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Well Colombia has been a bit more relaxing than Venezuela - apart from the journey across the border...
The cheapest way to do it is to get a bus then hire a por supuesto to go over the border. The por supuesto turned out to be a clapped out, american car from the 70s - the boot had to be tied down. The drive itself was eventful with maybe nine passport checks before we even got to the border. The wanted list of FARC leaders was displayed at immigration with Raul Reyes firmly crossed out in red.
For a bit of R&R we headed to Parque Nacional Tayrona which is on the Caribbean coast. Spending a couple of nights in hammocks on the beach was a good tonic but as it was Semana Santa we wanted to get out before the park was invaded by holidaying colombians.
Next stop was Cartagena which was lovely. A beautifully preserved (albeit touristy) colonial city. Again with it being Holy Week we practically had the place to ourselves, a lot of shops and things shut down for the holidays, it was nice to wander around the deserted streets. We had intented to learn spanish here but no-one was around, so we spent a week lazily enjoying the old quarter.
Final stop in Colombia was Bogota where our first disaster struck (I say first you´ll understand why as you continue) we had our ipod stolen on the bus. After a 16 year old had issued us a police report we made our way to the centre of Bogota.
Bogota was fine but didn´t really grab us. However we did have an excellent tour around the police museum which involved viewing the bloody remnants of Pablo Escobar´s coat along with fairly gruesome pictures of the arrest of members of his cartel. We also happened upon a couple of interesting facts:
1) A member of Escobar´s cartel owned a horse that was worth many millions of pounds as it is one of the only ones in the world that could gallop backwards.
2) Shakira has been given the highest (civilian) award for bravery for services to the country.
The last day was taken up with a trip on the funicular railway (I do love a good funicular railway).
If you`re wondering why there are no photos to be had, that`s a story for another blog...
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