So this was the Caribbean, and it was gorgeous. Very, very busy, but lovely. Half of Buenos Aires was on holiday looking for a decent beach. I met a couple of lovley Brits on the bus up and ended up hanging out with them for the next 4-5 days. Vikki wanted to do some diving and when I thought about it, I realised I could do my PADI. So I did it. And I loved it.
Had a superb instructor called Victor, who was a Catalan and therefore trilingual. Saw some great coral, some beautiful fish and learnt how to move around safely underwater with a tank of air. Thanks to Octopus Diving who I would heartily recommend.
The hills framed the beach beautifully and the fishing fleet gave the place a real proper fishing village atmosphere. Had superbly tasty choclo three times (maize mash) from a street vendor for 50p each, two being a solid meal.
As you can see below, the beach did resemble Bournemouth when the temperature hits 30 on a bank holiday, but it didn't bother me in the slightest. Let the people enjoy the beach is what I say :)
The view of the hills walking up the road to the hostel I ended up staying at. For the first time in any place I was caught in the holiday rush and actually had to move out of a hostel beause they had no more room when I came to pay for the next night!
Having successfully completed my PADI, I set off for Cartagena via Baranquilla (see below) which is where Shakira is from. The road was quite straightforward after some of the mountainous odysseys I´ve had but when we got to Cartagena we found the hostel booking we'd made online hadn't worked....
But, we managed to go to another hostel after phoning them. But when we arrived, .... they said they were full. Great! So we ended up walking around with backpacks for a while until finding a cheap hotel. The benefit of having a friend along being that hotel becomes almost the same price as hostel. After a good meal out, we set off into Cartagena's UNESCO heritage centre.
And it really was pretty. And hot. Even hotter than Taganga. So a couple of days of looking around followed, plus a visit to the DAS for a visa extension.
The ramparts of the port reminded me a lot of St Malo, which is where we went with the kids on the exchange several times. Reminded me of home, and work, and despite looking back on lots of good times, I certainly couldn't say I regretted the decision to come away.
The main square....
And the modern art museum just round the corner with some cool sculptures out front.
Having done quite a lot of touristy stuff, I really just wanted to get away from that and do some studying. Which I did in Montería which doesn´t feature on any of the tourist maps but was recommended to me by the guy in the hostel in Cartagena as being nice enough. Got the taxi driver to drive me round a few hotels before settling on one which was decent enough.
I then set about looking around. Feeling a bit uncertain as I was on my own after being with people but it was fine. The boardwalk by the river through the centre of town was quite lovely and devoid of tourists. So I had ice cream and studied. And walked around. And studied. And walked around. And studied. Was nice. Oh, and dodged iguanas. Who also like ice cream.
Look. Evidence of study. Honest. And the boardwalk. With kiddies stuff and all. Saw some impressive street dancing of which I have video.
The local tourists couldn't resist feeding the monkeys. Which I wish they didn't but it did make for a good pic.
After failing to get my laptop fixed I thought I'd set off for Medellin and the Buddha Hostel.
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