Round 2 - Colombia te quiero!

Well alot has happened in the last month. It's funny how plans change so easily, when we were planning this trip we only intended to go to Belize, Guatemala and Costa Rica in Central America. We ended up going to every Central American country, bar El Salvador, and legged it out of Costa Rica after ten days cause we got washed out. Of course we never thought to check that it would be rainy season. Us Paddy's like to think we know what a rainy climate is like, I don't think so. After about a week of torrential rain where having a conversation with somebody is difficult because of the noise on the roof, we decided to shelve the rest of our Costa Rican plans for the Caribbean coast and leg it to Panama.

Panama City was really weird, a big oppressive modern, rich city where electronics are super cheap. So, despite the guilt factor, we spent a day in an air-conditioned mall shopping, it was a treat. I even had sushi!

After doing the Panama Canal and dossing around town for a while waiting for a boat to sail to Colombia, we got ants in our pants and wanted to leave. We had been planning all along to sail to Colombia via the San Blas islands on a sail boat which would have taken about 5 days and sounded like pure bliss. The problem was the only boat going around our time frame was a small one which would only take 4 passengers. Luckily we ended up meeting the other two, who turned out to be freaky Americans who lived out of their laptops, so 5 days on a boat with them and the captain didn´t seem too appealing. So we hopped on a plane to Cartagena.

Considering Irish people needed a visa to get in to Colombia until January because of our republican friends (apparently they weren´t the only ones!!), we expected a bit of a grilling coming through immigration, like we´ve gotten at other borders. We got a céad míle fáilte and entered this beautiful country of amazing people.

Cartagena was one of the most beautiful colonial cities we´ve been too and the most depressing. The old colonial part is as elegant and opulent as any European city. We actually ended up being in Cartagena for it´s birthday so partied with the locals. Outside of the policed old town however, the streets at night transformed into seedy alleys of prostitutes and scavengers eating from bins, which I found quite bleak.

We left Cartagena and headed for Taganga, which is a beautiful little fishing village just outside Santa Marta on the Caribbean coast towards Venezuela. After spending a couple of days there, hanging out by the sea and drinking every combination of fruit juice from the ubiquitous street vendors, we headed for La Ciudad Perdida.