Now I want to show you the physical map of Colombia since it’s important to locate and understand the different types of Colombian music.  Colombia is a country with very formidable physical barriers and very distinct natural regions. To the south of the country we have the Amazon rainforest; to the center we have the Andes mountain range, who is divided in three by two large valleys; to the east we have the grassland plains; to the west the pacific coast and to the north the Caribbean coast.  This has made travel in Colombia very difficult all throughout our history.  Even now it takes 9 hours to cover 300 miles from the capital in the eastmost mountain range, to Cali on the eastmost valley.  To do this you start at 8500 feet over sea level, then back to 9000 feet and finally back to 2000 feet over sea level. You must do that using mainly two lane winding roads.  Two hundred years ago it would take a month and a half to do the same trip!  Because of this barriers, the country is divided in five natural regions which have been more or less culturally isolated form each other.  These regions, which you can see on the right map, are the Pacific coast, the Caribbean coast the Amazon rainforest, the grassland plains and the Andes mountain range. This are the regions we are going to visit in our trip and from each of them I will show you a type of music that I consider important and representative.