We decided to bus it from the Colombian border to Cartegena! As per the advice given we travelled the south of Colombia by day up to Cali (this is due to continuing threats of kidnappings and hold ups by the guerillas), then hopped on an overnight bus to Medellin. The trip was 21 hours! At Medellin we decided to take a break and view the city before catching another 13 hour overnight bus to Cartagena. We really enjoyed Medellin, it was a modern city with an efficient metro line which allowed us to virtually view the whole city in a matter of hours. So by lunch time we decided to move our sights out of town to Marinella where we had lunch and Rio Negro. Both villages are part of the Circuito de Oriente - a local region of small farming villages filled with typical Colombian Paisa architecture. It was interesting to see these smaller more rural towns where the locals strode around in cowboy boots and lassos - we even watched a bit of 'rodeo' as some teenage boys practiced their skills.

Back on the bus we FINALLY arrived in Cartagena the following morning. We made our way to the old city and found a hostel. It felt like 40 degrees outside and 39 inside so we made it our mission to find breakfast on the way to the beach for a dip in the ocean. We never actually went for a swim in the end! - we ended up getting ice-cream for breakfast and then strolling along the beautiful and magical streets of Cartagena! The old city was truly a gem, meticulously preserved with traditional Spanish style buildings with balconies and bougainvilleas, the plazas had beautiful big old churches with huge wooden doors and the leafy cobbled streets were full of vendors selling everything from sombreros to arepas! Yummmm! (corn bread patty grilled with melted cheese in the middle, quite salty). That evening we caught a taxi up to Convento de la Popa which is 3km out of the old city with stunning views of both the old and new city overlooking the harbour. After taking a few shots (pics! I'm not an alcoholic!) I decided we just HAD to wait till sunset and get some twinkly night shots, so our poor taxi driver (and Tim) agreed to wait a total of 2 hours for my perfect pic!

The next day we took a tour to Isla Rosario and Playa Blanca. While the boat trip itself bypassed your typical inviting blue Caribbean seas and amazing deserted white sandy beaches, our tour was one of the 50 other boats to these areas so the real beauty was lost between the millions of tourists splashing around in the waves and locals trying to sell you massages, beads or beer. To top it off our 'tour guide' demanded additional fees to take us snorkeling to this 'secret' place which is also one of the 'top 5' snorkeling areas in the Caribbean- very secret. The fee was more than half of the whole tour, but we were the only ones on our boat who seemed to think this was a little odd and questioned him as to what exactly were we paying for? He got so mad he drove the boat back to Isla Rosario and kicked us off saying he would fetch us later...which he did. Anyway we spent the time snorkeling around the island which happened to be a dolphinarium:) so I watched the show for free from my googles in the middle of the ocean:)
All was not lost on the tour though, as we met a fantastic Colombian couple who spoke English. We agreed to meet up later for coffee which turned to drinks which turned to more old city sight seeing and eventually home after midnight! We covered all topics from Colombian food and drink to politics and economics. (she is a politics and philosophy lecturer).

The next morning we had an early start at the dive centre. Both dives were so easy and so enjoyable! We only went as deep at 15m but the viz was incredible! (+-20m) The water was warm, no currents pushing you around, amazing coral reefs and more coral reefs! In between the dives we stopped at a deserted white sandy beach where the dive master turned chef provided us with platters of every kind of fruit you can think of! This was really the ideallic paradise. Again we met 2 travelling friends, one Argentinean and one Colombian, who spoke English and who insisted on meeting up after the dive. The Latin Americans really are a friendly bunch...we wished we had learnt Spanish better just imagining all the missed convos we've had.

On our last day we decided to visit the fort, Castillo San Felipe de Barajas before catching a cab to the airport. To prevent further attacks by pirates (aaaargh!) the Spaniards built a wall around the whole city with a few forts which consisted of a complex system of tunnels, some leading to dead ends. The wall itself is still intact and wraps around the old city with canons protruding.