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Hey guys,
A couple of weeks ago we made a decision that after meeting so many travellers going to and coming from Colombia and saying how great it was that we would give it a look. Like Chile we had no plans to go there on this trip. Colombia was never a place we ever thought we would be, its a hell of a long way from Belturbet...maybe not so far from Tallaght though eh? So we got some cheap flights and left Quito for Medellin. You may of heard of here as it was the birth place of Pablo Escobar, one of the worlds most famous drug traffickers and at one time the 7th richest man in the world according to forbes magazine. He built an enormous drug empire know as the Medellin Cartel. But since his death the drug trafficking centre has moved to Cali in the south of the country so Medellin is a pretty nice place to visit now. Like any city is has some very nice fancy areas and some rougher parts as well. Overall a good spot.
We only spent one night on the way in as we were more interested in getting to
the coast. So having booked a bus for that night we went for a look about and a few drinks. Getting back off the metro to go back to our hostel we walked into a shit load of people all sitting on the road. We had no sooner asked what was going on that they all jumped up and started fleeing all over the place, running towards us and screaming. We heard engines revving and thought some lunatic was trying to run them down. But then we saw the line of riot police and the armoured vehical coming down the road with a great big water canon on the front. We had no where to go so huddled together against a fence. I was shitting it...because you do hear of these things getting out of hand and police throwing tear gas and taking pot shots at protesters..or maybe thats only the Brittish army. I did frighten a few people by shouting tear gas sort of unneccessarily. So we braced ourselves and got smacked with the freezing water and then legged it across the road. Running in flipflops especially when they are soaking wet is not something that comes easily, and
Mary in a Cage
Don´t know what she did wrong twice we had to make mad dashes back into the road to pick them up. At this point we realised that a lot of people doing the running were young students and also laughing. We kept asking que paso..some of them apologised for us for having got caught up in the demonstration but that it over nothing really and would pass off very soon. Sure enough when we came out half and hour later most people and the army had dispursed. Great little adrenalin buzz though. We couldn´t stop laughing for about 20 minutes!
Our next stop was a place called Tanganga, a little fishing village in the north. We hung out here on the beach and for 8 days. As its a good diving spot Col got two dives in. Its a bit of a party town too so we had a good laugh out. In typical Colie fashion within 10 minutes of being in the local he had everyone involved in a limbo competition! Good fun. We did get stopped and searched by the police on the way home that night, but it was all cool. As you can imagine there is a bit of a drug problem
in the town so they are just looking to catch a stupid tourist and make some easy cash.
After Tanganga we headed to Cartagena for a night and then to Playa Blanca. This is an island half hour off the coast in a very fast boat. Of course we booked the incredibily slow boat to get there, full of Colombian day trippers. We had drank a little too much the night before so when we got on the boat at 8am we were horrified to discover they had a DJ on board playing horrendous music, singing and dancing. We also realised that the boat took 4.5 hours instead of 1.5. By 9:45am in the morning we were witness to two men racing about collecting clothes from passengers, dressing in womens clothes and makeup and doing pole dances! Longest morning ever.
The reward was though that we eventually pulled on on a amazing white sand beach, turquoise water & Palm trees! The Island was no running water or electricity. Our accommodation was a hammock under a grass roof, no walls, right on the beach. It was run by a man of 68 with a hole in his throat that he had
to cover in order to wheeze some words at you. That quickly dampened any thoughts of having a smoke again!
We planned on staying for 2 days and ened up being a week there. It was amazing. Not the best treatment for your back sleeping in what is essentially a large piece of material but worth it. We ate fresh fish each night for dinner, swam, snorkelled, drank lots of rum and vodka and lazed about and made plans to retire there. Every day by about 4:30pm the beach emptied and you were pretty much alone. Completely safe though. There was a police station built right on the beach also. The worst thing you had to worry about at night was some of the local cows walking into our hut and taking a piss (which happened) or waking up to one of them licking you in the middle of the night (which also happened)
But eventually the call of the big city and a night out on the tiles got too much and we left for Cartagena with a gang we had been hanging out on the beach with. Cartagena is a great place..a big walled city with three major
barrios that travellers go to. We stayed in Getsemani. Its smelly, hot, poor with lots of back streets, but great. We were just beside Cartagenas Old Town which was a beautiful maze of cobbled streets, old style buildings with balconies and flowers. Its also had loats of tasty restaurants and bars and was the place to go out at night. We spent most of the time here siteseeing and partying. On the second last day we visted a mud volcano. It does pretty much what it says on the tin. Its like a mini volcano but with mud instead of lava. Supposed to be good for your skin cos of all the minerals..but not sure I believe that. That was a strange but fun thing to do, cos you actually get into the crater and sludge about in it.
After another week in Cartagena we came to the end of the trip and it was the first country that was really hard to leave. Wet got an overnight bus back to Medellin and killed some time visiting Pablos grave and getting some photos before our flight that evening.
Colombia was well worth a visit, we are delighted we had the
balls to go, cos we really would have missed out. Everywhere we went the people asked where we´re from and then said oh yeah good Ireland. Many many people from Ireland. We actually have a reputation in that country already. A good one of course. Sure it still has it problems with drugs and farc and corruption but so does a lot places. The people are very nice and I felt more safe there than in a lot of places.
We flew back to Quito yesterday and are getting ready for our Galapagos trip tomorrow. Super excited. We will spend the next five days on a boat being waitied on and getting up close to lots of really great talking, singing and dancing animals hopfully.
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