After a hellish 16 hour bus journey next to a CRYING BABY (which I have to admit I nearly throttled after being woken up ever hour by grizzling) and a collectivo ride through the mountains I arrived in MERIDA!!! Whoop whoop. Its a really cool university town, sadly at its summer none of the students are around but it still has a cool atmosphere. I´m staying in a really cool and quite price($12 a night!) hostel with the most amazing breakfasts in the world. Thats not a lie I have eatern ever breakfast in the world and none are a patch [View Full Entry]

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We were hoping on a smooth boarder crossing but as this is South America nothing is ever as simple as it sounds. Traveling with three massive bike boxes didn't help as ever policeman, bus driver and person we met along the way wanted to rip us off! The bus to the boarder was fine but crossing the boarder took agesssss as we had our passports checked literally ten times. We finally arrived in Maricabo and had to wait ages for a bus. The overnight bus to Caracas was so cold due to the air con being turned up to 11. Robin [View Full Entry]

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After recovering from our debauched night in Taganga we all set off to Cartagena. We(me, Power, Rich and Robin) met up with Blenk(the other cyclist) and his girlfriend Laura(Jones). Cartagena is a beautiful colonial city and we spend our first day exploring the old town and EL FORTO! We mucked around in the underground tunnels and got beautiful views of the city. That night I met up with Georgia which was really cool as I have´t seen her in ages! We went out for dinner and caught up, I got to meet her sister who she is currently traveling with which [View Full Entry]

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After I sweated it out on the mammoth trek I headed To Parque National Tyrona, with Tamzin and Paul. The nation park was absolutely beautiful and contained prefect beaches, white sand palm trees and turquoise water. It was a very stressful couple of days, alternating between working on my tan, swimming and reading. I managed to survive the hardship I was face with and emerged browner than ever! I did have to pay 10 bucks to sleep in a hammock which was incredibly expensive! After leaving the beach I went to Taganga to start a diving course. It was a very [View Full Entry]

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I have just returned from the most amazing 6 days spent trecking through the Columbian jungle. We set off on Wednesday in a group of twelve to reach a lost city hidden in the depths of the jungle. The area is controlled by the military at the moment and we had to pay them off so that they would protect us, as in 2004 8 tourists were kidnapped! We didn't have any problems on the trip and the whole area felt pretty safe. On our first day we walked for about four hours, most of which was uphill. After about [View Full Entry]

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Well its been a very busy week! We left San Agustin and got a bus to Cali which took absolutely ages as at one point we got stuck in a massive hole in the road and had to dig ourselves out. Well I didn't personally help but it did look pretty tiring! We arrived in Cali which was so HOT, we spent the afternoon relaxing and went out to salsa in the evening. The main strip was very deceptive as everywhere looked busy but was very dead inside so we didn't have a wild night. The next day we got [View Full Entry]

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Greetings from Columbia, home of, well Cocaine, guerrilla men, paramilitary soldiers and the mafia! However I have been here for over a week and have had no sign of any of those things, but have seen a lot of a very beautiful country. We arrived in Bogota on Sunday and spent the next day wandering around the city. We visited a few churches and an art gallery and just soaked in the city. In the afternoon we went up 46 stories to the top of the biggest building in the city. We had amazing panoramic views of Bogota, which were [View Full Entry]

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Well this is my first blog in a few weeks, since Dave went home Ive been chilling out in Quito. I'm now back with the family I was living with which I'm now very ready to leave! We had a girlie trip to Otavalo last weekend, wearing our ´Quito girls do it better T Shirts! I spent a lot of money but managed to buy loads of very cool stuff, and more jewelery than I would ever need! We have had quite a few good nights out in Quito with Ben and Jack, who have been teaching us how to [View Full Entry]

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After a throughly exhausting weekend attempting Cotopaxi going back to work was very hard. Dave came to Cenit on Tuesdays which was really cool and he got to meet all the kids. He really enjoyed himself and the kids loved him. They treated him as a jungle gym and fought over who got to climb on him. At one point two of the boys tried to pull out him chest and leg hair! On Wednesday we went out with the girls to celebrate my birthday, we went to a vegetarian restaurant where we could bring our own wine. Needless to [View Full Entry]

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After leaving the beach I headed to Banos, which is a little town in the mountains, with Dave. We found a very cool hostel and went out to Casa Hood, my fave restaurant there, and had a lovely dinner. On Thursday it was my birthday! I have now finally turned nineteen. I had the most amazing day, we went out for cake and smoothies for breakfast and I opened my presents. Thank you to everyone who gave me birthday wishes. I got some amazing presents including lots of books, chocolate and money. Dave is taking me to Florence in September [View Full Entry]

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