On August 4 th my wife Conni and I met Doug and Terry Kennedy and Joseph DiCiommo at Toronto's Pearson International Airport. We were joined by Joyce Medcalf of Kingston, Ontario and Gail Schwarz of Halifax, Nova Scotia. Our flight left on time and we arrived in Miami at 10:30 am. After deplaning, I was busy looking at the “Departures” board when I heard my name called out. There sitting at our gate was the rest of our group, Jim and Julie Rassmann along with Jerry and Marsha Romak all of Oregon. While we sat and waited for our flight, talking orchids the whole time, we were surprised to have join us on the same flight, Robert Fuchs and Michael Coronado of RF Orchids in Florida. It was a great flight with lots of orchid talk.

We were met at the airport in Medellin by a small bus and Ivan Portilla of Equagenera which took us safely to our hotel The Intercontinetal. We stayed here until Monday August 11. We all went to the wonderful orchid show and of course to the preview party, where quite a number of us got extremely happy on the local fire water, which flowed as freely as water.

Those of us that are AOS judges thoroughly enjoyed all the unusual species we don't get to see on a regular basis. We went back and forth to the show many times over the days we were in Medellin. We also enjoyed the beautiful weather and the amenities of the hotel, the pool and poolside restaurant were our usual meeting site.

The Odontoglossum Aliance, with the help of Juan Felipe Posada arranged trips to the Coloborquideas Ltda. range owned by the Posadas and the range Orquifollajes Ltda. owned by Francisco Villegas. These were eye opening excursions and both ended costing quite a bit for the rare and unusual Odontoglossum and Pleurothallid species that were found.

On Saturday evening we had a combined meeting and banquet of the Odontoglossum and Pleurothallid Alliances. The food was excellent, the presentations were slightly different but still educational and enjoyable. The auction of highly coveted species and hybrids raised substantial funds for both alliances.

On Monday August 11, the Canadians along with Jerry and Marsha Romak left for Cali. We were met at the airport by Andrea Niessen who arranged the next four days activities for us. We were transported to a bed and breakfast about an hour out of Cali. “El Refugio” is owned and operated by Eduardo Calderon Saenz. We stayed here 3 nights enjoying the food and venturing out into Eduardo's 7 acres looking at the many that he had established on the property. Tuesday we were picked up by bus with Andrea as our guide and were taken to higher elevations near Andreas cool range. We walked the road to a communications tower up to about 2000 meters. We were let off the bus where Andrea and her husband Juan Carlos and one of their employees guided us up the road. We were all given a 4 foot bamboo pole to use to poke around in the underbrush. The group charged ahead, I tended to take my time looking all over through much of the underbrush, the guide stayed with me. We managed to understand each other by using hand gestures and my using some of Italian. We saw many different Pleurothallids a few Cyrtochilums and some Epidendrums. At one special location the guide showed me a very shady spot with many Dracula plants from seedlings to adult plants, I reached in with my pole to be able to see better, and when I pulled the pole out there was a large Dracula chimaera stuck to it. I laid it on a fern frond and took photos. I left it there. Upon catching up to the group, I told them that I had found this Dracula that measured about 15 inches (38 cm). They all, (except Conni), scoffed and said “Yeah Right”. I said you'll see it on the way down. There it was exactly where I had left it. Everyone was photographing it. I picked it up and held it in front of me. Joyce, prepared student judge that she is, just happened to have a measuring tape with her. To my amazement, (and everyone elses), the flower was 32 inches (81 cm). Andrea even said that she had never seen one that large. Remeber that the flower was stuck to the pole, so we couldn't identify the plant it came from. (Andrea tells me that she went back a few weeks later, ALL THE PLANTS WERE GONE!). We took the flower back to Andrea's high elevation range and cottage where she pressed it in one of her large books. We were then free to roam the high range shade houses where once again many treasures were found.

We were served a wonderful lunch of barbecued local beef and other local delicacies. We were entertained the whole time by humming birds just off of the deck. We were then taken back to El Refugio for our last night there.

Wednesday morning we were once again picked up with all our luggage by the bus with Andrea as guide. We toured the country side and went to one of Andrea's stores. Here my wife Conni discovered the fruit granadilla which she really likes (I don't)(I occasionally buy her one here at $2.50 each). From here we went to one of Andrea's favourite restaurants where we enjoyed some more local cuisine. Then we went to Orquideas del Valle's warm range, and more treasures were found, even warm Pleurothallids.

That evening we stayed at a small Inn not far from the airport. We were picked up at 5 am for our flight back to Miami.

This is certainly a trip I'll treasure the rest of my life. I recommend Medellin and Cali, Col., S.A.!