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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Cartegena goes down as the best city I´ve ever visited. Best as in... the amazingly well-preserved achritechure and atmosphere of the old city is stunning, live music pours out of every other bar, friendly-beautiful people, armed guards for most businesses, the best fruit shakes on Earth, the list goes on. Yes, a group of us were almost robbed (some local guy saw it coming and started yelling to scare the would be robbers off), but overall, it´s just great. Inside the walls of the old city, loud taxis and buses are replaced by horse drawn carriages. In the more dilapidated parts [View Full Entry]

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quick up date just finished 5 days of spainish lessons ( Donna struggled a bit but i let her copy my notes) just getting packed to go up to Cartagenta for a few weeks of Carribean sun top up the tan been pretty busy with spainish and shopping !! post up date in a week from the sun C & D [View Full Entry]

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Colombia the Beautiful, the land of Milk and Honey. We had been longing for the Carribean beaches and the beauty and friendliness exhorted by other travellers and we wern't dissapointted. [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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“Yo soy Miss Colombia.”* The bold claim leapt defiantly from the text. My eyes flicked back up to the accompanying photograph. Catalina, the septuagenarian fruit vendor, undoubtedly had the poise of a beauty queen and certainly wore her age well, but I wasn’t entirely convinced. Reading an in-flight magazine from cover to cover on a grounded plane, I had chanced upon an article about the palenqueras of Cartagena. Characteristic figures in this Caribbean city, these vibrantly-clothed women negotiate the streets of the ciudad amurallada and the beach at Bocagrande, their palanganas laden with luscious fruits or syrupy confections. A small bill [View Full Entry]

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I have just returned back to Ecuador from my 2 week trip to Colombia. Unfortunately I can bring you no exciting stories of drug lords or kidnappings, however we did have a great time and enjoyed temperatures over 30°C! We started our trip in Cartagena - a city on the northern coast of Colombia. It is a great city with colonial style architecture, 500-hundred year old forts, and still has intact parts of the wall that surrounded the city in Spanish colonial times. The people of Cartagena are really friendly and were always warning us against the money changing magicians - [View Full Entry]

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On arrival in Cartagena , rich and I found a nice hostel near the central square called Hotel Holiday. THe old city is beautiful. Full of old restored, Colonial bulidings. The streets are so colouful and paved with cobblestones. I is easy to tell it is a very touristy area because outside the Old City there is a marked difference in the condition of the buildings. Also there are not so many police standing around on street corners. One thing we all noticed was the number of beautiful women walking around the streets. Huge improvement from Panama and Costa Rica. Rich, [View Full Entry]

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havent been internetting the past few days because we have been on a boat sailing from panama. it was amazing. white sand, single palm tree tiny islands surrounded by turquoise water. native indian tribe welcoming us and inviting us to their celebration. there were no other gringos there and it was all about getting trashed on sugar cane alcohol. what an experience. the highlight of the trip so far. such friendly people and beautiful kids following us down every street playing and laughing and waving. so i have said my farewell to central america for the moment and am looking into [View Full Entry]

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Well we made it to Colombia via a very small aeroplane which had propellors and was smaller than a local coach!!! First stop Cartagena, i was so glad to get out of Panama City it was not a nice place, lots to see out of the city though. Cartagena is even more beautiful than the guide books say. There is such a calm air around the place similar to that of florence in Italy. The architecture is out of this world, preserved colonia buildings along side fortifications built by the spaniards to protect their new land!!! We stayed only two nights [View Full Entry]

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