The Black Russian Bit Back!!

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Welcome to a hot hot hot and sultry Cartagena. We have now seen practically everything and depart tomorrow so as we have a complete day of leisure before hitting a 22hr bus journey I thought I´d update now!!

This is a knockout place. We are in the old town and every building is colonial. The colours of the buildings are every one conceivable. Orange next to blue next to bright green and red - the cameras are working overtime. Some buildings are under restoration and are being worked on with very precarious wooden scaffolding which really only consists of a few poles tacked onto the wall, holding a wooden platform - UK Health and Safety would be apoplectic by now!! The wooden frames of the doors or windows are either painted white or dark brown which naturally accentuates the colours. The doors in places are the originals, they are huge solid beasts with amazing brass work and door knockers. You can see the original key holes and boy those keys were big. It is absolutley fascinating. The walls of the old town are built from Coral Limestone, so as you wander past you can see coral fossils and all manner of fossilised sea life. There are two types of rock that the town is made from limestone from the land or the coral stone. I think David is getting tired of me stopping and saying wow look at that coral!!!

The only downside to here is the amount of people selling things. Everywhere you go you get approached with people clutching tshirts, cigars, jewellery, sweets, statues, paintings, fruit, cigarettes, silver, drinks etc etc. Most of the people are very good once you say no but some do get very tiresome. We have taken to carrying a bottle of water (you need to anyway), so we can fend off the drinks sellers!! We have also taken the time when we getting talking to people to let them know we are english and not american as without doubt the greatest influx of tourist are american. In some of the shops or from some of the sellers they automatically quote prices in dollars!!! We also make time to be friendly, polite and humerous with these guys because it appears there is an awful lot of people being very rude to them (and I think we all know what is more appreciated), and believe me we are all reaping the rewards from our encounters.

We have been upto the fort that guarded the harbour and it is just that a magnificent fort. Not like our castles where it was a residence too, but quite simply a fort! It was a baking hot day again, so we tripped along quite quickly but we did have an investigate of the underground tunnels in the naive belief it would be cooler!!! They were quite endless and as we started going down some depth we concluded we didn´t want to be walking back up in the heat, so beat a hasty retreat back out to where the vultures were circling!

We have had a day out on Isla Rosaria. We went out in a high speed boat out of the harbour and past the incoming cruise ships! We went past Boca Grande which is a fort and used to be an entrace to the port which was closed back in the 1700´s by the building of coral stone and sand walls again to protect the port. We spent the day on the beach and swam in a lovely warm caribbean - such a hard life eh - but I think we can be forgiven!!! Lunch was fish fresh from the sea, salad and coconut rice. For everyone who knows me, you will now be in shock as I devoured the fish, it was delicious!! No idea of the make or model but when in Rome!!! We virtually had this part of the island to ourselves as the rest of the crew departed for another island to see an aquarium. We swam out only yards and with goggles on saw fish of different sizes and colours, greens, white with yellow stripes and blue round their eyes, black, white with a black outline and a little squid. We had all this free - magic!!!!

We have found a bar on the walls that we goto in the evening to watch the sunset. The first night we were there we watched a tower block start to go up in flames. It did get put out as it was still standing last night. Last night we had a better sunset and were there for longer. Several lagers, two rum and cokes for David and a Black Russian for me, we figured it was time to head back to the hotel. After a quick change we headed for the bank to extract some more money. May I take this opportunity to point out that the spirit measures are somewhat larger than the UK´s before I get called a lightweight!! Anyway, we headed into the bank and for some unknow reason I hadn´t noticed I had gone up a step into the bank and now needed to take a step back down. Well I went down - yep - like a sack of potatoes!!! David rushed to my aid, but I was more concerned that I had thrown my cashpoint card away!! The next thing we know some young Colombiam man rushed in behind David. He had sort of seen what had happened but had assumed David was for want of a better description attacking me!!! Bless him, he soon was put right by David. I however was still sat on the floor clutching my ankle!! The security guard did nothing to help!! So now I´m hobbling along and probably going to be avoiding a Black Russian tonight!!! Fear not though, its not too bad and I´m sure the 22hr bus journey will prove to be the right treatment (as long as I don´t fall off the bus!).

So that is about as upto date as possible. Tomorrow we head back to Caracas, this time on a direct but, so hopefully no stops for mayonnaise smuggling!! We then leave Caracas on the 11th and arrive back in the UK on the 12th. Then it´s down to planning the next stages!!!

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