Valencia & San Diego

My taxi was a beaten up old thing and one first glance I was really considering saying no I’ll go with someone else thanks but I just wanted to drop my heavy bag somewhere so I just got in and showed him the address. He was a grumpy old man and was in no mood for chatting or jokes so I made no effort to talk to him! I did however feel it necessary to get some flowers for the ladies of the house, one bunch for Vanessa and the other for her mother so she didn’t feel left out so I asked the driver if there were any florists open in the vicinity and as expected I got a grumpy no from him. He clearly had no idea where he was going either and asked me to show him the address about 6 times and on the 7^th I just gave it him! On the way there without even consciously looking we passed a florists and I said there, take me to that florist so he grumpily agreed and turned round. It seemed like every Venezuelan I’d met was grumpy although the woman and guy (mother and son I’d say) changed my opinion when they actually seemed happy to serve me and managed to smile a little, probably because of the amount of money they were expecting from me!

So I got the flowers and we eventually arrived at the gates of Vanessa’s little neighbourhood which had it’s own private guard, gates and walls! This was after having to ask directions of many people and the car breaking down (as I expected from my first glance of the car!) and pushing it with him to get it going again! He left me at the gate and I checked the family name corresponded with the house number Vanessa had given me. This was definitely the right place and now I was full of butterflies as I was about to see Vanessa again and meet her family and it was 6am and thy had no idea when I would be arriving!

Thankfully I didn’t need to wake anyone up as Vanessa’s father was already awake and standing at the front drive almost as if he was expecting me. Immediately he rushed over to shake my hand and welcome me and help me with my bag which made me feel alot more at ease and very welcome!

As soon as I entered the house, little Mima the little poodle dog I had only ever seen online immediately ran to me barking its little head off and going beserk! She was on her hind legs waving her little front paws at me like she was dancing and clapping! 

It was so cool! She was so cute! All the commotion must have woken the whole house and immediately followed Vanessa’s mother who I gave the flowers to and then Vanessa made an appearance eventually after she had told Mima to go and check if I really had arrived so once she heard she knew I was there and came down.

It was great to be here and they made me feel very welcome. Neither of Vanessa’s parents spoke English so for me it was quite hard work understanding and talking to them and understanding and conveying everything but for the most part I understood and I think they were actually fairly impressed with my standard of Spanish.

I was expecting to be staying on a floor or something, or at most a mattress but to my delight, they showed me to my own room, a very large room equipped with a large double bed, a single bed, a hammock (which was really comfortable), an ensuite bathroom, a tv, wifi and air con! What a fantastic little pad this would be for me! Perfect, I couldn;t have wished for more! Although the shower didn’t work terribly well but this was not an issue for me. They even provided me with my own drawers for my clothes and got Nancy (the cleaner) to do all my washing and ironing for me and make me coffee and a toasted sandwich for breakfast! It was just wonderful and I was so pleased to be here and to see Vanessa of course!

The day was a lazy one, I was tired from the days travelling, Vanessa was tired from waking so early and she needed to study so we didn't do too much. I was keen to go and explore as usual but I knew that I’d have time to do that over the weekend so we just chilled for most of the day which suited me! When it got to around dinner time, Vane donned a fetching apron and cooked some tasty camarones spaghetti with a nice sauce which was nice. Then we met good old Miguel (Satu) –one of Vane’s best and oldest friends who took us on a spin around San Diego (the part of Valencia where Vane lives) and then into Valencia.

We decided we’d go to the cinema although Satu didn’t fancy it so we met Joha and Rido (two other friends of Vanessa from uni) at the cinema to watch Remember Me, a sad but rather predictable love story although no one would predict the ending! After this we went to a birthday party which was nice when I realised that the majority of people there did actually speak a fairly good standard of English and just as I got chatting to people it was time to leave! I did enjoy playing with the inflatable baseball court where you’d place a ball hovering over compressed air and smash it as hard as you could into the netting. I’d never seen anything like it and it was fun while it lasted!

Vane was of course too mature and feminine to be doing that and just continued her girly natter all night with Joha. It had been a day of excitement but now it was time to sleep and I was looking forward to my nice comfy double bed to sleep in. After saying an emotional good night to Vanessa I was out like a light.

The next day brought rain and so the beach was out of the question as had been suggested by Satu although I was still up for seeing caracas as suggested by Vane. Unfortunately however the family car was in for 2 weeks of repairs and so there was no way of getting anywhere without relying on public transport or on others. Vanessa had said no to Caracas as she wasn;t keen to take the bus and taxis which was a shame but fair enough. She was keen to go to the country club with Rido but the rain soon dispelled that ideaand so it looked like Saturday too was going to be a lazy day which indeed it was. A lot more general lazing about took place and I’m not sure I actually left the house for the whole day which was a shame.

By Sunday morning, I was desperate to get out and do something even though it was raining again and so I was excited when Vanessa said that Satu was coming to pick us up to go to Caracas with a couple of friends. 

Caracas

This was a fun road trip and it was great to see another capital city of this great continent! On entry into the city it reminded me alot of the typical South American capital city in the Andes such as La Paz, Quito or Lima with brightly coloured barrios in the suburbs densely crammed together on the mountain slopes surrounding an urban sprawl of skyscrapers and a central business district. 

Passing by the Plaza Bolivar

 in the heart of the city, we headed to the teleferico (the cable car) which headed all the way up to the El Avila (the high ridged mountain separating the sea from the city). This afforded amazing views of the city which was a very interesting long thin sprawl between the mountains that appeared to go on as far as the eye could see on one side and on the other the deep blue Caribbean sea. 

It was rather cold up there and after taking a fair few photos up there, it was time to get back down again. Luckily now the rain had dispersed and the hot sun was beaming down when we reached terra firma once again.

This had been a fun occasion and now we were all tired but on return to Valencia we stopped by Maria Eugenia’s house, the best friend of Vanessa’s sister Karina. After a while of chatting a pretty young girl came in called Naty, Maria Eugenia’s niece who didn;t say much but at the end I was told she could help me with my travels as she was a travel agent so they said they’d be in touch.

The next day Vanessa had to go to uni early and I was supposed to be leaving but I’d had a typical message from Fabian on facebook saying that he had met a girl and now wouldn’t be arriving in Venezuela until Wedndesday (yes he’d finally made up his mind and decided to get his arse in gear and leave Taganga!). So I asked permission if it was ok to stay until Wednesday which they kindly said was fine. So I had two more days and I still hadn’t even seen Valencia yet so I decided to myself that that was my plan for the day to go to Valencia and just be brave and walk around and do the tourist thing alone since no one was available to go with me and I certainly wasn;t spending another day of staying in and doing nothing especially when the sun was shining so off I went in a taxi to Valencia being dropped off at Plaza Bolivar as Vane’s mum had advised.

This was good advice as this had all the touristy parts for the photos such as the cathedral, the main square with Bolivar’s column, the royal theatre amongst other important buildings. Vanessa had told me that there wasn’t much to be seen and I could see her point as once I’d seen these buildings, there didn;t seem to be anything too impressive although I was determined to get some more good shots, some quirky shots and see what else there was to see here. I noticed that similar to Caracas the city was built within the contours of the mountains with high cordilleras on both sides of the city. This again gave the city a long thin approach for me making the city feel quite small. I almost felt like I could quite easily walk from one side to the other in no time at all but obviously it wouldn’t be quite that small! I also very much wanted to get an aerial shot from higher up so was considering climbing one of the samller surrounding mountains but then hunger and heat got the better of me and so I decided against it. At first I was very wary about getting my camera out after all the stories of robbings and guns but as the day went on I felt more and more confident and I was quite enjoying ambling randomly from place to place. 

After trying but failing to buy a cable needed to charge my mp3 player in a shopping mall called camo ruso or something where I’d been advised to go to to get it only to find when I got there that it was a big clothes shop, I decided to head towards the greener part of the city and by fluke stumbled upon a park with a river flowing through it. This was a nice reprieve from the concrete jungle I’d so far been walking through. This part of the city was rather pretty with nice green grassy areas, trees lining the river bank and to the north of the river were some picturesque forested mountains with some modern tower blocks dotted around at the foothills. 

As I continued to walk along the pleasant river bank away from the hustle and bustle of the city with very few people around (but still lots of cars), I came to another park, the metroplolitan park. This was also a pleasant park to walk through, at the entrance were two bright parrots which made a nice photo.

Strolling through this park was nice and you could tell that it was a well kept park with many gardeners working hard to plant new flowers, sweep the leaves and generally keep the place clean. There were many exotic plants around which were nice to look at although I felt pretty lonely as I saw nobody other than the gardeners and some people playing football (badly!) in the football court. At one point I saw a large igunana run towards a small bird presumably to eat although as soon as it saw me it hurriedly ran under the nearest building before I even had a chance to get my camera out. The bird ran back towards it’s mother in relief, I’d done my good deed for the day!

I continued to walk determined to find food now as my hunger really was getting annoying so I stopped at a wendy’s burger joint which was pretty expensive but I dodn’t care, I needed to eat! Whilst eating a woman approached me with her baby asking for money so her baby could eat and although I had done my good deed already I was about to reach for my wallet when security escorted her out making me feel guilty that I was eating but her baby wasn’t. I thought Chavez was supposed to be helping the poor people anyway!

By this time it was about 3pm and I was getting tired of all the walking but I hadn’t seen enough and was still considering going up higher for an aerial shot. After a short while taking more shots of nice churches and interesting looking buildings I decided I had gone far enough. 

The clouds were grey and looked ominous and as I walked back the heavens opened and of course I got drenched from head to toe as I could find no shelter for quite a while. By the time I found cover I was already soaked so I just kept walking and eventually arrived back at Plaza Bolivar. On the way a guy was at some traffic lights in his car and called me over asking if I spoke Spanish. When I said yes he looked surprised. He said but you look like a tourist, i saw you taking photos. When I said yes he looked surprised. He said but you look like a tourist, i saw you taking photos. Yes I am a tourist but I speak Spanish, I’m from London. He told me he was from Valencia but he lived in New York then the lights changed and he said bye and drove off. Just a friendly guy who wanted a chat I guess! In general everyone in this city had been friendly and I had had no suspicion of danger or anyone wanting to rob me and I was a clear tourist with my rucksack on my back and camera in hand. In fact no one really even batted an eyelid at me apart from just trying to be friendly. One kind woman at a stall was selling some delicious looking pancakes made of maize which I asked if I could try before I buy and she kindly made me one and gave it to me for free with a beaming smile. It was delicious too! Perhaps I just got lucky but I was certainly the only tourist in the city from what I could see which was actually really fastidious for me to be honest!

Overall I won't lie, Vanessa was right when she said there wasn’t much to see and do but I’m glad I went as I saw the 3^rd largest Venezuelan city which actually had a lot of character and many nice friendly and helpful people. Even though it certainly isn’t a city catered for tourism it still has alot to offer with a nice square and cathedral and some nice old colonial style buildings in the old town as well as many modern, shiny edifices scattered around. The general layout of the city was quite random and obviously dictated by the mountains and many buildings were dirty or in need of a lick of paint but it had character and was different from other cities I had seen in South America so I liked it.

On return to the Casa de los Pintos in pretty little San Diego, Vanessa was home already and was not in a good mood as her university had been robbed of it’s equipment so they were sent home early so she wasn’t really in the mood for hearing about my day. Her mother on the other hand was keen to hear where I’d been and what I’d done and took pleasure in seeing my photos and commenting on each one. I liked Vanessa’s mother and she was always very keen to chat and find out what I had done and just talk about her day and her life in general. I also found her Spanish easier to understand than Vanessa’s as Vane has to be the fastest speaker I’ve ever met so I can never keep up when she’s chatting with her friends. She barely stops for a breath! Vanessa’s father Heraclio was also easier to understand and took interest in finding out where abouts in England I was from which I took pleasure in showing him on google maps. Later in the evening I heard some pleasant stringed instrument being played and some singing so I left my room to find out where it was coming from and to my pleasant surprise found Heraclio strumming away and singing some very pleasant music so I sat and watched him for a while tapping my feet and enjoying the sound of this small four stringed instrument. After a couple of songs he came to me and explained that the instrument was typically Venezuelan and made a very unique sound and I told him that it sounded great to me. I still have yet to hear Vanessa on the piano but apparently she’s quite good. A talented family indeed! I hadn’t spoken to her brother Moises much since I’d been there but I could tell he had a good charcter and a good brain as he too was very kind, always taking my dishes to wash them up and whenever we saw each other always cheerfully saying hello. He is still in school and according to Vanessa wants to be a dentist. Both his mother and Vanessa had toldme he was disobedient and a naughty boy in school but i saw no sign of this and on asking him what he was doing he said i have geography and chemistry homework which he said would be easy which was a good sign. I offered to helphim with English but I don;t think he was studying it or interested in learning it but Vanessa could always help him with that if he needed it.

The next morning I woke feeling somewhat sad that it was going to be my last day here with this kind family. I had arranged with Naty (Karina’s best friend’s niece) late the previous evening that she would pick me up to go to Puerto Cabello (the beach town and chief port of Venezuela) close to Valencia so at 10.30 she came to pick me up as she had a free day and Vanessa had to study.

VENEZUELA

VENEZUELA

Waking up early after a pretty awful nights sleep I was feeling far from fresh when Andy the Frenchman knocked on my door at 7.30am. Still the night before I had packed so I was pretty much ready to go once I had taken a shower. I was still rather nervous about the whole affair of going to Venezuela one of the most dangerous and corrupt countries in the world which was run by a verging communist military dictator with some old French guy who just seemed to sit around smoking a lot of weed and cigarettes all day! Still at least I wasn’t going on my own I kept telling myself. Andy had emigrated from France a while ago and was now living in French Guyana, one of the smaller countries in South America to the east of Venezuela. He was fairly knowledgable about the whole journey we were about to make as he had obviously done it himself on numerous occasions and was actually doing the exact same route as mine although I was planning on stopping to see a friend in Valencia which we wasn’t so that would be where we would part.

So off we went, we got the minibus as usual to get to Santa Marta for the excellent price of 1,200 COP like 20pence or something compared to the 8,000 charged by a taxi. On arrival at Santa Marta I relaised I had nothing for my friends family I would be staying with so I ran into the supermarket and got some nice Chilean red and Argentinean white just hoping that they were into their wine!

From here we went to the terminal and bought tickets to Maicao, the border town for 65,000 COP. It seemed pretty pricey but that was the going rate so we agreed to get on the 9.30 bus and take the 4 hour journey to the border. I had a nice sleep pretty much the whole way trying hard not to inhale the nasty stench of bio and fags from Andy. I shouldn’t be so harsh because he was a very nice guy but just smelt a little. On arrival at the border we had the small issue of changing up money so since I had no COP (Colombian Pesos) Andy advised me to hop on a motortaxi and get to a bank as it was better to do this than change it in Venezuela or go to a cash point so I hopped onto the back of a motorbike and got some money. This place was HOT, on the bike I could practically feel the sun burning through my clothes! Hopefully more heat like this in Venezuela as most of you reading probably know I loooove the sun! The place was not the most exciting of places I’d ever been but one thing that stuck out to me was the huge minaret! I never would have expected a place of Jewish worship on the border of Venezuela and Colombia but perhaps it was due to the huge influx of Israleis that were there travelling and then settling down in Colombia. On return to the the terminal we were almost ambushed by people trying to get us in theiir bus or taxi! First we changed up out money which seemed to be a good exchange (according to Andy is was good so I was just going to trust him on this one since I wouldn’t have had a clue!). We then decided to take a large cadillac taxi with a couple of other Venezuelans to the nearest city of Maracaibo which was about 2 and a half hours drive. First though we had to get the stamps out of Colombia and into Venezuela. The stamp out was a fairly fast process (although they were examining and questioning something in my passport for a while which I had no idea why but eventually he stamped it and I was on my way. Even though I was rather wary when I saw the no guns inside this office sign I just couldn’t wait to get into Venezuela now, into a new country and see some new places! The stamp into Venezuela wasn’t quite such a speedy process with a long queue of people all of whom seemed to have some big issue and argument with the immigration officers. I guess it was to do with the tensions between the Colombians and the Venezuelans but i couldn’t be sure. At one point money was exchanged so I think perhaps there was some sort of bribery taking place! Anyway so again after some moments of the guy looking and questioning my passport and going through the all stamps (yes I have half a passport full of them now) he finally stamped it and we were on our way. Well at least I thought we were!

Andy had warned that there were many many police check points (something to do with the potential civil uprising against Chavez and military coup) as well as the fact that they probably wanted to interogate any unwanted visitors. After just 5 minutes driving in Venezuela, we were stopped for the first time. After browsing our documents for a while we were told to move on. This occurred perhaps every 15 minutes during the journey so we just couldn’t relax or rest as we constantly had to be having our passports to hand and ready to answer any questions they fired at us. At one stop (I think it was the official national guard office) when the guy asked for passports after a while examining mine he began asking questions, like where are you from (erm excuse me for stating the obvious but he had my passport in his hand although perhaps he couldn’t read the English or French that my nationality was printed in)! I said soy Ingles (I’m English) Irlandese he repeated, no Inglaterra (even the guy next to me said it with me who himself looked like a shady character!) Then came the most stupid question, so you speak English, yes I said in Spanish, I’m English! It was very patronising and very intimidating to be honestan not what I was expecting although I wasn’t feeling in the mood for talking back when he had a huge machine gun on his shoulder that he was tapping with his hand every few moments. Then he said hablas espanol (mas o menos) more or less i replied. Mas o menos he chuckled to himself as if to suggest you’re in trouble! Then came the questions where are you going and why and for how long. I just said Valencia porque tengo amiga ahi. Ah tienes amiga ahi si! He just seemed to like to repeat what I said in a mocking way and I was actually getting nervous and angry at the same time about where this was going! Then he picked on Andy, with the same questions although he also asked if we were family! Another pretty silly question since we were of different nationalities and looked nothing like each other although I suppose it was possible. SO you speak Spanish oui he said and everyone laughed. Wasn’t this guy a joker! Eventually he let us go and again we were on our way until the next stop.

All in all we must’ve been stopped about 10-15 times! I mean it’s a bit excessive really I think but you just got to cooperate and be nice to these people since they are just doing their jobs. Between the stops however, I can honestly say that the landscape and countryside was simply amazing, very flat land and very tropical, at one point it felt like we were driving through something out of apocalypse now *those of you who haven’t seen it, (come out of your cave now) the war film in Vietnam with forests of tropical palm trees. I’ve literally never seen so many palm trees, as far as the eye could see! Then there were some amazing sand dunes with rows and rows of dead tree trunks submerged. Then more tropical forest and more plains. It was strange not to see mountains for the first time in a while but it was a nice change and was completely different to any other South American country I’d so far been in! It was so beautiful and so diverse, I just wanted to take photos but with this shady looking Venezuelan to my left I thought better than to get my camera out now. Passing through small towns and villages, I could see that there was a lot of poverty in the rural parts and many old fashioned low rider cars that you’d expect to see in Cuba or Haiti. I was loving the car we were in though, even though it was old it still had electric windows in the back, it was very powerful and very quick and very spacious and comfortable! Our driver was clearly confident driving in these terrible roads seemingly getting pleasure from avoiding the huge cracks, holes and bumps in the road whislt narrowly dodging other oncoming vehicles as well as cows in the road like he was in a comuter game or something. In fact at one point, he was so far across on the other side of the road avoiding a bump on our side and an oncoming car was so far across on our side doing the same that I thought they would simply pass on the wrong side of each other but at the last second they both swerved to get on the right sides of the roads and nearly had a collision but just timed it perfectly so they dind’t this guy was clearly a pro!

So after about 2.5 hours involving some near misses, about 12 police stops and sitting between a shady hooded Venezuelan on my left and a smelly old Frenchman we finally arrived in Maracaibo. What a relief! In Maraciabo the thing that caught my eye most was a couple of really impressive looking stadiums next to each other presumably one for football one for baseball (the countries two biggest most popular sports). I also noted on top of a tall building the huge words Patria, Socialismo or Muerte! Meaning patriotism, socialism or death! This was the first piece of propaganda (I was wondering how long it was going to be). I couldn’t believe they were saying you risk your life if you don’t comform to the country code! I’d never seen anything like it! Chavez really did mean business here!

On arrival in the terminal we were again mobbed by a group of loud and angry bus operators who almost seemed to want to fight each other for our custom! We eventually bought tickets to get the same bus which worked out well which stopped at both Valenicia and Caracas which left at 8 giving us time to get some much needed grub and drinks.

So off we set on the 8 hour jouney to Valencia and 10 hours to Caracas respectively (Caracas is about 2 hours further east from Valencia). This meant that I would arrive at my friend Vanessa’s house at some stupidly early time in the morning so for me the later the bus left and the more delays there were the better. The bus eventually left at about 8.30 which was good for me as it was an extra half an hour in the morning. On the way out of Maracaibo (just before the bridge over the huge inlet to Maracaibo lake where one of the longest bridges in the world was, we were stopped again and everyone was made to get off the bus to once again show documents. At the entrance to the bridge was more propaganda saying Your president Hugo Chavez wishes you a pleasant journey which seemed like a nice touch to me but as Andy said its just a ploy to keep people on his side! I was hoping that perhaps that might be our last stop and I could hopefully I could get some well needed rest after a full day of travelling but nope we still had one more stop at 2am but they didn’t make us get off the bus this time which was kind of them! I just showed my passport with half an eye open, took it back and went straight back to sleep. The next moment I woke was seeing the sunrise at about 5.30am over the mountains of what I assumed must be Valencia judging by the time. Yes I was sure this was Valencia and as we pulled into the terminal and someone shouted Valencia I was positive. I was here, nervous, apprehensive but also excited about meeting Vanessa and her family and seeing her home and city. After a brief goodbye to Andy, I set about getting a taxi to the address of Vanessa where I would be staying for the weekend.

Santa Marta & Taganga

After a realtively quick journey in a minibus with a much needed stop in Barranquilla (Shakira's home town) to change our minibus with one that had air conditioning, of about  4 hours during which time I had the pleasure of being able to watch the majority of the champions league final, we arrived in Taganga a small fishing village tucked into a small break in the mountains on the rugged caribbean coast. This lies around 10 minutes from the nearest city of Santa Marta (about 5 miles to the west) which we drove through to get to Taganga.

On first impressions of the place, I was a little disappointed, it wasnt quite as quiet, quaint and picturesque as I had imagined and again, it certainly wasn't the Caribbean beach resort that one would imagine when picturing such a place.

We were taken by the minibus driver to one of the few hostels we'd heard of Bay View looking out not on the bay but on the biggest dustiest football pitch I'd ever seen where there looked to be some tournament going on with many locals gathered round sitting on the tiered seating nd making a fair amount of noise too. This really made me crave a game, it's one thing apart from the obvious friends and family that I really have missed since I've been away I think footy and driving and perhaps a good roast dinner!umm yum!

On the plus side, it was a friday night and the beach only a 5 minute walk away so after checking into our casita (little house at the back of the hostel) which proved to be a real pain to get to as they would always lock the back door of the hostel so we'd have to walk all the way round the houses to get to it. The 5 of us checked in there although it was only going to be for one night so we didnt make ourselves too comfortable as the welsh guy was leaving the next day to go to find the lost city in the jungle somewhere (in hindsight I wish I had gone myself which I would have done had I had the money to do so) and the two English girls, Sam and Mel had already checked themselves into a dorm room for the following night and Fabian was moving out of the hostel.

Anyway so we decided to make a night of it since we’d been travelling since we woke up and we wanted to see what the night life was like so we decided to check out one of the 2 clubs in this small iittle town so we decided on Mriador since we’d been handed a flyer for it earlier in the day by a couple of English girls who worked there. Although first Fabian and I checked out Garaje bar which we’d also been given fliers for while Mel went to Mirador with a bunch of ladies from our hostel, Dave the Welsh guy went to bed as he had a very early rise and Sam also passed out. Garaje bar was quite a cool little place although there weren’t many people there. After a bit of poorly attempted salsa by myself, we moved onto Mirador, a funky little bar over looking the sea where we danced some more and then for some silly reason decided to go swimming. Really damn silly idea, I forget just to trust people so I go off swimming in the dark, with the constant thought of my shit getting stolen (I had my camera, wallet, phone, and watch in my pockets) and so I was constantly keeping an eye out but surprise surprise on return not only had all my stuff been taken but all my clothes too! I was devastated, this was like the worst thing that had ever happened and I just didn’t know what to do! I totally freaked , there was noone there except some guy picking up bottles off the beach obviously he was the first guy I questioned but on searching him found nothing. Of course if he’d taken anything he would have hidden it or simply left before I came back from the sea. The guy who certainly looked like the type to do this sort of thing went off and came back with my clothes and my wallet and had all my cards, receipts and papers in his hand and just dropped them all down in front of me. This was a huge relief as I now had my cards back at least so I would be able to withdraw my money and not worry about cancelling them all and ordering replacements and then waiting for ages for new ones and obviously it was a relief to have my clothes back and not be walking around in my soaking wet boxer shorts! Obviously I immediately suspected this guy and questioned him but it was obvious I wasn’t getting anymore out of him. I decided just to wait til day break which now wasn’t long away and have another good search in the light when I could see better! Nothing so next I went to the police, useless, pointless wastes of space. Well it was my incompetence but at least they could’ve written me a report!! All they said was come back the next day to report to the chief as he wasn’t in today. I passed most of that day sleeping as obviously hadn’t had any, got some food and just felt generally sorry for myself. The watch was not just valuable in value but also in sentiment as it was a 21^st birthday present so I’d had it for 6 years. The camera was an excellent one too and I had often been given compliments about how good it was and obviously about the photos it had taken. I was gutted! There was no way I was getting them back. It was my fault and I felt like a total idiot. I was an idiot full stop. I needed to check out from the bay view as everyone else had either left or changed room so I went to hostel graffiti where Fabian had shared and got a room with him and passed out there for the rest of the day.

On waking early to see the police chief at 8am as told, I was directed to go to Santa Marta and given an address to report it. So that was that, I decided to go to Santa Marta to get a new camera, watch and report the crime to the police. I met Christian, the nice Italian guy we had met in Cartagena by coincidence who told me he was also going to Santa Marta to withdraw money so we jumped in a little minibus for the 10 minute journey to Santa Marta. On arrival I said my goodbyes to Christian and wondered what I was going to do first, whether to see the police straight away or to get the camera and watch. I decided to check out the police station first and yet again another excuse as to why I couldn’t report it as the right person wasn’t there and to come back. I couldn’t be bothered any more to be honest, they spoke no English at all, I needed to report it in English for it to be detailed and accurate enough and I was highly unlikely to get anything back from the insurance as I was totally culpable so I decided to forget it and just go and replace the things I’d lost with poor substitutes as already I was getting sick of not being able to take photos and tell the time! Off I went to a huge carrefour but on the way I found Olimpia, a supermarket which sold electronics. I found my camera but a model down with a terrible zoom comparatively. Anyway I bought it for 369,000 Colombian pesos roughly £100, a fairly respectable price considering my previous one was £380 although was clearly much better. This restored some happiness to my depressed state that at least now I was going to be able to take photos of Tayrona national park where we were planning on going and the rest of the places I was going to such as Venezuela. Next just to buy a cheap watch that did the job of just telling me the time. I headed to carrefour as directed by the guy selling me the camera as their selection was minimal and found the cheapest little digital watch they had which cost 30,000 COP (under a tenner). Now I was happy again, I had the things restored, not back or with the same value, quality or sentiment (my camera was also a birthday gift) but I was able to take pictures and tell the time again. Trying to look on the positive side as I usually try to do, I could say that my old camera didn’t actually work properly probably due to the amount of water and sand I had got in it. It still took extremely good pictures but viewing them proved troublesome at times so now I had one that functioned properly. With regards to my watch, my old one never kept the proper date which was frustrating and also I couldn’t read the time in the dark as it had no light or lumination on the hands so in that sense this watch was better and it had disco light function sad I know but it made me smile and an alarm. The little things that make you smile hey!

So some happiness had been restored and on the way back i went round taking as many photos as i felt necessary (Santa Marta doesn’t have too much to offer with regard to tourist sights although I found a few and it also has a caribbean beach) and took many glances and made sure I told whoever needed to know the time. J

On return to Taganga, again I used my camera as much as possible. We took a trip to playa grande, a short walk across the mountain to another bay along the coastline which was totally deserted apart from us and a woman selling beer from one of the many empty, deserted restaurants facing the beach. It was like a ghost town compared to Taganga. It was so strange, lots of tables and chairs and what appeared to be restaurants but nobody sitting, nobody working, nobody living there in the houses behind just nobody there full stop! For this reason it was quite nice and tranquil, we had the beach to ourselves (it was a little nicer than the beach at Taganga, cleaner water and sand) and no people or noise although it didn’t really live up to it’s name of being big beach as it wasn’t really all that big! 

The only trouble was after taking just a few photos on the nice walk across to the place the camera decided to die on me! I thought perhaps it was the battery but after getting back and charging it for a few hours it wouldn’t switch on so yet again I would have to go back to Santa Marta to replace the faulty goods I had bought.

Anyway so this was getting boring enough for me going back and forth and it’s probably getting boring for you reading it too if anyone is actually still reading at this stage, let me just say a big thanks for having enough time to waste reading this load of crap. It’s just something to keep me occupied on the long bus journeys really, it’s not like I’m ever gonna read any of it again! Well I might look at the pictures which is probably all you do. Well if you’re still reading and haven’t got so bored that you’re asleep by now, I’ll tell you that yes I went back and got a replacement camera after a lot of hassle and waiting around and lots of big scary men looking at me like I’d broken the thing and was trying to con them into thniking it was faulty goods and nothing to do with the fact that I’d dropped it in the bath or down the stairs or something. Anyway so to cut a long story short I got back to Taganga again only to find they hadn’t provided the bloody wrist strap grrrrr! Yet another trip was needed but I was going to have to go back there anyway to get to Venezuela so I decided I’d wait til then as it wasn’t that urgent and I could still use it without at Tayrona, I’d just have to be extra careful not to drop the damn thing as I’d have to blag it for real if it happened again! So with my new camera take two and new watch I was in the mood for celebrating and so we decided to go to the beach party on playaca, a beach just 5 minutes drive away towards Santa Marta. This turned out to be great for me as they were playing some fantastic old school drum and bass and jungle through some pretty amazing speakers and on the way up we’d met this American, Colombian guy who was loading up his HumV full of booze to take along and since there were no taxis around, I simply asked is there room for 5 more and he was like sure there is. It turned out he knew the guys running it so he got us all in for free and there were no taxi charges. The guy was a legend! Later in the evening he took myself, Fabian and Christian to a strip bar which although was rather lame, it was a cool road trip and good to cruise round Santa Marta in his Hummer at night.

Later we returned and I danced like a mad man to some old classics and found myself and Fabian at the beach to watch the sunrise. Now we had the problem of getting back but just at that moment Evan (the American Colombian guy) appeared and said lets go. How cool, free lift there, free entry and free lift back and some great tunes!

On the way back, we got chatting to a nice Colombian guy who told us he owned a hostel in Taganga and invited us back there for drinks which we were in no mood to decline! We liked the hostel and the guy (Francisco) so much that we decided we would move to his hostel the very same day as it was empty, was a good location (pretty much right next to the beach) and nice and close to shops and right next door to Sensation (the other bar in town). Later in the day we met up with Helena (the English girl who was a friend of Will’s from uni who had caught up with us since Mancora) by coincidence and we told her which hostel she was in and so she moved in with us too and worked for Francisco so that she could stay for free. Later in the day I made yet another trip to Santa Marta for various reasons and on the way back, two girls sat next to me in the minibus. They were speaking a strange language and so i asked what language it was. I knew it was European but couldnt quite put my finger on where exactly and when they told me it was Swiss German I felt a little embarassed having spent the last 2 months or so with a Swiss German although admittedly I hadn’t heard him speak German too much. Anyway so I told them I was travelling with a Swiss German guy and perhaps they’d like to meet him and they told me that they were planning to come and stay in Taganga so when I showed them our new found hostel, they agreed to move into one of the private rooms. I was doing a great job bringing in custom for Francisco, hopefully he’ll give me a discount on my own rates! 3 new people in his hostel thanks to me!

That evening we had a hostel party to celebrate which was alot of fun and we decided that we would book the boat to go to Tayrona the following day which I was very much looking forward to as I had heard and seen so many good things about it!

Tayrona National Park

Getting up early, Fabian, I, Helena and the 2 Swiss German girls got on the boat to take the hours journey to Tayrona. This was certainly an exciting experience and on the way we saw some amazing flying fish which jumped out the water and glided in the air for quite a while before submerging back into the water which was an amazing sight!

On arrival I could see what all the fuss was about! It really was like a paradise island, yellow sandy beaches, tall palm trees, clear water, beautiful weather and beautiful forested mountains all around! I couldn’t wait to explore!

Having already seen the flying fish, I was really excited to see what else I could find. I was in an adventurous exploratory mood and after deciding that we’d head to the other beach further away from all the tourists, we all split up, the two Swiss girls went their own way, I went my way and Fabian and Helena went theirs. I had no fears that I’d meet them later and I knew that since we only had 24 hours in this tropical paradise that I wanted to see things!

I decided after walking along seeing the beautiful beaches, climbing the large rocks and swimming in the sea a little that it was time to explore the jungle. 

So off I went climbing high and getting deeper into the jungle but still sticking to the path. 

I saw huge butterflies and ants carrying huge leaves and berries in long lines and large groups always taking care to step over them whenever I saw them slaving away down there. I saw and heard some wonderful birds and then as I walked heard what I thought were birds but they were making too much of a racquet in the trees to be birds but they were slightly off the path into the trees so I decided to go and investigate. To my delight, on further investigation, looking up I saw a whole group of howler monkeys staring down at me with great long tails and white fluffy manes. My instant reaction was quick get the camera and then I was cursing when I remembered the poor quality zoom on this new camera. While fiddling with the silly thing they dispersed all jumping this way and that and disappearing into the distant canopies. I pursued for a little while but I didn’t want to go so far off the path that I would get lost so I stopped and listened. Another one came flying down the branches and I quickly snapped him but the zoom was poor so the picture was terrible. It was certainly an experience though and I couldn’t wait to tell everyone I had seen monkeys for the first time in my life in the wild! 

Continuing to walk I noticed the huge abundance of blue crabs of varying sizes. Everytime you got near they would scurry into their holes, some very small, some absolutely huge! I definitely saw the biggest crab I’ve ever seen at one point which gave me a little fright because at first I wondered what it was because it was so big I didn’t think it actually was a crab! Now this may sound revolting but I was in the middle of the jungle and I really needed a number two! So I walked to a place where I hoped noone would see me and dropped the swim shorts and let it all out. I felt like tarzan standing there but naked in the middle of the forest dumping my load on the forest floor and wiping my arse with leaves but I had no choice, it had to be done. As I wiped for a last time, I put the leaves discreetly under a plie and moved some more over them with my foot. To my horror out scurried the smallest but meanest looking scorpion I had ever seen! It was a tiny little black scorpion which could easily have stung me and it quickly ran and scurried under another bunch of leaves. I wanted a photo but there was no way I was touching that thing! They say the smallest ones are the most deadly too!

Continuing to walk through the jungle and eventually coming to the next beach which was absolutely beautiful and completely deserted with a river running across the beach to the sea that I had to cross. There was a beautiful stork in the river gobbling fish like there was no tomorrow which I got some good snaps of. 

As I walked, I started to get hungry so I found a suitable looking restaurant just back from the beach. Here already eating I found the Swiss girls and so I joined them for lunch. They told me that they had seen a crocodile on the deserted beach I had just been on! I was like where and they told me just where the river meets the sea! I couldn’t believe it, I had just waded through that river to get to the other side of the beach and hadn’t seen anything! I could’ve been attacked or even killed! I was more annoyed that I hadn’t seen it though and I made it my next mission to go and see if I could find the elusive creature! I then told them about the monkeys I had seen and they agreed if they showed me the crocodile then I’d show them the monkeys so after lunch we set out on our mission. To our huge disappointment, neither the monkeys or the croc (it was actually a caiman they had seen) were anywhere to be seen near their previous sightings and so we just had to face the facts that we might not get to see them but I wasn’t going to give up so easily seeing this caiman!

On the walk back through the jungle, we met up with Fabian and Helena at the beach they had decided to take temporary residence on and told them of our sightings. The Swiss girls had booked themselves into hammocks which I suggested to the other 2 that we did too but they were talking about sleeping on the beach which actually sounded quite exciting so I agreed to go along with that plan too. Luckily we had bought a bottle of aguardientes with us and we drank some shots of it at the beach while deciding where we were going to sleep. I told them about the nice deserted beach (apart from the caimans) that I had found and so we went to check it out.

We agreed that we would sleep there that evening and went to join the girls at the restaurant as they wanted food and I needed a beer. After eating and drinking a good few shots and beers and listening to a talking parrot,

 we were all in a jolly mood and by this time it was dark and felt alot later than 8pm or whatever it was although round here it was clear everyone went to bed early so off we went to find our beds for the night.

The deserted beach was quite a bit further down from the restaurant and the tide had come in so it meant crossing the river and the high tide and rough waves that had come up the beach (I remember earlier in the day on this very beach saying now swimming, too dangerous, over 200 people have died here!) in the darkness, not to mention contending with the caimans lurking in the river! I decided it was probably best to get the good little head lamp out kindly left to me by Dad after Machu Piccu (thanks dad if you’re reading you saved us from getting eaten by caimans) as neither of the others had been organised enough to bring a torch. Walking through the pitch darkness everyone simply following the little light coming from the torch, i flashed it in front of me in the direction of the river and to our shock we saw not just one but 2 sets of reflective eyes staring at us from the river we were standing in and they appeared to get getting closer. This was pretty scary that we could see just the caimans eyes and nothing else and to make matters worse, the sand we were standing in was like quicksand, it just sucked your feet in whenever you placed a new footstep so getting away from a snapping caiman was not going to be easy. Eventually we managed to get up onto a sandy ledge and out of the river and back down onto the other side of the beach but it was quite a hairy moment albeit a cool experience! Now we just needed a place to sleep. We found a suitable area of beach, not too close to the sea to get swept away, not too close to the caimans to get eaten and not to close to the beach huts and humankind towards the jungle at the back of the beach. Once we had found the perfect spot we set up camp for the night. 

After about 10 minutes of talking the other 2 were out like a light but I was having trouble sleeping. I need to be very comfortable and warm to sleep and this was neither. As the night wore on I became more uncomfortable and more cold and cursed myself for not bringing some warmer clothes as the others had done! You don’t really go to the caribbean expecting to need a fleece but at this moment I could’ve done with one! By about 2am it stated to become dewy which was totally unpleasant and I decided that I was no longer going to use my huge Brasil beach towel as a sheet but more as a blanket and completely wrapped myself in it like a chrysalis in a cocoon. This worked well and kept me warm and dry but as soon as some light appeared since I was in such a light state of sleep I woke. I am extremely glad I did as it was most certainly the most amazing sunrise I’ve ever seen with the most amazing colours and shadows cast by the few clouds in the sky.

 I ws just so glad I was catching this moment. A few others had joined us on the beach just to sea the sunrise and it truly was worth it and an extraordinary sight!

That morning I went looking for the caiman again in vain. The damn thing wasn’t to be seen during the day and just the eyes were visible at night! So frustrating!

After a little swimming, and some breakfast, we decided to explore the next further beach but there wasn’t much there other than stronger waves and hotter sand so we turned to head into the jungle only to find the way blocked by another river and on the other side we saw a giant iguana which spotted us and quickly ran behind a rock before we could get out cameras out. We weren’t having much luck snapping the nature in this place! We did however come across an amazing giant sea turtle that was unfortunately dead but it was an amazing sight! I had no idea that they grew so big. Poor thing, I kept thinking that it was still alive as with every movement of tide it's head would move back

and forth and up and down.

After some more exploration seeing some more cool animals, fish and birds and doing some more sunbathing, it was time to leave this paradise. On the boat we saw some dolphins jumping near us which was amazing but the excitment of this quickly faded when one of our engines failed and we were already going slowly due to much choppier water than we had on the way there! After about 2 hours we finally got back to Taganga, wet tired, hungry and glad to be on terra firma once more we headed back to the hostel.

Taganga Part 2

Francsico was there at the hostel. Often hard to read or understand his expressions, I couldn’t quite fathom what he was bumbling in his poor English and then I saw his door! The door was smashed apart, we were robbed he said. They had taken my computer (which ironically I’d left for safety reasons in his room), they took his camera and Fabians camcorder as well as ransacking all our clothes throwning them all over the place. I was in shock I coulndt beleive this had happened to me AGAIN! Someone up there really must have it in for me I thought!! To be fair to Francisco however, he said he’d buy me a new one as it was his responsibility and after 2 days of it not turning up, the police being their usual useless selves (they didn’t even come to look at the crimescene after we’d reported it or write up a report) Francisco being his good self promised we’d go to Santa Marta and buy me a new one. So off we went, he had got his camera back as people new who it had been sold to so he went and bought it back and Fabain got his camcorder back which was at Bayview as one of the staff had managed to grab it off the thief! It was good of francisco to buy me a new one although it was more the photos, music and movies that I was most annoyed about, dor the 2^nd time I had lost it all!!

This was the final straw, I’d had just about enough of tagana and it was about time I left. A french guy who was in graffiti hostel and had consequently also moved to La Mucura (Francisco’s hostel) was also heading my way into Venezuela so I agreed that the next day, we would get up early and head there together. Fabian was still undecided so I thought I’d leave him to ponder what he was going to do and if he was going to come he could catch up. It had certianly been a time and place of mixed emotions and although I like certian aspects of the place i relity I couldnt wait to leave although I was raather nervous about going to Venezuela after everything I’d heard, if you never try then you’ll never know hey!