bonnie & clyde

leaving medellin isn't easy, but necessary... we have beaches to visit! the bus to cartagena would normally have to take 12 hours, ours took a steady 23 hours... we were stuck once again in the mountains, this time an accident prevented us from continuing. hell but colombia! we arrived in cartagena late enough to have to take a taxi into town and search for a hostel, which is a tad bit more expensive than elsewhere, but worthed though, cartagena is one hell of a beautiful city, where romance seems to have found its foothold. it isn't hard for her to find lovers made with this heat, it is actually steaming hot at the carribean! we met up with david and antonio again. next day we took a boat to playa blanca and islas rosario. it is a highly recommended trip but you need to pass an almost obligatory struggle to get a good price for a boat to go one day and back the other, which we planned to do. the boat takes you on a tour to an aquarium on one of the islands, which isn't all that famcy, and gives you the chance to go snorkelling with a guide, which is way too expensive as you can snorkel easily at playa blanca and see almost as much. playa blanca was heaven, without further ado... pearly white beaches and turquoise coloured water. we slept in a tent at Tony's place, a good guy, without a voice though, but friendly as any colombian. the next day we slipped back onto a ferry taking us back to cartagena, and slept one more night in our hostel in getsemani. after this we took a bus to santa marta, which took longer, once again, than expected, but hey, we get used! santa marta is not really worth stopping in, better to head straight to taganga, which is literraly 10 minutes away in cab. taganga should be paradise as described by everybody, and in a way it is, but it has a kind of deserted marginal feel to it, and it's packed with rastas, selfmade necklace hangabouts and israelis, but that doesn't mean it's not fun, we stayed 5 days here. anke took the opportunity to take e PADI's open water diving course for 3 days, she enjoyed it to pieces and has her certificate now. i myself did not join because of earproblems going under. sad but true. the people guiding her were very generous and helpful. we are heading towards parque tayrona tomorrow, we were said to take the bus at mercado in anta marta, which will drop us off at the main entrance, from where we will go on foot to cabo san juan, a mighty beutiful beach, maybe the most beautiful of all, but also the most touristy. anyway, every beach in tayrona is heaven. see you later.

Bogota turned out to be amazing! We stayed 9 days, but we went two days to a little colonial town, Villa Leyva, a lot sunnier and more quiet than Bogota, very nice! On our return to Bogota, Camillo`s parents had prepared a typical Colombian dinner, ajiaco, and had invited some of Camillo's friends because it was his last evening in Colombia before going to Montpellier, we will miss him and Carolina! The next day we moved to our next family in Bogota , Alejandra's mother Yolanda and her brother Sergio. The people here are so nice!
I went to the hairdressers, to curl my hair, exciting, but... the result is not very flattering, I look like a sheep, or also like Baby from Dirty Dancing! But that did not spoil our evening, we went for giant pizzas with Sergio, it's incredible how much the people eat here, they even have pizzas with nutella (with cheese and everything, disgusting!). After the pizzas we went dancing with a friend of Alejandra, Vallenato, kind of difficult for us to dance on but the Colombian women know how to shake their asses and (fake) boobs!
The next day we went sightseeing with Yolanda, to Montserrat, in order to get a great view of Bogota! In the evening we went dancing with Sergio and his friends, to a fantastic club, which is in fact an old theater. The decoration was incredible, all the staff was dressed up like freaks, and they had transvestite shows on the stage. The music was really great so we stayed dancing until late!
The next morning was more painful, we had to get up for the busride to Manizales.
The busride was beautiful, we drove through the Zona Cafetera, all greenery, with banana trees and coffee plants and all kinds of colourfull fruit trees. Manizales itself turned out to be very ugly, so the next day we did a day trip to Salaminas, a little town in the zona Cafetera, which was gorgeous. The next day we headed towards Medellin, Colombia's second biggest town, which is very very nice! We called David, a Colombian friend who used to live in Sevilla with us, and met with him and all his family and friends at night on a terrace. Then the young people went partying, and off course we joined them to a nice more alternative salsa bar, where they had a live jam session and where everybody was dancing in a very eccentric manner. We had a great time!
The next day we met with David his stephmother Camilla and his sister Natalia, to have lunch, the typical Bandeja paisa! (lots of meat, tice, banana, arepa and beans, very nice). Yesterday we went sightseeing. The metro here is above the ground, so you can see the whole of the city going from one end of the line to another. That way, you also drive through the poorer areas, so you have a better idea of the city. We took the cable cars to the top of the mountains, to have some nice views of Medellin, The center of Medellin is very hectic and poor, while the Zona Rosa is very rich and chique. At night we met with another friend here, Nicolas, whom we met at the beginning of our trip in Argentina. We went to a rock concert together with him and all of his friends, which was on a square and was for free, and he went to buy Tequila and Aguardiente, it turned out to be a cosy evening again!
Tonicht we are heading to Cartagena, the playas!

We made it to Bogota! We were looking forward to this, as we have some friends here we wanted to see. The ride was not very easy, as it has been raining here a lot, the roads are very bad, and they closed the road we had to take to get to Bogotá. We waited in the bus for 5 hours at the same spot, so the busride of 12 hours turned out to be 20 hours or more! We arrived exhausted, but we were well received by our Colombian friends! We are staying at their home at the moment, which is a beautiful house in the mountains in a little town next to Bogotá, La Calera. It is beautiful there, green mountains, lots of nature right next to the big city of Bogotá. We went to visit Bogotá with them, the old center, La Candelaria, is gorgeous! Litlle coulourful houses, small streets and cosy plazas. The main plaza of Bogota, where the president lives is also really beautiful! We visited an exposition of Botero, a famous Colombian Painter, who makes great art!
We visited the family of Alejandra, the girl with whom we lived together in Montpellier. A few days ago we saw her father in Cali, which is also a very nice city! We went to have lunch together and he showed us a bit around in Cali.
In Bogotá we visited her mother and brother, with her mother we went to have lunch in a typical Colombian restaurant (lots of food!), and then went for a drink with her brother. The people here are incredible! They do everything to help us, sooo friendly! We love it here so decided to stay a bit longer, we still have a lot of people to meet in Bogota!