We`re driving through crowded streets filled with weary bedraggled looking donkeys pulling carts laden bursting with fruit tassels between their ears, children both young and tall running here, there and everywhere, surprisingly clean new looking modern buses that look as if they have been squashed slightly from both ends, multiple people on dirty old motorbikes, mopeds and vans, street vendors shout their wares that overflow from their stands and booths and into the street mingled with the familiar smell of empanadas (how I have missed them). Stray dogs and the occasional cat weave in and out of legs, wheels, hooves and yellow taxis that zoom which way and every way amongst it all. Horns honk and people call out, dust kicked up. Bienvenido a Colombia!
7pm, Colombia, Cartagena
Arrived safe and sound, all limbs attached etc. I don’t know what everyone was going on about when they said that Colombia was dangerous, I feel far safer here than I would in London or anywhere. Obviously certain parts are dangerous but as long as you stay out of the mountains and have a certain amount of common sense you’re all good :) I love Cartagena I could actually live here. It’s so beautiful, and has a really pretty picturesque old colonial town.
Friday, sometime around 5pm sitting outside our room in Hostel Real, Cartagena.
Feels like I have been away from home for so much longer than 4 days. England seems so far away and a world apart. I have happily slipped back into joyfully speaking Spanish again at every opportune moment, placing toilet paper in the waste paper basket (the plumbing can´t handle it), generally feeling dehydrated, showering from under a pipe (no power shower attachments here), living out of a rucksack. I know that I am still probably jet-lagged but I get very impatient with my body. It feels like rubber that has been stretched too far crossed with lead filled damp cotton wool. Groggy like I have slept for hours but have not awoken feeling refreshed. O well. I am going to drink some water. It’s funny not being able to drink it from the tap. My friend that I’m travelling with says that it feels like having one of your basic human rights taken away.
6pm
The water seems to be helping.
8.27pm
Ahh Cartagena is lovely, we have spent many a happy hour wondering around the beautiful old colonial streets, vines cascading from old wooden balconies. Everyone is so friendly here! So are so many smells and sites to take in I feel like I almost can’t turn my head fast enough.
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