Cartagena and our big night out in Colombia

After the adventures of the desert and the jungle we felt it was time to relax and go to a town that vaguely resembled a tourist resort - so we took an extremely lonnnnnnng bus ride to Cartagena.

Once again, the bus ride was A LOT longer than billed, there was no air con, we arrived pretty frickin' hungry circa 10pm given that we had been up since 5am.

Found a hostel that had room for us and then found a place for a late night dinner of vegetable curry. The addition of vegetables into our diet was VERY welcome, given we'd not seen one for around 8 days.

It was also Dan's last night. We fully intended to go out partying but all of us were so spent that we went to bed at midnight.....

Next morning there was an emotional farewell to Doctor Dan. Who would tend to any medical emergencies now!?!?!!!?

Luckily Sarah had found a Gabriel García Márquez tour for us to do. He'd come to Cartagena with nothing and slept on a bench before using the city as inspiration for his many novels. We stopped off at the hotel where he had stayed (very fancy - not somewhere that we were staying...), a balcony and some squares. 

Here's a sneaky peek - Cartagena is VERY pretty: 

Here you see some lovely coconut treats - flavoured with different things - excessively sweet, Vic and I managed to eat half a one each.

Then we saw some street art stuff. Do I even need to write the words "look" and "strong" now....

Then we went for some ceviche - raw fish cooked for a few hours in lime juice with some chilli. It's lovely and you should try it immediately if you have not already. 






After that we went back to meet Noam and Christen for dinner and then, you guessed it, a fairly early night. We did have a few drinks in the square but we had plans, we wanted to go to the beach early doors. 

And go to the beach we did. After a VERY stressful time in the port going to one boat then another then another for an hour. 

The boat ride was pretty fun too if you like boats that are akin to a rollercoaster. 

We then indulged in something we had been yearning for all holiday - PINA COLADA SERVED IN A COCONUT: 

That dude with us is Graham the Canadian. We lost him after lunch and not sure if he made the boat back. 

Then, finally we met again with our American chums for their last night and managed to go out and party!!!! In a club called Havana. With a live Latin band. And bottles of rum. Several bottles of rum. Vic and I managed to stay out til an early hour and have some dirty street food on the short walk back to the hostel. Kristen and Noam also did an arm wrestle. We all did some dancing:

And that, in a nutshell was Cartagena. The next morning it became just the three of us again. We did a bit of shopping, a bit of mooching and waited for our first Colombian night bus experience. Next stop would be Medellin.

Punta Gallinas - pronounced punta gayeennas

It has been a while since I posted - blogging is a lot harder than you think. Unless you are a blogger, you will know that yourself.

However last night Vic and I were reunited for the first time since the trip and whilst we were doing some strong dancing to "hit me baby one more time" I thought to myself "I really should write up some more of our trip". It already feels like years ago so I should get on with documenting it so I can relive the magic again and again.

And so to last time - did we make it to Punta Gallinas?  After all the build up did we fall at the last hurdle? ? As I'm sure you have guessed the answers are yes we did and no we did not respectively. And exhale...

To get there actually seemed relatively easy to organise contrary to the guide book. Joanna had called and booked a boat, we all woke up at 430am and jumped in another not-so-comfy jeep and drove an hour to here to get a boat:

 Some strong looks for the ride:

It was around 2.5 hours on the boat - it was pretty rough and we got pretty wet but all this travelling became worth it when we arrived here:

Yes it looks like one of the photoshopped screen savers that you used to get on a PC back in the day. It's a real frickin photo!!! We were there. There was just a handful of buildings and no more than 20 people. It was a desert paradise. We unpacked and hit the "beach"/desert for a swim. Here's a classic strong photo of us all (apart from Sarah who was of course taking the snaps) and a shot of our hammock bedroom:

Swimming was hilarious because the surface under that lovely blue water was like quick mud - you sunk down into it pretty deep. It made getting out quite hard. 

After a nap we took yet another jeep because we wanted to head to the 50 metre sand dune. Apparently you slid right down it into the sea. What's not to like there?? 

Strong looks for the jeep - this time we were stood in the back, a bit like cattle: 

If you look closely you can see I am wearing goggles under my shades. This was probably the strongest look of the holiday for me. I'd got some sand in my eye so needed the goggles to protect myself from further grains getting in there. Vic said it was very Mad Max 3.....

Here are the six of us at the actual northern most point of South America - we stopped en route to the sand dune:

I particularly like Sarah's choice of outfit here - is it a top? Is it a dress? It's difficult to tell. I also like the way I look as if I have just one leg..... Taking the posing a bit too far there..... 

Then it was onwards to the dune. Kristen and Noam win best entry to the sea with their forwards slide in: 

Dan was second with his sprint down: 

It was simply amazing. Most amazing beach I have ever been on - it's hard to see the steepness of the dune from the pictures but it was getting on for vertical. Again, we were pretty much alone. We spent quite a lot of time body surfing the waves and coming up with different ways to tumble down the dune. Rolling down it sideways was interesting. Sand everywhere and a lot of dizziness when trying to stand up in the water. Noam also somersaulted down. No one else tried that. 

Then we watched the sun set: 

Then we went back and ate yet more lobster!!! Yum!!! 

We were there for a night and then we returned to Cabo de la Vela for another night before doing the whole journey in reverse. 

That's pretty much it - not the easiest place to get to but a magical time when you arrive. 

The return journey was not as successful as the one out there. As I said at the beginning, this blog is about the great times so I won't go into it much. We were all still together, all heading for Cartagena (which will be the subject of the next blog) and the bus was billed as being 5 hours. It wasn't. It was more like 11 hours. Including a stop to change a tyre and a stop to swap onto another bus as the original bus decided to terminate elsewhere. And there was no air con. It was hot. But that's South America for you - the buses are interesting. 

Colombia part 3 - travelling to middle earth

After the trek we were pretty spent but one day on the beach we were ready for another adventure. Which was lucky because we arrived back to meet everyone for another group dinner and Doctor Dan had figured out a way for us to travel to Colombia's northernmost point - which is also the northernmost point of the whole continent!!

Also, on our way back, we'd bumped into the Kristen and Noam, the americans, who we also convinced to come along on the journey. Hats off to them, I don't know if i'd have been up for the journey if I'd just finished the trek. Which, by the way, if you didn't get it from the last post, was REALLY hard. 

Anyway, after a big meal of burgers and milkshakes (there's only so much meat/fish with rice and plantain that one can take) we went to bed to rest before our early start. 

Aside: It was also goodbye to the two uber cool american developers I'd met in our hostel - they let me pitch my many start up ideas to them over coffee - which I'm sure was really enjoyable for them..... 

The place we were heading for is called Punta Gallinas (which literally translates as Cape Chicken!!!) and to get there we had to (deep breath):

Catch a bus from Santa Marta to Riohacha at 0600 from Santa Marta.

Take another bus from Riohacha to a place called cuatro vias (or four roads for those who don't speak Spanish or other latin languages).

Get off there and find a random bloke to give us a lift in his car to Puerto Bolivar (I think!!)

Get off there (it really is the end of the road, check a map) and find a random bloke to give us a lift in a 4x4 to Cabo de la Vela.

Then stay the night at Cabo de la Vela and hope you can get a boat the next day to Punta Gallinas. 

The above didn't actually take toooooo long (circa 5 hours in total) and was pretty fun as we were excited about recreating the body form advert in the 4x4 - I do love sitting in the back of a 4x4 singing "waaaaaooowww boddddy fooooorrrmmm body form for youuuuuuuuu". 

Anyway, here's some illustrations of the journey thus far:

Early morning start to get the bus - rucksacked up - not a particularly strong look:

More illustration of a Colombian petrol station - filling up inside the bus whilst it was moving. Is that health and safety conscious: 

Cuadro Vias - just four roads really:

Strong looks going on before we hopped into this bad boy - that guy spent the whole 2 hours riding on the roof - I was jealous......

The "road" to get to Cabo de la Vela - it got a lot worse than this:

And then Cabo de la Vela: 

One of the most amazing beaches I have ever, ever seen. There were hardly any people there and it was pretty untouched. JUST LOOK AT THAT SAND AND THAT BEACH!!!

Luckily for the six of us, there were four other people staying in the same shack (yep, another shack with hammocks situation) who also wanted to go to Punta Gallinas. And you needed 10 for a boat. And one of them, lovely Joanna was Colombian so was able to bargain us a great price. 

Result - we were a mere 2 hour jeep ride and 2 hour boat ride from our destination - somewhere that the Lonely Planet said only the most adventurous travellers would go. Yeah, i'm like totes adverntersome maximo. 

Before bed time - I was really getting into my grandma bedtimes of 830pm - and another early start - 5am this time, oh joy, what a relaxing holiday - we decided to walk up to the lighthouse on the hill and watch the sun set. Before our lobster supper. Yes, all you can eat is really cheap lobster that is freshly caught. YUM. 

On the way there:

Still on the way there. From what I remember, Dan and I continued our really exciting conversations from the jungle on conjugation of verbs in latin and Spanish - yeah, we're crazy - and also a continuation of people - in this case Noam - saying "So Dan, I've had this weird health issue that's been worrying me for a while..." It's very useful to have a friend who is a Doctor and can answer these things. I particularly love the idyllic setting of this picture as a backdrop for these sorts of conversations. I remember conjugating the imperfect past tense of the verb to sit in Latin. hmmmmm....:

STILL on the way there:

Strong look number 4 - dress with elegant hiking shoes - after Vic has hiked in them for half a day and they stink: 

Lobster supper!!!! 

Then dozing off after reading a bit in our personal lamplights - I should mention at this point in time that I finally had a head torch!! My mum had given me one for Christmas. However I had not checked that said head torch worked until 5 minutes before leaving for the holiday. It didn't. So picture me, if you will, drifting off in my hammock as the sun set, looking over the bay reading Phillip Pullman's "the good man Jesus" with a bike light strapped to my sunglasses which were balanced on my head. Strong. 

Aside 2 - This reminded me of holiday reading. I bought 4 books. One of which was Tampa - a story about a female paedo teacher. Good reviews in the Times and the Guardian promising a modern day lolita had prompted me to get it. Don't. It's pretty trashy. 

Next time - did we make it to Punta Gallinas?!?!!? The suspense will kill you!!?!?!! Probably.