After spending the previous few weeks chilling on the northern coast of Colombia followed by five days out at sea and on beautiful islands, arriving in the bright lights and concrete jungle of Panama City was a little shock to the system. After a very long day of travelling in the middle of no where and feeling like we had been on a complete adventure we were happy to be finally in the city and finding a bed for the night. By this stage a shower and food were the only two priorities on the list and that was all I [View Full Entry]

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Well this is a long and adventurous story with so it is going to take me sometime to tell I think. Our plan was to get a yacht from Cartagena to Panama which would stop on the way at the beautiful San Blas Islands. We had met many people who had come from Panama and also many that were also planning on doing what we were and along with that we had heard many mixed stories. So armed with this knowledge we were keen to make sure that we had a good captain and decent boat to not only get us [View Full Entry]

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We had gone back to Cartagena to find ourselves a yacht to sail to Panama and found that we had a few spare days. I decided that some sight-seeing was in order as the previous time I had been in Cartagena was spent partying at the fiesta. I booked myself on a tour to the nearby mud volcano, something that was pretty rare and I had been told was definately worth going to see. After being picked up first in the van I then spent the next two hours picking up the others and getting stuck in traffic.......not what I was [View Full Entry]

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The day had finally arrived for me to be sitting on a beach taking in the tranquility........a feat I had been trying to obtain for many months and had pretty much given up on as there are very few good beaches in the countries I had been in. Sharyn and I got ourselves organised and then got a lift into Santa Marta with Santiago to catch the bus out to the Parque Tayrona. In Santa Marta we had to grab some food and other necessities before finding the bus, this in itself proved to be a very fun experience and very [View Full Entry]

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After a slow start Darragh, Sharyn and I made it to the bus station and onto a bus that was apparantly going directly to Santa Marta, about 4 hours north of Cartagena. It didn't take long for all of us to get comfortable and enjoy the chance to do nothing for 4 hours on the bus. Only a couple of hours later though we pull into a large town and were told bluntly to get off the bus and change to another smaller one......yes just another instance where they tell gringos whatever they want to hear. Again after a bus ride [View Full Entry]

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After yet another long bus ride this time consisting of a couple of screaming babies I finally made it to the Caribbean Coast of Colombia. I had left Sharyn behind in Medellin and jumped on the bus with Darragh, an Irish friend we met in Salento, in order to get to the coast to smell the ocean air. I did guess that Cartagena would not be the ideal place to be to enjoy the ocean but it was a great change to being up in the mountians. As we left the bus station we met up with Jamie, a Scottish guy, [View Full Entry]

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After leaving Salento in the early hours we headed off towards the city of Medellin. Again yet another endless windy road was our path and again we were witness to amazing scenery as we made our way north. It seemed today that the hills were even greener, steeper and more magical then I had seen before in Colombia. By this time my patience for taking long bus rides was waining and with 2 hours to go to Medellin I couldn't sit still in my seat, so when we did arrive on the city outskirts I was pretty damned happy. Medellin is [View Full Entry]

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After taking off from the Leticia airport we were bound for Bogota, the capital of Colombia. Sharyn and I had both wanted window seats that would allow us some good views from the air over the jungle region but as we took off the area was covered in cloud and our view lasted for all of 4 seconds. As we got further from Leticia the sky began to clear and we did get some awesome views of the jungle mountains and the rivers twisting through them. Not long after taking off we started our descent into Bogota. I had mixed feelings [View Full Entry]

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So we had finally made it to our final destination in this part of the world and I was happy to be back in Colombia again. Straight away the difference is obvious as there is a lot more money in Colombia than other countries and people here are happy to see tourists in their country. The infrastructure is better, the people are more educated, the shops are nicer, the houses are nicer, the people are extremely friendly and helpful, I believe that they have a great way of looking at life, they love their salsa and play much better music than [View Full Entry]

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Time had come for us to get organised and get back on another boat and head further down river to Leticia, Colombia. This time we were ready to be hassled at the port by people trying to help us to do things that we were more than capable of doing ourselves. For instances organising our voyage with the captain of the boat. As we arrived in our moto taxi it was surrounded by men trying to help but this time in no uncertain terms we told them that we did not need any help and that we were fine by ourselves. [View Full Entry]

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