Only a short distance from Tayrona by taxi took us through very dry and baron land but quickly into lush cloud forest again and into a town called Minca. The area has been made famous on the backpacker circuit by a hostel that has a 'hammock looking over the world'. A big hammock type structure has been made up on the top of a big hill with stunning views over the forest, valleys, towns and mountains all around. The taxis drop you at the small town of Minca a...

After carnival we needed a few days to recoup and found this in 3 places all next to each other, where we'd planned to spend the next 5 days or so. Tayrona national park, which was surrounded by Santa Marta and Taganga were the spots along the Colombian coast. Santa Marta was mainly a stepping stone. A small coastal town but not that exciting or picturesque, so we just pottered around town and the beach by day and went out for some decent food by night. Further...

Barranquilla and carnival time! Barranquilla is a big coastal town and not really visited by tourists much but for carnival the place erupts and the second biggest carnival in South America is staged. The whole town is elaborately decorated in all sorts of colourful decorations and everyone in the town is dressed up for the long weekend. Even quite far out of town, shops, taxis and restaurants are all decorated and the carnival weekend is even a national holiday...

Medillin was one of the highlights of the Colombian trip so far, both as a really cool city and also for the planned excursion to Pablo Escobar's mansion outside the city in the area of Guatape! The first few days we spent in the city we found a really chilled hostel in the area of Pablado. Definitely one of the most upmarket areas, it had loads of nice bars and restaurants. Also very safe to have a wonder round at night which made a nice change for a big city! ...

Looked forward to the trip to Bogota as a bit of a reunion with Sonny, Tom and Daniel! Not seen Tom in years, and Sonny and Daniel since the Asia leg of the trip last summer! Spent the weekend basically eating, drinking and catching up! A good old English curry rustled up on the Friday night and visited a few of Tom's local places the rest of the weekend. Apparently one of the popular things to do is literally set up tables and some music outside of a convenienc...