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MY LAST BLOG! I cant quite believe that this is the end. I fly back home tomorrow and I am currently in Quito staying in the same hostal as always. Since I wrote my last blog I had travelled to Cartagena on the Northern coast and stayed there for most of the week.
On my last day in San Andres the girls (the ones I spoke about last time) took me around the island in their car and I saw all the tropical beaches, a shipwreck, cave called Morgans Cave where there is supposedly still some treasure. I also ended up at a lake in the island. I thought nothing of it at first until I realised it was full of caiman and surrounded by mango. After my last day I flew to the coast which was stifling, it was so hot.
I stayed in some hostal called Holiday where I bumped into people i had met before and met lots of new people. Cartagena is a beautiful colonial city with very European architecture and has an old city centre surrounded by a large stone wall with cannons in. The cobbled streets have horses pulling carriages around the city which is sweet to see. All the houses are incredibly pretty and laden with exotic flowers. The whole city has a great atmsphere, especially on the night life side of things. I ended up in some Cuban club that night listening to live Salsa.
The next day I went to a mud volcano which was definately an experience! There is a 15metre high volcano full of bubbling warm mud which you can get into. You strip down to swimming trunks and climb down alittle ladder into the mud where you sit enjoying yourself. However as soon as I got to the bottom a man grabbed me, pulled me to the other side and began to massage me all over! This turned out to be quite normal but it was a fairly odd experience. After the mud bath I had an even more traumatic experience. Everyone had to go down to the swamp to get ´´clean´´ and there were lots of older women there to help you wash the mud off. Mine decided to whip my shorts off no questions asked (also turned out to be quite normal) which gave me a bit of a shock. That night I ended up going to a really swish bar which is on a roof overlooking the whole bay. The view was incredible especially as there was lightning but no rain or thunder. The sofas were also very comfortable and complimented the huge tubes of beer nicely.
On Tuesday I headed off to a tropical island called Isla Rosario which involved a 4 hour boat ride that should have taken 45 minutes. It was so hot but on the up side I did see some dolphins swimming beside the boat and some interesting tribal huts that exist on tiny little islands. On arrival I had some rather disgusting fish but soon ended up spending the whole afternoon swimming in water as warm as a bath. I went there with a Canadian guy called Landon, the Swedish girl called Annie from San Andres and a French girl called Juliet who I met in Cartagena. In the evening Juliet and I were trying to decide where to stay the night, the option being hammock or hammock (just differing prices). We ended up opting for neither and I brought out all my jungle skills to set up our own little make shift shelter on the beach using a mosquito net, a towel and a sarong plus a few rocks. The night was as expected rather uncomfortable and very sandy but I made it to the morning for another day of swimming. We returned to Cartagena at the end of the day and stayed in another hostal and went to the swanky bar again, This time I managed to convince the DJ to put on some house music instead of reggaeton so a good night was had. By this point I was fairly tired as I hadnt been to sleep before 4 for 4 nights. The nigtht on the beach involved a beach fire and being eaten alive by sandflies.
On Thursday Juliet and I headed off to Santa Marta which is further East along the coast. We arrived there in the evening and headed off to a small coastal town called Taganga which was very pretty and had nice prawns to eat. Unfortunately I had to return to Cartagena on Friday and got back at 1:30 in the morning. I found myself on the street with the locals eating prawns again and ended up staying in a pretty dodgy hotel. In order to get back from Santa Marta we had to stop in Barranquilla (they city that Shakira is from!) and get a taxi back with some locals which was interesting.
Today was my final day in Colombia and I flew back from Cartagena to Bogota and then on to Quito and that is where I am now. The bag is packed and everything is ready for tomorrow so all I can say is thankyou for reading my blogs if you have, and sharing my experiences. I hope they havnt been to boring. It has been an incredible experience and I will never forget the things I have seen and done here. See you all soon!
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