So another big city, and to be honest I have started running out of energy for this traveling lark (finally). My theory is that to properly get a feel for a city you either need friends there or at least 3 weeks. I had neither in Medellin so after a cursory look around the sights like the plaza de esculpturas.....actually that was it, there are lots more sights but I couldn't really be bothered....I took a trip up and down the metro instead. The metro in Medellin is elevated so you get a great view of the city without doing any [View Full Entry]

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My next stop was in the lovely little town of Salento, an hour east of Armenia. The town is a typical pueblo paisa and full of colourful fronted houses around the main plaza and lots of people milling around with their ponchos on. I stayed in the Mountain House hostel which is in one of the nicest settings I have stayed in here, with lovely gardens and an annex down across a field with the best views from my dorm room. From here I took a jeep with some others from the hostel to the Cocora valley famous for its wax [View Full Entry]

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When I went to meet the kids I was planning to volunteer with they were sitting quietly watching TV but I was immediately jumped on and hugged by 4 little monkeys called, Jhon, Yahaira, Nicole and Cristian Duane. I clearly wasn’t the first foreign volunteer they had seen and without any further questions or introductions I was dragged out to the patio area where they had all their toys to play with them. I had wanted to do some volunteering firstly to improve my Spanish and secondly to get to know one place from a different perspective. I thought that a [View Full Entry]

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I arrived in Cali at the beginning of the month with exactly 31 days until I need to be back on the north coast for my lift out of here to central America. I wanted to work here for a while in order to improve my Spanish a bit more and to see a part of Colombia from a non backpacker point of view. I had chosen Cali as it is not really on the gringo trail but if I am honest the fact that it lists itself as the salsa capital of Colombia was also a big draw. Coincidentally all [View Full Entry]

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Whilst in Ecuador I floated the idea that Adam could come with me to Colombia seeing as he didn't have much planned up until his flight from Quito to Peru, so I said why not kill the time with me and see a bit of Colombia to boot. The US government strongly advises its citizens against visiting Colombia as does ours, but for some reason us Brits just tend to take far less notice of any officials or politicians than they do. So while I was painting pictures of lovely people and countryside two Belgians arrived and told us that the [View Full Entry]

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Me, Adam and his friend Matan all set off from Quito at midday to Ibarra. From there we got a front seat ride next to the driver on the bus to San Lorenzo through some great scenery and down through the clouds into the tropics again. We arrived in the middle of another thunderstorm and words of caution from the bus driver (his colleague had been robbed the night before in the same town) and the hotel owner who told us that it was not a safe town to be walking around in the dark. According to the books where we [View Full Entry]

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On our first afternoon back on dry land, the boys (Peter and Adam) went round the dive shops and booked themselves in for a dive on Gordon rocks the next day, then we met up with the others for dinner just incase we hadnt had enough of each other. I spent the next morning in bed and met them after their spectacular hammerhead filled dive to look at their photos and curse myself for not going with them! The day after we hired mountain bikes and headed out towards some lava tunnels, but on reaching them decided to head further up [View Full Entry]

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I arrived back at the airport far too early to meet my guide and the people I would be spending the next week with and sat watching with horror as the geriatric couples streamed through the arrivals gate. It suddenly dawned on me that in booking a fairly good boat with a good reputation and itinerary instead of a cheap crappy one, I had probably assured that there would be no young backpacker types on board and I may have to spend the week with octogenarian ornithologists! At least, I thought to myself, there's a good chance the guide might be [View Full Entry]

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Wow, I'm sure the pictures in this blog speak for themselves....I have lots more photos to put up here but I have to find a computer which reads DVDs first. I have just spent my first week in the Galapagos and although I was going to write about my short stay in Cali, a power cut at the border crossing and getting robbed and rained on in Quito, it all pales in to insignificance compared to this place so we'll just skip all that and get straight to the point....which is ...... wow! I arrived on the plane and stepped out [View Full Entry]

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Well it seems again I have delayed writing my blog until there is just too much to tell you all! I left Barranquilla pretty exhausted after the carnaval and so couldn't bring myself to join the other gringos in San Gil for any of the adventure sports offered there. I had a look round the small villages of Guane and Barichara, which were pretty but not all that interesting to be honest apart from the beautiful interior of the church in Barichara. A sleepless night with swollen glands in San Gill, waking myself and everyone else up making strange strangled noises, [View Full Entry]

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