Join National Geographic photographer and Colombia expert Christopher P. Baker on a one-of-a-kind photo tour of Colombia… including the spectacular Barranquilla carnival! 

CHRISTOPHER P. BAKER
Renowned travel journalist, National Geographic photographer, and Colombia expert Christopher P. Baker–the Lowell Thomas Award 2008 ‘Travel Journalist of the Year’–authored and photographed the National Geographic Traveler Colombia guidebook and has written self-illustrated articles about Colombia for publications as diverse as BBC, Caribbean  Travel & Life, National Geographic Traveler and Vacations. He spent five months in Colombia on assignment for National Geographic, and has led photo tours for Jim Cline Photo Tours, Lumaria Workhops, National Geographic Expeditions, and Santa Fe Photo Workshops.

TOUR DATES:
TBD 2023 
PRICE:
TBD
ITINERARY (SUBJECT TO CHANGE):

Day 1 – ARRIVE CARTAGENA
Arrive Cartagena, memorably portrayed by Gabriel García Márquez as a place of “amethyst afternoons and nights of antic breezes.” Meet Christopher this evening for a welcome reception and dinner together at El Santísimo, one of the city’s best restaurants.
Overnight: HOTEL BOVEDA

Day 2 – CARTAGENA
We’ take a leisurely walking tour of the historic walled city, pointing our cameras at the stunning architecture and down narrow meandering colonial streets teeming with a colorful street life that informed Gabo’s novels Of Love and Other Demons and Love in the Time of Cholera (based on the love affair of his parents). The afternoon is free for exploring at leisure (and/or a siesta) before our late afternoon private photo shoot with palenqueras–Cartagena’s quintessential Afro-Caribbean fruit-basket women dressed in traditional rainbow-hued costumes like Carmen Miranda. We’ll dine at the women’s prison, where inmates have created one of the city’s most sensational dining options: Restaurante Interno. In late evening, perhaps take an optional ride by horse-drawn carriage to photograph Cartagena floodlit and moonlit at night.
Overnight: HOTEL BOVEDA

Day 3 – CARTAGENA
This morning we’ll journey outside the walled city to visit the authentically untouristed Bazurto open-air fruit, meat and fish market. Superb photography here! We’ll then make a short walking tour in Getsemani—a rapidly gentrifying historic district with vibrant street life. The afternoon is free for you to enjoy at your leisure. 
Overnight: HOTEL BOVEDA

Day 4 – MOMPOX

Today journey to the bank of the mighty Río Magdalena, where we’ll cross the river via the new bridge and drive through the marshes to the previously landlocked bayou town of Santa Cruz de Mompox. We spend our afternoon and night in this once-thriving and wealthy river port where time seems to have stopped in the 19th century (after the river shifted course, it lost its import and fell into desuetude). Today, this UNESCO World Heritage City, founded in 1537, offers us sensational photo ops… not least of street-life straight out of a Márquez-novel. In fact, the Nobel Prize-winning novelist spent much of his youth in Mompox wooing his girlfriend, who lived there. The sleepy town, with its riches-to-rags backstory, became a model for the fictional riverside town of “Macondo”–isolated from the world for a hundred years–in his landmark 1967 magical realism novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude… as well as appearing in his other masterpiece, Chronicles of a Death Foretold.
Overnight: BIOMA BOUTIQUE HOTEL or HOTEL CASA AMARILLA

Day 5 – MOMPOX
We’ll rise with the dawn to photograph the riverside market and astounding colonial architecture and early street life during blue hour. Later, as the sun climbs, we’ll visit the silversmiths, goldsmiths and ironsmiths for which Mompox is renowned: The town boasts more than 170 filigree artists, including master goldsmiths Daniel Alfonso Garrido and Alejandro Villa Real–we hope to photograph them in their workshops as they manipulate fragile threads of gold to craft fine filigree jewelry, perpetuating an ancient Arabic art handed down through generations of Colombian goldsmiths. Who knows, we may even get to photograph “Miss Mompox” or another local beauty queen modeling the jewelry, which is gifted annually to contestants in the annual Concurso Nacional de Belleza (Miss Colombia pageant), held every November in Cartagena.
Overnight: BIOMA BOUTIQUE HOTEL or HOTEL CASA AMARILLA

Day 6 – PUERTO BELLO
We’ll journey east to the base of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. The world’s tallest free-standing coastal mountain range is sacred to the local Arahuaco and Kogi indigenous people, with their remarkable dress and lifestyle based on their self-perception as guardians of Mother Earth. Arriving the small town of Pueblo Bello, we’ll visit with mamo (tribal leader) Luis Guillermo Izquierdo and his family, with plenty of opportunities for environmental portraiture, to include such traditional activities as preparation of fique fiber, weaving, and the use of a poporo to imbibe coca and lime. Luis will share with us his people’s unique cosmovision and explain the poporo and the Arhuaco’s use of hand-woven white robes and hats, symbolizing the perpetual snow of the Sierra Nevada’s highest peaks.
Overnight: CENTRO DE INTERPRETACIÓN DE LA CULTURAL ARHUACA, PUEBLO BELLO

Day 7 – NABUSIMAKE – VALLEDUPAR
We hope to gain permission to venture by 4WD into the resuargo (autonomous indigenous territory) to the sacred village of Nabusimake, accompanied by Luis Guillermo Izquierdo. (The Arhuaco  have had to deal with overwhelming violence from early Spanish conquistadores and, more recently, left-wing guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries, and cocaine traffickers. Despite which, they have attempted to assiduously guard their terrain against all intruders. Only within the past decade have they opened their world, in part, to ethno-tourism.) The rugged mountain journey is richly rewarded by opportunities for superb photography of the Arhuaco on this all-day visit to the spiritual center of the Arhuaco resuargo. We’ll wander its cobbled alleys lined with thatched bahareque (wattle and daub) houses enclosed by a stone wall above the banks of the Río Fundación. We’ll end our day in the regional capital of Valledupar, with time to relax by the hotel swimming pool.
Overnight: HOTEL SONESTA OR HAMPTON BY HILTON  VALLEDUPAR

Day 8 – LA GUAJIRA
We continue east into the Guajira desert–home to the Wayúu indigenous peoples. This vast cactus-studded region at the tip of South America offers sublime photo ops. After lunch at our gorgeous hotel, we’ll venture to the crossroads market at Cuatro Caminos, with its livestock, caged chickens, scrawny goats, and Wayúu women in their colorful traditional garb and faces blackened to guard against wrinkles during their lifetime under a searing sun. In late afternoon, we’ll visit the Sainn Wayúu (or similar) ranchería to photograph such ceremonial dances as Yonna, plus face-painting, and their vibrant costumes and hammocks.
Overnight: HOTEL WAYA GUAJIRA

Day 9 – LA GUAJIRA
We’ll venture through the heart of the rugged desert to the ramshackle beach resort of Cabo de la Vela–a stunningly beautiful and windswept swathe of white sands lined by humble ranchería restaurants and hostels. Here, we’ll meet with and photograph María Concepción Espina: A member of the Ipuana clan of Wayúu, she is renowned for the quality of her woven mochilas (bags) and chinchorros (hammocks) whose designs are imbued with sacred symbols. We’ll also visit the coastal Salinas de Manauré salt pans (time permitting), plus humble off-the-beaten-track rancherías and simple homesteads that offer opportunities for slice-of-life environmental portrait photography with the gracious and genteel Wayúu people.
Overnight: HOTEL WAYA GUAJIRA

Day 10 – BARLOVENTO /  TAYRONA
This morning journey west along the northern base of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta and along the Caribbean shoreline. Arriving Parque Nacional Natural Tayrona, you’ll have the afternoon to relax at our boutique hotel on a forest-clad mountainside overlooking the teal waters of the Caribbean.
Overnight: HOTEL ECOHABS, TAYRONA; (OR) HOTEL VILLA MARÍA TAYRONA; (OR) VILLA PLAYA TAYRONA; (OR) PLAYA KORALIA

Day 11 – NUEVO VENECIA – BARRANQUILLA
Today we’ll make an early start and journey via Santa Marta to the fishing village of Tasajera. From here, we’ll take a two-hour boat trip across the Cienaga Grande lagoon to the remarkable stilt-village of Nueva Venecia, rising from the center of the lagoon. The photo ops among this fisher community of around 300 palofitos (wooden houses on stilts) are off the charts! Plus, our boat journey offers sensational birding: roseate spoonbills, herons, and flamingos are among the resident species. We’ll arrive in time for lunch in Nueva Venecia and linger before returning to Tasajera for our drive to Barranquilla.
Overnight: TBD

Day 12 – BARRANQUILLA
Riotous, jovial and kaleidoscopic sums up the Barranquilla carnival, second only to that of Rio de Janeiro in size. Every year, the Carnival begins four days before Ash Wednesday, with the most important event–the “battle of flowers”–on Saturday. King Momo and the Carnival Queen kick things off an announce to everyone that it’s their duty to party wildly. Barranquilla’s finest do not disappoint! Dazzling costumes… Gyrating, near-naked bodies…. Non-stop music… Elaborate floats and parades… And costumed characters from ghouls to Roman  gladiators. Phew! Make sure your batteries are fully charged.
Overnight: TBD

Day 13 – BARRANQUILLA
More riotous fun and superb photography as Carnival climaxes! Then enjoy a farewell dinner together
Overnight: TBD

Day 14 – DEPART BARRANQUILLA
This morning we’ll transfer participants to the airport to connect with their flights home.