I have arrived back from La Ciudad Perdida, exhausted and covered in blisters.

I picked my bag up from the previous hostel in Taganga and then moved over the mountain into Santa Marta, where there is a nearby airport for the next leg of my journey.

The group of people I completed the trek with were all a great bunch of individuals. There were Mark and Diane, a Canadian couple in their late-fifties, who own and run a large cattle farm in the grizzly-riddled Canadian wilderness. There was Phillippe, a sixty year-old French chap who runs a fish restaurant in Switzerland, and is able to spend half of the year travelling, and the other half working. Such is his knowledge of food and the area of Switzerland he resides in, that if you felt inclined to eat dog (as supposedly the malnourished Swiss did during the war, some of whom apparently never lost their taste for a bit of cooked pooch), he can “get you some dog”. There were also Laura and David, a German-Swiss couple, Andreas, a German estate-agent, Chantel, a Dutch software designer, and Emilio, an Italian whose profession I did not learn.

Continue reading “Day Sixteen – Santa Marta, Colombia” →

I am growing quite sick of this town. I have been here six days now, in the same hostel throughout, and would have left long ago were it not for the places of interest in relatively close proximity.

In what seems like a miracle, the power went out across the area for a few hours today, ridding me finally of the nauseating Soca music that emanates offensively from every bar and restaurant in the town, culminating together in a hideous soup of monotonous Hispanic drivel.

Continue reading “Day Eleven – Taganga, Colombia” →

We arrived in calm waters to a tranquil bay with much fewer people around. As we awkwardly disembarked into the shallows, we were instructed to rendezvous back at the same spot at 4pm to begin the return journey.

I walked along the beach until I found a fallen tree to perch myself upon and remove my flip-flops, replacing them with the walking boots I had tied to the back of my rucksack. Lifting myself up, I took a conservative swig of water and entered the thick jungle that stood hauntingly behind the beach like some timeless and mystical realm of unknown wonders.

Continue reading “A Boat Trip, Part II – Tayrona, Colombia” →

Today has been a long and strenuous day.

I wake up at quarter-to-six as I have organised to go over to Tayrona National Park by bus at seven. Having already coughed up the cash, I am then told that there is no space on the bus. At least I think I am. I am told something anyway, and soon find myself on the back of a moped, hurtling down towards the shoreline. I am going to go by boat, and for only 10,000COP (£2.60) extra.

There is a large group of us heading to Tayrona, all of them but myself Colombian or of some other Hispanic nationality. After observing some gigantic pelicans bothering the fishermen on the beach, we are ushered onto a small boat and shortly thereafter begin pulling out of the calm bay.

Continue reading “A Boat Trip, Part I – Tayrona, Colombia” →

It has been over twelve hours since I gave one of the owners of my hostel a bag of my laundry to wash. If they have lost or sold the contents of the laundry bag, I will not be pleased, as all of my underwear and a pair of my favourite Pringle socks are in there.

Continue reading “Day Six – Taganga, Colombia” →

I woke up to the sound of the Canadian leaving the room, and felt inclined to ask him why he had a harpoon gun nestled under his arm. He was hunting parrot fish. I wonder how long it will take me to come across somebody with a harpoon gun who isn’t hunting parrot fish. Based on my primary analysis of this town, I doubt it’ll be too long. There is almost certainly a good reason why the only ATM in this pit is right next door to the police station, and why all of the police officers here wear body armour, designed, I assume, to withstand harpoons.

Continue reading “Day Five – Taganga, Colombia” →

I don’t really want to be in South America. In fact, I have very little desire to be in South America at all. Nor do I have any real desire to “find myself”, for I already know where I am; in South America, where I don’t really want to be.

A dodgy young chap tried to rob and possibly rape me today, offering me a cigarette which was probably laced with something sinister. I politely declined and he pointed me to a good cafe. Perhaps I will offer him a cigarette tomorrow and see how he likes it.

Had the squirts.

I left Cartagena, that glimmering jewel of the Caribbean, for the mountainous haemorrhoid of Taganga via a private transfer company.

Continue reading “Day Four – Taganga, Colombia” →

I began fearing for my life within seconds of stepping onto Colombian soil, when approached by a rough-looking local who offered to give me a lift from the airport to my hotel. After quietly assessing him from behind a cigarette, I decided he was probably OK, perhaps even trustworthy. He was an unregistered cab-driver, and led me to a beaten down, decades-old saloon car.

Continue reading “Day One – Cartagena, Colombia” →