El Dorado Plaza Cartagena

... the damn historic spots. After dinner, Martian and Susan said they’re heading off to sleep. Panama Canal tomorrow and need to be on deck early to get your spot. Angie and I think we’re going to change, then go up to deck 10 for the Poolside Tropical Fruit Buffet and Carvings. We got to the room and decided we’re also too tired. We`re going to get up at 5:30 to eat and get on deck. Ahhh I love vacation......

... and hopeless situation we just laid there giggling and hoping he would go away soon. I wanted to take a picture, but didnt know whether that angers bulls, and I certainly didnt want him to charge me while I was trapped in the hammock. So we just laide there helplessly until he finished our bananas, bread, cucumbers and onion, peed on the sand (close to but not ON our shoes, thank god) and walked away. <br><br>other than that, the trip ...

... with a traditional band on board (accordion, cheesegrater and maracas), plus a guy with a microphone getting everyone in the mood, being assisted ably by the free local rum and coke that kept getting passed back. It was a great mixture of locals, domestic and South American tourists, plus a few token gringos, and it finished up dropping us off at a club (where we continued the rum theme by buying a bottle and dancing away til at least 4.30am, when some ...

... through all their luggage and lockers and robbed them of everything, but nobody was hurt. These are dangerous places at times.<br><br>Did an oil change on the bike and prepared it for the off tomorrow. Fully mapped and guide booked up, everything in working order for the journey south.<br><br>The plan is to go to Medellin for the weekend but there is a fiesta on and the place is fully booked so accommodation may be difficult.

... see my room. Not bad. A tad gloomy. A few stains on the walls (nothing the looks quite like human genetic material though). But the piece de resistance was the shower! Only cold showers here in Cartagena, which is okay because it is so damn hot...but the shower head is a PIPE! A little pipe coming out of the wall. The water flow is quite good, but IT'S A PIPE! haha There also was once an overhead fan in the room. That was ripped out but the guts of the fan are still ...

... tourist tours which does give the tour a nice flavor! The first stop on our tour was the Convento de la Popa which sits on the highest point in the city about 2 km form the center. The hill that this Sanctuary sits on had long been used by natives as a religious site. According to legend, in 1606 the Fathers had stumbled across a mixed group of natives chanting, with arms and ...

... I didn´t want to take my camera out there) the bus driver stopped and told us all to get off and get onto another bus. I got onto the bus first and the bus driver started to take off without Justine, despite me yelling ¨espera¨ multiple times. She got on the bus though and we got off in a small rural town to cross the river in a rickety old boat. Once we got across, we rode on the back of dirt bikes for about 20 min. through ...

... by spectacular waterfalls. Not wishing to exhaust all the wonders of the place too early on in the piece, we saunter on over to the thermal complex shortly before dinner and spend a good 2 hours soaking and uncricking all the muscles in our body that have fused themselves into the form of the various motorcycle components they have been sitting on or wrestling with over the last 2 months.<br><br><br>A beer after dinner is made more amusing as a young Argentine lad at our guest house ...

... drinking Aguila and getting endlessly hassled by good-natured but persistent vendors of sunglasses, fruit, seafood, jewellry, watches, t-shirts etc. The worst ones are the massage ladies who sneak up behind you and start massaging your neck when you´re not paying attention. The homestay is still a bit of a struggle, I don´t understand a word my family says and ...

... square at the top. You walk single file up a set of steep creaky uneven wooden stairs to get to the top. Once there, tons of male workers are around the platform holding people´s cameras and taking photos with them, along with the dudes who work inside the mud giving mud massages! It was the coolest sensation getting into the large vat of mud to find myself floating in what feels like warm dark gelatin! Lol.. literally you get in and float and it is very difficult to ...