We managed to find our way to Taganga, a small fishing viallage that is taken over by holidaymakers and tourists. Rather like when we lived in Taupo, you left home during the holiday season because it went crazy. Our transport included a taxi to the bus station, the taxi driver had no idea what our Spanish meant and he finally figured out our hand gestures and the odd word in the dictionary. We then managed to find a bus to Santa Marta, we passed alot of low lying homes with water everywhere - possibly from the down pour we had the night before, I hope no homes were flooded. There were mangrove swamps and mixed jungle farms and some cattle farms. We again got to the right destination and found our next transport, a collectivo to ... read more

We have done some sightseeing around Cartagena by boat and Chiva and bus. Every trip was enjoyable and showed another facet of this really lovely place. Our first trip was by boat to an aquarium and beach. There were dolphins sharks, many types of large fish, sea turtles and tropical fish. The aquarium had walkways around the ocean that was fenced off for the creatures. I believe the dolphins could have jumped out if they wanted to. The guides threw fish to show us how they snapped them up and swam for food. The dolphins did a bit of a show. It truly was a lovely setting. Some of the islands we passed by were very tiny and had homes on them that covered them in total. Not a spare inch of land left. I don't ... read more

We bused to Medellin, Paul was only frisked once this trip. There were checkpoints everywhere and you need to carry your passport with you. We had quite a slow trip through to Medellin, the bus stopped at every small town along the way. We arrived at the Palm Tree Hostel and settled in. Patty phoned a friend who came over to talk to us and it was organised for him to take us around the city the next afternoon. Medellin is a great big city of 4 million - our country in one city. In the morning we went to Museo de Antioquia, this is a place full of artworks by Botero. He is an artist that donated lots of his works to the Museum and outside stand lots of his sculptures. He manages to make ... read more

From San Agustin there is a loop road that leads to Tierradentro, another place with archealogical sites, the only known underground tombs in South America. This trip was another experience, thank goodness for Patty who could speak spanish and barttered our way there. Sometimes we were in and out of buses, not knowing whether we were in or not as she was busy bartering away, if it didn´t suit her or the price was not to her liking she yelled for us to all get out, it was quite hilarious. We left from San Agustin to Pitalito in a ford king cab and had to wait for the next big bus to Garzon and then La plater. Twice the transport had to stop and everyone off so that the Soldiers could check for bad people. Paul ... read more

We had another crazy, 6 and a half hour bus ride to Popayan, through gorges, steep hills, winding road and bush, very nice scenery. The bus driver appeared to need to pass on blind corners as fast as he could, tooting to tell everyone else to get off the road. Once again lots of check points, with the soldiers with automatic FN´s, with huge magazines sticking out of them. Popayan is known as the White City, because most of the city centre is painted white. It looks very pretty. We booked into a flash hotel that was supposed to be cheap and the room turned out to be a dungeon, with no window and the walls 2 feet thick and no air so that we nearly suffocated. We had to find another place the next day ... read more

We took a bus that cost about $1 each to go on a long bus trip to Otavalo. This town holds a very large market on Saturdays, including an animal market at 6am, so we arrived the day before so that we could have an early start. The road to Otavalo passes acres of glasshouses, growing roses and flowers. The bus was to Otavalo, so we were waiting for it to arrive at the station - it never did. People on the bus were talking to us about Otavalo, and we could not understand them. It happened that we had passed Otavalo and had to get off and walk back in light rain a few kilometers. But we got there. We booked into a nice hotel and had a walk around the town. This town has ... read more