Cartagena

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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, myself and Julien stocked up on a large bottle of rum before heading out to sample the night life. Unfortunately Rich introduced me to the simmple drinking game of pyramids and we were both legless by the time we left the hostel. Small parts of the night are all i remember, including being tricked by a bouncer into walking out the door of the club. Needless to say he wouldnt let me back in the door. Four bouncers then surrounded Rich as he did his Tyrannosaurus Rex impression. Much blurring between there and a long trip to find a McDonalds and the sweet taste of Big Macs. I know, shameful behaviour looking for this kinda food, but when drunk there was no stopping us!

The next few days we spent dossing around Cartagena, exploring the old town and meeting and hanging out with other travellers. We did a tour of the city, but it was in Spanish and I could only understand and hear a small bit of it seeing as I was sitting in the back row with a bunch of hungry cougars , who were constantly smiling, taking photos of and making jokes in the direction of Rich and myself!
The most impressive part of the tour was a visit to the old Spanish fort above the city, which took over 100 years to complete. There were great views of the city from here.

Having had our fill of Cartagena, Rich and I moved up the coast to Santa Marta on a 4 hour bus trip that took 7 hours. During this, the front wind shield fell out, the engine failed twice, we made an hours pit stop at an in between town, and i Rich and I had a classic game of handball infront of the other passengers.
On arrival in Santa Marta, we organised to trek to La Cuidad Perdida, an ancient lost city in the middle of forest covered mountains.

More on the Lost City next time.

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