Mud Wrestling in Colombia

The hits to our travelblog are already down by about 30% so point to self: make this blog short, sharp, witty beyond belief and only include one little white lie - well can´t promise all four, but here goes..

After a 10 hour boat ride up the Amazon we arrived in Leticia, the Columbian port town, which was still in the middle of the jungle. It had a carribean feel to it which was cool and we realised we were in the middle of nowhere when we wanted to pay a travel agent by credit card for our flights and I got taken by moped to the airline office to process the transaction, bit mad!

A couple of days later we flew to Bogota, the capital of Columbia, after sweating buckets in the Amazon, we were greeted with rain and more rain and expensive accommodation as it was a bank holiday - oh shame:) Bogota is quite a cool city but we didn´t stay long, just enough time to head to a Rumba club. As the Columbians grinded with each other around us, we looked a wee bit awkward as we took to the dance floor to Rumber but rather Wiggled to good old Shakira instead! Still it was good fun and we caught a wicked 10 piece band with 4 singers that kept us entertained.

After Bogota we hit Villa de Leyva, a small town with not much going on, still we had a nice bike ride there and saw a huge crocodile fossil that was pretty impressive.

16 hours further north and we were in a beach resort called Taganga that was a bit of a dump but a good basis for exploring. In the few days we were there we visited the nearby national park called Tyrona to find idyllic beaches and thick rainforest. The next day we were up early to go fishing with a local yokel, as well as getting sunburnt Nick caught a huge marlin (see piccie), I however battered (excuse the pun) his total on the smaller fish with the final score being 4-3 to me!

Our last stop in Columbia was the walled city of Cartagena on the Carribean coast where we have spent the last week. The most fun we had here was visiting Volcano Tolumo where you basically sit in the crater and have a mud bath and a bit of a wrestle - we couldn´t resist :) After waiting out for a big fiesta throughout our trip in South America we were also lucky enough to come across the hat festival in Cartagena which was wild to say the least!

Columbia, despite all the bad press, is a beautiful country and we have really enjoyed our time here...thats even with all the huge guns that the security and police insist on carrying!

Hope everything is well with everyone at home, keep the comments coming.

We are leaving tomorrow for Panama (via the San Blas Islands) on a little yacht. It should take about 5 days (hurricanes permitting) so will be in touch when we get there! The boat is called Good Karma, hopefully it will be!

Sorry, think I only achieved 1 out of the 4!

---

---