Bogota and Cartagena and also the Playa Blanca

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I´ve been a little slack in writing down things I´ve been doing since I got back from the jungle, sorry. Let me make some effort to fill you in now.

I went to the Guaysamin art gallery, half of which was excellent, the other half may have been but it was also closed.

That was in Quito. Then I flew to Bogota on a Sunday and went straight to that horrible hostel I mentioned, whose only advantage is that it is easy to meet people there. Everything was closed that day and the next because of Jesus ascending to heaven, apart from the Botero art gallery, where I had a very nice cappuchino.

I played basketball with some gringoes against some locals and didn´t disgrace myself too badly though I quickly came to the realisation (,uch to my umbrance) that I´m super-duper unfit and won´t be playing centre early into the netball season when I get back.

I managed that salt cathedral trip, with two English people, one of whom has been travelling for - get this - four years! Any plans to go home? No, not really, there´s more to see. Yeah, I suppose there is.

Now, I´m in Cartagena, on the hot northern coast. I thought the weather would be a lot better. It is now, but when we landed it was raining (an attendant put up and handed over an umbrella for everyone leaving the plane) and it had just started being sunny in Bogota when we´d left so there was some bad luck business going on. I travelled with a Israeli guy named Roy ("Yes, Roy, I think my Inca Trail cost $330. Gosh, was yours $50 less? How impressive...") who is hoping the Gaza pullout goes well and is over before he goes back in September so he won´t be called out of the reserves to fight. He has shot people dead, is 25, and starts university in the autumn. Their life-patterns are so different, these Israelis.

Here, you can get lots of different fruits in large quantities for little money, which is nice, but unfortunately everybody in town wants to sell you them. Either that or they want to sell you prostitutes or coke, or sunglasses or Tshirts, and it gets a bit oppressive.

The Playa Blanca is a typical looking Caribean beach (in my limited, only-ever-seen-pictures-before experience) and there were a bunch of us sleeping in hammocks and eating whatever thing on the menu was actually available. The moon was very bright last night and the beach was very pretty.

I´ve gathered a whole new set of insect bites to keep the old ones on their toes.

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Comments

[Rich]

what a place!
Spent Christmas 2003 in Cartegena and on Playa Blanca... Absolutely brilliant. Recommended...