Cartagena

I spent the night in the dorm at Calypso´s place and the next day I was finally ready to leave Santa Marta/Taganga. I was unsure as to whether I would head to Barranquilla or Cartagena. It was a friday night so I said I´d plump for the latter. I arrived quite late and headed straight for Casa Vienna, which had been (badly) recommended to me.

Tried to check in but it was full. That wasn´t the only surprise awaiting me. Who was in the reception area only the fckin lads from the trek - Stavros, Tommy, the Pup and Rob. Bingo. Wonderful surprise and perfect timing. Friday night and I had a great crew to hit it up with. Apparently the boats to Panama only go every few days and the lads had just missed one but were leaving the next morning. They were joined by Flo Jo - the crazy frenchman and a few more of their aussie friends.

Had a great laugh with the lads again albeit in spite of, rather than because of, Cartagena. As a town its one of the most beautiful I´ve cast my eye upon but its also quite frustrating as it just feels like ´it just ain´t got no soul´.




For Colombians its the pinacle (well, thats after their bemusing obsession with Miami). The well-off flock there in their droves. So its full of Colombian tourists, foreigners and people working in the tourist industry ie. street vendors, brassers, bumbs etc. Therefore, I file it, once again, under the list of ´beautiful shit places´.

Maybe I´m being a bit overcritical. It is what it is. Its setting is fantastic. An old walled fortress city - they call it the Pearl of the Carribean. It has beautiful old battlements and fantastically colourful and ornate old buildings. These things along with a large Afro-Latino population (due to it being a hub during the slave trade) lend it great similarities with Salvador in Brazil. But again the same irritants and hassles of Salvador. I believe it was the setting for the recent adaptation of Gabriel Garcia Marquez´s Love in a Time of Cholera (didn´t see it) and they expect the tourist trade to explode there.

The Life Aquatic

As the lads headed onto Cartagena to catch a boat to Panama, I returned once again to Taganga I had decided to do an open water diving qualification. I suppose I saw it as an investment as I had always regretted not doing the full course that time with Bamb in Ko Tao in 2002.


I shopped around and settled on Calypso Diving School. They were trying to flog me their ´Diving Safari´deal where I´d be based in el Parque Tayrona once again but really I just wanted the eh most economical deal (as I hadn´t really budgeted for it) which was based from Taganga. In the end they offered me the Safari deal for the price of the land based one as it suited them better. Score ! So I headed off for 6 dives based on a beautiful isolated beach in the National Park only accessible by boat.



Eating fresh fish, collapsing into my hammock every night at 8 to be woken by the rising sun at 6 in the morn. Sooo relaxing. There were a few of us doing the dives together. Names elude me now but Helena and Will (i think - Scotsman with an English accent, questionable), Leicester from Cambridge and his girlfriend from Sweden and the little Israeli with those disturbingly tight swimming togs.


The diving was pretty decent too. Mark the English West Ham supporting instructor was bang on too. Saw a few octopus´s and a Manta Ray, among others. The only thing that Mark didn´t was spend a lot of time on the theory part of the course (thankfully. god its boring) but this proved a bit of a problem when myself and the Colombian girl sat the exam. After 3 days of problemless diving, I fuckin failed the test !!


Funniest thing was the boss guy kind of looked at me, gave me back the test with the proper answers and told me to read over them. When finished he asked me whether I now understood. I replied positively. This pleased him, so he signed my certificate. I had now passed !!

Aah Colombia - what a great country. Era I always hated physics in school anyway....