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So, Cartagena continued being lovely....a few days later we then moved onto Parque Nacional de Tayrona, a national park area with lovely beaches, but where you have to trek through the jungle to get to (just short of an hour to the first beach). We were dropped off just before the park´s gates closed at 5pm, with all of our belongings on our bags - this is where our adventure begun. After being advised by some local horse guys that it was quite treacherous to take on the trek when it was dusk we decided to stay in the town near the park entrance, bus alas when we arrived there was not a space in the inn! So after some worrying minutes in the now-dark, we tried the path anyway and found ourselves stuck in the mud a few steps in. One of the horse guys then showed us this tiny tiny cabin which he said would keep us dry until sunrise (it was torrentially pouring down), it was just a little dirty (i mean full of mud) and once we discovered there were mahoosive and potentially deadly spiders living in there that was given the shove. The nightly park warden then approached us and offered us the floor of the warden cabin for the night (for a small fee of course), same size as the last one but it had a tiny roll out mat and had no spiders in it...so at 7pm we settled down for a long night...on the hard floor, tummies rumbling and with the warden trudging over us every hour to rummage through the drawers...but we made it through the night and with the first speck of light we were out of the national park like lightning and back on the road to the welcoming fishing village of Taganga.
Here we stayed in little CasaBlanca, a lovely little hotel on the waterfront, fab for sunsets. It was here we did our PADI Open Water Diving course which lasted 3 days, and we then did a fourth day of fundives. Taganga also saw that we ate lots of fish and seafood, especially on the local hangout of Playa Grande, just a little boat ride away. On our last night of diving, after our PADI exam, venturing out for the villages only night out, we found that the usual dive was out of electricity and wasnt opening so one of the locals just decided to invite everyone else on the street back to his house. So with a booming speaker popped out on the patio, we spent the rest of the night there with half of Taganga.
Later that week, despite previous events, we decided to brave it back to the Parque Nacional de Tayrona, but without our belongings this time...the walk was lovely through the jungle and when we eventually reached the beaches it was well worth the second-trip. We ended up on the furthest beach, Cabo San Juan de la Guia, absolutely beautiful...and we stayed in hammocks there in a little hut on a rock overlooking the sea.
After a short visit to the bustling town of Santa Marta we then headed on down to Ecuador, where we flew into Quito where we were to base ourselves for the next few days. La Mariscal is the name of the new town in Quito, and I was quite surprised at how developed it actually is...although quite likeable. We had a Mongolian meal the first night which was a lovely change to rice, beans or soup and even managed to find a curryhouse on the return leg. Quito was a nice little city to wander round, really compact, apart from the Mitad del Mundo village (Middle of the World) which involved a number of buses...but we did stand on the equator...
A trip out to the Parque Nacional Cotopaxi was a must-do, Cotopaxi being an active, nearly 6000m high volcano not far South from Quito. We drove up to 4500m and then walked 300m up to a refuge...this was no easy walk, every 2 steps up meant 1 step back on the fine volcano soil..it was really cold and the altitude as well made it a strange experience. Once we reached the refuge, we did a further 200m climb over snow to see a retreating glacier...really interesting to see. The climb down was more of a slide down as neither of us had walking shoes and the altitude was giving everyone dizzy spells.
The bus journey onto our next destination was by far the most eventful. Both dozing, we were woken up by the bus starting off again after letting someone off. We quickly realised Jonny´s bag had been stolen and told the driver. The driver, his helper, and the rest of the bus were quick to insist on doing a U-turn across the motorway and going to find the thief. 5 minutes later, where he´d been let off, the passengers were quick to spot the thief, and the bus driver and his helper, along with Jonny a few other guys from the bus were chasing him down the hard shoulder with a baseball bat they just happened to have handy. He soon dropped the bag and disappeared over a fence with nothing, thanks to the mini padlock locking the bags zip together.
Banos was a lovely little town; named after the many hot springs the town hosts. The surrounding scenery here was lovely, exploring by quad bikes and chivas (old stylee South American bus where you can ride on the roof) meant we could discover the area´s natural waterfalls as well as the town quite easily. Here, a week after we left Taganga, Jonny finally admitted it was time to go and see the doctor for his ears that were making him partially deaf...to find that he´d burst an eardrum diving, oh dear! Not so keen on the injections that the doctor insisted would be best, I did them with little problem and to date all is now better...
More to follow...
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