Columbia - Last stop in South America

 Since coming to Columbia, I've had to make the hard choice to miss out on the Caribbean this time round and head up to Cuba through Central America. I desperately wanted to see a lot of the Caribbean Islands, and still do. However it would take a long time to navigate all the way up to Cuba. Plus the whole trip would be quite pricey. Money and Time are two things I don't have right now. So I made the decision early on, that if I can't see all the beaches in the Caribbean that I'd hoped for, I was going to find next best thing and spend a lot of time on the Caribbean coast in Columbia. However I couldn't come to Columbia without checking out Medellin.

My Columbian experience started in Ipiales, a small town just over the border. From here I booked my 18 hour bus to Medellin. The Bus somehow turned into a 21 hour trip, but nevertheless I arrived in Medellin on the 17^th of May. After an overpriced taxi and a lot of walking I finally found my hostel, The Pit Stop Hostel. After exploring the nearby neighbourhood for a place to get some dreads done, and failing. I went back to the hostel and of course ran into a group I knew, seems impossible to go to a city in the past 3 months and not find someone. It was nice to have some friends to go to the water park with and party at night. But after a few days I was over it and boarded a night bus to Santa Marta, my first stop on the Caribbean coast line.

After a 16 hour bus, I arrived in Santa Marta on the 21^st and checked out a few places to sleep before deciding on a decent, if overpriced, hotel. Santa Marta seemed very dirty, and much more of a port/fishing town than a beach town, with many funky smells all over. There seemed to be a fair amount of crime with a heavy police presence. After just one night I decided to keep moving and grabbed a cab to nearby Taganga, which was meant to be a nice little beach town just 15 min away.

Unfortunately once I got to Taganga I was fast obvious that what once would have been a nice little beach town was now quite touristy and busy. The beach was kinda dirty and didn't feel entirely safe leaving anything on the beach while swimming. However Taganga was very chilled so I spend two nights relaxing there and researching some better beach spots to hit up. On the 24^th I decided on Palomino, a beach town about an hour north of Taganga. This time, I wouldn't be disappointed.

As I arrived in the 'town' of Palomino (a few small shops on the main road) I started walking with only a small idea of where I was going. The only taxis to speak of were motorbikes so I somehow managed to jump on the back of one with my two massive bags and got a lift to La Sirena a small lodge right by the beach. As we drove through rainforest tracks I new I was gonna like this place. When we arrived I was in paradise, It was only a small place with hammocks and rooms to rent but had coconut trees scattered everywhere and was literally on the beach so I loved it. Spend the first night with an Aussie couple on their honeymoon. But when I woke up in the morning they were heading off so I had the entire place to myself. Spent a lot of time chilling in the hammocks, reading (and writing this), and drinking from my bag of water (that's all you could get in town). All was well and I could imagine spending many days there. Then on a walk back from town on my second day I decided it was time to get a coconut from the many trees along the beach. I found a very small tree with heaps of low hanging coconuts, I thought I could grab one just from jumping, and although I got hold of it, it stayed attached and when my feet hit the ground I felt the most excruciating pain shoot up my foot, as I lifted it up I found I'd impaled it on something stuck in the sand, still not sure what it was, I'm pretty sure it was a branch or something like that. Feeling some of the worst pain I can remember, I somehow hobbled the 200m back to the lodge and collapsed into my hammock. Had a horrible night that night trying to sleep, foot was throbbing all night long. Considering I was completely incapacitated I thought it would be smarter to recover in Santa Marta where I could find a cheaper bed for a few days. So I called my motorbike taxi and headed back to Santa Marta.

My Virtual Prison for 8 days.

Despite Santa Marta not being my favourite town, I was forced to spend 8 very boring days holed up in my hotel room, only limping out a couple of times a day to get something to eat and drink. After 5 days my foot was still killing me, I could kinda walk with my boots on, but not for too long at a time, I thought 5 days was a long time so I started thinking about a doctor when the hotel's cleaner noticed me limping and I managed to explain to her in Spanish what had happened. The next day she told me she'd take me to the Chemist when she finished work, needless to say, I was very grateful. After just 1 day on some tablets she got for me, I think one was non-inflammatory, not sure about the other one. My foot was heaps better and could walk in thongs again. So it was time to get out of Santa Marta finally, until I realised my bank transfer didn't work and I was completely broke. With my hotel manager getting the shits every time I'd come back from the ATM empty handed I was starting to worry about what to do. The manager said I could have one more night, but that was it. The next day I walked to the ATM praying that the money was there and started laughing in delight when I head the machine start to count the money, the sound I'd been waiting 3, very poor, days for. After enjoying a long awaited expresso and cake I went back to my hotel and with great enthusiasm slammed the money on the bench, packed my bag and grabbed a bus to Cartegena at 2.30pm on the 3^rd of June. I was moving again, finally!

After a short 5 hour trip I found myself in Cartegena, and quickly discovered it was vastly different from what I'd gotten used to over the past week or two, a real city and quite big. After sharing a taxi with a English girl I arrived in the centre of town and a friendly local started helping me find a hostel. I was a little worried at first, as to why he was helping me so much, but it was something I was getting used to in Columbia, and this time was no different. After settling into my room I went for a quick exploration around the hostel and found a little casino, after not gambling for ages I thought I'd be worth a try. I ran into my local friend at the casino and he told me to be careful speaking to anyone on the street, I soon found out why. It took 4 months and 1 day, but I finally got robbed in South America! Well kind of anyway, they were pretty crappy at the thieving business. After walking out of the casino I had someone offering me cocaine, I took Steve's ,rather obvious, advice and kept walking. But they are relentless (another thing I've gotten used to all over South America) and they are good at stopping you in a non violent way, which he did, while explaining that I had to keep going he called a couple of friends over, I still wasn't worried, seemed like just another pushy drug dealer which are everywhere. Long story short he explained I needed to give him 150 000 Pesos (about $75) after lying and saying I didn't have that much, that I'd lost it in the casino finally he dropped his price to 50000 again I said I didn't have it and after some discussion with his friends he told me to show him how much I had on me, I reached into my pocket hoping there was enough to make him happy but not too much, I pulled out 25000 pesos (about $12.50) and he seemed happy with that and let me on my way. So I was robbed, but at least I bargained with my thief! Obviously I wasn't a massive fan of this part of town so I moved to another part the next day, which was much nicer. Cartegena is actually a beautiful city, with 2 sections, old town and new town. New town looks like what I expect Miami looks like. While the majority of old town is within a massive stone wall, built long ago to protect the port from the many pirate attacks it used to receive, awesome! After a couple of days exploring Old Town, it dawned on me that I had less than one month before I was due to fly out of Cuba. I knew that wasn't enough time to properly see Central America, Mexico and Cuba, so I shelled out nearly $1000 for a flight to Mexico city.

After 4 months and 4 days, I'd covered 7 countries, made awesome new friends and got to an existing one in Juliano, seen 2 world wonders plus many other stunning sights, Took part in the biggest party in the world with Carnival and learnt a great deal about many things, but on the 6^th of June at 5pm my plane took off and I bid farewell to South America, I certainly hope, not for the last time.