Cali has three museums, three big churches and according to “the book” not much else. It does have a very nice Mall, Chichi Chape, that can be reached on foot along a busy polluted main road. There are quite a few interesting shops that offer a wide variety of interior decorating designs. This is only from observing the show windows. One shop had very appealing furniture and figurines. A very powerful capuccino can be had at a Juan Valdez franchise. Did not buy a Juan Valdez t-shirt! Hope I don’t regret this. I have given away all the other t-shirts bought, during the last five months, along the way. There is a zoological park in Cali. Don’t particularly like zoos and when I saw elephant and camel depicted on the brochure I opted not to go. ... read more

Taganga is a drowsy and someimes very noisy fishing town east of Santa Marta, that attracts scuba divers, snorklers and young hippies. Juice carts abound.... semi-circular restaurants vie for your custom and anyone who has something to sell will find you. Fishermen bring in a fresh catch daily. Many old barques lie picturesquely along the beach. Where I ate one day I was remembered the next mainly because I had brought in six other people. Cartagena had been left behind early Sunday morning in the driving rain. It had been raining for 16 hours. The streets were flooded. The friends who had brought me back to my hostel after Pablo's Birthday party were caught by a two foot increase of water in the street. They could not get past in any direction. They waited two hours. ... read more

13:00,Thursday, September 13. It is not raining, not pouring rain, not torrentially down pouring ... its a deluge! So fierce in fact that the spray of falling rain reaches halfway into the restaurant and splashes my screen. El Bistro is a refuge with good coffee, strudel that's really struessel and lots of the ever suspect ice cubes in water! While sitting here in El Bistro a man with grey curly hair on head and in his beard crouches opposite on the cement stair of an entrance way. His belongings are in a large white plastic shopping bag, the kind you get when you buy something big at the Mall. Behind his dirt encrusted knee are take out containers… two soups and one flat compartmentalized one. He nibbles with sparse teeth on the contents of the flat ... read more

Panama City was a destination only because I wanted to transit the Canal from Pacific to Atlantic before it was changed forever by the expansion. Today, September 4, 2007, former President Carter pushed a button and blew up a mountain of dirt to make way for the creation of wider passages for SUPERships. I transited the Canal September 1, 2007. Enrolled in Spanish Panama for lessons because a Canadian is the director. The ‘home stay' was depressing. The lessons, for four hours a day, were given by three excellent teachers and much enjoyed. Have learned a lot which will stand me in good stead when I reach Colombia. The sheets and pillow I bought to make sleeping possible at the ‘home stay’ I will give to the woman who cleans my room. Do not like ... read more

From the Internet we can read, “Granada city was founded between Xalteva, and the Cocibolba or the Great Nicaragua Lake, by the Spanish conqueror Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba in the 1524 year, creating one of the colonial settlements more ancient of the American Continent.” The city is laid out on a square grid and when you visit the Convent of San Francisco which has been turned into a museum you can see scale model of the whole city colour coordinate according to epoch of settlement. And in relation to the city much is said about William Walker, an American. “The Saga of William Walker by Don Fuchik President of Lower California, Emperor of Nicaragua, doctor, lawyer, writer—these were some of the titles claimed by William Walker, the greatest American filibuster. In the mid-nineteenth century, adventurers known ... read more