Back in the airport, I noticed that the flight to Glasgow we had assumed I would definitely miss had just reached the Gate Closed stage. If I had thought about that first instead of worrying about a shower, I probably could have changed my ticket for that flight! Oh well. I spent the next hours and hours exhausted, drinking a couple of beers in the airport before moving back to the hotel, where I was at least entertained by the TV where Tony Blair was giving evidence live to the Chilcott Enquiry.

Finally it was my flight and then I was back in Glasgow Airport, where Joanne and her brother picked me up and took me home. Happy to be home? Not really. Happy to see Joanne, of course, but back in this boring, freezing country, with nothing ahead of me but work? Until the next trip.

Templeton Carpet Factory, Glasgow Green

Kelvingrove Art Gallery, West End of Glasgow

I had even gone as far as thinking that the Cuba t-shirt might not go down too well with the US authorities, and nor might the Che Guevara one; so I'd put the Cuba one to the bottom for changing into after my overnight flight and the Che one on top, for wearing the day before I left. That's how organised I was when I moved hostels. Unfortunately I'd been a bit too hung-over and lazy to change the morning before and it was only on the way out the door I realised that I hadn't wanted to wear the Che t-shirt that day. I thought about going back in and rummaging through my bag to change, but then I thought ''This is ridiculous, surely nobody could really care about a t-shirt?" and decided it was more important to get to the airport on time.

At Panama airport I was subjected to the most unpleasant and high security experience since Heathrow Terminal 5 at the start of the trip over a year previously. It was all long queues and aggressive-looking security staff. After the X-ray machine and metal detector, I was just about to pick up my cabin bag and walk away, when a large aggressive security woman shouted at me in an American accent. Sir! There is a knife in your bag. You will have to hand it over. I knew I didn't have a knife in my bag, so I said that I didn't think there was one. She didn't like that one bit: Sir, there is a knife in your bag and you will hand it over. I tried saying that I really didn't think there was, but she walked towards me and, after looking at the X-ray screen, pointed at the side pocket. In here. I opened it up and saw my corkscrew, which I suppose does have a jaggy bit on the end, but it would never have occurred to me to move it from my hand luggage. I took it out to show her and started to say It's not a knife, it's just a corkscrew but she interrupted and said Sir you cannot take that on board. Hand it over. No please. No thank you. And no sign we were in a nice third world country or Latin America.

I said goodbye to my beloved corkscrew and carried on, depressed, for the next stage of this nightmare journey Joanne had booked for me. The original plan had been to fly from South America, but it would have cost something ridiculous like two or three hundred pounds more, one way. Then we thought I could fly from Central America, which was much cheaper, but it looked like all of the flights transit through the US, which I wouldn't have worried about too much, but with all these fascist policies that were brought in on the back of 9-11, it meant that, strictly speaking, you can no longer transit through the States: everyone has to go through immigration, presumably so everyone is thoroughly checked out. In fact, recently they had introduced another hurdle, to wit, everyone has to have a visa – or a visa waiver – even including US citizens coming home, I'm told.

Still, it was the cheapest way of getting home, so I thought I would put up with the extra inconvenience, and had applied for and printed off the pre-filled visa waiver form. As a last twist in my journey, Joanne had discovered it would be considerably cheaper to land in Belfast, and take a budget carrier from there to Glasgow, and there was one flight a bit too soon after I landed, or else I'd have to wait at the airport for most of the day. It was going to be a horrible journey: Panama to Orlando, a couple of hours wait before flying to Newark, more waiting before the overnight flight to Belfast, then the whole day in the airport before a 50 minute flight to Glasgow. But we had no money left, so it had to be the cheapest option.

When we landed in Orlando, the entire atmosphere was tense and aggressive. Even the people cleaning the toilets before you go through security were scowling and staring at everyone; I'm tempted to say that they were all agents, paid to glean what information they could while terrorists still have their guard – and their pants – down. Maybe they were, or maybe they just hated their minimum wage jobs and all the people that dirtied their toilets.

If I thought the toilet cleaners were scary, they had nothing on all the staff in the immigration hall. Everyone looked very serious. And the queue was long. This was going to be a very long wait. Having travelled through several Communist dictatorships and a few highly militarised countries, this was the most blatant display of control and power I had witnessed on the trip; and certainly the most intimidating, which I suppose it the largest part of the intention. Standing in the queue I felt like I was in some dystopic science fiction story. A video screen at the front of every queue on a loop repeated the message that America is a fantastic country, full of lovely happy genuine, generous people, and above all it is a friendly and welcoming place; meanwhile - I can't remember if it was another screen, PA, or just a notice - informed us of all sorts of rules and regulations. Actually I think it must have been an announcement as I remember that being on a loop as well. It told me things like if I did not obey every command given to me by the immigration officer I was in breach of US law; if I did not answer every question he asked me completely honestly (whether relevant or not) I was in breach of US law; if I did not fill in my form correctly I was in breach of US law. And every time, I couldn't help myself from mentally adding to the end, and likely to be whisked off to Guantanamo or disappeared to Diego Garcia; it might have been the frequent references to sinister-sounding organisations like Homeland Security that completed the job, but I was beginning to feel quite scared. Friendly and welcoming, my arse! All this intimidation and I wanted to shout out I don't even want to come into your horrible country anyway!! Just let me though! I'd have stayed on the plane if you'd let me! but of course that would have been in breach of US law and probably entitled me to immediate summary sentencing by the Department of Homeland Security.

Jason Kester, who runs this website, wrote in his blog last year that he didn't like Bolivia much and it made him nervous because of his experiences at the border, but the Bolivian border has absolutely nothing on what the US does. It is truly awful.

So it was in this state of heightened anxiety that I found myself at the front of the queue, able finally to watch what the procedure was at the desk. I wanted to make sure I got it right. It seemed to involve all sort of invasive procedures like having your retinas and finger prints scanned, but for all I knew it also involved having your blood taken or getting branded by the immigration officer, so I wanted to watch closely. As I was looking on, the immigration officer looked up and I gave him a friendly half-smile automatically, as if to say hi, I'm next. In return I was greeted with a hard scowl, a very slow and pointed look down at my t-shirt, and a slow and pointed return to scowl at my face again. I thought Oh shit! I should have taken the time to change my t-shirt after all, but surely these highly trained people with such an important job to do are not so infantile and narrow-minded that something like a t-shirt would actually arouse suspicion. Then it was my turn to step forward.

The officer looked like he was about 19 years old and he had his head shaved, though not bald, just like a neo-Nazi – or someone in the army, I suppose. But he was podgy and when he spoke he sounded like a hick to me, though I'm not good with American accents, so maybe that's just what an Orlando accent sounds like. I handed over my documents and he asked me where I was going (Glasgow, Scotland) and where I was travelling from (Panama City). He asked what my flight number to Glasgow was and was not impressed when I said I didn't know because it wasn't with the same airline, but I had my schedule all the way to Belfast. He took my schedule and wrote all the flight numbers on my visa waiver form. Then he asked how long I've been out of the country. I told him about fourteen months and straight-away, he shot back at me And where did you get the money for a trip like that? Were you working? – No courtesy, no manners, just barked questions like a sergeant-major. I told him; no I had been moving too much to have time to work, but that I was obviously working before I started travelling. How much money did you have "saved up" for a trip like that? he asked, which I thought was none of his business, but remembering the sign and where I was I decided I'd rather answer him than have a bullet put in the back of my head, or spend the next four years in an orange jump suit, having daily near-drowning experiences and no contact with the outside world. After every answer I gave he responded with a cheeky little uh-huh? as if to say well that's what you say now, but I'm sure we'll get the truth out of you one way or another. Next question was And did you declare all that money when you first entered the US?

By this time my initial desire to shout out that I didn't even want to get into the country had turned into a constant internal dialogue. I think it was the only way I could cope with the situation. Internal dialogue said [Just how stupid are these people, haven't they heard of cash machines? And why has he assumed that I've already been through the US. I didn't even want to come near your horrible country], but I just told him that I had it in a bank account and drew it as I needed it, then had to point out that this was the first time I'd come to the US on this trip when he started pursuing the did you declare last time line. At about this time he indicated that I should now submit to having my biometric data stolen from me against my will and I gave up my fingers and eyes to the fascists. Meanwhile, The Thing started leafing through my passport and turning it to read the visas and stamps. At one point he seemed to jump a little, with shock I think, and asked What did you think of China?; he could not have crammed more suspicion into his voice [Oh my god these people really are stupid], so I just told him that I liked it and I thought that Beijing was an amazing city, cue uh-huh?. In retrospect, I realise I should have said at that point Man what a horrible place, I couldn't stand those Commies. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough, but I hadn't quite grasped how stupid they are yet.

So Hulk continued with the leafing, then another little shocked jump, somehow he did cram more suspicion into his voice as he lowered his lumbering brows and asked And what did you think of Vietnam, as if he was catching me by surprise and I wouldn't have expected him to think of that one. In truth I was dumbfounded that their front line against terrorism could be so stupid and pick such predictable targets. I just said Yeah I really liked Vietnam. Next, and this time I couldn't believe it, he asked the same question again, but this time the country was Cambodia. I didn't have the heart to tell him that, despite the name of the ruling party, the country is anything but Communist. I felt like helping him out: [Oh look – there's a Lao stamp, shouldn't you be asking me about Laos next? But you probably don't even believe that the US were in there. OK – look Bolivia! – now they're real Commies, ask me about that!]. I told him I didn't like Cambodia so much, then panicked as I realised that the next thing I was going to say when he asked why was that the wealth divide in that country was a disgrace and a huge shock after the absence of inequality in Vietnam; quickly I back-peddled in my mind and managed to salvage It was the poverty, there was a lot of poverty there. [Whew! I'd have been in trouble if, in America, I'd said anything against the wealth divide, the very cornerstone of Capitalism].

Anyway, this went on for some time, asking me more questions about money and what I did for a living, a lot of things that were nothing to do with him, all asked in the rudest, most aggressive manner; and then he changed tack and said suddenly Have you ever been arrested? now sounding triumphant and of course when I responded No!, getting into the psych-war by ladling as much incredulity and scorn into my voice as I thought I could get away with, he came back with a more satisfied than ever UH-HUH? and turned away from me to his computer, where he went tackity-tack for a few minutes, before turning back, not to me but to my visa waiver form where he took a red pen and wrote a big S and circled it. Then he theatrically picked up my passport, just to remind me he had it I think, and ordered Follow me!

So walking away from the immigration desks (I'd not seen anyone else leaving their post) we went through a back room, the doors of which he opened and closed at both ends with special security keys, and ended up at the luggage carousel. Identify your bag and collect it, he demanded. Now this was a shock; I hadn't expected to see my bag again until Belfast, but there it was going round on the carousel. Wait over here he indicated some plastic seats outside a room with blacked-out windows. I sat down and he disappeared with my passport. I couldn't believe this, after all the supposedly dodgy places we had been, it's the US where they hold my passport to ransom, just like I'd heard tales of from people travelling through corrupt former Soviet republics, and it's the US where it looked like I was about to be strip-searched, judging by the room I was sitting outside.

They left me sitting there for about twenty minutes, which was more than enough time for me to start worrying about the contents of my bag: [Oh shit! The medicine bag!] I'd forgotten (and not had time) to go through it that morning, containing the various drugs you probably need a prescription for in the States, but surely they wouldn't be too bothered by that, surely the worst that could happen is they'd take them off me when I said I didn't realise? Then there was the lovely decorative carved pipe, covered in traditional weaving, I'd bought in Bolivia; could they arrest me on the grounds that it was drugs paraphernalia? I didn't know, but considering how I'd been treated so far, I didn't feel particularly happy about it. Even if it ended with nothing more than a slap on the wrist, I wasn't at all looking forward to the strip-search that seemed inevitable now. That was when I realised: the red S on my form, that must be what it stands for; Search, or Strip perhaps.

Finally the orc came back with another officer of the regime, handed him my passport, and he left. The new one asked me if I could please put my bags up on a table a few yards from where I was sitting; it was one if those long desks they always have at customs, which they use for searching bags. At least this guy's manner was nicer; I assume the customs guys aren't trained to be as nasty as immigration for some reason. By the time I got to the desk he was paging through my passport. Quite the world traveller he said, as I lifted my bags up. Yes, I was on a round the world trip I explained. Uh-huh? And what did you think of China?, he said, stopping at that page. [Oh god, here we go again! Can't they think in any way that deviates from their indoctrination?]. Yeah I really liked it, Beijing was an amazing city, I trotted out. Uh-huh? And what did you think of Vietnam?. Yeah I liked it a lot too.

This one was obviously not fully trained in US foreign adventures because he neglected to ask me about Cambodia; or maybe he just had other things on his mind: So, I hope you don't mind, but I have to ask: how can you afford to take a trip like that and not work for a year?. I told him I was a computer programmer, I'd saved up for ten years, and yes it was quite a well-paid job. I see, so it's a sort of once in a lifetime trip? he said. [Wow, this guy is much nicer]. I told him, yeah, or maybe I'll save up for another ten years. The bit about the money went on for a while again.

Then it was next up: So do you mind telling me what's in these bags? he asked. Ok, I told him, mostly electronics and books in the small one, and mostly laundry in the big one. You wouldn't happen to have any narcotics in them? he asked. No, I responded, I'm not that stupid. Then he told me It's just that we've got sniffer dogs back there, behind the carousel, and they seemed very interested in your bag. Can you think of any reason that might be? I wondered if they might be trained to sniff out prescription drugs as well, but I just told him I had no idea why the dogs would be interested in my bag. Did you smoke anything while you were travelling. Or were you around people who were? he asked, then added I don't care if you did, I just really need to know. So I told him I'd been at a party where people were smoking, and he said Well that's probably what it was: the dogs were probably just smelling it off your clothes. OK, you can go, and thank you for your honesty. [Well thank you for not strip-searching me or taking me off to Guantanamo]. Then, just as I was picking my bags up, in a piece of pure Columbo, he asked me Can you tell me: what was the thing you liked most about Vietnam? He obviously thought he might catch me out, but all he did was to make my internal dialogue go into over-drive: [Vietnam? Let me tell you about Vietnam. Let me see; is it the fact that they're Commies? Is it the fact they kicked your American butts? Is it the fact that they don't allow your nasty American companies to do business, like Coca Cola and Starbucks? No, wait, I've got it –] It was the food. I really like the food.

And that was it. Over an hour, I think, of intimidation and now I was free. I am never ever coming back to this country again I swore to myself, even if it does mean spending £300 more on the flight to avoid the place. Only an hour! What it's like when you really get in trouble is beyond me; I would not cope at all. The first thing I did when I got back to the civilian area of the airport was to find a bar and order a beer. The guy behind the bar asked me for ID! What a country! Do they really still think they are free? It certainly seems to be the most restrictive country of all those I visited. OK, it was only airports, but it left me with absolutely no desire to venture further into the country.

It was only as I was sitting drinking my beer that I realised that the whole story about the dogs must have been made up nonsense, intended to scare me and break me down, because there is no way that they would have let a bag go without searching it, when sniffer dogs had been all over it. Then I started wondering, could the big red S stand for Scare? What a bunch of bastards!

This is how I felt

]]> Thu, 28 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://www.blogabond.com/TripView.aspx?tripID=10867 http://www.blogabond.com/CommentView.aspx?commentID=134396 0 28.53806 -81.37944 They told me about their trip from Colombia, which they had done partly because I had told them about all the fantastic reports I'd heard. I was ready to apologise for my bad advice if their cruise had only been up to the same standard as mine, but they had got lucky apparently and been on a huge luxurious catamaran, eating lavishly the whole way, and then got to stay at the captain's house in the City for a night after the trip; they also got a free lift from the port in his four-wheel-drive. It was a while ago, so maybe I'm not remembering all the details correctly, but I'm fairly sure that was what they got. It seemed I was the only one who didn't get the full luxury treatment on my trip, yet it cost the same as everyone else's! Well, everyone apart from those poor people who took the Metacomet and ended up with delays and staff strikes.

Anyway, the two of them were moving to a hostel in a different part of town and suggested I join them. It was a cheaper place in the supposedly dodgy Panamá Viejo, but I hated the district I was in anyway and decided I would move too, but since I'd already paid for that night I said I'd see them there the next day. Anyway, I didn't want to leave the area without trying the nearby Lebanese restaurant, which I'd been planning to go to once I recovered my health. So I went that evening and it was fantastic. The service was a bit slow and they had that same strange situation of English menus, but waitresses who can't speak any English. Considering I'd hardly eaten for the last few days I decided I could go all-out.

What is hummus normally missing?

Lamb meat!

More meat

Lebanese Lemonade

That night I went through all of my stuff and threw out the very worn out items, which it made no sense to take home. There was actually quite a lot of stuff that was far past usefulness that I had just been putting up with because I was travelling, but to take it home would have been ridiculous.

My clothes were done

I started going through the medicine bag that we had built up during the trip, intending to throw most of it out as well, from the mystery pills the pharmacist in Yangshuo had given Joanne, which might have been for period pain or any other abdominal complaint, I was never confident that we had communicated successfully; to the sleeping pills we had bought in India to help us sleep through the heat and noise after hellish bus journeys; all of this had accumulated and I wasn't very happy with the idea of taking much of it through US customs, since we hadn't required a prescription to buy any of it and I assumed one would be needed for some of it in the US. However, there was just too much of it, and I wanted to make sure I didn't throw out useful things like painkillers or antihistamines, so I put it off until the next hostel.

The following day, I moved to Panamá Viejo and what a difference! Lovely old buildings in various stages of disrepair and repair, no horrible modern glass tower blocks, and far fewer big cars refusing to let pedestrians cross the street. The hostel was basic, but a room cost only slightly more than the dorm I'd been in before, and I needed the space to repack before my flight. I went out for dinner with Lucy and Zdenek, though I forgot to take any photos of them or any photos of the area it seems. It was lovely to see them again to cheer me up when I was getting all miserable about my trip coming to an end.

My last day there and we went for a walk around the area. It was really quite pleasant and I have no idea why the guide was advising against staying there; there were loads of lovely cafes and restaurant, which were cheaper than the financial district. It did look like a lot of renovation was very recent, so maybe the book was a bit out of date and we were pioneers in a newly gentrified district. As a bonus, the start of the Canal is just next to Panamá Viejo, so we stood and watched some vessels going through the first lock, with all the American tourists buying, or already wearing, Panama hats.

For my last night we went out to a cocktail bar and I got drunk again; never a sensible idea the night before you are travelling, especially if you haven't packed!
]]> Wed, 27 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://www.blogabond.com/TripView.aspx?tripID=10867 http://www.blogabond.com/CommentView.aspx?commentID=134220 0 8.9666667 -79.5333333 I wasn't really sure what to expect from Panama, but it was never a country on my agenda for more than transit and viewing the Canal. I had originally planned to zip through it on the way to, I imagined, much more interesting countries like Guatemala and Mexico; Panama, I had thought, would just be like a US colony, so not very interesting. So I was pleasantly surprised that the first half of our drive was through incredibly lush and thick jungle: more impressive-looking that the part of the Amazon Basin I had been in, though much smaller in extent. Very pretty, but the Panamanian jungle was not something I'd have time for.

Joining us in the vehicle was an ex-pat of the US and his Panamanian wife. He expressed maybe the most anti-American views I have ever heard from someone born there, insisting that he only ever went back there when he had to go there for administrative reasons. He loved Panama and had made it his home.

When we arrived in the City, Alex and Toby got out at a hospital, they were that worried about Toby's fever, and I carried on to the hostel that Joanne had booked me into. It was one of the cheapest, but the guide says it was in a good part of town; apparently most of the other cheap hostels were in rather unsavoury parts of town.

Drinkers

I didn't think much of Panama City, and I didn't think much of the area I was in: it looked like the financial district of a US city. Not very interesting. The hostel seemed OK, though, and I spent the first night there getting drunk at a barbecue some of the hostel's other guests were having downstairs: a Polish girl, whose name I can't remember, a young guy from the US, named Skye after the Scottish Island, and I can't even remember which country the other guy was from, never mind his name; I think he might have been French. Anyway, we stayed up late and drank a lot. That Clos wine in a carton is no good.

It was on the map

The next day, I thought I'd cure my hangover by going to the Hooters, which I noticed on the hostel map was nearby. I'd never been to a Hooters before and, since I seemed to be in a US colony, I thought I might as well embrace the culture. Well, it turns out that Hooters is overpriced, rubbish, and the food is terrible. Curiously, though, despite the menus being in English, none of the waitresses (or Hoots or whatever nonsense name they've given them) seemed to speak even as much English as those working in the tourist industries of South American countries where the menus are only in Spanish. Weird, I thought, but from what I've heard that's probably the same as the US as well, isn't it?

So I had to go

Panamanian Beer

Later that day my stomach started to gurgle and I started to feel quite unwell. I managed a few drinks outside again with Skye and the Polish girl, to try and kill whatever microbes were multiplying in my guts. This time, they were joined by an older guy from the US. He and Skye started talking about how they hated the country and they would both stay in Panama or wherever else they could just so they wouldn't have to go home. I was starting to get the impression that, despite appearing very much like the US, Panama is very attractive to US citizens who don't get on well in their own country. I explained that I had to excuse myself early because I thought I'd eaten something bad at Hooters, and the older American guy just said Yup, those buffalo wings'll do it to you every time. And that was exactly what I'd eaten.

I spent the next few days in Panama City too ill to do much apart from catching up on some blogging, and going to a doctor who gave me antibiotics. I don't think I'll be ever going to Hooters again! I suppose it's what I get for supporting such a misogynistic restaurant concept.
]]> Mon, 25 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://www.blogabond.com/TripView.aspx?tripID=10867 http://www.blogabond.com/CommentView.aspx?commentID=134219 0 8.9666667 -79.5333333
Sails

The next day we were sailing again for an hour or so to reach our next island paradise. This one, called Chichime, was primarily used as a coconut plantation, but a small section at one end of the island had been cleared to be used for tourism. There were a couple of cabins for accommodation and a couple of kiosks selling coldish beer, all run by one Kuna family. Fabian told us he'd try to organise lobster for dinner and we relaxed for a bit.

Fabian

This captures the atmosphere on the boat quite well

Our next island paradise

Plenty of other boats were moored here, but most people spent most of their time on the boats. There were also some people staying in the cabins long term. We soon discovered that the largest boat at the island was Metacomet, one of the boats I had originally considered taking. It was a much larger boat than ours. The passengers on the boat told us that it was really overcrowded, they were days behind schedule, and the captain wasn't paying the staff what he had promised so they had gone on strike; now the passengers had been told that they had to take turns cooking and doing other chores. Hearing about this, I was pleased to be on Fabian's boat rather than theirs.

Commerce

Fabian was unable to source any lobster; apparently they were having difficulty catching any, but Fabian blamed it on the recent coke find he assumed had been made, believing that they were too busy drinking to go fishing. In the end we settled for some nice big fish, and we were cooked a lovely meal with beans on the island. The fish was a bit ruined: fried to rubber and incredibly salty; I think they should have left some of the salt in the sea said Alex, but I still really enjoyed it.

More rich people

Turquoise

Wrecked on the reef

We were there for two nights drinking beer and, on the second night, I decided it was vital that we drink the rum. Although it was beautiful there wasn't much to do, and I didn't much feel like relaxing, but that's exactly what I should have been doing in my last little bit of time away. Now my flights were booked, though, I just wanted to go home.

Fabian, Alex, Toby, and Sandro

The rum had to be drunk

Small Island

Poor Kuna

Apart from a short trip over to explore the tiny neighbouring island, all we did was sit around listening to captains talking about their boats, which very quickly became extremely dull; just like any niche interest, the enthusiasts are very geeky and talk of nothing else. I did gather that the San Blas Islands are unanimously considered the favourite place in the whole world by captains; at least among the small sample who were actually in the San Blas Islands at that time, but most of them had been living on their boats for over five years. There was some real one-upmanship about who had been on their boat the longest. They all stated that they could never live on land again; they've tried it and it doesn't work for them. Yawn.

More paradise

Flip flops seem to make up 50% of sea debris

Really tiny island

Starfish

Sea chicken

The tiny island from "ours"

The boat

After briefly recovering from his sea-sickness, Toby had become ill again, but this time with a fever. By the last day, we were all quite worried about him; after all they had been travelling mostly in tropical places for about two years and Alex was very worried that it might be dengue or malaria. This messed up their plans a bit as they had been planning to remain on the island in a rented tent for a week after the rest of us left; they waited until the last minute then Alex insisted to Toby that they were going to a hospital for tests on the mainland, not staying on the island and hoping.

Fishing

Leaving Chichime

Carti

Impressive boat

Kuna

Fabian sailed us to Carti, an island near the border post, from where he had arranged a little dugout ferry to take us to the mainland. We had some food and beer from a bar on the island then stayed the last night moored nearby. In the morning the ferry took us to the mainland where a four wheel drive was waiting to drive us to Panama City. The cruise was over. Fabian was a good guy and a great captain, but the boat was just too small, and I was a bit disappointed with the lack of luxury after all the people who had raised my expectations. The islands were gorgeous though.

Island life

Toilet

Toilet from the outside

God lights

God lights

]]> Wed, 20 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://www.blogabond.com/TripView.aspx?tripID=10867 http://www.blogabond.com/CommentView.aspx?commentID=134061 0 9.5763760390558 -78.8365173339844
Tiny uninhabited island

Tiny uninhabited island

As we approached the first island it was clear that we were approaching the tropical paradise that I expected from what I had briefly read in the guide book: crystal clear, turquoise water, peppered with islands of white coral sand, covered in coconut palms; the very archetype of island paradise. It really was very beautiful.

Turquoise waters

When we got slightly closer to the San Blas archipelago I noticed Fabian had his mobile out, sending text messages, so I tried mine: yes, full reception. I wondered why they would have bothered with mobile cells when the nearby islands all appeared to be uninhabited. Then I saw: harboured in the larger coves were several large yachts; this was a rich person's playground – of course they couldn't do without reception! Then I read my messages. My friend, John, had replied to the text I sent boasting of the gorgeous islands I would be visiting on my posh cruise and he had responded with something like: ''Island ghettos for the poor indigenous people forced from their mainland ancestral homes. Sounds lovely." I hadn't read much about the islands but this unsettled me, although the island we were heading to was clearly not a ghetto, in fact it was tiny and uninhabited.

Rich people's hangout

Fabian's boat

Fabian told us that this was Koala Island, a joke in reference to the fact his company is called Sailing Koala, which he apparently thought it would be easy for English speakers to remember. We stopped off at the island for a few hours to swim and relax on the beach. The snorkel gear Fabian had promised us never appeared, but Toby and Alex had their own, as well as a fantastic design of hammock, which ties at the sides and faces forwards, ideal for your typical desert island palm tree setup. Toby and Alex seemed to be having a great time, which just made me think how lovely it would be to have Joanne there. Maudlin, I walked around the island picking up a pretty shell on the way, which I decided I would take home for Joanne; if she can't be in the Caribbean, I would take the Caribbean to her.

Toby's cool side-tying forward-looking hammock

The couple

Shell

Next up was a populated island where some local Kuna people were going to cook our dinner. It took several hours to get there so on the way I read a bit more in the guide book, hoping to assuage the fears John's text message had planted. The book confirmed that these people were inhabitants of the mainland, Colombia, until they were displaced by the Conquistadores, which wasn't quite what I thought John had meant, but sad nonetheless; though I had thought that they had been displaced recently from John's text.

Sandro and Romano

El Capitan

Arriving at the next island, there were loads more large yachts moored around the island which, even from the shore, did not look like a pleasant place to live. We went ashore on Fabian's dinghy, were introduced to the family who would be cooking for us, and Fabian invited us to walk around the island. It was pretty depressing. Here, among all these island paradises, people were living in grim poverty. Almost the entire island had been covered in concrete, so the beautiful white sands were only visible in a few places next to the water. It was also clear that the only economy they had was what money they could extract from the wealthy yachting tourists: everywhere local crafts were being sold at far higher prices than I could afford, especially having blown so much money on the cruise, and we were told that if we took photos of anyone we would have to give US$1 to everyone in each photo. We saw plenty of what we would consider poverty on this trip, but there is something particularly upsetting about poverty when it exists right next to conspicuous wealth, like these yachts. It seems to make the difference between happy poor people and desperate poor people.

First view of an inhabited island

More rich people

Poor people

The one upside was that Fabian knew a lot of the locals and I believed him when he told us that he believed in spreading the money around. I think he probably paid them reasonably well for our dinner, and he told us that he changes which people he goes to so they all get their turn. Fabian had explained to us that each of the islands is legally a state in its own right with its own laws. In particular this meant that we had to buy and drink any beer we wanted immediately, before the alcohol curfew. Bizarrely the next island along had no closing time and alcohol could be bought, never mind consumed, 24 hours a day.

Pier

Towards the end of our meal we saw a side-effect of the different state's proximity. To much excitement on the beach next to our table, a large dugout boat with an outboard motor set off from the beach opposite. It was very overloaded and judging by the whooping on board, the occupants were also loaded. It started out at full speed and started taking water immediately. It sunk lower and lower during the 30 seconds or so after it set out until it had sunk too low to keep going and everyone had to splash out into the shallow water, laughing and falling about. They crowded around and started bailing the boat out, eventually managing to drag it ashore; however one of the people who had been on the boat was face-down in the water. Just when we were about to run over, the locals seemed to notice him and dragged him out. After a bit of squeezing his chest, him coughing up water, and lots of laughing all round they indicated he was alright. He was carried away and the rest of the people from the boat staggered off, most of them so drunk they could barely stand.

No more than 100m to booze

Back on Fabian's boat, where we were to sleep again, he told us that every so often a batch of cocaine, ditched in the sea when smugglers are evading the coast guard, washes up on the beaches of the islands and the islanders sell it on, meaning that they get a huge windfall so that they don't have to do any work for a while; instead they just get drunk constantly until the money runs out. It almost seemed Fabian didn't have a very high opinion of the islanders, but he did seem to care about them; I think he put it down to their lack of choices and saw it as sad rather than bad. I certainly found their situation sad.
]]> Sun, 17 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://www.blogabond.com/TripView.aspx?tripID=10867 http://www.blogabond.com/CommentView.aspx?commentID=134060 0 9.5763760390558 -78.8365173339844 would get sick. He provided us all with sea-sickness pills, although I didn't think I would need it, since I have a very strong stomach. Likewise, Toby and Alex boasted of their ability to withstand any motion without becoming ill, but we all took a pill anyway when Fabian insisted.

It was on this trip that I realised my glib assumption that groups of people when thrown together on a tour are likely just to get on does not always hold true. On the Ciudad Perdida tour everyone had remarked what a great group it was and only now did I realise how true that had been. The two Swiss guys seemed perfectly nice but, apart from not being very confident in their English, which they were now being forced to speak, I think they were both quite quiet guys. I didn't mind that since I was quite happy to sunbathe, or read when I was sheltering from the sun indoors since I hadn't brought any sun cream; the boat was too small for everyone to fit comfortably on deck anyway! The English couple, on the other hand, I didn't get on with at all. They apparently took exception to the reticence of the Swiss guys and seemed to be trying to bring me into a conspiracy of hatred against them every time they spoke to me. They just didn't seem to like foreigners very much, although they had been travelling for about two years already and Alex claimed this had turned her into a bit of a tree-hugger. It turned out that she had been brought up in some weird religious cult I can't remember the name of, and she and Toby had been travelling on her huge earnings from working as a Bentley saleswoman: she seemed about as right wing as all that would suggest, which was confirmed when she told me she was planning for vote for UKIP, who aren't actually at all racist apparently.

So the atmosphere on the boat was never particularly good, since nobody really seemed to get on, the exception being the captain who was a great host and very laid back. Unfortunately he wasn't anything like as good a chef. The stories I had heard of other people's trips from Panama to Colombia were tales of incredible luxury, including lobster every day or fantastic fish if you didn't want to pay the US$1 supplement. Fabian, however, had calculated that we would be too sea-sick to eat much so all we had to eat on the open sea was jam on toast from a packet. In fact I wasn't sea-sick at all, didn't take any more pills, and would quite happily have eaten some lobster thank you very much. To be fair, because the boat was so small it was affected a huge amount by the waves and the movement in the cabin would have made it impossible to cook. I should have held out for a catamaran! Toby and Alex, however, were both very ill with sea-sickness and hardly came out of their cabin for the first two days; they had been given the double bed in a cabin, since they were the only couple of the trip.

Dolphins playing around the boat

I was really enjoying myself and realised that it was the first time I had been out in open seas in such a small boat, in fact probably the first time I had been on a yacht. Within a few hours of leaving Cartagena, we were followed by a large pod of dolphins for about an hour. Amazing: they just seemed to love playing around the boat a little bit like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoyTY8XPr4w (not this trip). After ages of thinking I must have missed my chance to get any photos, I finally thought it was worth a try and went down into the cabin to get my camera. They had started to drop away by the time I came back up on deck, but I managed to get a couple of photos.

Dolphin

The Monitor autopilot

At night we had to take turns as lookout. Fabian had a couple of auto-pilot contraptions for his boat, but the more accurate one had broken down early in the trip, so someone needed to check the bearing occasionally to make sure we were still on course, but the main reason for the lookout, he told us, was in case of any other vessels coming into sight. The first night passed uneventfully, but what I thought was going to be an unwelcome duty I reckoned the amount of money I had contributed should excuse me from, turned out to be an amazing, relaxing chill-out. Of course I couldn't sleep since I was on duty but, apart from standing up every ten minutes to look all round, I was able to lie back and relax with my MP3 player on, hypnotised by the cool air and rocking motion from the waves, which became quite exciting at points: a couple of times a large wave washed over the side of the deck, prompting Fabian to jump out of bed and make some adjustment to the setup of his auto-pilot. Most hypnotic of all, though, was the phosphorescence in the breaking waves, caused by plankton I believe. This caught me completely by surprise when I first noticed it, then I remembered having read about this effect in Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, which is set in the Caribbean; the very same sea we were on now. It's incredibly beautiful and I sat transfixed, listening to the most ambient music in my library. When my shift was up I was sad to leave it, but I was exhausted; not as exhausted as poor Fabian, who covered half of the time Toby and Alex were too ill to do their share of, the rest divvied among the two Swiss and me.

Sailing into the sunset

In the morning we found a dead fish on board, which Fabian identified as a flying fish, then later in the day we saw hundreds of them skimming over the surface of the sea - fantastic! - and another icon from The Old Man and the Sea: first dolphins, then phosphorescence, and now flying fish.

Fabian slept a lot during the day and the rest of us sunbathed and read. On the second night it seemed the Swiss boys had allowed the boat to drift off-course when I started my shift, so I had to call Fabian to check it. His GPS revealed we had drifted worryingly close to the shore, well south of where we were supposed to reach Panama, so he changed the course and left me to it. Later I was disturbed a few times from my phosphorescent reverie by the appearance of lights on the horizon, which was the cue to waken the captain. The first couple of times they disappeared again over a different part of the horizon with no consequence but the third time the other boat got closer and closer, eventually overtaking us, without ever responding to Fabian's radio requests that they identify themselves. It's probably just the coast guard trying to freak us out he said. He had explained that Colombians, in particular Colombian captains, endure quite a lot of harassment from the authorities of other countries because of the drug reputation the country has, but he seemed sanguine about this, saying it had long ceased to bother him. The chances are any shipment of coke they find in or around Panama has originated in Colombia, so what are they supposed to do? he explained. He told me the Panama coast is patrolled by the US coast guard.

The next day we started getting into calmer waters so Toby and Alex re-emerged from their cabin. Alex noticed I was sheltering indoors a lot and worked out that I hadn't brought any sun cream, so very kindly offered me some of hers and I was able to alleviate the growing boredom by spending more time on my tiny little patch on the deck. I was glad when some land came into view because I'd had enough of this tiny little boat.

Very first view of San Blas Islands

]]> Sat, 16 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://www.blogabond.com/TripView.aspx?tripID=10867 http://www.blogabond.com/CommentView.aspx?commentID=134053 0 9.5763760390558 -78.8365173339844 First we had to eat, so we had some cheap-but-dodgy street food, which seems to be the standard sea-front fare in Santa Marta: greasy pizzas and salchipapas. But the two Aussie girls were pleased to be able to pay more for "vegetarian" pizzas, which just looked like normal ones with the meat left off. While we were getting our food Fraggle let slip that the Aussies had not actually contributed towards our guide Castro's tip. It seemed a bit stingy, especially when you consider what a great guide he was, moreover considering how disappointing everyone else's guide sounded, but tips are voluntary and it's easy to get into a habit of being stingy when you are travelling. However I had tipped because Castro's performance was so good it overcame my stinginess. Well everyone has their own threshold, I supposed. Then I remembered Castro carrying Ali on his back for significant parts of the trek, and the fact that he organised a birthday party for her, up in the mountains, in the middle of nowhere, after carrying a cake all the way there as well as booze and wine. Now that is really tight. Nevertheless, Fraggle hadn't wanted to make a big thing out of it, so he told Castro that the tip was from all of us.

Party!

After "food" we carried on to the place the local had chosen for our big night out. I should have realised that most people's idea of a night out is not the same as mine: I had pictured all of us sitting round a large wooden table at a simple drinking den, slowly getting drunk as we relived the last five days, after all these were nice new friends all of whom, I thought, had become quite close in a short period of time, but many of whom would never see each other again after that night. But no. Our big night out was to be in loud a dancing place, doing its best (not very well) to imitate any number of bland nightclubs in the UK. We couldn't speak and the drinks were expensive, and it had almost everything going for it that I hated about Boca Grande in Cartagena. Of course we had to go somewhere like that because girls like dancing, and most people seem to think you have to go for the most expensive place for a good night out. Well what a load crap! I just sat down and started working my way through a bottle of rum with Jamie and Fraggle.

Dance floor

Ali, Fraggle, and Emma

It was only after we left the nightclub that the evening started to get interesting, although it was also rather hazy, after two bottles of rum among the three of us. We found ourselves roaming along the front looking for somewhere to buy beer, but everything was shut and there were very few people around. As we walked along the front I noticed that there was a scattering of people who all seemed to be following and converging on us, slowly and without openly acknowledging us. Actually it was a bit like a zombie film. So far every local I had encountered in Colombia had been really nice and friendly, but here we were easily outnumbered, and I wondered what sort of Colombian hangs around on or near the beach this late at night. It suddenly felt like the dodgiest situation I had been in for the whole trip, and I remembered that Joanne had asked me not to be more reckless after she left. But after a brief period where they seemed to be hanging menacingly around us, we were sitting down with them, being offered beer, and chatting away. They were all very friendly after all, though they did seem to be a mix of students, buskers, beach bums, tramps, and other miscellaneous dodgy people. They were able to tell us which other dodgy person would be able to get us beer so late, correctly assuming, I suppose, that we would share it when it arrived.

At one point Gemma had to leave, I think just to use the toilet somewhere – I can't remember, but she was too scared to go alone, instead opting to take one of the dodgy characters with her. Fraggle and I just assumed that she fancied him, and Fraggle assured me that Gemma could look after herself. Quite a lot of time passed, most of which I spent speaking to a Rastafarian artist about dreadlocks, who eventually sold me a woven bracelet thing, and I occasionally asked Fraggle if we should worry about Gemma not being back, but he just said she'd be fine. Just as we were getting up to leave and call it a night, Gemma arrived back, rushing to keep ahead of the guy she had disappeared with and told us that he was a "total pervert" who had tried to make a move on her.

Fraggle moves...

For hazily unremembered reasons, we went to someone else's hostel instead of going to sleep; I think it may have been because there was a rooftop terrace and they had a bottle of rum. We managed to get rid of most of the dodgy crew, who had started following us, by enlisting the local girl to explain that only people who are staying there will be allowed in so late. Unfortunately Gemma's creepy guy was a tourist and, though she did say it was OK for him to come, asked Fraggle and me to keep him away from her. So the task fell to me to speak to him. Gemma was not wrong when she said he was creepy, and it wasn't long before I was pretty sure he had switched his affections from Gemma to me, though he was never explicit, thank goodness, instead telling me about being a hairdresser on a Ritalin prescription.

Creepy hairdresser

Scary man!

Dawn is coming

Nice view

Nevertheless, it was a lovely roof terrace, with a nice view and a great sunrise. I shouldn't have been up that late! I was supposed to be going back to Cartagena the next day to organise passage to Panama, since Joanne had not been able to find me the trip I wanted. So Gemma and I left to back to the dorm, managing not to wake the others when we got back, leaving Fraggle with the French girl he had pulled. Gemma told me he would be very pleased, because he's never had a French bird before, and he had made it his mission to collect one woman from every country.

Creepy man makes one last attempt at Gemma

]]> Wed, 13 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://www.blogabond.com/TripView.aspx?tripID=10867 http://www.blogabond.com/CommentView.aspx?commentID=114509 0 11.2472222 -74.2016667
Reconstructed house

We woke up in the Ciudad Perdida, one of the last groups to do that because they have apparently closed the accommodation in the city for environmental reasons. After breakfast, Castro took us on a tour around some of the site. It's too big to cover all of it in a day, he told us, and since we only had a morning we had to begin quite early. First he took us to a reconstruction of the houses that they built on the platforms, but it wasn't in very good condition. Castro said that when they were in use, the people would be burning fires inside all the time, and the smoke that permeated through the palm frond roofs kept the plant material dry and protected it and the walls from rotting, but because the reconstruction was not being used it would only last about two years rather than the 30 years they would have lasted back in the day.

Reconstructed buiding

Tayrona hand mill

Different mills for different substances

He showed us various small stone hand mills, each size and shape of stone used to grind a different substance, including sea shells, the trade in which was the only reason they needed to keep contact with civilisations at sea level. The powdered shell was kept in a gourd and used to mix with the coca leaves they chewed, acting as a catalyst and releasing the alkaloids faster, very much like the stuff the driver in Bolivia gave me on the Salt Flats tour. Even to this day – and we saw this, despite not be descendents according to Castro, all of the men carry a gourd full of some alkaline substance, into which they dip a stick to get a small amount to put in their mouth, then scrape off the saliva in the gourd neck, so the powder doesn't get wet. This constant addition of saliva to the gourd causes the neck to get fatter over time, so you can tell how long someone has been using a gourd by how fat the neck is. From when the boys are very young, they carry a little bag (you will see them in previous photos), whereas girls all have a necklace. The bag is for carrying coca leaves and their custom when they meet, is not to shake hands, but for both men to take leaves from their bag and put them into the other man's bag. The gourd is something that you only receive from the father of the girl you are going to marry, when that time comes. I'm sure Castro told us all this about the Tayrona culture, then later referred to it among the Kogui who he says are not their descendents. So why do they continue the same millennium-old cultural traditions, exactly?

Brick in the process of being cut

As of to prove what he said about how they felled trees, he showed us a piece of rock, which has a brick-shaped scar on it. This, he claimed, is an acid mark, which is also how they made all of the bricks the platforms were built from: bit by bit burned grooves with acid form plants, then when deep enough, they simply prised the brick off the rock. Seems like it would take a mind-boggling amount of time to build something tiny that way, but who knows? If you have loads of them going at once, all at different places, maybe it could work. There are plenty of fruit trees round the city, which Castro says have been there since the Tayrona people planted them, but one of the other crops they domesticated early was tobacco. And, of course, coca.

Tobacco is beautiful. Who knew?

Butterfly pretending to be an owl, I assume

Banana flower

Bird

It's in the jungle

Fraggle's slaphead

Stairs

Ciudad Perdida

Gemma's "keep warm dance" looks a lot like Morecambe and Wise

For a while he sat in the Mama's chair, where he used to overlook the ceremonies when people from all over the area came to what at the time was called the Gold City. There was a tool booth, where outsiders were required to pay in gold in order to attend the ceremony. This gold, in turn, was used to plate yet more of the city, or make the pure gold face masks worn by the Mamas. We were re-joined by a dog that had followed us most of the way up, disappearing occasionally, that the information at the entrance had explained about. This dog apparently chooses groups and spends all of its time just going up and down the trail, but nobody owns it or knows where it came from.

Castro in charge

I wouldn't trust her with a machete

Ceremonial platform

Dog followed us the whole way up and down

Castro showed us a couple of rocks with lines carved into them. One was supposedly a map of the Ciudad Perdida and another one a map of the entire Tayrona kingdom. I wasn't convinced. He showed us a hole in the ground which he said was a jail, with scrapes on the floor marking the passing of years, which was more believable. And then it was the descent.

A map of the Ciudad Perdida. Supposedly.

A map of the region. Hmm.

Jail

Counting off the years

More Ciudad Perdida

More stairs

Back down the stairs

Long trek back

We passed more Koguis on the way down, so I took more photos. We had all been scorning the tourist who bring sweeties up and give them to the kids, since they don't have toothpaste, but the father of one group came around asking if anyone had a cigarette for him and something sweet for his kids. So what can you do if the parents are asking for it? The father, though, looked like he was about fourteen despite having children who must have been about two and four. They age well those Koguis!

Cute Kogui kids

Their dad!

Kogui family

Alex throws the Frisbee

And they don't have toothbrushes...

It was really all the same in reverse: beautiful jungle, lovely swimming, lots of nice stodgy food, and Ali getting carried. I think she got a mule in the end.

My kind of jungle trek

More green

Greenest of all greens

We had discovered that the Americans were all planning to take six days, more out of thrift than anything else: they could get an extra night's accommodation and an extra day's food if they took six days. Everyone else, though, had had enough or had somewhere they needed to be. I needed to get back to Cartgena to organise my passage to Panama, if Joanne hadn't already done it. I didn't know because I'd had no mobile reception. Last I knew, the flight home from Panama was going to cost more than we expected and she had made enquiries about possible boats. After a bit of pleading for the rest of us to stay the extra day, Castro had to make arrangements to split his group in two. This meant us joining another group, while the Americans would be getting up later on our last day, to hang around for a bit, presumably also with another group, because Castro was having to get up earlier than everyone to run ahead and tell the next night's place that it would be only the four Americans, then continue on to the bottom to tell them that the rest of us would be wanting lunch soon.

See I was there

They fed us a lot

We started off quite a bit later than we were meant to, but I ran most of the way, passing everyone else, including Jamie who'd had a head start and was also going pretty fast. Finally I remembered to stop and take some photos of the leaf cutter ants which had been all over the path on the way up, but seemed a bit sparser on the way down. Amazing creatures! They still didn't catch me.

Leaf cutter ants

Right across the path

Loads of them

Busy ants

When I finally got to the last swimming spot, I dived in and was overtaken by Jamie and the fastest girl from the group we had joined. Even ten minutes in the ice-cold river didn't cool me down enough from the run, so I was still a bit sweaty by the time I arrived at the entrance restaurant; definitely not as fresh as the people who had been there when we started. I'm still convinced there must be a shower for customers in the back or something. Anyway, the beer tasted good, the food was great, and Jamie said that he thought the three young Americans had been really funny with all their chat, and made the trip for him, but he wasn't going to take it if he heard Jungle Boogie one more time.

Last swim

It is actually quite deep in places

Castro had been such a great guide that we all chipped in a tip for him, then I think he had to run back up to pick the Americans up again! And for us it was another bumpy jeep ride back to Santa Marta.
]]> Tue, 12 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://www.blogabond.com/TripView.aspx?tripID=10867 http://www.blogabond.com/CommentView.aspx?commentID=113122 0 10.7 -74.2166667

Crazy Jake

Crazeee Jake

One of the Three Young Americans' most repeated pieces of banter related to an idea that one of them had, to take lots of video clips of them dancing at various locations in the jungle to Jungle Boogie (see how they did that?), which they were going to have to sing to keep time. They had been talking about this incessantly throughout the trek so far, and often singing little snippets of the song, yet by day three they hadn't yet taken one single movie clip; they just kept talking about it. At one point I told them I would be very disappointed if they didn't actually go through with it, after having to put up with listening to them go on about it so much. Jamie had said that he would kill them if they sang it one more time, but he never did. But during the third day, near the top of Ciudad Perdida, they finally took a couple of little clips, though it was still nowhere near enough to fill three minutes or so of the song.

So green

After a couple of hours we stopped at an old traditional mill, which was used to grind grain, much of which would be made into aguardiente, Castro explained. I asked if we would be able to try some, or at least buy some, but he said that they don't bother making it any more because, with the tourist money, the men just get the bus to Santa Marta, where they go drinking in the bars, as well as spending the money on gambling and prostitutes. He moaned about them losing their traditional way of life again for a bit, but it was becoming clear he did not have a very high opinion of the Kogui.

Old mill

The next bit of the trek, he told us, would entail several river crossings. I wasn't looking forward to this bit at all because, although I had been enjoying getting into the rivers and swimming, my new boots were more substantial than most people's footwear so took longer to put on and take off; also I was finding the stones very uncomfortable on my bare feet, which clearly needed hardened up. I really should have been walking around with bare feet as much as possible while I was away to combat this foot sensitivity, but because of flip-flops I probably had bare feet less than at home. I tried one river crossing with flip-flops on, but my remaining pair aren't very easy to keep on in a powerful current, and I had to react fast to stop one from washing away. The shallower parts of the river tended to be rapids of varying intensity, which was fun when swimming, but makes crossing a bit harder. I had to give up on the flip-flops and take every river crossing with bare feet, cursing the whole way across to help cope with the pain. Meanwhile Ali's feet had become so blistered and painful that Castro was carrying her on his back over every crossing.

Start of the steps

Finally after loads of uncomfortable, hassley, river crossings (I think there were nine in quick succession) we reached the infamous 1200 stone steps up to The Lost City. All the way along the route there had been sections paved with large stones, where Castro always stopped to draw our attention to the original piece of Tayrona road. The entire track used to be like that, he explained, but most of the stones have been taken out so that mulas can use it more easily. The higher up we had got, though, the fewer mules we saw and the more original road there was. Castro told us that there is a large network (I think he said thousands of kilometres) of road like this, built over a large area of the north of Colombia, which was the Tayrona kingdom. But now at the steps, it was going to be paved the whole way.

Alex near the top of the steps

Everyone was moaning about how difficult it was going to be, but I was just relieved the lumpy river stones weren't going to be driving into my soles any more. Anyway, climbing steps is much easier than climbing a hill, so I didn't understand why everyone was complaining. Matt suggested we count the steps to check the number was right, but that was the last thing I wanted to do. It was over in a flash and sure enough everyone started to make remarks that it was much easier than they had been expecting and so on.

More steps

As we approached the top of the steps we started to come across some stone walls and stone platforms alongside the steps. It was very different from Machu Picchu in that the stone was really dirty and covered in green moss, whereas Machu Picchu's stones look like they are regularly washed down. Someone since told me that, in fact, Machu Picchu is mostly reconstruction, though they have done a good job of it, whereas this Ciudad Perdida is all original, except that they have removed the overgrown undergrowth. All around though, it's still thick jungle and it really does look like a lost jungle city: it's easy to see why it survived for centuries without being discovered.

Near the top of the Ciudad

I've been asked which I preferred. Well, it's a very different type of ruin to Machu Picchu, but like it, the location is incredible: where Machu Picchu is mountains, Ciudad Perdida is jungle – but it's also in the mountains, though not as spectacularly near the top. The major difference in Cuidad Perdida's favour is the journey. I really love walking, especially up (and down) hills, and the scenery and swimming spots were fantastic. I think the location and the remoteness of Cuidad Perdida edges it in front as far as I'm concerned, though the ruins themselves are more impressive at Machu Picchu (reconstructed though they apparently are). Still, the ruins of Ciudad Perdida are lovely in that all of the impressively done stonework is really old-looking and covered in this nice green fur. Maybe it just reminded me of Glasgow, which is so damp that everything goes green eventually: all the Victorian sandstone buildings have a green tinge to them, no matter what the original colour of the stone. However nice and green, though, the ruins are only platforms on which they built their wooden buildings, of which nothing remains, of course. The scale of the development is really quite impressive though, even though there are no buildings per se, and to wander around the hundreds of old platforms on old stone paths on a mountainside deep in the jungle is amazing.

Green I tell you!

Alex and his halo

Castro pointed out to use that all of the paths were clean, and free from the green fur growing on the platforms, because the Tayrona people were such clever architects that they built all of the paths to be waterways as well, which sounds daft at first, but they are designed so that the water doesn't pool anywhere and just washes down the paths then off the side of the mountain. So not only does it prevent flooding, but it also keeps the paths clean and prevent moss from building up and destroying the stonework, which is part of the reason the site is still in such good condition, he claimed. In some places, there are steps to nowhere, which start off down a very steep hill, then just end. These steps were built just to act as drainage and were not even intended to be walked on. Next Castro pointed at the soldiers who were stationed everywhere and told us that they were there for two reasons: the first was to protect us, the tourists; and the second was to prevent the site from guaqueros.

Holy sapo statue

GREEN!

Next we were taken to our accommodation, which is just off from the main ceremonial platform; a shack with a corrugated steel roof, but perfectly OK for us, since there were mosquito nets. Our group was put on the top floor, where all eleven of us were going to have to squeeze onto seven foam mattresses under one giant mosquito net. I hadn't been having a great sleep on the hammocks we had been given up until then (because we didn't get to tie our own, so I wasn't able to use the skills I learned in the Peruvian jungle), so I was looking forward to a proper sleep.

This is now closed apparently

I was the first to take my luggage up and, when I got there a girl not of our group was already lying down there. I realised immediately it was the one we had come to refer to simply as "crazy girl", who I forget to mention in previous entries. We found her on the first evening, when she asked if she could join us because she had lost her group. She said she had gone for coffee while waiting for her group to leave, but when she returned they had set off without her, meaning that she had to hitch and make her own way. Her group had been at the accommodation at lunch time she said, so she would probably catch up with them the next day and certainly by the top since they would be there for a day and a bit. It sounded a bit odd, but Castro seemed happy enough to feed her. From then she kept popping up on her own, scavenging fruit at the stops or hanging around while we had lunch. By the third day, we had decided that her wild-eyed wanderings and badly mosquito-bitten legs suggested that she had been in the jungle much longer than two days. She had also let slip that her boyfriend worked as a chef at one of the accommodation stations, so with the continued absence of her group, we had become convinced she was a blagger. When I saw her in our sleeping area I told her that she couldn't sleep there because it was for our group, after all eleven people on seven mattresses was already going to be a squash! She got up and went downstairs but later, when some others took their stuff up she was back again. So someone informed Castro and two minutes later, she was putting on her rucksack and heading out into the jungle at dusk. On her own! Castro and the other guides had already been discussing her and had come to the conclusion that she had not paid. And considering how much it costs it really is quite a major blag.

After we had dumped our bags upstairs and showered, it was time to eat. The showers had been cold the first two nights, but up a bit higher where we now were it was freezing. As with every meal so far, it was really good hearty food and there was loads of it. This time I did refuse seconds, because I had to break Castro's perception that I was always going to be the guy who took seconds. Instead, Matt stepped up to the plate.

Castro tells his stories

After food Castro started to tell us lots of things about the Lost City. At this point, several people's Spanish gave out and Alex was called upon to translate. I have to say that my Spanish was still coping, but I don't know how long my concentration would have lasted at that intensity. After a bit he invited us to take a stroll with him to look at the Lost City. I thought he was taking us on a tour, but we just sat down overlooking the ceremonial platform and waited for the TYA to come back from their own wanderings, at which point Matt took over the translation work; all the Americans had really good Spanish, actually, and I was very jealous. I have a suspicion that most of what Castro told us was made up or guess work, because much of it contradicts what was in the guide book and what I've been able to find online. The people had no writing, so a lot of what he was telling us about the culture seemed to me impossible to know in the kind of detail he was telling it. However, he claims that his information comes from Kogui the people who live there now who, according to him but contrary to everyone else it seems, are not descended from the Tayrona people. Castro's claim is that archaeologists came to examine the site and made assumptions about who the people descended from but did not actually speak to them. I couldn't help feel that his belief might be reinforced by the obvious bigotry he felt toward the Kogui, when it simply does not fit with the romantic story he believed about the Tayrona people, who according to him were the most respectful of, and in tune with nature people ever to have lived. He said that the Kogui people were the slaves of the Tayrona, which is why they use slash-and-burn farming method and don't care about nature. He said that the Tayrona died out completely, this huge civilisation, to a man, after some of them brought disease back from meeting Conquistadores at the coast. At this point the slaves escaped and ran away, which is why the city was never discovered.

Ceremonial platform

He told us that the people came from Panama to Colombia, he gave us dates during which the city was built, and he told us a bit about the social structure. This city was just one of many that are dotted around the huge area the civilisation covered, and there are apparently more lost cities in the jungle. The head of each city was a man called the Mama, who was a shaman. The Mama was chosen by selecting three children from the population and putting them in boxes with no food or water, the last one surviving being the winner and next Mama. He said that for a while after they arrived they were just hunter-gatherers, which is pretty unusual for an advanced civilisation capable of architecture, but after they had been settled there for a while they started domesticating potatoes and some animals, however they never cleared unnecessarily large areas of the forest for farming and certainly never burned it down; they remained very much living in the forest. The techniques he described that they used to "micro-clear" the forest sound ridiculous, but he says they obtained acids from some or other plant, which they then applied around the bark of the tree. They would wait months, perhaps reapplying weekly, I can't remember, until the tree was sufficiently eaten into by the acid and then they would push it down. Subtle, yes, but very slow.

Unfortunately I can't now remember much more that he told us, which is a shame since I'm sure he is the only person who would give us that version. We did ask him how he knew so much and he said that, apart from speaking to the locals, he used to be a guaquero with his brother. He then went on to describe in great detail how you go about identifying a good grave to rob and how you do it. Of course you can't do it these days with all the soldiers around. He did say that recently, for his 45th birthday, he and his brother had gone trekking all over the area covered by the civilisation looking for burial sites, for old times' sake, he seemed to be saying; not too worried, obviously, about the fact that it is illegal never mind sacrilegious.

By that time the mosquitoes had already been out of hand for longer than we could tolerate and people started to move back towards the accommodation, so Castro called the meeting adjourned, and we went back for long sleeves and trousers before buying some of the first nice chilled beer of the tour, thanks to the same ice cold water that had made the showers so unpleasant. The beer was now more than double its usual price though. Chatting to some people from other groups we began to feel like we had got the best guide by far. One other group had not had any fruit at all along the way, and their meals were small and not great, but nobody apart from us had been treated to these fantastic accounts Castro had been giving us: little nuggets of information the whole way, culminating in this grand story-telling that night. Most guides hardly told their groups anything apparently, and the others could not believe that he had thrown a birthday party with free booze and a cake for Ali. It had been a great tour so far. A couple of people commented that it had been a really nice group as well, and everyone had got on well and seemed of a similar mindset. People often say this sort of thing on tours and I always think it's really just because people do tend to get on, and most people are basically quite nice, and you don't really get to know the people well enough to make that judgement. However a few days later I had reason to think back to that and realise that I've just been very lucky with the groups but, yes, this was a particularly nice one.

It was bed time, so we retired to our upstairs slumber party under the giant mosquito net, where we giggled about the crazy girl coming back and murdering us in the middle of the night, or her being somewhere else in the room, which was actually full of other people, all presumably wishing we should shut up and stop giggling.

Slumber party

Slumber party

]]> Sun, 10 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://www.blogabond.com/TripView.aspx?tripID=10867 http://www.blogabond.com/CommentView.aspx?commentID=113108 0 10.7 -74.2166667
Kogui boy peeking at the gringos

OK that photo's a bit out of sequence here, but I like it so much I think it deserves to go at the top.

Breakfast time

The first day had really just been an introduction because on day two, the jungle started getting thicker and greener, and the scenery became more beautiful. There were more lovely fresh water pools of rivers in which to swim (or somersault, depending on you). Castro had told us that all of the water was very fresh but some people (not in our group) still insisted on adding water purification tablets. At least the tour group hadn't let health and safety go mad!

Another swim break

Lovely clear water

Poor mulas

As if that weren't enough, we had now started passing tiny villages and occasional single dwellings. These dwellings were really quite remote and the people did not appear to be that used to tourists. It seems bizarre, since this is definitely one of the major tourist destinations in Colombia but, when you add all sort of factors, like Colombia still having a bit of a dodgy international reputation (totally undeservedly), that many people are put off by a six-day trek, the fact that this area was closed between 2003 and 2005 after a large scale tourist kidnapping by FARC, and the fact that the site wasn't even discovered at all until 1972, then it does become believable. This is very remote and, though there are quite a lot of tourists here, it is nowhere near the same league as Machu Picchu or any city in Colombia, and most of the contact with the locals – the Kogi or Kogui Indians – is with several community leaders who run the little businesses, providing food and accommodation to the tourists; most of the rest just watch the gringos passing from a distance.

Kogui village

Livestock in the village

Little Kogui girls walking alone up the path

Cute, but look at the size of that machete!

And they're already working

And this belongs here. It's so cute it can go in twice.

Kogui boy peeking at the gringos

Our guide, Castro, told us that until only ten years ago the Kogi used to throw rocks at the passing tourists and did not really want them on their land at all. Then the government spoke to the community leaders and cut a deal, whereby the community would get all of the entrance fees from the tourists, and since then they have been far more welcoming. On the down side, according to Castro, this extra money means that they are forgetting their traditional way of life. Well, you can't really keep the people poor just to entertain the tourists with their traditional ways, can you?

The track was great: there was no difficulty with the terrain and I was regretting having wasted all that time and money on new shoes when other people were wearing flip-flops. Again, lunch was fantastic and Castro had now singled me out as the guy who likes second helpings. The food was really nice, and there was loads of it, but I didn't really feel like this level of exercise deserved more. But I find it hard to say no when offered nice food. Despite what we had been told by the group at the start of the walk, day two wasn't very hard either, though I think there was some moaning from the back.

Second night's accommodation

Gorgeous swimming spot next to accommodation

Where we slept. Everyone else is the family of that guy, the majordomo.

Fraggle trying to fly while "Mr Bond" waits for a surprise

No seats for the other group

The second night's accommodation was even nicer than the first: it was a small place with the most amazing swimming spot out the back. It was run by a very high status local, who not only ran this business, but was also the school teacher. Therefore he had two wives and loads of children, who were all very cute and fascinated by electronics. Ipods they particularly liked, though digital cameras were popular as well.

He has a lot of kids

They love it

Cute kids

Really was a lovely swimming spot

Great soup

All day Castro had been carrying an awkward box, which he said contained huevos. It turned out that he had been told that it was Ali's birthday during the trek, so he had brought a birthday cake for her all the way up there. He also produced a couple of bottles of fruit wine and several half-bottles of aguardiente for us. By coincidence, it was also the birthday of his son, Juan Carlos, who was with us on the trek, so we sang Happy Birthday for him too. His birthday and his dad had made him work all day! Castro claimed they had celebrated JC's birthday before the tour began, but we still gave him some cake. Ali probably needed something to cheer her up as her feet were already blistering.

Mel and Gemma, and birthday girl Ali hiding

Birthday girl

Double birthday

]]> Sat, 09 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://www.blogabond.com/TripView.aspx?tripID=10867 http://www.blogabond.com/CommentView.aspx?commentID=112940 0 10.7 -74.2166667 Ciudad Perdida tour, who were kind enough to offer to look after our bags while we were away. The two Australian girls, Ali and Mel, were already there (why do Australians shorten every name?) and they had been joined by the two English friends, Gemma and "Fraggle", who they had been waiting for, and who had in turn brought a friend of theirs, Jamie. As we waited around the jeep we were joined by a group of three young guys from the USA, Matt, Jake, and Colin; another slightly older guy called Alex, also from the States; and a girl from Kazakhstan, who is now living in England, called Marina. Everyone seemed to have much larger bags than the tiny day-bag I had squashed five days worth of stuff into, but since I had used the same bag for five days in the Peruvian jungle including a hammock, I was sure I'd be OK.

Soon all the bags were on the top of the jeep and all eleven of us were squashed into the back. Not long after we set off we were off-road and a couple of times I was almost pitched forward right into Marina who was sitting opposite. Soon we realised that the three people on their own, Marina, Alex, and me, had recently continued their trips without their significant other: in my case my wife, Marina's case her English husband, who had just gone home, and in Alex's case his new girlfriend. The Lonely Hearts Trek, we decided.

Finally we arrived at the place where the trek began and sat down at the restaurant for lunch. A group who had just finished were also having lunch but they all looked pretty fresh, leading us to believe that the trek was going to be pretty easy, though they claimed otherwise, saying that the second day in particular was a killer. On the wall a map also showed the profile of the trek, so I could see that the total distance to our destination was only 20km and the total ascent, including a few ups-and-downs, was only about 1600m. I was glad again that I had gone for the five-day option since to do that over six days was madness, in fact five still seemed pretty crazy. The return trip was about 40km and 2000m total ascent, which I've done in a single day on a few walks among Scotland's Munros. They were difficult days at the time and I was much less fit now, but surely we could have taken one day up, one day at the site, and one day down? Oh well, plenty of time to look at the scenery. And take photos.

Our guide, Castro (who did not speak English) told us that the jeep track we had travelled on to get there was part of a road network built by the Tayrona people, who had also built the Ciudad Perdida. The Tayrona civilisation was very early by South American standards, and so the ruins we were seeking are also very old by South American standards, building having begun in the 9th Century, some 650 years before Machu Picchu. Finally something in the Americas that is actually quite old by European or Asian standards!

The lunch was quite nice and rather large, and as a bonus beer was much cheaper than I expected at the end of a several hour jeep ride along an ancient Tayrona road. We speculated on how much the price of beer would rise with our altitude and some people abstained because of the trek ahead, but I knew it would be dead easy so I wasn't bothered and had a few.

After lunch we set off and the pace was predictably slow. After what seemed like only ten minutes, and it can't literally have been much more, we stopped at a deep slow part in the river we had been following. I couldn't believe we were stopping so soon after the start, but I hadn't yet settled into how easy we were going to take it. The Three Young Americans had been promised jumping spots by Castro, they told us, and sure enough found the deepest place and jumped in. I gathered that there were going to be a lot more stops like this and instantly regretted saving a tiny bit of space by bringing my very tight, hotpants-style swimming trunks, usually only worn under a wetsuit, instead of sensible baggy shorts-style ones. I had thought we had to bring swimming stuff "just in case" we felt like a dip, not because we'll be stopping every fifteen minutes for one. I wouldn't like to wear them under normal circumstances, but with the extra up-to 14kg I really didn't want to. But my choices were to sit at the side while everyone else had great fun splashing around in the beautifully pure and cool water, or else make a joke about my hotpants and get in.

Cooling off

Not long after we stopped again, this time for some very nice fruit, and I had begun to accept that it was going to be slow and I wasn't going to get the kind of exercise I had been hoping would kick-start my weight-loss plan! When we set off again, the TYA had already gone ahead, so I took the opportunity to put on a burst of speed and catch up with them. They were making quite a good pace, which I was able to keep up with quite easily, but soon Matt fell behind, and then Colin. It was just me and Jake now, and he was really setting a good pace. My heart was thumping and I was getting a great workout – probably for the first time in over a year. For a while I kept pace with young Jake, but it had already been mentioned that he was a semi-professional cyclist, so there was no way I was going to be able keep up with him if he kept going, so after a short time I started to tire and fall behind. At the next bend he was waiting for me. How you feeling? he asked, seeming quite concerned. I'm sure what he was seeing was a fat old guy with a purple face, working way over his limit, rather than the recently very fit, Munroist I knew myself to be. After all he was only 21, so I must have looked ancient. I told him I felt great, but his concern remained, though he was satisfied I wasn't quite ready for a heart attack and shot off into the distance, leaving me now quite tired, but feeling much better than I had walking at the snails' pace we had been doing before. At the next fruit stop, our reward was a very long wait, where we were encouraged to take photos of the lovely green view. Already lazy (or just unfit I suppose) people had resorted to mulas to carry them up the incline.

Lazy people

The TYA were constantly bantering with each other, the way young people do: it was mostly gibberish and in-jokes, but quite harmless. I soon noticed that they were actually being really nice to each other – as well as everyone else – the whole time; they often checked that the others were feeling great, or at least good, and they even went as far as being really polite and well-mannered to each other. Now this might not sound so strange to some people, but in Britain, Scotland in particular I believe, and therein Glasgow in particular, friends, particularly young guys, just don't treat each other like that: you express your close bond by constantly taking the piss out of each other and saying cruel things; the closer you are the more brutal you are permitted – and expected – to be. So one of the first acts in getting to know someone is usually some gentle teasing, leading to some remorseless slagging if you really hit it off. When I thought about it, I remembered that there are simply different social rules in each culture, so that we all value this exchange of pleasantries in different ways: at one end of the spectrum you have the Americans and at the other, perhaps, Mediterranean culture, British somewhere in between. I wondered how this overuse - from a Scottish perspective - of pleasantries would be seen by my Greek friends, who had actually been offended once because I was being so polite, as they saw it, in their company; their attitude was "we are friends so you don't need to ask and you don't need to say thank you; just take – of course you can have whatever you want". As far as they were concerned my automatic, ingrained, politeness was actually rude, as if questioning the bond of friendship. It's similar in Glasgow: if you are anything less than merciless, it means you are putting a distance between you and your friends. It's possible this attitude is where a minor cultural misunderstanding came from: after sitting among the boys' chit-chat for a few minutes, Jamie piped up that he just couldn't believe them and all day he had felt like he was in an American sit-com. Following his lead, I said that I knew what he meant because I used to think that American actors were all really bad, until I met some Americans, when I realised that they are all really like that. At this point the three Americans looked extremely upset and offended, as if I had just slapped them out of the blue. Matt said Wow I wish I knew some really good put-downs for Scottish people… hey don't you guys still wear skirts? and I felt really awful. I hadn't meant it, but I had apparently really hurt them.

Green

Anyone knows me is aware that I generally do not have much time for the Americans. Mostly this sentiment is political: after all in recent history they elected Bush twice, Iraq, and as a country continue to behave very badly on the world stage. Of course I feel the same way about the English for Thatcher and the Scottish for Blair. Obviously I have never applied this at an individual level: everyone is different and may not be someone aligned with the national characteristic I despise so much. The big difference is that, even taking them individually, I rarely meet an American I like: their opinions are usually so very different from mine – they usually seem ultra-conservative – that it doesn't often happen, and the biggest problem of all is that they don't seem to be able to criticise their own state and become very defensive if someone else does. This I cannot understand or tolerate: I am more than happy to acknowledge defects in Scotland and the UK. When I have expressed these opinions to friends in the past they have often responded, but forget about America - don't you think that Americans are just so nice? and until this trip I had always responded in the negative. However that is exactly what these three guys were: they were really nice. Clearly I had never met the right Americans before, or perhaps my travelling had made me more open-minded, who knows? Aside from being so damned nice-and-polite they were also pretty critical of America, not just Bush, but America the state. I was very impressed. Socially, though, I must admit that I still find Americans very strange and somehow really different from most other people on the planet. However, strange is no reason to hate anyone, so here it was: these three young Americans had changed my mind about Americans. And by the way, Alex, who was not part of their group of three, was also really nice though much quieter, which wasn't hard considering how loud they were! However there remains a paradox: if the USA is a country of such nice people, then how could they have voted in Bush twice, or so many of them go off to murder innocent Iraqi children, or indeed any other non-white people whose country dares slightly obstruct their all-powerful global dominance? I genuinely don't get it.

Anyway, after my teasing insult I tried to explain that it was a friendly thing to do where I come from, and sure enough they took it onboard and for the rest of the tour I was peppered with playful insults, though they were far too polite to say any of the really obvious cruel things I so deserved. Or maybe they just didn't like me enough.

First night's dinner table

First night's bedroom

The first night's accommodation was very nice and the view was astounding before the sun went down. After the sun went down the stars were astounding. The food was also really good, and there was plenty of it. They had told us the accommodation was going to be basic, but this was obviously the standard spiel that they need to give everyone, even people who haven't been travelling for months, because all of us were really happy. At dinner Melissa proved that she was half Chinese when I brought my camera out. Apparently it's really obvious to some people, but I just didn't see it – until her "Chinese salute". After dinner Castro tied together Jake and Gemma in what I guess was an ice-breaking exercise, though he claimed it was a puzzle they could solve by getting out of it. We were all pretty sure it was impossible and he never provided a solution. And neither Jake not Gemma are the sort of people who need ice-breakers!

OK, Mel, now I believe you're half Chinese

Bondage

We were too slow arriving so all the beer was gone by the time we arrived, though we were told the price it would have been, and it was still reasonably cheap despite having increased since ground level. Luckily the TYA had some rum and were willing to share. Otherwise, how would I have slept through the mystery snorer?

]]> Fri, 08 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://www.blogabond.com/TripView.aspx?tripID=10867 http://www.blogabond.com/CommentView.aspx?commentID=112921 0 10.7 -74.2166667 geezer spotted me going in and out of hostels and offered to find me somewhere to stay, and without me saying anything followed me around the streets, occasionally asking people sitting outside if I could sleep at their place, to which the only response he got was along the lines of "are you kidding? - he's only one and I could fit five gringos in there!" so in the end I decided to go back to point A, when my geezer told me he wanted a propina for helping me find accommodation; it was all I could do to stop him coming to where my bag was and claiming commision for finding it, so suddenly I wasn't able to speak any Spanish at all, in particular I found the word propina very hard to understand.

Back at the hostel, they had new plans for me: I was taken through to a back room where there were already several hammocks with people in them, as well as some mattresses on the floor, one of which was mine. It was only a piece of foam, but I had slept in New Zealand hostels and it wasn't going to be any worse than their foam mattresses. Of the group sharing the newly converted public area with me, the two girls were also planning a trip to the Ciudad Perdida, starting the day after next, when two other friends would be arriving after extensively researching the best company with whom to do the tour. I had done no research and, although the hostel had offered me a tour beginning the next day, I was unable to go as I did not yet have appropriate footwear, so I said I'd be glad to join them, thus saving myself the effort of doing any research or risking a terrible company. Besides they seemed quite nice for Australians.

Next day I spent the entire time looking for places to buy shoes and trying to find somewhere that could unlock the locked Mexican phone I had swapped with Maude, in the Peruvian jungle, for the incorrect frequency band, but otherwise identical, Thai phone; my good phone was well and truly dead: even plugged in it was struggling to stay on. I completed all my missions, even finding nail-clippers, which I had recently realised Joanne had taken with her, leaving me with no means to prevents my own toenails from cutting my feet while trekking. The shoe shop was a bit of an ordeal and the only affordable shoes that fitted me and seemed vaguely appropriate were a pair of desert boots. I have to emphasise that I have never before owned desert boots and it was only dire straits that brought about this recent state of affairs. Back at the hostel, they had spotted a money-making opportunity and everyone was hard at work, cutting mattress-sized bits of foam from huge slabs while other sewed covers over them. Clearly they were planning to put gringos on every flat surface in the hostel and charge then ten thousand pesos, which was a good deal considering the dorms were thirty thousand. Towards the end of the day I went with the Aussie girls and booked up for a five-day tour starting the next day, which I was quite pleased about because I had expected it to take six days and I didn't really want to spend that much time before moving onto my sailing trip. Every day counts. As we left they shouted after us "no beer tonight!".

During the day I also established via the internet that Lucy and co had arrived in Santa Marta before me and had quickly moved on to nearby Taganga for the beach. She had sent me a text to that effect the day before, but of course my dead phone didn't receive it; I had expected an email or Facebook message. Anyway, they were planning staying there for Natasha's birthday a few days later, so I decided to visit them for "one last drink". I waited for over an hour on the main street where the LP said to catch a bus to Taganga, but the first one pulled away after letting everyone off right next to where I was waiting, but showed no interest in new passengers; the next one, some twenty minutes later, flew right past me, even though I was walking into the road flapping my arm up and down. Meanwhile every two minutes buses to some place I can't remember went by, and every five minutes maximum buses to every other place passed. Eventually, when the next bus didn't turn up after twenty minutes, I gave up and got a taxi, who charged much more that I was expecting for the five kilometre journey. It was a horribly twisty coastal road, climbing up high and then dropping down into the bay, so it took a lot longer than I expected to get there, so I forgave him the fare; however I did not forgive the driver for leaving me up a blocked side street, saying "there is the beach" and pointing to the end of the street, when I couldn't find the "hostel on the beach" as Lucy had described it.

Walking up and down the beach of Taganga, which the LP tells you to go to instead of Santa Marta, was a horrible experience: loud, busy, and horribly touristy, like all the bad bits of Thailand; I much preferred Santa Marta which, although similarly busy, was much more civilised. I finally found the others who had also had a very hard time finding accommodation, necessitating that the girls split up: Natasha with the boys (the Swedish ones) and Silvie with the couple. Not ideal for anyone, but two triples was all they could find. We had a nice but dear meal on the beach then the boys and the couple all went to bed while the girls and I went to a couple of other places to drink cocktails and ended up at a club, despite the warnings from the tour operator. From below the place sounded terrible, but once inside it was actually really nice: the whole dance floor was in the open and it was much more laid-back than the horribly uptight and pretentious club scene I had become used to in the rich bastards' playground of Cartagena. It seemed like it might actually be fun, but I had to leave soon, especially since I had notice there were no longer any taxi loitering outside. I found one and made it to bed not too late. I had managed to secure a private room for the second night, thank goodness. ]]> Thu, 07 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://www.blogabond.com/TripView.aspx?tripID=10867 http://www.blogabond.com/CommentView.aspx?commentID=107873 0 11.2472222 -74.2016667 Tutomo, el Volcan de Lodo for her birthday, but this would have meant getting up quite early on her birthday, and since she didn't emerge from their room at all on New Year's Day this was clearly not going to happen.

Lucy's birthday cake

She managed to get up for some birthday cake about midday , after which we finally made the journey to the old town to see the walls while it was still daylight. Just. Near the centre of the old town there is a statue of India Catalina, whose claim to fame is betraying her own people and helping the Spanish defeat the natives they encountered there. I'm not quite sure why she is venerated.

India Catalina

The walls

The walls in sunset

Inside of the walls

Sunset

Kite surfer in the sunset

We continued to the walled part of the city and took a little walk around. Silvie commented that the walls weren't very impressive by the standards of some other walled cities she had been to, and didn't think they would do much of a job of keeping invaders out. True, it's no Great Wall, and at points it does look like you would only need a puddy up, but the walls are wide enough to have large numbers of soldiers marching up and down, which is what I supposed they must have done. Soon the sun set and we entered the walled part of the city to wander around. Old Cartagena really is beautiful and it reminded me of nice bits of Barcelona, with the multitude of plazas. The bit inside the inner walls, though, is almost as expensive as Bocagrande, so when we stopped off at Cafe del Mar for a birthday drink for Lucy it had to be one only.

Horse and carriage through the old town

Cartagena

At Cafe del Mar

Cartagena

Cartagena

Cartagena

Cartagena

Cartagena

On the way home we passed loads of kitsch Christmas decorations and booked our tour to the volcan de lodo at a tourist office on the main road to Bocagrande. Then it was an early night so we could get up for the tour, Lucy having rolled her birthday over to the next day; something tells me she does this every year, but who can blame her when it's the 2nd January?

Cartagena

Hard Rock Cafe

Cartagena

Xmas decorations

Cartagena

More Xmas decorations

That thing in the middle is Jesus, not a snowman, apparently

The Swedes hadn't come out with us, but didn't seem interested in the mud volcano anyway.

Mud volcano!

People after the mud volcano

On the way to the lagoon to wash off

When we got back, I tried desperately to contact Joanne, because it was also our first anniversary that Lucy had hijacked by spilling her birthday over into the next day. Nothing: no email, no chat, not responding to texts. I went to bed depressed. What an anniversary!

I had to take a photo - they were always like this

Then it was a few days more of the same: late nights, in particular "one last night out" happened a couple of times, the Swedish boys never seeming to do anything except for sleep, until finally it was time to leave and I went into the old town to try and find out about a boat to Panama. Several people heading south had told me that they took a boat through the Canal, past the San Blas Islands, and onto Cartagena; everyone had said it was fantastic, but I spent all day and hadn't been able to find a boat that included the Canal part of the trip. Eventually the hostels I was asking in told me that I should go to the Club Nautico and ask there. I didn't have time; I needed to get to Santa Marta that night, and hopefully begin a Ciudad Perdida trek the next day. Hanging around the hostel area for a day, I really regretted not having been there the whole time I was in Cartagena: the area is just outside the inner walls and nothing like as well maintained, but it has a nice, old, shabby charm to it - and it's much cheaper.

The walls

I had to leave without organising a boat, deciding i would go directly to Club Nautico when I returned from the Lost City. An absolute planning disaster and misreading of the guidebook caused me to get on the wrong bus: instead of a bus going to Barranquilla, halfway to Santa Marta, I had got on a bus to La Boquilla, which was the very same small fishing port we had been taken for lunch after the volcan de lodo. I'm not sure how it happened, but it was probably just not paying enough attention and the fact they are mentioned on consecutive pages in the Lonely Planet. After changing buses another three times, I was finally on a direct bus to Santa Marta, far too late to sensibly arrive and organise accommodation.]]> Wed, 06 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://www.blogabond.com/TripView.aspx?tripID=10867 http://www.blogabond.com/CommentView.aspx?commentID=107449 0 10.3997222 -75.5144444
The castle from the apartment at night

The apartment we moved to on Boxing Day was a bit closer to the centre of town, but essentially it was still in Bocagrande, which meant that the beaches were still easy walking distance, but I hoped we might be able to spend some time in the old town, which includes a cheaper backpacker district. In fact we just kept going out in Bocagrande, which really is very expensive, and it has none of the charm of the old town. Once you get past the nice views because you are twenty floors up, Bocagrande really doesn't have much going for it: it's full of tower blocks and horrible people, who won't even slow their expensive cars to let you cross the road, on their way to parking them right up on the pavement so that you can't walk anywhere. OK there is also the beach, but it's not the nicest of beaches, and I really need to spend a lot of time in the gym before I would feel like spending any time on a beach, for fear that I might be harpooned.

View across the bay from new apartment

View towards central Bocagrande

Quite soon I was regretting having agreed to the extra twelve days, in the second flat, in Cartagena. There was a dance music festival on the 6th January which we had all wanted to go to, but even before New Year I was utterly sick of getting wasted and staying up most of the night at terrible clubs you have to pay to get in all for the privilege of paying crazy money for the drinks and listening to terrible loud music. Bocagrande is not my sort of place at all. And of course, because we were up so late we never managed to do any touristy things like go to the castle or walk around the old town during the day. At least we could see the castle from the window at night.

View towards Bocagrande at night

View across the bay at night

Lucy and Natasha on the beach

Another thing spoiling my time was wasting so much of it on trying to fix the laptop. I kept going to the internet cafe to look online for solutions. Eventually I gave up on Windows and downloaded a miniature Linux install, which is easily small enough to run from my USB key, without even needing installed. I couldn't get the sound or camera working, and the resolution wouldn't go higher than 800x600 but it would be enough to deal with my photos (stretched wider at that resolution) and write blog entries. Finally on Hogmanay I joined the others on the beach, which made a nice change, but after a couple of hours I'd had enough. I don't know how I used to lie on the beach for hours on end, because I really don't like it now. The sea I enjoy, but beaches are just covered in sand, which gets everywhere. On the beach I realised that the birds flying up and down the waves were not seagulls as I had assumed, but pelicans, which are much nicer and perform frequent impressive dives into the water for fish.

The beach on Hogmanay

A bird on the beach

Bocagrande from the beach

We had been given a leaflet by someone running a free New Year party selling cheap beer, which sounded like it had great music, and much more the type of event I enjoy. The only problem was that it was fifty kilometres away, or an hour in a bus. Natasha and Silvie seemed quite keen as well, but when we put the idea to Lucy she wasn't keen at all because of the distance. Zdenek was sure that there would be parties on the beaches round about where we were, so that became the vague plan for the evening. It was very nice to be with friends over Christmas, but I was really beginning to see the disadvantages in staying as a big group. However I had paid the exorbitant rent, so I was stuck with my rash decision.

Across the bay to a blue moon rising

Blue moon rising over el club nautico

The moon

Again

Zdenek suggested staying longer in the apartment to save money, and do most of our drinking before we went out. Most people in Cartagena don't seem to go out until after midnight anyway, so it certainly made sense. He went into dangerous barman mode and kept plying us with shots of rum, while we watched the incredible blue moon rising over bay and the city.

Blue moon risen

The new apartment

Zdenek dishes out the shots

Cheers!

Finally, after the bells, we were sufficiently mashed that we felt it would be sensible to go outside. There were no parties on the beach and all of the clubs were asking for outrageous covers. Zdenek was absolutely certain that there was a party near an after-hours club out of town that we had been to a couple of times and he really liked; he had noticed late night parties from the taxi on the way there, which he thought had been running every night since Christmas, so we got a taxi right out of town to this beach and there was nothing happening there either, although there was an unlit empty stage still there from the previous nights.

Lucy and Zdenek dressed up. OK maybe just Lucy.

The ladies are ready - just as soon as they've drunk their pina coladas

Andrew likes Silvie's look

Maybe too many shots?

It was far too early for the after hours club to be open, but we didn't just want to pay for a taxi back to town - for what? - so Zdenek knocked on the door and they were happy enough to let us in. We ordered a bottle of rum and drank it slowly, totally on our own for a couple of hours until a trickle of people started to come in. It did eventually fill up and we had a good night, but I have no doubts that the free party out of town would have been much better - and cheaper. But I hadn't been on my own, so other people had to be taken into account, also I didn't really want to be a party-pooper and go off on my own, although the Swedes had disappeared early on in the night and done their own thing, but they were a team beforehand, whereas my partner in mischief had gone back to Scotland.

Last photo before we head out

]]> Fri, 01 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://www.blogabond.com/TripView.aspx?tripID=10867 http://www.blogabond.com/CommentView.aspx?commentID=107333 0 10.3997222 -75.5144444

View from apartment at night

Cartagena, I noticed quite quickly, is hot and humid. It felt more or less the same as the jungle climate I had left behind a week previously. Unfortunately, my phone, which had begun working properly again after I left the jungle, also soon noticed that the climate was like the jungle and started overheating and losing power really quickly again. Since then my phone has been nearly useless, which means I've not been able to use it to keep track of what I'm doing or take blog notes, so I'll probably miss lots of details out from now on, which surely can't be a bad thing?

Zdenek offered to take me for a quick walk around the old town to introduce me to the place, but it was only brief taxi journey there to walk around, and we didn't even stop anywhere for a drink. Already, though, I was noticing that most of the people in Cartagena seemed to be very well turned out and it was full of large expensive cars. I was beginning to suspect we had come to a rich people's playground for Christmas.

The beach across the road

View by day

The following day, Christmas Eve, we visited the supermarket and bought just about everything in the shop. We went a bit crazy but we were all keen to capture as much of the magic of Christmas so far away from home and our loved ones, so we made sure we had fizzy wine and plenty of other booze, but also blue cheese, which isn't very common in South America, nuts, some cake, little sausages to wrap in bacon, and all the other Christmas essentials. We did at least draw the line at the massive turkeys they had, settling instead for a large chicken. It was clear that the two Swedes had different ideas about how to run Christmas, though, and they preferred to keep their shopping separate. We were spending a lot but, I told myself again, it was Christmas, wasn't it?

Parrillada

That night we went out for dinner at a parrillada in the local area. The prices were a bit high but, I told myself, it was Christmas. The Swedish boys wouldn't cave, though, and got their food from MacDonald's or some other take-away; Andrew was actually starting to sound like he had some sort of eating disorder because he only seemed happy to eat a very limited range of food and what they had on offer here, bits of cooked animal, was just too "yucky" for him, since he seems to only like it minced up into burgers and sausages. In fact, when my full parrillada arrived I too briefly had second thoughts: not only was it huge, but it included some long wiggly thing that looked suspiciously like it might be intestines; I remembered that the fact a parrillada always seems to include intestines is the main reason I had not so far ordered it, despite being surrounded by suitable places in Argentina, and frequently since. I thought I might as well try it since it was sitting in front of me and I was surprised to discover it wasn't too bad, at least nothing like as bad as tripe usually is, but maybe that's because tripe isn't usually barbecued until crispy, so that it becomes reminiscent of crackling.

The counter just needed a prop to go on it

Genuine I think and much cheaper than UK

On Christmas morning I got up quite early so that I could take my laptop to the MacDonald's where there was wifi for me to Skype Joanne and my mum. I was a bit too keen and the manager seemed not to have turned up on time with the keys because lots of staff were sitting around outside waiting. While I was waiting someone offered to sell me some Cuban cigars, which he claimed were on promoción. They seemed quite cheap and he happily lowered the price by half in response to some mild haggling, making me thing I should have aimed lower, but it was Christmas after all. I returned to the flat for breakfast and Buck's Fizz. We had decided to use the cheapest bottle of fizz for this, which was Colombian, but it really was terrible; even with the orange juice it was still pretty horrible, although the orange juice itself was also disgusting, in fact I think it might have been the biggest problem: the carton proudly proclaimed it to be lactose-free, which you would have thought went without saying on orange juice, until you remember the strange South American habit of adding water or milk to fruit juice - and always sugar, of course, because fruits just aren't sweet enough are they? Well, in this case, they had helpfully substituted the absolutely necessary milk with... soya milk! Yum yum, and now we had it in our very bad Colombian sparkling wine; I drank most of everyone else's as well as my own.

Natasha opens the first fizz

The girls sit down to a bucks fizz breakfast

After breakfast, I finally got into MacDonald's, ordered a coffee, and proceeded to call my loved ones using Skype. The place was jam-packed with noisy hyper-active spoiled little brats and their bored-looking parents, who seemed totally unwilling to control their progeny. At least I was able to download a Christmas album as a surprise for Lucy, who had complained that Christmas music was the one thing missing, and it wouldn't be Christmas without it. The conversations were a bit frustrating with all the noise, but it was just about enough to make up for not being there.

Prawn cocktail and avocado to start

Xmas dinner nearly assembled

When we were nearing the end of our conversation I got a text from Lucy, as my phone hadn't quite run down yet, telling me that food was nearly ready. The girls had done all of the preparation work, so I was glad to be able to complete the experience by putting on The Best Christmas Album In The World Ever with aplomb. The girls had done a great job and we tucked into huge amounts of food and booze, including some much nicer sparkling wine, not from Colombia, all accompanied by cheesy Christmas classics and a couple of Cuban cigars, until, near the end of CD2 my laptop screen suddenly went blank and the music was also frozen on one particular note. When I rebooted the machine it wasn't working; the thing would go on, but Windows didn't get very far into the boot-up process. Not more hassle! Was this the effect of humidity as well? What about my photos and my blogs, and using it for wifi? Someone sensibly advised me to forget about it until the next day.

Lucy carves as Zdenek poses

Not bad for being so far from home

Xmas dinner hits the spot

So apart from the laptop it was a very lovely and successful Christmas day. Unfortunately the next day we had to move out of the apartment because the price was nearly doubling in preparation for the New Year period. Amazingly, Lucy and Zdenek had got up earlier than me on Christmas morning and had found us a new place to move to on Boxing Day.

Everyone but me

Still there after plenty of rum and beer

Cake at last

A discussion with the people running the hostel revealed that they didn’t think it was possible to get a cruise that included a trip up the Panama Canal to Panama City as I had planned, even though everyone I had spoken to coming the other direction said this is what they did, but it was what Joanne had reported when she tried to organise the trip for me. The best they could offer me at the hostel was a cruise to the east coast of Panama, leaving in six days, because I missed the 48 hour deadline required to register my passport for an earlier sailing. The only chance was to go up to the Club Nautico and ask about the Panama Canal trip there.

At the Club Nautico nobody there thought it would be possible to get a trip up the canal either, but there was a Captain Fabian who was planning to leave the next morning, needed one more passenger, and said he didn't understand why some other captains insist in 48 hours' notice of registration, because he was quite happy to do it that evening as long as I got my passport to him before 6pm. Since the canal trip seemed impossible, I decided just to do it; I already felt like my trip was over and I was going home, so I just wanted to get it over with. I had to get a move on, though, because Fabian insisted that we should sleep on the boat that night, to avoid the potential problems of late-comers in the morning and make sure everything was OK with us and the boat.

Back at the hostel, they were very nice and did not charge me anything for that night even though I had used their shower and my gear had been sitting in a dorm. The hostel was in the old part of town and this day was really the only time I had a decent look at the area: it was really lovely and the accommodation was really quite reasonable as well. I felt another jolt of regret that we had spent all that time staying in the characterless Boca Grande instead of here. Anyway, that was all behind me now: I was leaving Colombia.

Back at the boat, Fabian took my passport and introduced me to two Italian Swiss guys, Sandro and Romano, who were also passengers. They spoke to me in Spanish and said that they didn't speak much English. My Spanish has seemed like it was getting quite good at one point, but it had definitely become pretty useless again, especially for conversation rather than just tourist-level. This trip was going to be tough, but at least my Spanish would go through rapid improvement again. Then the remaining two passengers turned up and I was let off the hook because they were English. They were a couple and although the girl, Alex, seemed to speak good Spanish, Toby spoke almost none, so the centre of gravity was back in English, and the poor Swiss guys ended up speaking English too, despite the fact we were sailing from one Spanish speaking country to another. Shocking really. We all paid Fabian the large amount of money that was the fare, my last extravagance of the trip, and with the rest of my Colombian money I asked him to get me a bottle of rum, either a big one or a good one, I said, while he went shopping for provisions.

Me alone in the cabin

Once we were all settled into our respective parts of the yacht (it's not a boat it's a yacht, Fabian insisted) el Capitan arrived back with my large and good bottle of rum, as well as a few beers. We should drink the beers now, since we wouldn't feel like alcohol once we were out in the open sea, he told us. I didn't really believe him but I did as I was told.

Cabin with others outside

The boat was very nice but smaller than I had been hoping to get on; the way other people had described their trips I had expected a bit more space and a bit more luxury: this was really quite cramped and there wasn't even a shower, just a pump-and-nozzle up on deck. The main thing was getting to Panama, I supposed, but for the money I had hoped for a bit more.

Despite the cramped bed, I slept well and the next morning we were off much earlier than would have been possible if we all turned up first thing, so Fabian seemed to know his stuff anyway.

Goodbuoy Cartagena!

Good riddance Boca Grande!

Leaving Cartagena we were treated to some fantastic views of the Boca Grande, which actually looks very nice from a distance, and an enormous liner pulling into the harbour: a cruise ship with a huge swimming pool and a climbing wall on the upper decks. Another country behind me, and another continent. Like everywhere else I had been, I wished I had been able to spend more time there; I think Colombia may have been my favourite South American country if I had got to know it better instead of wasting so much time in Boca Grande. Certainly the people were very friendly and genuine, without the cynicism towards tourists that seemed common in other South American countries.

An enormous cruise liner

Liner heading for Boca Grande

]]> Fri, 15 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://www.blogabond.com/TripView.aspx?tripID=10867 http://www.blogabond.com/CommentView.aspx?commentID=105649 0 10.3997222 -75.5144444 Ipiales to Cali seemed to be going at a decent speed and I was sure we'd get to Cali at a sensible time, not the pessimistic 4am the ticket salesman had told me. But then there was a longish break for food. The prices were reassuringly low, which was one of the many things I had been looking forward to about Colombia; whereas the guide books said that Ecuador was the second cheapest South American country after Bolivia, which I now knew was a lie, the travellers I had met who had been in Colombia said it was the second cheapest after Bolivia.

Despite the cramped conditions, I managed to get some sleep after a couple of Colombian beers with my food, but I woke late at night and saw people frowning and looking under the minibus. We had stopped at another roadside cafe place, but we had stopped for repairs not for food this time. Outside the cafe there was a table with some people I recognised from my bus, already quite full of empty beer bottles, so I got off and joined them. The Spanish was getting harder to understand again but, despite my inability to communicate more than the basics, everyone was very friendly, and we sat around drinking and laughing for more than an hour while they worked on the bus. When it was time to leave I tried to pay for the four beers I had drunk, but the waitress said that I only needed to pay for the one I had asked for, because the rest had already been paid for. Apparently the guys who had been collecting handfuls of beer and handing them around had paid for them all. Amazing! In Peru, the asusmption was always that the gringo would pay, and now in Colombia, they hadn't even asked me to pay for my own.

Strange corn and egg snack with beer

I had been in Colombia for less than a day and already I could see why people liked it: the people are very friendly and sociable, they don't seem to treat you differently because you are a tourist, and another thing I noticed is that everyone seems to start speaking using the familiar form of the verb, which I think seems more friendly rather than rude, which I suppose is the argument against it. I don't think I've yet heard anyone using usted in Colombia. And where there had been a broader ethnic mix in Ecuador than the Southern Cone, the Bell Curve seemed even wider in Colombia: it really is a "rainbow nation".

Posh Colombian beer

Back on the road, I finally listened to the last "unlistened" track on my mp3 player. Eight GB really is a lot of data: it took more than one year of travelling to listen to everything once. OK obviously I listened to some things more than once, but for the last several months I had only been listening to the "songs not yet heard" playlist.

At 4am, almost to the second, we arrived in Cali, just as the ticket salesman had predicted. I suppose they must have breakdowns so often that they feel they have to factor them into the schedules; in Peru, of course, the schedule assumes that there are no breakdowns, there are no other vehicles on the road, the engine is at peak performance, there is no extra weight from passengers, and there is a 100 mph tailwind the whole way. Despite the email I had asked in a text for Joanne to send, the hostel was all locked up when I got there at 4:30am. But after some persistent knocking a woman came to the door and let me in.

Joanne had booked me a dorm bed, because a private room was much dearer, but the dorm was really only a triple room and it had nobody else in it. Nice.

Since Joanne isn't here to photo the grafitti

Grafitti

In the morning I discovered there were only two other people staying in the hostel, which was more like a nice big house. I tried to have a conversation in Spanish with one of the other guests, until he eventually asked me if I spoke English. He was Israeli, and he seemed perplexed that I hadn't spoken English to him straight away. "Why were you trying to speak Spanish to me?" he asked. Sure, if I'd known he was Israeli I'd have spoken English to him, but how was I supposed know where he was from? I was just following almost everyone else's good example of at least starting in Spanish in a Spanish speaking country on a predominantly Spanish speaking continent.

Crumbly house across the road from hostel

Hostel

The woman who ran the hostel was very friendly and seemed surprised that I was leaving Cali so soon, when the Cali Festival was about to start. She told me it's a beautiful place, particularly during the festival, but I didn't have time to see much of Cali at all: I just had time to find a place where I could finally send an international fax, hopefully securing me enough money from the bank so that I wouldn't have to beg to save up for my flight home.

Hostel

On hostel wall

Hostel

Hostel living room

My mum has this same clock

Another Colombian beer

Hostel

Then it was a bus to the airport for my expensive flight to Cartagena, via Medellin. I was really looking forward to the flight after so much bus travel. There was a time earlier in the trip when I didn't ever want to get on a plane again, but the South American buses had cured me of that. I was a bit shocked when I saw the plane though: it was barely bigger than the light aircraft we had our tour of the Nazca Lines in. OK, it was bigger, but it was only four seats across, and it didn't even have proper engines: it was just a prop-jet! I started wondering what Colombian air safety statistics were like.

After only a 45 minute flight we landed at Medellin, where I hoped we would be changing to a bigger plane but, despite making me get off and go through the transfers process, I returned to the same plane and a stewardess laughed when she saw me getting back on the plane for some reason. Perhaps it was because I had drawn attention to myself by asking if they had any alcoholic drinks on board (they didn't, and there was no meal or snack privided either).

Another hour-and-a-bit later and we landed in Cartagena. Finally! After one week of travelling almost non-stop from Lagunas in the jungle of Peru, with most of those nights sleeping on transport, I was finally at my destination and I had made it to my friends in time for Christmas.

]]> Wed, 23 Dec 2009 00:00:00 GMT http://www.blogabond.com/TripView.aspx?tripID=10867 http://www.blogabond.com/CommentView.aspx?commentID=104249 0 3.4372222 -76.5225 I had changed enough of my "Ecuadorian" US Dollars at the border to pay for a collectivo to the town of Ipiales which is the first settlement after the border. Here I reckoned I could draw money from an ATM and pay for my bus Cali. Unfortunately, the border had taken so long that the day time buses had all departed, which meant I would have to get an overnight bus and waste the money already paid to reserve a room in a Cali hostel. I needed lunch after all that travelling, so I asked for salchipapas at a cafe in the bus station, because I had seen it everywhere in northern Peru and Ecuador and not tried it. I assumed it would be spicy sausage like salchicha and insisted I defintely wanted it when the girl behind the counter said it would take ten minutes. Meanwhile I went out to ask more companies about transport to Cali. I found one desk where they were selling minibus tickets, leaving at 4pm, which was twenty minutes time, but it wasn't supposed to be arriving until 4am. I couldn't understand this because the guide book said Cali was eight to ten hours from Ipiales by bus, so I asked the man why it wasn't arriving at 1am or 2am. He said that yes, it was possible we would arrive then, but he doesn't want to tell me that time, when there is also a chance we won't arrive until 4am; he didn't want to lie to me and make me angry, he said. What?! After Peru I couldn't believe what I was hearing. So I bought a ticket and rushed back to the cafe to eat my salchipapas, which was disgusting: the sausage was hotdog and the chips weren't even nice, but I didn't care because it was cheap and I was starving.

Salchipapas

I rushed to the bus and I was off again. So much travel, and this time so little space: a man and his small son were both sitting in the seat next to me.
]]> Tue, 22 Dec 2009 00:00:00 GMT http://www.blogabond.com/TripView.aspx?tripID=10867 http://www.blogabond.com/CommentView.aspx?commentID=104248 0 0.8302778 -77.6444444 Mancora, where all the others had gone after Huanchaco, a Canadian girl got on and we started talking. She was also heading to Quito, as it seemed was everyone else on the bus; why they don't have buses direct up the Panamerican Highway to Quito I do not understand. After we had gone through the border, the girl suggested that we stick together until Quito, to protect her from having to sit next to "thigh gropers" on the bus. I told her I was pleased that I didn't create the first impression of being a "thigh groper", to which she responded that I was harmless. I wasn't so pleased with that impression. It turned out that she was also heading to Colombia after a couple of days in Quito, but her destination was Medellin for Christmas, then she too was heading onto Cartagena for New Year.

We arrived at Guayaquil about 5:30am and were on our way again on a 6am bus to Quito. By late afternoon we were in Quito. Daniel had told me to send him a text when I arrived, which I did, but he wasn't responding. Great! I didn't know him that well, I supposed, but I didn't think he was that unreliable. Instead I took a taxi to the hostel the Canadian girl (yes, whose name I've forgotten) was staying in, reasoning that I could just stay there if it Daniel's place fell through completely. On the way I got a text from Daniel asking if I had arrived yet and realised that I hadn't received any delivery reports for the texts I had sent him. It costs far too much money to make even a short phone call from my UK mobile, so I went to an internet cafe while the Canadian was checking in, and sent Daniel a Facebook message, got a response, and managed to arrange that he would meet me at the hostel. After a drink, waiting with the Canadian for Daniel, she said that she was going to the internet too, but she'd be back soon because she wasn't "some major internet geek or anything". Daniel arrived soon after, with his wife and Chris, a friend of theirs. We had a drink and waited over an hour for the Canadian to return, but in the end I just left my email address at reception in case she wanted to go for a drink in Cartagena, and we left. Not some major internet geek, my arse!

Daniel and I went for a couple of drinks and the other two left. Ecuador does not seem to be cheap, despite both guide books having claimed it was the cheapest place after Bolivia on the continent. Quito was pleasantly cool after the jungle thanks to its altitude, despite being almost on the equator, and it seemed to have a good night life. Daniel, though, was ill, and though he was trying to put a brave face on it, clearly would rather have been in bed than in a pub. After Bolivia and Peru it was clear the ethnic mix in Ecuador was much more diverse, in fact I think it was more diverse than any country we went to in South America (with the exception, of course, of Brazil which we didn't see any of apart from Iguazu Falls). For the first time in my South America, there were significant numbers of black people, and there were lots of people of European origin again. I like seeing a lot of mixing, and what always seems nice in South America is that there appears to be very little racism, no matter what the mix; it's not like everywhere, I believe, in Asia, where "white skin in more beautiful" and all of the beauty products have skin lighteners: they don't exist in South America. This was definitely a pleasant surprise about South America: considering how much US culture they seem to have absorbed, I had expected the continent to be much more racist, but I think it's less racist than Europe.

Quito

Quito

Looking at the remainder of my journey to Cartagena more closely, I asked Joanne in a text to look for cheap flights within Colombia, which I had heard exist. She found a flight from Cali to Cartagena for only £78, which was definitely worth it, but I couldn't decide which day to leave; it depended on when the buses would get me into Cali. Instead of going directly to the bus company we knew could give us information, Daniel took me on a tour of agencies that only sold flights and knew nothing about buses, I think to save us the five-minute bus journey. When we finally got to the company we discovered that I wouldn't have time to see the old town and send my fax before catching the bus in time to fly the following day. I sent Joanne another text asking her to book the flight on the day after next, but the cheap flights had already sold out, leaving only the £142 flights, which didn't seem as obviously worth it at all. I was so annoyed: I hate these sneaky cheap flight websites! They always know when you are about to make your mind up and the fare you've been looking at for days disappears. There was still a cheap flight for the next day, but it would be a rush to catch it, I wouldn't see the old town, and my overdue fax would be delayed even more.

Quito

Quito

Quito old town

Quito

I cracked and decided just to splash out on the expensive flight, as a Christmas present to myself. Then I instantly regretted spending the money and I was in such a mood that I couldn't enjoy the old town anyway, when we went there. It just looked another boilerplate South American town. How many of these towns have I seen? One would have been enough: Buenos Aires and you don't need to see another town in South America, except maybe Colonia del Sacramento, which is a bit different from the standard model. A main square. A cathedral. Yawn. Even the local speciality desert, tres leches, did not cheer me up. Then back at Daniel's flat, Chris hogged Daniel's PC, so I didn't have time to write the letter I needed to fax and it was all a big waste of time spending the extra money and staying the extra night. I was in such a foul mood that I decided I must have had enough of travelling for me to over-react so much, and I should go home as soon as possible.

Quito main square

Quito main square

Quito main square

A really ugly building on Quito main square

Daniel in Quito main square

Tres leches

Next morning I got up early for the 7am bus to the border. This meant I would have loads of time hanging around, but I was feeling so defeated when I bought the ticket that I couldn't be bothered going to the extra effort required to leave at a different time: it would have meant going to the main bus station and back, just to buy it, then going there again when I wanted to leave. I couldn't be bothered. I just wanted to be home with my wife!

Once on the bus, I started to cheer up again: I was soon going to be in Colombia! Everyone I had met on the trip who had been to Colombia had loved it, so I was really looking forward to it.]]> Mon, 21 Dec 2009 00:00:00 GMT http://www.blogabond.com/TripView.aspx?tripID=10867 http://www.blogabond.com/CommentView.aspx?commentID=104247 0 -0.2166667 -78.5