South America!!!!

We spent Monday evening in South beach, enjoying a few happy hour drinks and ending the night in The News Café – an institution of South Beach. The cheese burgers were exquisite and were quickly polished off.

Tuesday was spent on the beach and in the sea, a chilled day in all preparing for the trip to Colombia early Wednesday morning.

Wednesday: We flew into Cartegena, Colombia via Panama, but arrived one bag short.....David's bag! After some flawless Spanish negotiations we agreed to have my bag delivered to us the next day at our hostel. We took a cab to Hostel Holiday, and this proved an eye opener to just how insane this city is!! The hostel is decent, a lovely courtyard for socialising with other backpackers, a clean room and fresh towels, better then expected.





First day was spent exploring the beautiful old town, a truly picturesque area with a very bloody history courtesy of the English cannons. The heat has been ridiculous, too much to handle at times for two pasty Brits. We also visited the beach at Bocagrande and enjoyed the warm Caribbean sea. (but did not enjoy the endless Del boys and massage ladies who made a beeline for us as soon as they saw us coming).



The second day we went to Colombia's largest mud volcano......Lynne is skeptical whether this can be classified as a genuine volcano!! Nevertheless we stripped off to our swim wear and took the plunge into the mud. Probably one of the most random things we have done. We washed off in the lagoon afterwards and then were taken to a remote beach for a fantastic lunch of fresh grilled fish, fried plantain and rice (of course).



In the evening we headed out on the town with Graeme & Katie after a boozy game of ring of fire in the hostel. A great night which led to our first hangover on South American soil. The hangover was nursed by a quiet day at the beach, saving the pennies before we head up the coast to Santa Marta today.