Cartagena

After the long 14 hour journey to Cartagena having to put up with arctic conditions on the bus, we arrived in Cartagena at around midday going from the extremes of the freezing bus to the scorchingly hot climes of the caribbean coast. Already I was pouring with sweat having just got off the bus. I was standing next to the bus thinking it was the heat of the engine blowing on me but moving away from the bus, I realised it was just the air in general! Having been on the bus with another guy from casa kiwi, a nice very funny German guy from Koln called Thorsten, we all decided to share a cab and head to one of the 2 recommended hostels hostel casa vienna or hostel media luna. We decided on media luna since it had a swimming pool and seemed pretty nice with it's own restaurant, bar and roof terrace so we dropped off our bags and headed off to explore the place.

On walking round, I was pretty awe struck by the beauty of the architecture of the place. A combination of super old colonial buildings, churches, cathedrals, clock towers and some beautifully coloured houses with terraces and balconies, it was indeed a joy and wonderful sight for my eyes!

I just couldn't stop taking photos of everything I saw. It seemed very much to me even though I haven't been there to be very much how I'd imagine Cuba with the colourful buildings and picturesque balcons alongside important colonial edifices.

After walking through the main square of the old town, walking through the bell tower arch inside the sea wall fortification, we continued on through the windy cobbled old streets towards the coast to go and get a glimpse of the caribbean sea. We headed towards the picturesque old sea wall built by the spaniards to protect themselves from others coming to claim the land for themselves still equipped with canons and keeps.

The caribbean was a little disappointing, it was not the clear blue water and sandy beaches that people often conjure up in their minds when they think of the Caribbean or what I had known from my time on the Yucutan peninsula in Mexico which really was the clearest and most beautiful water I'd ever been in but Cartagena wasn't famous for it's beaches, it was a UNESCO world heritage site for the history of the place.

After a good long walk getting through a good few litres of water each and pouring with sweat, we decided that we'd earned a beer and went to find somewhere within the sea walls. After finidng somewhere suitable with extremely loud salsa pumping out and a nice seating area with lovely views of the cathedral and the bell tower, we sat down for a beer and within moments a man approached saying English or American. When we told him we were English, he lit up saying so am I and sat with us proceeding to tell us proudly that he was the chief engineer on a huge yacht in the bay which was previously owned by the Kennedys and the Fords and then continued to pretty much tell us his life story and bought us a beer and introduced us to his fellow crew members he was with, a couple of Venezuelans from Caracas.  Shortly afterwards, some nice girls turned up so we all got chatting and had a generally nice and chilled out evening. We asked what was good to do in the evenings and a couple of places were mentioned, Candela, a place just oppoiste where we sitting and cafe del mar, a little further away on the sea front, a place we had passed earlier in the day.

We decided to go and get Thorsten who had been jogging (crazy man in this heat) and we got ready and headed to cafe del mar. It was very pricey and unfortunately Thorsten couldn't get in with a vest top on so candela it was. On entry to Candela, it was clear that it wasn't going to be terribly busy with it being tuesday night and we had heard rumours that the place was full of hookers trying to pick up tourists and an 'old' club. This was old in the sense not of the age of the club but the age of the clientelle which also was true. I actually felt quite sleazy being in there to be honest watching all these sleazy gringos trying miserably to chat up and dance with these scantily clad latinas. Needless to say after drinking our free drink paid for by the cover, we promptly left although we did briefly discuss the possibilty of getting one between the 3 of us which was quickly laughed off as a bad joke. On returning to the hostel, Will went to bed but Thorsten and I decided to head up to the roof top terrace and have a beer after he had won the battle with a can of tuna since there was no tin opener which was comical when he said I'm going to win this fight. This was a good experience to get to know each other a bit better and it turned out that he was a really nice guy and pretty much had the same time left travelling as me so we'd be on the same route for a little while until I head further west to Venezuela at least which was nice as Will had made the decision to head back down south and who knows exactly what Fabian is doing, I don;t even think he knows sometimes! Speaking of Fabs, he will be arriving at some point tomorrow so it will be good to see him again. So off we went to bed with with more exploration to be done tomorrow. In our room was myself, Will, Thorsten and a nice French guy who worked for Greenpeace and had cycled the entirety of central america, from the north of Mexico all the way down which was impressive!

I woke up late and everyone had left the room, it looked like Thorsten had actually left properly and then I realised that he had indeed told me that he was leaving to go to an island off the coast called bahia Blanca or something. Shame because I would actually quite like to have gone along. Oh well, I had a city here to explore more of. Will was still around and he and I had lunch together in the hostel restaurant which did a good pasta carbonara for just 10,000 pesos (around £3) which was pretty good. I then went on my own to have a walk around while Will sat by the pool to do a little sunbathing. On entry to the city, we had passed an impressive castle equipped with barracks, fortified walls, keeps and more canons so I headed there.

Paying 15 to enter, I walked in marvelling at this impressive piece of workmanship built by the Spaniards a few hundred years back. I had no idea that it consisted of a series of underground tunnels and enclaves, some of which were pitch black and not lit up so I had to walk through using my camera light to guide me through. It was amazing how cool it was down there in every sense of the word and then scorchingly hot when you'd finally find a way out of these long dar and eerie labrinths. It was quite amusing to walk along them and see where abouts in the castle you'd come out at.

After quite an extensive exploration of the place taking many nice photos and surprisngly hardly seeing another soul, I decided I'd seen enough and just as I was leaving about 3 coaches turned up, one full of excitable, energetic school kids and the other 2 full of the Colombian navy all looking very smart in their shining white attire and hats. I was half tempted to go back in and get a photo right in the middle of them all but just didn't have the guts in the end.

Back at the hostel, the two English girls had turned up from casa kiwi as had Fabian and we planned to go to find a few bars that evening. A nice English couple from Liverpool joined us. Unfortunately, Will had made the decision to leave that day so we said our goodbyes.

We had a fairly fun evening starting at the same place as we had the previous two evenings. There again I met the Venezuelan deckhand of the yacht who very kindly told me that I could come on board with them on saturday and sail somewhere so he gave me his number although unfortunately, the plan was to leave on saturday so it wasn't going to be possible. After a couple of beers and seeing some extremely bright flashes of ligtening but strangely not hearing thunder or seeing any rain, it started. To begin with it was a few drops and within moments it was a downpour. I think I can hoenstly say that I've never seen so much rain in such as short space of time. It really was torrential!

Within minutes the entire square where we had been sitting was flooded. Clearly they had no drainage system and it was actually beginning to reach up to peoples knees. Everyone who was sitting in the area we had been rushed to the covered terrace and at the same moment, due to there also being a private concert also there in the square for the navy so they all flocked there too. Now there were hundreds of people standing under the covered walkway, stranded in front of this bar booming out extremely loud and fantastic sounding salsa that just made you want to shake your hips. Since we were stranded there outside the bar, the solution was get in there and have a drink but the air conditioning was freezing so it was simply a case of getting the waiter to come over and bring beers to us in the warm and dry. It was hilarious watching all these smartly dressed naval officers standing there just waiting for the rain to subside.

The bars and club candela along this stretch along with the hookers mustve loved all this extra busniess although it would've been hard to take a hooker anywhere with this rain! Some of the naval officers began to dance salsa in the rain up to their knees which was entertaining for everyone. Everyone was just so happy and smiley and I was just glad to be there sharing this moment with all these people. Finally the rain eased a little and we made a dash for it. It really was like wading through a river and on finally getting 2 taxis, it may well have been better to have taken boats as the roads were now rivers! It was as if Cartagena had now turned into Venice! After heading to a place a little way away that we had been recommended and was rahter rubbish so we left immediately, we headed pretty much back to where we had been originally (so it was a completely wasted journey) to a bar called carbonera which was conveniently near to our hostel and played a good selection of western and latin music. Here I met some great people who were so friendly, all they wanted to do was chat and get to know you even know mostly they didn't speak a word of English. I met a nice Venezuelan guy in the navy who didn't speak any English but was also very friendly. One guy came over offering cigars and had a box connected to two wires to hold and take an electric current. He offered it to me and I just laughed thinking to myself why would I want to pay to get electrocuted but within a flash Fabian had them in his hands and the guy was turning the handle which with every revolution sent a stronger current through your hands.

After 27 revolutions Fabian looked like he was in agony and was screaming and dropped them. Now it was my turn, I was intrigued more than anything to see how it felt and at first it was just a little buzz but after 28, it was agony! I couldn't dro them, they were actually stuck buzzing to my hands, I couldn't open my hands All in all it was an enjoyable and memorable evening. 

The next day, we were up early (well 8am) to go to a mud volcano that we had planned and booked the day before. This was a somewhat interesting affair. After about half an hours drive, we arrived at a small pyramidal shaped volcano (as most are) which had in it's crater a deep, bubbling, thick mud pit.

Climbing in felt extremely odd due to the consistency and thickness of the stuff.

After a brief massage and alot of rolling about completely submerging myself in the stuff and attempting to swim a little, we got out and went to the sea to get clean where there were already waiting 4 ladies keen to get you naked and give you a thorough scrubbing. They were actually ripping off girls bikinis without any warning which was nice for the guys! Then they'd come after our shorts to scrub them clean which was all good fun! After the mad mud craziness we drove in the bus to a nearby Caribbean beach to take some lunch and have a swim, play some frisbee and just chill on the beach. All in all it turned out to be a fun experience with some good people and we all decided we'd go out that night together. SInce it was going to be my last night in Cartagena, I wanted to make it a special one and so we decided first to go to Calle Arsenal (boo) and then on to a club. The first bar we went to at calle arsenal was pretty cool with an open terrace bar looking out to the castle across the water and they were playing some good salsa and selling beer towers. Along with us were mainly Brits including a nice couple from Liverpool we had been out with the previous evening, a nice Welsh guy and a cool Irish chap also called Adam. It was nice having the English, Irish and Welsh combiniation but we just needed a Scotsman to complete the set. After a while we decided to head to the club called Fragma but noone got in due to people wearing vests etc apart from me and Thorsten so we had a pretty good night in the end even if it was just the two of us.

The next day, the girls had booked us a minibus for 11am and since Fabs and I had both got in pretty much when it was light, it was a real struggle to get up. Mel came in at 10.45 saying are you guys coming?? SO we both jumped up out of bed, threw clothes on, packed and off we went! Five hours and 2 buses later, we were in Taganga, a nice little fishing and beach resort on the Caribbean. Should be fun :)

Medellin

After a long but beautiful bus journey through some amazingly picturesque countryside including a stop at a restaurant with a balcony from which we saw humming birds, woodpeckers and a whole lot of condors, we arrived in Medellin.

I had an aquaintance and good friend that I had met online called Marina on a language learning website (sad I know but its useful for meeting new people to visit when travelling in their country) who had said that if I come to Colombia, to come to Medellin and she'd meet me so I let her know that we would soon be arriving and when I called she said she'd meet us at the bus terminal and sure enough there she was on arrival with a friend called Carolina. Kindly Marina had brought her car and offered to take us with all our bags to a hostel. It was a tight squeeze in her little Renault Clio with 5 people, 3 huge rucksacks, 3 day bags
and a guitar but eventually we managed to squeeze everything in and made our way to Poblado where we found hostel casakiwi a very nice clean, new looking hostel with a large decked balcony, a fantastically clean and modern looking kitchen, a very nice, full sized pool table, a bar and even a tv room that resembled a cinema with a huge tv and 5 tiered rows of sofas. This was most certainly the place we would stay, it looked fantastic and all this for just over a fiver a night! The only thing that let it down was the room which was rather small and cramped with no windows or fan but we werent too bothered as we wouldnt be spending too much time in there anyway apart from when we had to sleep. Once we had checked in and dropped our bags in the room, Marina offered to take us on a city tour and so we accepted, and after quite an extensive drive round the city seeing lots of nice looking places in the dark, we headed to get some food and went back to the hostel. It really was a cool looking city and Fabain summed the roads up as being like something out of being in need for speed. on the drive round I could see even in the dark of nght just how modern and affluent this city was certainly in comparison with Cali! What with it being thursday evening, the bars and clubs in the local area of Poblado were getting busier and noisier and the 3 of us were keen to see some of the famous Medellin beauties (Medellin is famous for fake boobs and beautiful women) but by this time it was about 2am and everything was shutting or not open for too much longer so we decided to have one beer at the bar and call it a night. The next day we woke and decided to do something constructive and get out to see the city so we headed to the aquarium. We walked down to the metro station and took the train down to Universidad.

Again on the train, I could see that this was indeed a well planned, affluent and modern city with a nice mixture of old architecture such as cathedrals and churches as well as new shopping malls and modern looking new buildings such as that at the Universiad. It is hard to say this in a good way but it could be that all the money that came in from the famous drug lord Pablo Escobar (born and died in Medellin), has done alot of good for the local economy! On arrival there, we saw a big modern block of 3 red buildngs alongside each other where there were expositions and scientific games to be played. After messing about on the activities for a little while, we headed to the impressive acquarium, seeing some nice Amazonian fish including the biggest freshwater fish in the world, and seeing some nice brightly coloured salt water fish. Next we headed into the reptile and amphibian house which was also cool with many species of snake, frogs and spiders mainly all from Colombia!

Heading back, we agreed to meet Marina and Caro again and after studying the tourist map, we decided to head to Pueblito Paisas, a tiny little square of old colonial buidlings high up on a hill overlooking the city. This was quite a sight at night with all the lights in the valley and dotted all over the surrounding mountains with some pleasant looking eateries with balconies overlooking the city and a pleasant courtyard with a fountain in the middle. There was also a nice little church and some interesting little rooms that you could look into which were very old with old fashioned bedrooms and kitchens!

After a few photos we decided to hit the bars. After a few drinks including shots of the famous national anis based drink (Aguardientes) and some food (I had arepas, a corn based tortilla full of cheese with dip), and then some more shots, we headed to a nearby club which on entry was rather strange looking with a big four poster bed near the entrance and strange things hanging from the ceiling. After attempting a little salsa and having a few more drinks, it was time to go home as we were all tired from a rather eventful day!

The next day was a rather lazy and hungover day involving a trip to the supermarket and a walk around the local area. I was fast falling in love with this city, it was so modern and beautiful with a real young and vibrant feel to it and far from the dirty, smelly and polluted city of Cali! I guess it also helped knowing people from the city who could take us to all the best places! That evening we met the girls again and went for a drink although they didn't stay out long and so I got a fairly early night. The next day we met a nice French guy at the hostel called Rafael who told us of a weed march in the centre of town. Since I hadn't yet been to Medellin central (apart from the visit to the acquarium),
myself, Fabian and a group of other guys decided we'd all go along. In our group we had English, French, Australian, Swiss and Colombian guys which was a great mixture of nationalities and cultures and so off we went to find the march. I wasn't intending on smoking anything but as soon as you get near the march you are passively smoking due to the sheer volume of people smoking all around! It was a crazy experience and certainly a strange way to get to know the centre of a city with the police marching in front, stoppping traffic and everyone getting high behind them!

I'd never done anything like it and it was certainly an experience and a nice way to see a big city and take photos without the risk of getting run over! After a while of walking, we arrived at Parque de la luz (park of lights), a very strange but cool square with many metal white poles sticking out of the ground, very modern looking and for me cool because it was different to anything I'd seen before. We had previously seen this

place on the city tour we did with the girls which on passing, the girls laughed as it is called Park of Lights but there are no lights. Nevertheless, I still found it a cool place and got some quite quirky photos of the place.

After evertone had settled here, myself, Sergio (a nice Colombian guy I had met from our hostel) and Fabian headed to find something to drink and I got some more nice shots of the city just as the sun was setting. After sitting around the square for a while, we decided to head back to the hostel. The city was fast becoming my favourite city I'd been to in South America and the hostel was fast becoming my favourite hostel I'd stayed in despite the room! On return, we discovered another great feature of the hostel was that it had a roof terrace and small pool which was great for taking the sun during the day and great for chilling out on at night not to mention the nice views of the city!

The only downside was the amount of stairs you needed to climb to get up there and also it could do with having a bar up there so you didnt have to keep going up and down to get drinks. As well as this terrace, on the floor below was an area with hammocks for simply chilling out and with a power supply and wifi, you could play your tunes and sleep there if you wanted as it was under shelter in case it rained and was always warm enough at night to sleep out. That evening was the hostel managers 30th birthday (an american guy) so all the staff put up balloons and were in a partying mood with a band playing too. After a while partying at the hostel, Marina turned up and Jay, myself and a nice guy called Dom who was half Welsh and half French but spoke with an English accent decided to head out to a bar where Marina's colleagues were drinking. This turned out to be a good night with plenty of salsa dancing, popcorn and aguardiente and after dancing a little with Marina she paid me a nice compliment when she told me I danced just like a Colombian which I was chuffed about.

The next day, Marina called to see if I wanted to go to parque arves (an ecological park in the mountains above Medellin) on the cable car so naturally I accepted as it sounded fun, I love ecology and there wasn't much else going on it being a sunday and all so she picked me up and off we went. We dropped the car, got a train to the end of the line almost and then took the cable car.

It was a beautiful ascent up the mountain, albeit going over some very temporary housing, it was still revealing a fantastic view with every few metres we gained in altitude. It was indeed a fantastic journey with a great view of Medellin central as one approached the top of the mountain and then a super view over the dense forest below us at the top of the mountain. Unfortunately on arrival at the end of the cable car,

 it was already around 3.30 and so we only had a couple of hours until the last one left so we quickly began to make our way towards the ecological park. Surprisingly Marina told me that she had never been there even though she'd lived in the city most of her life and it was one of the main attractions of the city so she was unaware of where to go or how to get there. We began walking through some beautiful forest and continued to follow the signs up and up and further and further up the road for around an hour and a half until we eventually got to what looked like a park but we were only at the back.

Marina suggested we climbed through a gap in the barbed wire which at first I thought she was joking about but then she took off her necklace and thrust that and her bag into my hands and began getting on her hands and knees and clambering through which I found hilarious! So through I climbed and into the park we were! Little did I know we needed to pay for the park, until she told me inside so I felt like a real rebel! Since it was already by this time nearly 5, we had a quick 10 minute walk around a tiny part of the park and had to quickly leave again! We began walking back knowing for a fact we weren't
going to make it back. This was a clear problem as we had no way of getting back down othr than calling a taxi which would have cost a lot and there seemed to be no other buses going bus so perhaps they had all finished! After about 5 minutes of walking and arguing about who was to blame for all this, a guy on a small moped pulled up behind us and stopped to try and sell us some chicken or cheese from his box of food. Marina just waved him away but I said my friend we don't want your food, we just need a lift down to the cable car before it closes in 20 minutes so he said jump on and the 2 of us just about manged to get on behind him and we got down in time to find a huge queue of people waiting but we certainly wouldn't have made it without my smart thinking! This was enough fun for me, we had done alot of walking and getting back I went straight to bed after chilling out in the hammock for a while with some of the guys from the hostel.

One guy who I got on well with and liked alot was a guy called Reuben who was a special effects technician for films and had worked on films such as Harry Potter and Wallace and Gromit and showed me some interesting things with his software which was pretty fascinating. He has the ambition of setting up a special effects school in Colombia as there is nothing of the sort as yet and needed contacts so I said I'd look for some for him but it did prove hard to find any! Lucky guy was off to New York to work in a couple of days but he said he'd rather be chilling in Ecuador which is what he had planned to do. He was certainly talented and a nice chap to get to know!

The next day, our good old friend Will turned up at the hostel having been slightly behind us on our route up so it was good to see him again. Fabian had chatted up a girl he met outside the mini supermarket and so he brought her to our hostel and then we went for lunch with Reuben, Jay, Fabian, Will this girl (Alixon) and a friend of hers went for lunch at a bar called Orleans where they sold interesting coloured beers, between us we had green and red which just tasted like normal beer but just looked different! Very strange! Will and I then decided to do a proper tour of the central as I hadnt seen it properly and obviously Will hadnt seen it at all having just arrived so we took the train to centro and got the nice photos I wanted. Especially I wanted one of the nice checkered buidling which I was always passing in the train but never stopping there.

After a while of walking around and snapping we headed back and got ready for a night out at a karaoke bar which was also Reuben's last night.

This ended up being a good night although at some point I lost everybody and ended up having to go home on my home finding the hostel with surprising ease!

The following morning we woke a little later than usual and made the decision to go to the park. Although I had already been I decided to join them as I had never managed to actually get in and appreciate the place. I'm extremely glad I went, we had great fun on zip lines, in a butterfly house,

 in an insect museum and rowing on a lake not to mention enjoying the beautiful weather and flora and fauna all around us.

For some reason Jay didn't come along claiming it was too hot (an Aussie complaining about the heat??) but when we got back we decided to get on it as it was his last night too!

This was rather sad for me as he'd been my travelling buddy on off for the last couple of months all the way from La Paz up to here in Colombia! After a good fun night out in a club called Babylon getting suitably wasted, we headed back.
The next day I went for lunch with Marina and by the time I had returned, Jay had left! I didnt even get to say goodbye to him and it turned out he hadnt paid a cent! Oh well! Shame to see the aussie c££t go but I'm sure we'll meet again one day!

That evening we met a nice guy from South Korea, the first I'd ever met called Kim and he, Will, Marina and Carolina all went out for drinks. Fabian had disappeared earlier in the day and was nowehre to be seen so the 5 of us went out and had rather a tame but yet still enjoyable evening involving cocktails.

The next day Marina came over and she took us to a mirador (eventually after directions from many people) which was rather a beautiful view over the city and we got there just before sunset so witnessed a rather impressive sunset with some amazing cloud formations and thunder storms in the distance. On return to the hostel, Will told us that there was a good techno DJ playing at the Forum club called Ambivalent so Marina, myself Will and Fabian headed there. On arrival we found out it was 40,000 pesos to get in (about £14) which was too expensive for the girls so they decided not to go in. Perhaps in hindsight we should have stayed with them but I'm glad we went in as it was a great night with great music and the first time I'd been properly clubbing for a long time, definitely since being in South America.

We did stay til quite early in the morning so unfortunately the next day was a bit of a write off as we were sleeping for a lot of it. Will and I decided we were going to leave to Cartagena the next day so we got up early to go and book our bus tickets which we booked for 5.30pm but after speaking to Marina, she suggested we went to El Penol, the biggest rock in the world according to them although Jay insisted it was Ayers Rock in Australia when she had told us about it previously. It was already 3pm so I told her there was no way we'd have time as it was an hour and a half drive away so she called up the bus company who told her it was fine to just change the bus ticket to the later departure of 10.30pm which gave us plenty of time so we agreed to go along. So off we went, Marina, myself, Will, Fabian and Carolina on a fun little road trip to the rock. After about an hour and a half of some suicidal and dangerous driving giving us all some heart in the mouth moments, we finally arrived at the rock and it was certainly a sight that I was glad to see.

It was an immense lith sticking high out of the ground and on entry to the back of the rock, a brick staircase came into view like stitches up it's back.

We began climbing and after about 20 minutes taking pictures of the lovely views all around we reached the top of the rock. As we climbed we were able to see that it wasn't all just about the rock but the amazing views one could see all around of beautiful lakes, islands and green hills and we were all glad we had come.

Even when we reached the top, there was a castle like building at the top which one could climb to get even higher and have an even better view and from the we watched the sun begin to set and got some fantastic pictures. This was a very enjoyable day and well worth the trip out from Medellin, despite the distance and hairy moments on the road. Returning to the hostel at around 9.30 we had an hour til our bus in which time we grabbed some dinner and then off we went on the long 14 hour journey to Cartagena.