Day 54 Sunday, April 28th. Collectivo Bus from Taganga to Tayrona Park

We booked to stay at Barlovento Cabana (Barloventotayrona.gmail.com; Barloventotayrona.com). It’s expensive (Lonely Planet “The best place in Colombia”) but not worth it. US$170/night for a double room. The problem is that 3^rd world countries simple don’t have the infrastructure, vision or capability to deliver top-end services comparable to a developed country. The architecture of the place is interesting and it’s featured near the front of several architectural magazines that the owner has left lying around. Dinner and breakfast is included but both are mediocre despite the best efforts of Mia, our Colombian maid and cook. Our bedroom is right on top of the surf and so the noise keeps us awake. A crocodile is asleep on the river’s edge on a sandbank below-I hope the flooring is secure. We move on the next day.

Day 52 Friday, April 26th. Bus from Cartagena to Taganga

Another crowded bus journey (5 hours so not too bad this time) and about US$25 each. We arrive and walk to the Hostel La Casa DeFelipe and manage to get room 24.

Now we are on the north coast of Colombia and on its Caribbean shore.

It’s a nice and busy place and they have a great roof-top common area that catches the evening breezes off the ocean and the sunset over Taganga. An insomniac cockerel and several barking dogs keep us awake at night. Maybe that cockerel is trying to pass a kidney stone.

One problem with extended travelling is that you lose control over your environment. (The bus driver has the radio up too loud; the shower water is too hot or too cold. Etc etc.) It’s what you give up when you catch the bus to work instead of driving your car. After a while this can get to you.

Day 51 Thursday, April 25th Medellin to Cartagena

We fly to Cartagena and check into Hostel Casa Baluarte

It’s just OK, internal room with no window to the outside. No A/c. just a fan. Cartagena is an old walled city but, unfortunately, they haven’t made enough pedestrian-only spaces and it’s a noisy and hot and crowded place and so we decide to move on after only one night. We want the beach and not a city now for our final week.

Day 50 Wednesday, April 24th . Medellin.

Checked into the hostel Happy Buddha (room 101) and take a double room for COP110,000 about US$60). It’s pretty good. We have to spend a frustrating few hours trying to use the Web to book flights to Cartagena and back down again to Bogota and finally give up and walk to find a travel agent who does the job for us. Still takes forever. We take the Metro (it’s quite new for Medellin and you can see that all the locals are glad to have it as rush-hour starts) to see the Botero sculptures. (Why did he portray all the women with huge breasts and buttocks and the men with such small penises?). On the way back Christine gets off at the right stop but I don’t manage to get off before the metro car door closes-trapping me inside as the train moves off to the next station. I try to hand-signal a plan to meet again to Christine as we look helplessly at each other through the train’s glass door. Then I turn and look at all the other passengers and ask “Hablo- Inglese?”. They all shake their heads but look with

concern at my predicament.

Christine and I manage to meet up again and we head back to the Happy Buddha. We are both very tired.

Trafficking counterfeit money in Medellin,Colombia: (Day 49 Tuesday, April 23rd )

as always we arrive at a hostel without a reservation and the taxi meter reads COP36,000 (US$20) and I’m trying to pay him an initial 20,000 Colombian Pesos to keep him waiting while Christine checks to see if the hostel has a room for us. It’s close to midnight and the streets are dark. The taxi driver is looking at my various COP20,000 notes and shouting in Spanish. I can tell he’s mad but don’t know why. All my notes seem to have a pencil-sized hole in them. The Hostel receptionist holds my notes up to a light and explains to me that they are all counterfeit. Someone fobbed them off on me some time ago I suppose. A huge amount of the Colombian currency is fake and people tear them or deface them in some way to stop them circulating further.

Day 49 Tuesday, April 23rd Plantation House, Salento, then bus to Medellin

First we joined Tim’s guided tour of his coffee plantation. Really interesting and an entire “from tree to cup” explanation of coffee including a live demonstration of the shucking of the bean, soaking the bean (to remove the natural sugars) and the roasting, grinding and finally the filtering and drinking.

After that a bus to Pereira and then another bus to Medellin (about 5 hours of travelling) and then a taxi to our hostel Tamarindo B&B. COP88,000 (US$50 approx.). Not very good and so we checked out the next morning.

Day 48 Monday, April 22nd. Plantation House, Salento, Colombia!

Breakfast at Café Eliana and then a walk into town to catch one of the Willies Jeeps there up into the hills for a five hour hike. Steep and muddy. Raining and slippery log and wire bridges to cross before we get up to the place that sells hot chocolate and their home-made cheese (which is very good). We make friends with Colin and Adam from CO and they hike along with us. Pretty tough hike.

Dinner at Café Eliana and then we hang out with some other back-packers around the log fire at The Plantation House Hostel.