Hips don´t lie

Currently on a food shopping, Internet and banking trip to Santa Marta (the first Spanish settlement in South America and a big Caribbean port), we are actually staying in Taganga (said loudly and with purpose as if you are a Lenny Henry character), the backpacker (read; Israeli) hangout 5 clicks along the coast.

We had some room aggro today when we changed hotels only to find the lock busted to our new room. The owners have those guys from the PG Tips ads in to fix it and our stuff is chained up while we get some provisions.

The night bus to Maracaibo was painless and we got the first bus at 7AM to the border town of Maicao. We understood it was in Venezuela but it was in Columbia and we went through all the formalities getting on and off the same bus. While this was a better result and avoided the often-required cycle rickshaw or hike across the border, it still took 5 hours and we are indebted to our Argentine´s, Bruno and Corda, for bridging the comunication gap, helping us pay half for the onward bus, and not get ripped in currency trading.

Our first taste of Columbia is sweet, at the fishing village of Taganga. It is the gateway for the National Park of Tayrona and also the 6 day trek to the Lost City of the Incas, which we are considering.

In other news;
There were a few typos and gremlins had removed some images, comments and passages in the two thousand blog entries I made last week - most have been corrected.
We have new leaders; we sat down at dinner in Taganga and got a surprise when we saw Nico´s smiling face wander up. We have now seen the drunken Irish couple in San Blas, long bus to Acapulco, Acapulco square, Oaxaca, Semuc Champey and Taganga. bearing in mind these places are in three countries, over three months, and three thousand miles apart, that´s pretty extreme, even for the gringo trail. And it has made us feel a little like we have ´come home´.

Re: haircare; My hair is now dark brown, light brown, ginger and grey. And quite funny. I now sport a fabric bandana most of the time and am either German or Israeli to the locals. Anna made her hair turn green when she tried to disguise her blondness but it has recovered to more natural tones in the sunlight.
We are having great fun with money. From 20 Guatemalan Quetzales to the dollar, via 2.7 Venezuelan Bolivares to 1700 Columbian Pesos and a few others, it gets pretty hairy at the borders, and when calculating for the bus - but we are doing OK.

There is plenty more that I have missed. Next up we will spend a few days in Taganga before seeing Cartagena and then journeying south to Medellin and Cali. We met a Brightonian living in Venezuela who confirmed that, as much as it could and will be different in six months, it is the worst time to be in Venezuela - he was holidaying in Columbia to save money! And, it seems it is a good time to be in Columbia because tourist trails have only recently opened up...