After the amazing first night in Cartagena(Colombia), I settled in the dodgy, but cheap area of the town close to the old part. The old city is so beautiful! All the Spanish colonial mansions have been restored and painted and the streets are guarded bythe police, so it is perfect for tourists to hang out even at night. I posponed my departure to Santa Marta with a day, so I could go and have a massage in the mud volcano nearby. A crazy experience! you float on the mud and the massages feel so good! Afterwards you get washed by local women in the green lake, my skin felt reborn! In the afternoon I went with the aussies from the boat and an Israeli to the castle of Cartagena, quite impressive withall the underground tunnels. So the next day I left for Santa Marta(another city along the coast) with three Irish guys.I booked my trip to the Lost City and we went to the beach with a cab that had 'Rapido y Furioso' written on his frontscreen.. Worst decision ever! Since then I always managed to take cabs with insane drivers! The beach wasn't such a nice experience, because every 20seconds a different guy walked by us to sell: ice,beer,alcohol,massages,coffee,juwelry,mango,coconuts,... Eventually we wrote in the sand 'NO GRACIAS' so we could enjoy the beach! I took a banana ride for only 2$!

The next day I leftfor the Ciudad Perdida trek. After a mad trip through the jungle we arrived at the startingpoint of the hike. The jungle heat jumped on us and our shirts got soaked in 30minutes! When it started raining, it was not even worth it to put on a raincoat. The three day hike through to the Lost City was amazing (and tough!) Constantly up and down, rivers to cross,.. and at the end there are 1200 stairs to take up! The views really look like in the Indiana Jones movies. The city itself are a couple of ruinsand terrasses guarded by the Colombian army. Very strange guys, but we had some fun and took some pictures withtheir guns!(boys and toys..) The hike back was through the same way over dangerous cliffs and rocks. (in Europe there would have been ropes and security everywhere, here none..) The second day our guide asked us if we wanted to visit a Cocaine 'factory'. Before sunrise a guy from the 'factory' would come and wake us up and walk through the jungle to a remote location. The guide could not come with us and did not know where it was. In the 'factory' that was a 'demonstration' for tourists (yeah right! As if they would throw their product away after the 'show'..) they made a product that was 1 step away from the stuff on the streets. Apparently they sell it and the final person probably mixes some flower or milkpowder with it before it gets sold. Anyway, it is a discusting process! They use a huge amount of gasoline and pure acid to make a couple of grams! The gasses are highly toxic, discusting.. The penultimate day we decided to do the last two hikes in 1 day, so we ended up walking high speed and arrived exhausted and soaked back at the jeep.

After the trek we went all relaxing for a couple of days inTaganga before all going our ways. In the hostel we shared a room with an Aussie that lived for the lastseven years in Venezuela, but just broke up with his girlfriend and decided to take a break in Taganga. We ended up listening to his sad break up story and he kept on whining about her, but in exchange he cooked for us an awesome two course dinner!The next dayI decided to go to Venezuela and was lucky to have met this very cool guy from the UK (Simon) on the trek with whom I've beentravelling all the way through Venezuela.

Colombia was awesome so far! I'm going back for some extra weeks in Bogota, Medellin and Cali soon!

Venezuela story coming up tomorrow! I'm going to have a walk around Manaus(Brazil) now and tonightthe nightguardfrom the hostel wants to go to a rockparty out of town! Music is everywhere here in Brasil! In the three hour cabdrive from La Linea (the border) to Boa Vista we've been listening to Forro. (pronounced Foho) Crazy uptempo mishmash music, but it keeps you awake!

Hasta mañana amigos!

G. on the road