This blog post is something new that we're trying out as we start combining our updates with shorter posts every week or so. We will also be doing our much larger country profile blogs with videos, and those will be named after the country without a date in the title. So I hope you enjoy the first of our mini-blog/updates.

Yesterday we crossed from Colombia into Ecuador. It was hard saying goodbye to Colombia, a country that we have grown to love over the past two and a half months. The colorful villages, the green mountains, the welcoming smiles, the typical platter of rice, fried plantains, and meat that we've come to enjoy called bandeja, oh and the free motorcycle lane to skip right through tolls... we will certainly miss Colombia.

But we must head on, especially since we will be presenting at the Horizon's Unlimited event in Quito, Ecuador on July 20-22, which we are very excited for. 

If you hear the name Colombia and you think “Narcos" or “cocaine", then I have to let you in on a little secret: throw those preconceptions out the window and come to Colombia where you will have the time of your life, but don't tell anyone else. Let them have their suspicions about this gem of a country, because if everyone knew how great it was, then the whole world would descend upon Colombia and never leave.

If you can't tell yet, Colombia is our absolute favorite country that we have visited so far (we are currently in Ecuador, so we haven't gotten much farther). This is not to say that all the other countries we have been to are awful. To the contrary, we've loved our time in every place, and each one is unique and enjoyable in its own way. At the moment of writing this, we have driven from the US through every country in Central America and into South America, and it has been amazing. But Tim and I both agree that there was something particularly magical about Colombia.

One of the greatest things about Colombia is a bit ironic. Because of its turbulent recent past, Colombia has not had the onslaught of tourism and modernization that other countries have. In fact, most tourists avoided Colombia for a very long time, and it wasn't until recently, as in the past ten years, that it really started to open up.