Adios Caribe Mar!

We made it to the airport with too much time on this occasion, so thought I'd treat to all to a transmission.

We're now waiting at Cartagena airport for our wings back to Bogota, and I think we're both sad to see the back of the place (for now). We'll be landing at 11pm, so after a brief taxi ride to the hostel...

*BEEP BEEP*

As I was saying, last night we got the flight from Cartagena, and headed straight to bed on arrival in Bogota. Today involves a 1pm flight from Bogota, to Lima (Peru).

Why Peru, and not Ecuador?

Well, after some deliberation, ear-wigging and research we've decided to skip Ecuador all together in favour of more time in Peru. Flying to Quito from Bogota would have cost £175pp, or involved a 30hr bus ride... I'm not sure there's enough Anusol in circulation to prepare adequately for such a voyage. We'd also heard Quito was fairly dirty, unwelcoming and more of a gateway to better places, so we jumped the fence (if we could afford to visit the Galapagus Islands, things would be different). Hopefully the additional week or so in Peru will prove to be the right decsion to have made... We'll see!

So Peru, for me this is where the activities start, with things like mountainbiking, rafting, bungee and skydiving apparently freely available. There are of course other pulls like Machu Picchu, ancient temples from lost civilizations and mountains carpetted in rainforest to explore.

On talking to a few people, it seems the traditional Incan trail up Machu is more akin to a stream on ants up a tree. We've learnt of some perhaps better routes which involve cycling for 1 day, then a jungle trek for 2 nights... Count me in!

Zooming back to Cartagena, it's a fantastic place to visit and somewhere we plan to visit in the future (the water temperature alone is enough to get me back on a plane, unreal). Today we had a wander around the old town (walled city), and it's like something out of a picture book (the pictures will hopefully show some of what it's about), it's a stunning colonial town.

We visited the Rosario Islands, where we went snorkelling on a coral reef, we both really enjoyed it and saw many weird and wonderful fish, though Miranda suffered somewhat initially with a leaky mask and dodgy snorkel. It was a bit of a trek in a speedboat, and a long way off of the 45 minutes we were quoted by Billy(wouldsellyiuhisgranny) at the hotel.

Anyway, gotta dash, flights called. More later!

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