La Ballena Azul Hotel Santa Marta

... to see army camps and soldiers with AK-47s. One girl in our group struck up a conversation with a soldier and asked how often he fired his weapon. His response - a few times, but not to worry, they don´t have money for bullets, so they just fire blanks (even in training).

Arriving into camp on our second last day, Freddie and Alberto disappear. We later discover cold (expensive) beer, a pool table, terrible Mexican music blaring and our very ...

... after 19 hours total travel time, I can easily say it is all worth it. Tayrona national park is amazingly beautiful. Tall sierra nevada mountain range, covered in a lush dense bright green forest, staggering coast line with blue/green crashing waves... wow.

After we check in to our little hut we start our trek to our room, and I mean trek. It's 230 uphill steps to our room from the only restaurant and another 102 to the beach. But hey its a work out and the ...

... sunny weather didnt happen. So we werent able to work on our tans... On the 2nd night we went to a beach called Playa Brava. It was amazing- we had the entire beach and associated camp to ourselves. We ended up sleeping in hammocks and chowing down on coconuts. But a storm blew in so made for swinging sleepless night. The park ...

We stayed at Santa Marta intermittently; stopping between our stays at Cartagena, and Tayrona National Park, and our trip to Ciudad Perdida. The first night we stayed in Sol Hotel Inn, which was overpriced and had no A/C or screens on the windows. Needless to say, we had to keep the windows
open so we wouldn't sweat to death but that meant we were attacked by
mosquitoes (and we were wearing bug spray). The other nights we stayed at Hotel Las ...

... beer we had bought him.

I declined the second venue the French went to and headed back to sleep. Should have gone. Seemed like they had a good night, what with naked girls running around the nightclub and some dude getting quiet a show of attention from them (although i suspect he wasn't on a backpacker budget either).

Santa Marta had very little to offer. Time to go to that national park...

Went for couple of days to Tayrona national park, planning to come back top see Cartagena, which is a dream city to me ever since I played pirates... Finally I stayed in the park: hammocks near the crashing waves, full moon over beautiful beaches... Now I am back in Santa Marta, I have to be in Bogota tonight, but don't know how, actually I know how: the bus is an 18h ride, so I have to fly, how to get a cheap tickect is another story... Monday I have my flight to Madrid

... all starving. It was getting late however, and we had to make the walk down to the farm before dark, so the tamales had to wait until later. By the time we finished the trek down the rocky path to the farm it was dark, but Steve was there to greet us in the make-shift lower house. Steve took the two of us up to the site of the house-in-progress, and we set up our tent on a (seemingly) flat area. When we headed back down below we started drinking beers and eating ...

... use salt or drink coffee. As you can imagine we had some crazy times together. Given the limited opportunities for getting sociably drunk provided by my only companions the hippies, I resorted to long walks in the countryside and visits to the local archeological remains. Again, my breath was repeatedly taken away by the incredible beauty of the countryside which I wont bother to describe because thats what photos are for ...

... all good fun and we had a great time walking through the beautiful scenery and climbing down into the ancient preserved tombs that this area is famous for. In the village we stayed at a small homestay which was only 8,000pesos (under 2pounds) and the old couple who ran it were really friendly, cooking us meals when we wanted. The next morning we all got up early for the early bus back to Popayan (5hrs) and then I headed further South to Pasto (6hsr) and Ipiales 90mins). I stayed the ...

... il costo. Chiacchere con il conducente, vecchietto con una macchina targata "palermo": bhooo, e' una provincia di qui. Pero' giornata picevole e dinuovo tante facce di pietra, ma grandi. E poi la cascata, con passerella sospesa nel vuoto, che ci ispira davvero poca fiducia. Foto,foto,foto e poi di nuovo san agustin, per tomare un comida corriente. Poi ostello, internetting, e mentre scriviamo musica tuz tuz truzz. Domani Ecuador, o Popayan se non ...