Hotel Caribe Cartagena

... in May where he left his boat for the summer, but they are just so fun and full of love and have the most amazing stories ever! They know Cartagena pretty well so they have been showing us around town. We went over to their boat for dinner and then weve been going out a lot too with them. Their accents are just brilliant and their sense of humor and story telling is great. They took us into town to see some Colombia dancing and taste authentic food and just get a sense for the city ...

... that we would be catching a ferry. The port where we were catching it was just a few odd buildings setup to provide snacks such as empanadas, areipas and such. There didn’t seem to be any residential buildings nearby. I also noticed Chalupas and realized that this may be where you can catch the a Chalupa to Manague, which is what I previously thought might be an alternative travel option to the bus. Its clear now that it is not, although we could have ...

Must have breakfast at Casa Suiza if you like eggs and potatoes for cheap.
On the corner of the hotel is La esquina del pan. Fresh juices and pastries super, super cheap. And delicious. Lunch was at La Mulata, a busy, well run place with a set menu and delicious choices. Also cheap. We think we like it here in Cartagena. Did we mention the women here are ridiculously sexy?

... English summers! Despite our lack of Spanish, the people were lovely - being very patient with our sign language, and still willing to sit down and have a chat with us even though they knew we couldn’t understand most of what they were saying! Generally people were very surprised that we couldn’t speak Spanish because apparently Suren looks very Colombian!!

We would have loved to have spent more time in ...

... heat and watching ´Friends´ in our hostel room. On our penultimate day, I decided to wander a little further afield out of sheer boredom. To my horror, I realised that the beautiful old town was a five minute walk from our place and had been completely ignored. So I spent the last day with Robin and Minty (Alex had caught a boat to Panama) sitting in restaurants and in the squares of the beautiful colonial centre. It was a perfect spot. Old ...

... the normal deluge of rain that seems to hit Bogota every day. After having purchased bright Yellow ponchos for 5,000 Pesos (about $2.25) each, we were well prepared for the storm and enjoyed most of the first half from underneath our patriotic trash bags. Rigo and Lorena of course would not purchase Yellow and stood out in their white ponchos, with pops of green from their local jerseys grinning through. Though the entire game was a blast, a few things stood out. Most of all ...

... br>

Riding out of town and the first thing that hits us is just how green everything is. The landscape is exploding with life - all that humidity and volcanic soil sending anything vegetative into a kind of frenzy. Banana plantations flank us on each side of the road, and by 10AM we are finding the going muggy in greenhouse like conditions - humid and sweaty, punctuated by the occasional light tropical shower to offer some relief to the swelling heat.


After lunch - where ...

Reasonably uneventful trip to the airport, despite me waiting until the last moment at the wrong side of the bus terminal for the seemingly non-existent bus (bus: $1.50, taxi: $20...that why i was so keen to find it!).

The airline never asked to see see my masterpiece of an onward ticket and the Colombians didn't give a toss either. Better be safe than sorry though, eh? Uneventful flight in a small 35 seater turboprop (only 1/3 full). We got a meal ...

... day in the sun in the middle of January so no complaints. I hooked up with some friends who were on the Friendship boat with me in the Galapagos so I had a good time anyway. After that, the logical route would have been to cross the border to get to Venezuela but not for me. Instead I took a 17 hour bus ride to Bogota, the third highest capital in South America at 2,600 m. No regrets, it was a great place and the bus was kind of comfortable so I ...

... bus has been a nightmare to organise, you can't book online, or at a tour agency. It was also very difficult to find out any coherant information online too. You can only buy bus tickets from the station from which you depart, so as we leave from Santa Marta we can only buy the ticket from there, which we will do as soon as we arrive tomorrow, we just hope that there is space on the bus on the 4th as it is high season and for this part of the trip at least we have a schedule to keep.