I am now in the sweltering heats of Cartagena, Colombia... The city is an absolute gem - Unbelievabley beautiful and much cleaner than anything I ever experienced in Ecuador. The city has a timeless air to it... When here, you feel as though you could almost be living in the 17th century. The whole of the old walled part of the city is almost perfectly preserved and well looked after with new Carribean coloured paint on every wall. The weather is stinking hot every day and there really is not much you can do but swim, sleep and swim some more!
The food here is great too... Avocados the size of coconuts (No kidding! You have to see them for yourselves to believe it!) There is tropical fruit here I have never even seen or heard of before in my life! But the best thing by far are the mangoes... Here I buy 8 mangoes for the equivalent of 50 cents and they are sooooo good! I am also intruiged by "Platanos" which are green bananas which they use here as a replacement for potatoes - They cut them into slices and deep fry them and then squash them flat and fry them again... The result is something of a flat hot potato chip but they are really delicious! On the other hand I must say that I am starting to pine for a healthy NON-DEEP-FRIED meal though! they deep fry EVERYTHING here!
A few funny observation here in Colombia... The first one, which I really do not understand how it came to be, is that they sell milk in plastic bags here... I know! Strange as all hell! I do not know which idiot came up with the idea but the thing which is even more idiotic than the creation of such a stupid idea is that they actually used the idea!
Second strange thing... There is a Marijuana plant growing in the courtyard of my hotel even though it is said to be somewhat illegal in this country... Hmmm (Although that doesn´t seem to stop them from being the number 1 producer of cokaine in the world but anyways moving right along...)
Men in Colombia´s list of favorite past times (In order of favorites)
1) Soccer (Futbol here) If there is a game on, the world stops to watch it...
2) Beer. Any time is a good time for a beer, especially when the soccer is on...
3) A sexy woman. If there is no Soccer or beer around then this will do for entertainment...
Tomorrow morning I am off on a 6 day hike to the lost city in Tayrona national park... If the mosquitos do not eat all of me then I think that it will be pretty cool.
Hasta luego mis amigos x
