During our six weeks of traveling around Colombia in the build up to Christmas we’ve noticed that lights and decorations are an important part of the Christmas celebrations. Not only in public areas but also on family houses; we saw whole streets illuminated with the most elaborate forms of fairy lights. The city of Medellin wins the award for the most amount of lights: the Barrio’s on the hillsides of the city are considered to be the poorest neighbourhoods, however competition is fierce when it comes to Christmas lights. We made a trip on the cities metro cable car system that gives a spectacular birds eye view of the dazzling barrio’s; right up to Santa Domingo there was not one roof of wall space that didn’t have some sort fairy light adorning it.
On the coast, the city of Santa Marta wins the award for best public area displays: sitting on the Caribbean sea there was a definite nautical theme with Santa Claus riding in on a boat!
The following photo blog captures the essence of Christmas in Colombia from Santa Marta to Popayan.
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I love the cute Christmas lights in the middle with the palm trees and cacti. Very nice!
The Colombians sure love their Christmas lights and decorations, we were surprised to see so many.