migrants and even North Americans and Europeans. Just come to see it yourself.

According with Cabal, the Administrative Department of Security of Colombia (DAS), the entity that coordinates the entries of foreign visitors, reported the increase in the number of foreign visitors to the country.

The 36 percent of foreign tourists came from United States and Venezuela, according to DAS. Foreigners enter Colombia by airports, sea ports and roads.

In contrast, the global financial crisis reduced the number of visitors around the world. It is sure that the position of Colombia – four hours by plane from Miami and ports in the Caribbean and Pacific Ocean – made Colombia a cheaper destiny for American and Latin American travelers.

According with Jaime Alberto Cabal, Colombia has increased the construction of hotels and the international image of the country on the press is most better. He said that in 2009, the hotel sector will receive 700 million of dollars in investment, much more than what it got in 2007 (550 million dollars).

The construction of new sites for tourism like thematic parks, new centers and beautifying of the cities, played an important factor in the attraction of foreign visitors.

Alberto López Valderrama, president of Corferias, reported to Dinero that the hotel sector grew in Bogotá 14.8%, Antioquia 9,1%, Bolívar 8,5%, and Valle 8,3%, among other regions.

It was exposed also the problem of the pirate hotels (tax evaders) that evade annually about 300 thousand million of pesos.

The most visited Colombian regions during the first semester of 2009 were San Andrés Islands, 70,2%; Norte de Santander, 60,4%, the Coffee Axes, 45% and Bogotá, 59,9%.

Venezuelans were very attracted by Colombia during the last six months not only by the tourist plans, but also the possibility of business and investment in the country.

By other part, 183 tourist cruises visited the historical city of Cartagena de Indias like the Dawn Princesa with 2,100 passengers.

But is it true that Colombia is a safe place to plan your next summer? At least it is what is said for well known tourist guides and agencies in the last years. But in this time Colombia has been placed as a luxury destination by the Luxury Latin American tourist website from US that focused on upscale travel in the Americas and reviews the best hotels in the region.

Recently the LLA (www.luxurylatinamerica.com/) has made a review of the best Colombian hotels according to international standards and has recommend the country as a luxury and safe destination, especially to cities like Cartagena de Indias and Santa Marta in the northern Caribbean coastline and the Andean capital, Bogotá.

Timothy Scott, editor of the online publication of the site, answered to the always worrying question if is it safe to visit a nation that overwhelms the news with violence and political conflicts:

“Old perceptions die hard, but Colombia tourism has been rising at a double-digit percentage pace for several years now as the safety situation and infrastructure have both improved. Reader e-mails and site searches have both made it clear that interest in Colombia travel is rising rapidly as intrepid travelers try to stay ahead of the mass tourism crowds.”

Colombia is anymore for just tourist packers and adventurers or for business people who visit the country only for seminars and investment, it is already for luxury travelers that will find all the infrastructure and attention of any well reputed world area.

In a country with a huge territory like Colombia – the side of Portugal, Spain and France combined, it is possible to find whatever, from exotic and tropical beaches to snowed mountains, and from the rich fauna and flora of its jungles to modern cities like Bogotá, Medellín and Cali. The country has agencies that offer tours to all those places having account of all measures of security and avoiding the non-going areas, suggested the US travel website.

The same site has created its own section to review the top hotels in the country, especially the ones of the capital and the Caribbean coasts. Among them, Playa Koralia Eco lodge near Santa Marta, artistic boutique hotel La Pasion in Cartagena de Indias, and historic landmark Hotel La Opera in Bogotá.

Santa Marta, one of the oldest cities of the Americas, the place where Libertador Simon Bolívar died in 1830, has the most beautiful beaches of the continent and it is at only 25 miles of the summits of Santa Marta Snowed Mountain, the world highest mountain so near to the sea. Cartagena de Indias by its part has the biggest Spaniard fortress of the 17th century in the Americas and has been appreciated as one of the most beautiful cities of South America. Bogotá, the capital of Colombia, is a huge and modern metropolis on the top of the Andean ranges.

The Chicamocha Aerial Tramway. Photo Chicamocha National Park

Now it is possible to contemplate the fascinating views of the Chicamocha canyon, the second largest of the world, in a modern aerial tramway. Near Bucaramanga, the canyon was declared natural park in 2006 and soon attracted national and foreign visitors to see one of the most famous geographical accidents of the Colombian Andes. Yesterday president Uribe inaugurated the aerial tramway.

The tree stations are located in Mesa de los Santos, Chicamocha river and the National Park of Chicamocha. The aerial tramway spends 22 minutes.

The canyon is made by the fragments of a rocky mountain divided by the meeting of two rivers, Fonce and Suárez. Geologically, it is made by the detachment of tectonic faults.

The geological accident is located among the region of Mesa de los Santos until the city of Bucaramanga.

In December 2006 was opened the National Park along the canyon. As it is near to Bucaramanga, one of the largest Colombian cities, it has a high number of visitors. The park includes the municipality of Bucaramanga, capital of the State of Santander and the city of San Gil. The park has an extension of 264 hectares.

Visitors can not see only the spectacular views of a deep canyon, but it became a tourist spot with traditional towns, spaces for cultural performances and viewpoints. Sport is also frequent in the region with activities like cycling, camping, walking, horses, fishing, paragliding and many other in a place where nature, space and security are everywhere.

The aerial tramway of the Chicamocha National Park is already an attraction: it has an extension of 6,2 kilometers (4.5 miles) of extension. It has 39 cabins and it can transport 500 passengers in an hour with a velocity of six meters per second.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIKBH1zTBnE&hl=en&fs=1]

Medellín | BID – ColPass. The governor of the State of Antioquia, Luis Alfredo Ramos, said that the progress of the region in economics and society, has been possible to the commitment of its people in sectors like textile industry, mine, coffee, flowers, bananas, energy and huge works of infrastructure like the urban train (Metro de Medellín.)

These and many others, were the main reasons to make Medellín the official headquarters of the 38th General Assembly of the Inter-American Development Bank for March 2009. That would be also the time of the 50th Anniversary of that organization that has been involved in projects of development in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The IDB (or BID in Spanish), was founded in 1959 to support programs of development in Latin America, especially in what concerns economy and social development. It has two kinds of country members: 26 borrowing countries and 21 non-borrowing countries. United States, for example, is the biggest non-borrowing partner with a share of 30 percent, while the 50% is hold by the borrowing countries of Latin America and Caribbean. The most recent non-borrowing country is China, which participation has been very well appreciated.

The current president of the IDB is a Colombian diplomat, Luis Alberto Moreno.

Last December, president Álvaro Uribe announced in the Pabellón Blanco de Plaza Mayor in Medellín, that the city was selected to be the place of the General Assembly of IDB. In the ceremony, that was hold on 16th of December, Luis Alberto Moreno said that the city was an example of development, renaissance and optimism. President Uribe underlined then, that Colombia became a solid destiny for investment due to its improvement in security and social cohesion.

The Colombian economy has been considered as one of the ten best prepared economies to face the global recession, said Uribe in December.

On 27th of March, the second largest urban center of Colombia will open the gates to the members of the General Assembly of Governors of the IDB. It will attract also foreign and national visitors that will have the opportunity to see the changes in Medellín.

The urban renovation and the social impact of new spaces, will be the main context of the international summit. Elements like the construction of new public spaces, parks, libraries and educational centers, will be shown with proud by the city. Spaces that became the opportunity for the local population to access knowledge, culture and recreation to benefit the investment in development for the region.

Parque Explora, for example, is a huge park of 25 thousand meters square dedicated to science and technology. It is located at the north of the city, near the complex of two important universities: University of Antioquia and National University of Colombia. Parque Explora is also at the front of the Botanical Garden. The thematic park became a center of gathering for students of any age and teachers, to see science and technology in a way of amusement.

Plaza Botero is a huge space in Medellín downtown that exhibits the works of sculptor Fernando Botero. It is a real museum in an open area. The huge sculptures of the famous Colombian artists, stand on the Carabobo boulevard and near the traditional Berrío Square. Botero, who was born in Medellín in 1932, donated the works to his city.

The Botanical Garden was awarded with the National Prize of Architecture for its originality and beauty. It has been praised by many foreign critics as a model for greenhouses. It is a green 14 hectares wood in the middle of the city with numberless species of palms, trees, orchids and other plants. The garden has not walls to separate it from the rest of the city and, at the same time, it has a good security that makes the place an ideal space of relax, reading, walking and admiring nature.

Plaza Mayor has become the name of the international congresses for Medellín. It will be the plaza of the Assembly of Governors of IDB 2009. Plaza Mayor belongs to the complex of the Center for Conventions and Expositions of Medellín and it is considered one of the most modern ones of South America. It is located no far of the government headquarters of the State of Antioquia, La Alpujarra.

Plaza Mayor and La Alpujarra, the international heart of the city, are at the center of the main Medellín avenues and transport nets like Metro de Medellín, near also to tourists spots and the most prestigious hotels.

But Medellín is not the only place to see. It is the main urban center of a vast region with several places to discover. The city is the center of the so called Medellín Metropolitan Area, a region inside the Aburrá Valley, made by ten municipalities, from traditional towns like Caldas or Sabaneta to more modern districts like Envigado or Bello.

In Medellín it is possible to discover the wonders of the Colombian Andes: to visit a warm town like Santa Fe de Antioquia at the side of the Cauca River, two hours by car to the west of the city or to visit the east with a higher altitude in Rionegro town.

Traditional Andean towns rich in ecology, where it is possible to discover the identity of the Paisa, the Colombian sub-culture of the coffee regions that live in the states of Antioquia, Caldas, Risaralda and Quindío, plus some towns of Valle del Cauca and Tolima. The Paisas have a well won fame of hard workers, committed and creative. They are very proud of their land and progress and they are famous also for their natural welcoming.

That will be the Medellín that prepares herself to receive this international event in its soils. We are going to follow it with attention.

By Vicente Arcieri and Juan Carlos Díaz / Correspondents of  EL TIEMPO – Cartagena, published in Portaforlio.com.co / Translation by Albeiro Rodas, Colombia Passport

Colombian and foreigners tourists walk by its streets, fill its beaches and spend everywhere.

The turbulence of the economical recession still not touch the coasts of Cartagena, where a wave of tourists enjoy the city at ease. Even it seems that the activity did not to stop after the holidays.

Mónica Fadul, president of Fenalco in the State of Bolívar, believes that this time will be remembered as one of the best. Her colleague of the Tourist Corporation of Cartagena de Indias, María de los Ángeles Barraza, attributes the success to the devaluation of the Peso (the Colombian currency.)

She says that it attracted many families that preferred not to make plans in Miami or Panama, as it happened when the currency change was between 1.600 and 1.800 pesos per dollar. According to her, it has happened also due to the variety of events, as the Festival of Music and art crafts.

Record numbers

The quantity of tourists is so high that those who rent apartments have gained a big profit, a particularity that makes the owners of hotels worry.

These days, dozens of visitors walk through the historical city, strolling in carriages, buying and attesting restaurants and beaches.

In the pier of La Bodeguita, where the boats leave to the Rosario islands and Barú, it is said that 54 thousand persons passed between 15th December and 7th January, a record number.

The numbers given by the Airport Society of Cartagena show that in December arrived to the city 56,783 national passengers by air that means 3.4 % more than what it was in December 2007.

The arriving of foreigners was also big. In December arrived 11,388, more than in the same month of 2007 with 8,817. The arriving of visitors by land to the city increased also with the arriving of 332,359 passengers.

In 2007 the total of visitors were 267,407. Therefore, the Corporation of Tourism concluded that the numbers increased 10% in January.

So far, the view of the city is of tourists that enjoy at ease and expend without remember that this will be the year of the lean.

But the Festival did not involve only the Caribbean city. Along with the program in Cartagena, there are some concerts in Bogotá, Cali and Medellín. The Municipal Theater of Cali  and the Metropolitan Theater of Medellín in January 13t and the Luis Angel Arango Library of Bogotá in January 16th.

It is the third version of the Festival of Classic Music of Cartagena, organized by the Salvi Foundation that brought this year figures like director Charles Wadsworth, the same director of the Spoleto Festival in Charleston-South Carolina. The other American is Stephen Prutsman, another pianist.

The Chilean Andrés Díaz, cellist; the Taiwanese Hsin-Yun Huang in viola; the guitarist trio Variation; the American violinist Livia Sohn and the Spaniard clarinetist José Franch Ballester.

The Heredia Theater, an old classic building inside the historical town of Cartagena de Indias, is the seat for the most important concerts of the Festival. Near Heredia, between the colonial streets of the 17th century, Santa Clara and Santa Teresa have ancient chapels of what were convents and today luxury hotels for the international concerts. The San Pedro Plaza and different popular barrios of the city, will welcome also some of the programs.

Last year the Festival got 20 thousand spectators who came to listen the melodies of the world in the historical city of Cartagena de Indias. But most interesting that the presence of classic musicians from different nations in the Colombian city, is the impression of their musicians about the Colombian public. In the 2008 Festival the Korean violinist Chee-Yun said: “The people is so cool, so wonderful… They stand for hours waiting our performances! It is difficult to find a public like this” (ref. Calilandia, primer festival de música clásica.)

Another great photographer in love with Colombia, Gregg Bleakney in his blog. Here the presentation:

Colombia Photo Gallery

From January through March 2008, I traveled over 4,000 kilometers by car, bicycle and boat through Colombia–from coffee to coastline, the Andes to the Amazon. My mission was simple: to photographically document the country in its current state and to determine whether it is ready for western tourism. What I discovered shattered my expectations. This is a gallery of 40 of the 4,000 photos I took. The gallery will continue grow as I sift through my shots.

On my third day in Bogota, I was robbed of all of my professional camera equipment. This rattled my sense of security for the assignment. Why was I here again? Eventually, I had to surrender my trust to my Colombian friends–and set out to photograph their country with a simple digital pocket camera (which I had no idea how to use).

While there is no denying that Colombia has its share of social problems, the real story today, in 2008, is that Colombia is an emerging country, with a growing economy, and is on the verge of an epic cultural renaissance.

During the past decade, the government has used US-backed military force to secure almost all of the country’s cities, villages and road networks, pushing the FARC, ELN and other Guerrilla organizations into the jungles and up against the bordering countries of Venezuala, Brasil, and Ecuador. Colombian people are eager to change their country’s global reputation of cocaine traffickers, leftists guerrillas, poverty and violence.

In rural towns and big cities alike, discotecas pump hip-shakingly vibrant tunes. In Medellin, people walk barefoot in modern city parks that showcase Latin-theater on open-air screens. All across the country, plazas are packed with weekend strollers, sampling fresh fruits, enjoying family time, people watching, or simply making up for lost time as they enjoy their newly found security blanket. All of this is happening while waves of tourists, mostly from Europe, plop down into the Colonial Caribbean city of Cartagena and then explore further afield to see what the fuss is all about.

Medellín goes from murder capital to model city

Five years ago the hillside slum of Comuna 13 was the most brutal urban battleground in Latin America, a bloody microcosm of Colombia’s drug-fueled civil war. Left-wing guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries and well-armed drug gangs, often indistinguishable despite their ostensibly conflicting aims, had been fighting over the territory for years. Government, for most purposes, did not exist. In 2002, the casualty count for Comuna 13—in chaotic street fights, targeted assassinations and neighborhood-wide “cleansings”—numbered in the hundreds.

Today Comuna 13 feels like a completely different neighborhood. Its streets are relatively safe. School construction and public-transportation projects are now underway. But it is only the most dramatic example of the remarkable transformation of Medell?n, a city that struggled for decades to shed a notoriety, well earned in the days of Pablo Escobar and the Medellín drug cartel, as “the most dangerous in the world.” In 1991, the annual murder rate was 381 per 100,000 people—more than 500 homicides a month. In 2002, it was 184 per 100,000. Last year, it fell below 30, making Washington, D.C., look bad in comparison.

Medellín is Colombia’s second largest city and traditional business center, and as security improved, the economy also flourished. Since 2003, per capita income has increased by 25 percent, unemployment has fallen from 17 percent to 12 percent, and business investment and new construction have surged. At the same time, the percentage of the city’s schools considered low-performing by national standards fell from 50 to 14. Complaints about congestion and pollution are typically met with the observation that residents have gone from discussing the daily body count to grumbling about their commute.

Medellín’s transformation took off in 2002, when Alvaro Uribe took over as Colombia’s president, promising a “firm hand,” get-tough approach to security. He began a process of demobilization of right-wing paramilitary organizations, and confronted the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and other guerrilla groups. In Medellín, soldiers and police stormed Comuna 13 in helicopters and armored vehicles, fighting and winning a series of pitched battles against various armed factions. But while this reduced the guerrilla presence, there was still an enormous amount work to be done, and a year later Sergio Fajardo, a shaggy-haired mathematician with a University of Wisconsin Ph.D., was elected mayor of Medell?n with a platform that suggested military victory was merely the first step to turning the city around. “Every reduction in violence,” he says, “we had to follow immediately—and ‘immediately’ is a key word—with social interventions.”

So when he took office, Fajardo did not just install new police outposts in Comuna 13. He built deluxe new schools, flooded the neighborhood with social workers and microcredit specialists, and commissioned a prominent architect to design a gleaming library and community center. He started construction on a mass-transit system of gondola cars that reach into Medellín’s most dire slums—giving the poor access to the economic and civic life of the city’s more prosperous center. Fajardo also increased the city’s education budget by 65 percent and poured millions more into new schools and five “library parks,” like the one in Comuna 13, designed by high-end architects and located in poor neighborhoods. “The mayor understood that you don’t get peace from soldiers and police alone,” says Carlos Jiménez, a Comuna 13 development worker.

Some critics say that Fajardo’s approach is mere symbolism, showy grandstanding that does little to help the city’s poorest. But Fajardo counters that these symbols are among his most potent weapons. “When the poorest kid in Medell?n arrives in the best classroom in the city, there is a powerful message of social inclusion,” he says. This iconoclastic approach to urban transformation mirrors his willfully iconoclastic persona. Fajardo carries a backpack, rides a bike around town and shows up to work every morning in jeans. And while he uses the majority of public revenue on the poor, he does so without scaring businesses with the kind of radical populist rhetoric that so often emerges from the mouths of Latin American political leaders. “By showing that he is capable, he has brought credibility to the public sector,” says Olga María Ospina, an economist with Medellín’s business association. Result: his approval rating has remained around 80 percent, fueling speculation that he will one day succeed Uribe, who was mayor of Medell?n in the 1980s, as Colombia’s president in 2010.

Fajardo remains publicly coy about his presidential ambitions. Yet he is clearly angling for the job. His term expires at the end of the year, and while his former chief of staff will become mayor and continue Fajardo’s reforms, Fajardo himself plans to travel across Colombia, mimicking the door-to-door strategy that he used to build a political career out of nothing in Medell?n—and trumpeting the power of his model. “Medell?n has been the most complicated and the most violent city in Colombia,” he says, “so if we can do it here, it can happen throughout Colombia.”

But doing so will mean reining in a fractious nation. Uribe’s approach displaced guerrilla groups but did not eradicate them. The drug trade still thrives nationwide. The country is also struggling to cope with the aftermath of Uribe’s demobilization of paramilitary factions. They had a hand in defeating the guerrillas, but they allegedly did so in coordination with military and police officials and government figures. In Medellín, Fajardo used city resources to build one program to reintegrate former paramilitary fighters into society and another devoted to working with victims. These measures are now being replicated in other cities, giving credence to Fajardo’s insight that a “firm hand” is only the first step to healing Colombia.

© 2007 Newsweek, Inc.