11 Jan 2024

     I have now officially given Colombia the number one favorite country to travel status!  Move over Laos!  The people, the mountians, the weather, the music, the lifestyle, the people.  The people are amazingly kind but loads of fun as well!  They havn`t met enough rich tourist yet to have made the tourist=money connection in an extreem way.  In ecuador it was a constant hassle to get the right price with taxis ect..  Here I have not once been asked to pay a rediculous amount for anything!  The only thing they can do wrong here is food.  Although, even that can be good sometimes! They do a thing that can best be described as a shepards pie in a ball that you can eat with your hands!  My friend from England has just left after a few hurried weeks here of not sleeping much in order to do as much as we could during his short time here. 

After she arrived Sinead and I headed for the coffee region full of classic Colombian scenery.  Although you have to look just as hard there as everywhere else in Colombia for good coffee as the sad truth is they send it all overseas.  So you can sleep well knowing that at least the Colombian coffee is better there (Im a little more of a tea man anyway).  We then headed all the way to the coast to Cartagena.  The old town there is really fantastic, gives off a real 1600`s feel.  Its the only place in the world I have seen classic horse buggys with lanterns still actually being used for transportation.  A real pirate town with a massive wall to keep the goldhunters out.  Many lush wooden balconies all over!  We spent seven hours on christmas day there trying to recreate a western Christmas dinner, it worked a little late but it was good anyway!  We spent that evening as well as New Years dancing salsa and reggaeton which is pretty much standard.  The salsa is starting to seep into my brain and I am getting the flow of it, I just need more moves!  The reggaeton, NEVER I have know idea how they love it so much! Oh but they do!

After my English friend got here we went to a place called San Gil where it was packed with Colombian tourists making the dance there extra good.  We went out for a walk to a town called Barichara, a colonial town that seemed to be preserved not so much for tourists but thats just the way they like it.  We started realizing that we actually had food poisoning and shouldn`t be walking around in the boiling sun so much.  It was an amazing place though.  It turned out ok,  we cought our bus even though my friend was far from well.  He`s hard though!  Buses are a fun thing here.  They are like kids with a new toy when it comes to air conditioning!  Nobody seems to know why but even in the boiling heat they crank the air conditioning so high I need a touque and big sweater.  They make up for it in luxury though.  Far nicer than anything in Canada or England!  We ended up in Taganga which was nice Carribean swimming mixed with a relaxed colombian vacation spot.  We stayed up on the beach passing around a guitar with people from all over the country, and world!  We then took an all day trek through the jungle, through some ancient city ruins to another beach.  All in this aria is full of massive boulders that are a wonder how they got there.  We slept in hammocks on the beach at the end and then spent the day climbing around the rocks!

Tonght I am on another night bus back to Medellin to start looking for some work teaching english!  As work is what I need!

its always sunny in Jipijapa (pronounced hippyhappa)

I have just put some new pictures up at

http://s209.photobucket.com/albums/bb229/drifterdanno/Colombia/

Untill next time!

Posted from Colombia:

posted Friday January 2024