Day 131 to 137 - Slowing right down

Cartagena

Cartagena is our last stop in South America - next stop Panama. You can get to Panama by air, sea or land, however the land crossing through the Darien Gap is known to be difficult and dangerous, and is not recommended (unless you are a drug smuggler). We've decided on the sea option, it doesn't cost that much more than flying, plus we get to spend 5 days and nights sailing the Carribean and visiting the San Blas Islands - it almost sells itself! After doing a bit of research we booked places on the yacht Koala 2, which takes up to seven passengers, and leaves from Cartagena on July 7th,

This means we've had seven or so days to relax and soak up the tropical sun to finish off our travels through South America. Our 41st floor apartment has been great, we've been able to relax on the balcony, or when it gets too hot relax inside in air conditioned comfort. It gets quite hot and humid here during the day, almost too hot to be out at times, but later in the day it cools down and it's quite pleasant walking around at night.

Nice view from "our" pool

The place is full of tourists, mainly Colombians from what we can tell, so the place is generally pretty busy, even early in the morning there are people out there on the beach. One thing we've seen in the evening are the chiva buses. Normally used for transport, here they are also known as "the party bus". These chivas drive around playing music and trying to get people to go on them to take them to a nightclub. However there's a real mix of ages on them, and the people we've seen on the busses don't seem that excited. Apparently taking a trip on one of these is a very Colombian thing to do, but we decided we could do without it -  and from what we've read we think we've made the right decision.

Instant millionaire (it's about $400)

We haven't just been laying around and drinking coffee though (M has been drinking three flat whites a day from the Juan Valdez outlet next door to our building)! Cartagena has a great old town, surrounded by walls, and with some beautiful old buildings. Most gringos seem to stay in the old town area, but we've been staying in Boca Grande, further down the beach in the really touristy section. We ended up getting a taxi into the old town a few times and walking back. A couple of times we needed to visit the company that we purchased the boat trip through, but we did do some sightseeing as well, including an attempt at another free walking tour that we dropped out of after a half hour or so due to boredom ("here's the police station ..... here's a restaurant ....").

We'll be a little sad to leave Colombia, it's been a really interesting and beautiful country, and a good way to finish off the South American part of our trip!