I am about to conclude my first 3 months on my “bittrail” and with that my stay in Colombia. The last month I spent here in Bogota, a 7 million Metropolis up 2700m in the Mountains. There is a huge amount of traffic in the city and indeed I had the impression that the air was very bad. The climate here is a lot colder then on the coast, only about 15 degrees Celsius. It is raining right now and it was raining a lot the past weeks, so I had enough time to do my work without worrying that I’d miss something.Since this marks the end of my stay in Colombia, here are some tips if you have doubts about traveling to Colombia. First, the media may be right about what is going on in certain parts of this country (fortunately I didn’t have to witness that), but they don’t show the whole truth. This is not all of Colombia. Don’t be afraid to travel to this country, just be careful. Although the situation may change with time, I think you are always safe in the bigger Cities (as safe as in any other South American city). If you are paranoid, don’t leave the cities and take airplanes from one city to another. If you are a little more adventurous (this has nothing to do with being suicidal) and want to travel by bus, then I can only give you this advice: Ask some local people there if the route that you want to go is safe, if there have been any incidents lately. Ask people from the middle class, people that are using busses as their means of transportation, don’t ask people from the upper class because for them, everything is dangerous. And the last tip is not for Colombia in particular but for every country that has problems with poverty and criminality. Keep a low profile. Don’t walk around in your newest pair of Nikes, don’t show off your expensive digital camera, even if it is very hot, don’t walk around in shorts; try to dress like the locals, that makes you look like a foreigner that has been in the country for a while and not like the tourist that is here his first day. Of course these are just tips and there is no guaranty that if you follow them nothing will happen, but I think they mitigate the risk.