Argentina was Holy Patte's last stop on their epic four-month journey through South America, discovering the magical terrain along the way; all the while keeping true to their mission to find craftspeople who are still making things by hand. It is also here that we say goodbye to Holy Patte - until they share with Autre another one of their magical adventures.
Last week, Autre presented Holy Patte’s incredible 22-day journey through Costa Rica. This week, Amaury and Chloé of Holy Patte take us to the cities, tropical beaches and surreal desert landscapes of Colombia. After debating on a method to cross the Darién Gap, which is a dense jungle that separates Panama and Colombia and is still nearly impossible to cross, they decide on the luxury of a quick plane flight. In an hour, they were in Medellin – a city once deemed the most dangerous in the world thanks to the drug lord Pablo Escobar, but is now considered one of the safest. In the tradition of Holy Patte’s mission to search for people working with their hands, they made their way to Raquira, a town known for its ceramics, where they met Maria, who has been working on her clay handicrafts all her life. After that, three days were spent among the colonial architecture of Cartagena. Then it was off to Coralina Island – the Colombian Caribbean – where they floated along crystal turquoise waters discovering the painter Fernando Botero’s seaside home. Soon after leaving the island, these lucky adventurers made their way to Bogotá and then ten hours to the mountain village of Villa de Leyva – and from their they hopped to Tota Lake and the remote village of Aquitania. Lastly, it was off to the beautifully surreal landscape of the Tatacoa Desert where they found shelter in the strange thatched huts of the Penon de Constantino hotel and hiked through the sunbaked, cactus lined hills. Next week, Autre Voyage will present Amaury and Chloé's journey through Peru, so stay tuned by following Autre on Instagram.
Essaouira was known in the time of 11th-century geographer al-Bakri and, as he reported, was called Sidi Megdoul. In the 16th-century, a corruption of this name became known to the Portuguese as Mogador or Mogadore. The Berber and Arabic names mean the wall, a reference to the fortress walls that originally enclosed the city. photographs by Mathias Thomsen
