Cartagena & Casa Gonzalez, Medellin

Cartagena de Indies, located on the Northern Caribbean coast of Colombia, is a beautiful city made up of just under a million inhabitants. The main touristy part of the city is the old town, a walled in hub of beautiful shops, restaurants and bars. Due to the higher prices in the old town, the guys from the boat and I decided to locate ourselves just outside the walled city in a busy backpackers area called Getsemani, known for it's beautiful architecture and slighty dodgy red light district.

 Mapale dancing in Old Town Cartagena.

After the tuna incident putting our first big night out on hold, the next night about 15 of us headed to a few local bars and then one of the famed local nightspots in Getsemani, Mr. Babillas. The place was packed, full of locals, Argentinians, and Chileans all dancing Salsa and drinking the local spirit, Aguardiente, a fiery blend of distilled sugarcane and vegetable macerations. It was a great night!

Mr. Babillas club, Cartagena, crazy salsa place with hot chicks dancing on the bar, nice!

Much of my time in Cartagena was spent chilling out by the pool in the hostel and generally just walking around the city, visiting sites such as the Fortress of San Phillipe de Barajas, a 16th century monster of a building designed to protect the city from pirate attacks built by the Spanish after a naughty Englishman by the name of Sir Frances Drake invaded and took control of the city.

On one morning I got up early and headed out to a mud volcano that I heard was a bit of fun. After climbing a few volcanoes recently in Italy such as Etna and Vesuvius, I was expecting a long day of climbing to the peak. I was slightly underwhelmed to come across this little mound a mere 20 metres high.

After the short climb to the peak with a couple of American buddies I met, James and Dallas, I jumped in the naturally occurring pool and promptly received a massage and a face full of mud. Even though the liquid mud reaches hundreds of metres underground, it's impossible to actually sink in it due to it's density, it's actually damn hard to control you're movements making it a very strange experience. After 20 minutes or so of natural exfoliation, I headed down to the lagoon and proceeded to get a slightly too intimate wash down from a local lady. When she started pulling my shorts off in front of dozens of other tourists a slight level of discomfort came over me. But I do have to admit it was a highly unique experience and I'd definitely recommend it. Unbeknownst to me the tour also included a fabulous lunch of rice and fish on a nearby beach. Not bad at all.

 El Totumo Mud Volcano, see if you can spot me. Stop looking in the top right hand corner guys!

A short boat trip from Cartagena took me to the beautiful Island of Baru, and namely Playa Blanca Beach. After spending the night on a hammock, followed by a day of chilling out on the beach, the owner of the shack we were staying in got a little stoned and randomly decided he'd build a volleyball court. A tournament ensued, me and an American guy called Jonas were knocked out pretty early by a couple of 8ft Argentinians. Ever the athlete, I felt a massage was in order...followed by a nap.

 Playa Blanca Beach on Baru Island.

After Isla Baru I headed back to Cartagena for the night and then headed out to Medellin on an overnight bus the following day. A 13 hour bus journey managed to seem like 30 minutes due to some highly potent but perfectly legal local sleeping pills. Arriving in Medellin is an amazing sight, it's a sprawling Metropolis based in a huge valley with slums heading up the steep slopes of the mountains and modern high rise flats and shopping centres occupying the base. Most people associate Medellin with the violence and riches of the drug cartels in the early 90's, where Pablo Escobar was disposing of 800 police officers a month and spending $7500 in the same period on elastic bands to bind all the cash. Today the city seems to have changed dramatically, crime is decreasing, with the powerful cartels generally being based further South towards Cali. It actually appears to be one of the safest places to be in Colombia right now. One thing I can't get over is how incredibly friendly the people are, they help each other off buses, have no problems striking up conversations with perfect strangers and welcome idiots like myself visiting their city with open arms.

I pulled up to the bus station and was greeted by my old friend Juan, who used to work for me in Cambridge, but has lived in Medellin pretty much all his life. After chilling out on Friday morning at his apartment, we headed out to check out the local nightlife. I was introduced to the local dish of Arepas, basically a delicious corn bread that can be served with all sorts of different accompaniments, we had ours with a variety of different meats such as chicken, beef and chorizo. 

 Me, Juan, and our big ass arepas.

On Saturday, Juan, his wife Isabella, and I took the cable car up the northern side of the city to one of the national parks. The view from the cable car was incredible, overlooking a population of 2 million people with such a massive divide between rich and poor. 

Medellin from the Cable Car.

We ended up in a huge National Park, walking round the Rainforest and taking a boat down across the lakes.

1800 hectares of un-spoilt beauty in the National Park

Juan is a big football fan, and one of the biggest games of the Colombian football season was taking place on Saturday night in Medellin, so he got us all tickets to go along. His team, the local Atletico Nacional, were playing their long time rivals America de Cali. It's a derby that has apparently been long contested largely because of the associated rivalry of the country's big cartels. Suffice to say it was pretty mental, Cali fans were outnumbered 10-1 and suffered all kinds of abuse, luckily it seemed there was a small army of police there to keep things in order. The terraces stank of weed, bodies were being flung all over the place, and players were escorted off the pitch individually with a riot brigade. Oh, and the score, 3-1 to Nacional, apparently I bought good luck to their recent losing streak!

Juan and Isabella before the game.

 Atletico Nacional vs. America de Colombia.

On Sunday we took a drive around the town and up into the mountains. At one point Juan looked up in the sky and said 'Andy, look at that!' There were 15-20 people gliding like birds in parasails way above the city.

'Vamos' I said, 'but I'm only doing it if you do!'

After half an hour of convincing him that he wouldn't die, we took a gruelling trek up the side of the mountain, paid our dues and got strapped in. It was nothing short of incredible.

 Geared up for the skies!

Flying above the city.

Juan dropped me off in the El Poblado district of the city at my hostel, The Black Sheep, last night. I've got a week of intensive Spanish lessons here so don't expect a lot of excitement at all. Right now I've got a ton of homework to get through, verbs to conjugate, and sentences to form. Apparently when my teacher first met me she thought I had been in Colombia for a long time because my initial conversations and pronunciations were pretty good. I see a long road ahead of me though. Tengo mucho trabajar por hacer!

Sailing through the San Blas to Colombia

Leaving Bocas behind was a bit of a downer, I had such a great time and met some cool people, also, the thought of an all day bus ride via the city of David back to Panama City wasn't too inviting.  Luckily though, I got back to Luna's castle and proceeded to get my trip across to Colombia booked up. I met up with most of the other guys traveling on my boat the day before so it gave us all a good chance to get to know each other over a couple of beers. On Monday all 9 of us, myself, Robert from Rotterdam, Haineen from Taiwan, Carlos, Kev, Mark and Jonny from Manchester, and Kyle and Jackson from Oregon headed North to Porto Lindo on the Caribbean Coast. After a few hours on a bus, all 9 of us including luggage squeezed into one cab for the final hour up to the Port, that was an interesting experience!!

We all arrived on the catamaran 'Buon Vento' to gasps of 'ooooh' and 'sweeeeeeet'! It was a beautiful boat that is usually only available for expensive chartering but we got lucky as Edoardo, was heading down to Cartagena from Panama and wanted to make a bit of money on the way. After setting sail in the early afternoon we arrived at the infamous San Blas group of Islands. The 365 islands are largely populated by the Kuna tribespeople and as such has gained semi-independence from Panama. The sea was calm and blue, and with the searing sun the calm sea breeze was a welcome friend. After the first night of our Captain's Spaghetti and Salad dinner we all spent the night on the deck, drinking rum, and staring up at the amazingly clear starry night's sky. Spending the evening under shooting stars with new friends wasn't a bad start to the trip.

 Paradise!

Waking up on the deck the first morning to coffee and toast prepared by our deck-hand, native Colombian Welleem, we headed out to some of the deserted islands and reefs for some amazing snorkeling. We saw rays, reef sharks, lobsters, hundreds of varieties of fish, many of them dangerous, as well as some amazing coral. It was an amazing day, so chilled out, drinking from coconuts picked off the islands, walking in shallow blue waters and not having a care in the world. Every night we all played high-light low-light, where you pick the best and worst parts of you're day. Several people described this day as the best day of their lives! I could almost agree. The low-lights were ridiculously insignificant and were genreally related to spending too much time in the sun.

Day 2 - Snorkeling!

Day 3 we all spent the morning exploring more islands and soaking up the sun before heading off for our 2 day open water trip to Cartagena. The open water trip was incredible, if a little choppy, but we ran into groups of dolphins who followed our boat, marvelled at the flying fish and the general tranquility of the ocean. Early evening saw our first really successful catch of a huge Yellowfin Tuna that we got the impression was the biggest Edoardo had landed. It was however too choppy to do anything with that night so it was filleted and put straight in the fridge ready for the next day. That night was pretty much sleepless, my cabin being located on the front of the boat, I was getting chucked around by the waves and regularly getting soaked through my leaky porthole. It didn't matter though, it was all part of the experience.

 Me and Jonny chilling on the back of the Catamaran.

 I can't even begin to describe the feeling!

 Our legendary Captain, Edoardo Turatti and a beast of a tuna.

 A group of dolphins swimming with our boat.

We woke on Thursday to find that we had somehow been going almost twice as fast as expected, and that we would arrive in Cartagena early, but that it would give us the opportunity to find our bearings and have a last meal together on the boat before going our separate ways the next day.

Early afternoon saw us dock in our Colombian destination and after a couple of drinks in town and a trip to the supermarket we all headed back to the boat, excited about our dinner and plans of craziness in Cartagena. Our Sashimi was prepared by Edoardo with some incredibly potent Wasabi, soy sauce and sticky rice. It was delicious. I found it a little odd however that the insides of my cheeks were starting to swell up, but generally thought nothing of it. 10 minutes later I had to lay down, a cracking headache and fever started coming over me. The sweats sank in and I had to excuse myself from the table and lay down in the cabin for a while. Thinking that sunstroke had kicked in, I tried to rest but my whole body started to itch. I felt terrible, we had all planned a big night out in Cartagena and I was going to have to bail. After half an hour or so I decided it would be a good idea to get some water and it was then that I found out the full extent of the damage. It was like the crew had all been hit by the plague, queues for the toilet and vomiting sessions were followed by bouts of moaning and scratching. Jackson found it all very hilarious, he was allergic to tuna so didn't have any for dinner. Kyle, nicknamed 'the man from the mountains' due to his adventures and trek from Canada to Mexico, admitted that he hadn't been ill for over 10 years, but he was really feeling rough. I saw Robert at about 4am, he said he thought his time may be up. And Carlos, well, his eyes looked like someone had just poured acid in them. Even our captain was up all night throwing up. Needless to say, everyone had bailed from our planned big night out.

Tuna Sashimi, tasted so good but at a price!

We made it in one piece.

Friday morning came and we all felt a whole lot better so agreed that we should do our big night out together that night instead. We strolled into town and all found a hostel together that several people had recommended called Media Luna in the old town area of Getsemani, Cartagena. Haineen, who spoke perfect Spanish, was recommended a small restaurant that was the only true local place left in town, so Robert, her and I went and dined on a meal of mixed vegetable and meat soup (delicious), beef with coconut rice and avocado (yum!), and the local speciality drink made with water and sugar cane (undecided) that is a natural diuretic, very sweet and regarded as the local version of red bull. We sat at a table with a local lawyer who was amazingly friendly and gave us hints and tips about the town. We paid 5900 Pesos each for our meals ($3) and headed back to the hostel. Time to hit the town with the rest of the boys. Cartagena, me gustas mucho!

Bocas del Toro

All I can say is Bocas has been wild and beautiful. As expected I spent the first few days on the Island of Bastimentos. Generally just chilling out, sunbathing and taking it easy. Along with a few other guys staying on the island we’d do things like pick coconuts and then spend the afternoon round the houses of the local tribespeople.

It’s not a place I could spend a lot of time in though as there was a severe lack of people and to be honest the hostel wasn’t up to much. So Bee and I, along with Alina, headed over to Bastimentos Town, the main party area to see what was going on. We ended up in a great little hostel called Hosteluego, run by a chilled out 20 something guy from Washington called Alex. It was the first place I stayed with hot water so a warm shower was amazing.

We spent the next few days out on the water in Kayaks, snorkeling and I even tried my hand at spear fishing and actually caught something. It wasn’t exactly a 4ft Tuna though! It was also great to meet 3 really nice guys from Buenos Aires who are eager to show me a good time there when I get there in a few months.

Right now I’m back in Panama City, I’m heading out on a 5 day Catamaran trip across the paradise islands of the San Blas with some great guys who are all staying at my hostel. Let the good times roll!

There are loads of photos that I need to put up but due to rubbish internet connections here, I'll have to update it at a later date. I'm tired and have to pack for the high seas. Adios amigos!

I saw a Sloth, dopey as hell but amazingly agile

Starfish Beach, on Isla Colon, where I learnt how to Spear Fish

Me and the boys on a night out in Bocas Town, Panama's answer to Kavos!

 Bee and her coconut, Now to get in the damn thing!

Gracias Amigo

 Mmmmm...Red Snapper at Bocas del Drago

Bocas Des Drago

Panama

My flight to Panama was great. I sat next to two women from Panama city, a mother and daughter both called Monica, and in-front of a lovely woman from Colombia who sold CSI equipment. Both the Monicas spent the whole flight either a) trying to scare the hell out of me with horror stories about organ snatchers, muggers, bandits, killers and the like, or b) trying to teach me Spanish, with little success may I add. The Colombian lady on the other hand gave me list after list of great places to go, restaurants to eat in etc. for when I get to Colombia. It was all very educational.

arrival in Panama, the greenest rain-forests I've ever seen

Getting into Panama city and my hostel was an eye opener to say the least. I stayed at what could be described as back-packer central, Luna's Castle, in the old town area of Casco Viejo, famous for being the go to zone for Panama residents during Henry Morgan's ransacking of the town in 1671. The area was pretty wild, delapidated wrecks of buildings standing next to beautifully restored villas. Luna's itself was a restored Colonial mansion close to the ocean, buzzing with hundreds of people on the Gringo trail, the atmosphere there was electric and super exciting to be part of.

The view looking out over the bay from my dorm.

I had three days in Panama city in all, a great chance for me to find my feet a little and flow into hostel life. Luna's being a party hostel, there was plenty of drinking beer round the table, playing ping-pong and hopelessly trying to remember everyones name. Out and about in the city I generally spent my time with Ed, a super chilled guy from Sacramento and various groups of guys from Israel and girls from around Europe. We checked out a local museum, various old churches and generally just took it all in.

Me, Ed, Avihoo and Alex

In the morning we'd make our own pancakes with Bananas in the hostel kitchen. During the day we'd eat at Panama fish market, recently featured on Anthony Bourdain's TV show, the market which had a restaurant above, was a gift from Japan seemingly to keep them sweet about trade routes through the canal. It had a bustling atmosphere and killer Ceviche (destroyed a hangover in less than 10 seconds), as well as other specialities such as their Tacu-Tacu, a kind of squid, prawn and pea curry.

Unbelievably good Ceviche and Balboa, the local brew

About 8 of us took  trip to the Miraflores Locks on the Canal to see the cargo ships pass through. It's amazing to see, and learning the Canal's history and knowing how many people died making it made it all the more special.

The lock and visitor centre at Miraflores

After getting back from the Miraflores I had a bus to catch for the 10 hour night-time journey to Bocas del Toro. I turned up to the station in my shorts, flip-flops and t-shirt and wondered why everyone was wearing their ski jackets. I discovered 10 minutes into the journey, Panamanian bus drivers have a strange love of aircon. After one of the coldest nights of my life and zero sleep, I arrived in Bocas yesterday morning. It was worth it!

Bocas itself is made up of a group of Islands and has a very different feel to Panama city, it's on the Caribbean and as such you can almost feel the Reggae in the air. Houses are painted in yellows, reds and blues and some of the locals talk like they're Jamaican. I decided to avoid the main tourist area otherwise known as Bocas town, and head straight to the island that had the best beaches, Isla Bastimentos. After 2 boat trips I ended up on Red Frog beach, apparently the nicest beach in the area serviced by my hostel, Bocas Bound.

It'll do I suppose!

Yesterday was spent sleeping on the beach, followed by dinner and hours of conversation with B, a party loving girl from Korea/Miami who was sharing my dorm. Later we stayed up with one of the American managers and a couple of Swedish guys, playing pool and drinking local rum.

I woke up this morning with a sore head and made my way into the rainforest to go zip-lining. It was a great experience to see the local wildlife such as boas, red frogs and monkeys whilst having some adrenaline going through my veins. I really wanted to see a three toed sloth but unfortunately it escaped me this time.

The view from above!

Right now I'm thinking that I'm going to stay a couple more days on Bastimentos then head over to Isla Colon and check out Bocas town for a few days before returning to Panama city. Ed's keeping an eye on boats over to Colombia for me at Luna's so I'm hoping it shouldn't be a problem to do the 5 day trip across the San Blas Islands to the northern Colombian city of Cartagena. So it appears for the next couple of weeks I've got nothing but sun, sea and good times. I hear the weather is still rubbish in England, sorry to hear that!

More in Miami & Ilysa's Birthday weekend

The last week has been incredible, it's my last night in Florida, and though I'm flying into Panama tomorrow, I've got to say I'm moving on with a mixed bag of excitement, trepidation and sadness.

Tuesday was a relaxed day where I got the chance to enjoy some sunshine in the Gables, get in a much needed run and have dinner with Dave in my favourite BBQ spot in Miami, Shorty's. Whenever I'm in the UK and craving some real dirty food, my mind always wanders to Shorty's ribs with slaw and garlic bread. Bodeans feels like a poor substitute for this place!

My face paints the perfect picture!

I finally made it to the beach thanks to a kind lift from Ilysa on Wednesday. Luckily the weather held out long enough for me to get some sun in. I've got a strange love for South Beach in a similar way to how I feel about Vegas. It is what it is, proud of it's cheesiness, cool in a unique way, and largely successful due to its corrupt and seedy history that is too easily overlooked. People in Miami are nicer than Vegas however... and tend to wear less clothing.

Dave had a crazy couple of days at work coming up so I agreed to be Ilysa's companion for fun and frolicks up until the weekend. With Ilysa being a frenzied food lover much like myself we ended up having some amazing taste sensations whilst I got the chance to meet some of her friends and family. We ended up back on South Beach one night for dinner with Pete and Charlene at the newly opened eatery 'Pubbelly'; Charlene being an old colleague of Ilysa's from London. They had flown in from Blighty the night before for a two week tour of Florida so we obviously had loads to talk about.

The next night we had dinner with Ilysa's sister, Loryn and her boyfriend, Omer, in the local oriental fusion restaurant, Yuga. It was great to get know them over a couple of bottles of unfiltered sake and some pretty impressive curry type dishes. Unfortunately I have been left mentally scarred from the evening due to certain video clips being shown to me involving a woman doing a yoga session with a baby. Weird...very weird!!!

Friday saw a trip to Fairchild Botanical Gardens and a lucky stumble across the Miami chocolate festival. Further bingeing occured in an amazing tropical setting. I had a small taste of Peru with some Mole Chicken wrapped in a Banana leaf whilst strolling through tropical fruit gardens.

As the rain started hammering down I decided to head back to Casa Corns, but on the way out I spotted a posh chocolatier selling chocolate covered S'mores, an American treat that Rebecca had introduced me to a few nights earlier that are basically a marshmallow sandwich with biscuit that you heat over a campfire. I decided to buy a couple as a little present for Ilysa and Rebecca. Aren't I nice?

Upon getting back Casa Corns I proceeded to dump my bag on my bed and pop to the bathroom for no more than two minutes. When I opened the door to the bedroom again I found a hyperactive Winslow crunching down on said s'mores, melted chocolate spread all over the crisp white bed sheets. He'd got through two layers of plastic and the zip on my bag like some kind of Houdini mutt to get to the treats. Chocolate being poisonous to dogs, I panicked! The sheets went straight into the wash and I tried to figure out a way to explain to Dave and Ilysa, my closest of friends, how I'd killed their dog, the love of their lives, the creature Dave lovingly refers to as 'my son, my first born'! Luckily Winslow survived, I think I got to him before he managed to get to too much of the chocolate. When Dave got home we took Winslow to some friends to spend the weekend, I explained to Dave what had happened, Dave explained to his friends that they should expect some Diarrhea. I worried I might have lost Dave and Ilysa a couple of friends!

Friday night saw Dave, Ilysa, Rebecca and myself take the four hour drive up to Orlando as a treat for Ilysa's birthday. We were to go to the newly opened 'Wizarding World or Harry Potter' in the Universal theme-park with Loryn and Omer, Ilysa's brother David and his girlfriend Leanne, and two of Dave and Ilysa's closest friends in Miami, Aryel and Vanessa. An early start on Saturday started with a trip to 'The Waffle House', seemingly an American institution for a ridiculously unhealthy but so delicious breakfast.

David, Leanne, Omer and Loryn's arm. Oh and 10,000 calories.

Like sugar loaded 10 year olds we headed to Hogwarts. It was pretty incredible. We drank butterbeer, ate in 'The Three Broomsticks', went on some amazing rides and bought Gryffindor scarves. There were more adults there than kids. It honestly was magical and a little surreal. 

We went into Olivander's wand shop where Ilysa found the wand that had chosen her, a birch beauty strengthened with unicorn hair or some thing like that. I made sure she got it as an early Birthday present. The look on her face was priceless!

Ilysa (Ravenclaw) & Rebecca ( Gryffindor)

Upon leaving the park my childishness took over. I saw one of Spiderman's bullies so tried to kick him in the nuts. He wasn't happy! He was a 7ft Aussie who kept on shouting 'That's not Cricket', I thought he might punch me so I proceeded to run away.

The evening saw all ten of us take a trip to a hilarious but brilliant theatrical dinner type affair called 'Medieval Times'. The premise being you sit in a kind of mini stadium and have a medieval style feast that you eat with your hands whilst cheering on your chosen knight. Our knight was rubbish and died early on, obviously not literally. Great fun though. We got back to our hotel at 9.30pm at which point pretty much everyone crashed out. Rebecca and I managed to stay up and although we had great intentions of hitting a local nightclub, we made it as far as the hotel's lounge bar but somehow still didn't get to bed until close to 3am.

This morning meant a visit to 'Cracker Barrel' for the group as a stop on the way back to Miami. The restaurant is a classic institution, inspired by the deep south and seemingly untouched since the 50's. My breakfast involved a curious combo of Chicken Fried Chicken (????), biscuits (bread rolls), gravy (a strange floury sauce), grits (still not sure about this stuff, something inbetween porridge and polyfill?), two fried eggs sunny side up, buttermilk pancakes with maple syrup, hash browns, and 3 cups of coffee. Delicious, but a bit weird to the british palate!

We're now back in Casa Corns watching cheesy TV. Dave, Ilysa and Rebecca just introduced me to 'Whip and Dip' Ice cream parlour where I felt obliged to have a chocolate and Vanilla fundge Sundae with cookie dough pieces. I think I'm going to go to bed and dream of raw carrots and fresh fruit instead of my upcoming adventure. I love this place and my old friends as well as the new ones I've just made, but for health reasons it's probably a good time to leave!

Oh, and Dave has told me he's booked a flight to meet me in Ecuador on March 5th, the day before my 30th, what a guy!

Hola Panama, Adios Florida.