Bubbling Hot (like a soup in a pot)

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Cristobal Colon may well have picked the best of the bunch of Latin American countries to name after himself, as Colombia is absolutely amazing.

I´m tempted to leave it at that really, as this isn´t going to be a blog of derring do and swashbuckling adventure. We´ve been sat on our respective asses (it´s more comfortable that way round) for the last two weeks, with little to occupy ourselves except Spanish school and lazing about in the heat... However Colombia deserves a little lyrical waxing.

Having spent the last few weeks heading north, we´ve now reached the top, and we´ve had to stop, and well... that´s what´s bothering us. Cartagena de Indias is on the northernmost part of the continent on the Caribbean coast. It´s a very old naval fort / town, ridiculously pretty - as most of these Colonial towns seem to be (medieval Spain appears to not have been beset by the normal problems involved in securing good tradesmen).

The climate isn´t exactly forgiving... Generally it has the humidity of a shower and the heat of the Sahara, but there´s definitely a lot you could fall in love with. Walking about the streets of Cartagena, where we´ve been for the last couple of weeks, you hear music blaring from every doorway. Even octogenarian ladies have bass bins that would shame an Essex lad, and spend their days and nights blasting out ear splitting rumba. I´m also glad to say that my previous theories involving an inexplicable link between the Caribbean and the music of Shaggy have been proven wrong. The people here have taste! They are also generally really lovely, friendly folk.

The exception being the staff in the hotel we´ve been staying in! It has a lovely pool, but is owned by a grumpy frenchman who does nothing but smoke pipes in his hammock all day, the staff are sour faced, and our fellow guests tended to be of the European sex tourist variety (Cartagena sadly being infamous for that sort of thing).

But that´s one small downside in what´s been a cracking few weeks. Spanish lessons have been fun, we´ve met some great students and teachers, and we´ve been partying about as hard as we´ve done on the trip in the evenings. The live music here is fantastic, and a good taster for what we´re expecting in Havana: brilliant live Cuban Jazz bands.

We also managed to confirm the theory that while Colombians may party harder, it´s the Brits who drink all the booze! We were lucky enough to be invited to the birthday party of our lovely teacher Yasmin. After a couple of hours, all the rum was gone... Nat and I were murdering salsa (and any neighbouring toes) on the dancefloor, and our new pal Tamsin was spinning around with an amorous uncle. Pure class. Meanwhile the more refined Colombians were sitting around eating soup and managing about half a bottle of whiskey between 20 of them.

The only real excursion we´ve taken in 2 weeks was to the stunningly beautiful Parque Tayrona. This has everything... rain forest, cloud forest, stunning deserted Caribbean beaches, monkeys and dangerous kimodo dragons. So much so that we´re planning to return and do some diving there after our week in Cuba... which we´re quite excited about!

Unfortunately we´re still photo free... but hopefully should be loading up in the near future.

Cheers
Si xx

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Photos

Scook plus Cannon
on the old city walls

Me
in pair of sunglasses number five

Comments

[barrygahan]

Colombia next stop!
We're heading to Colombia tomorrow, can't wait to see the Caribbean cost in a few weeks, and those beaches look great in your photos.