COLOMBIA!!!!!!!!!!.... And a Trini update!...

Embarrassing???... You could say that!!
On my last night in Trinidad, I decided to bongo bus it to Port of Spain to go out to Sweet Lime (a fantastic restaurant on the Avenue).. So I tied my hair back and hoped that I wouldn't look TOO windswept when I got into town!.. Naturally, the driver took some ridiculous route, and I ended up nowhere near the restaurant.. Which I guess gave me time to fix my hair on the way!

The restaurant had a rather attractive bloke singing as entertainment, and I was natually seated right near him (not my doing- blame the waitress!).. During the Bob Marley classic "Is This Love", he sat down at my table, and sang.. Which was pretty damn embarrassing.. He then thought that he was going to get in trouble (he assumed that I was dining with a bloke), so he got up again.. And I thought all my embarrassment was over for the night.. But no! He had been dedicating songs to people dining at the restaurant (some requested the dedications, others didn't!)... And he decided to dedicate a song to me. He realised that I wasn't dining with anyone, so he plonked himself down and sang a soppy ballad to me, forcing me to hold his hand... Jesus!!! And of course, the WHOLE restaurant was looking!... SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO embarrassing!!!!... I finished up my meal pretty quickly!.. And then headed to the nearest bar for some rum!.. Which is where I met McGarvey, the Trini gangster.... But that's a whole other story!!... By the way, you need to look up the song "Hold You" (or hold yuh, as it is in the Caribbean) by Gyptian on youtube, so that you can have it stuck in your head for days on end! It was on SUPER high rotation in Trinidad, and despite hearing it about 20 times a day (no exaggeration!) I still love it and can't get enough of it!

Mum, I'm ok, and so's the house- no need to sell it to pay the ransom!
So after flying through Panama (yet again! but this time I treated myself to a bed in a hotel!), I arrived in Cartagena Colombia!!.. My taxi driver pointed out all the sights on the way to the hostel, and I was amazed at the contrast between the old city and Bocagrande (the swish area of town that I was to stay in). I packed myself off for an early night, because I was getting up early for a trip to Playa Blanca..

I managed to get out of bed on time and headed off with a few people from the hostel and the most disorganised tour guide you could imagine!! He had perfected the art of looking busy and avoiding organising anything! But eventually we ended up on a boat! The sea happened to be pretty damn choppy that day, and we were literally hanging on for dear life! I ended up with a REALLY sore bum afterwards! But we eventually made it to Playa Blanca, which lived up to its name by having the softest, whitest sand! The water was soooooo blue/green, it was amazing!!!

That night happened to be June's birthday (June being one of the women who worked at the hostel I was staying at). So we cracked open my bottle of rum punch to celebrate, and the evening degenerated into aguardiente shots and much silliness (complete with cake fights, birthday hats and balloons).. Once midnight hit, it was officially Paddy's day, and we were taught some Irish dancing by Fidelma!.. We eventually got to bed.. The next couple of days involved seeing the sights of the old city. It is so amazingly beautiful- no wonder it's all Unesco listed! Two of the best things I saw there included the old fort (complete with rum smuggling passages you can walk down!), and a museum housed in a building that was used during the Spanish Inquisition (complete with exhibition on the "interrogation tools" used- gruesome!)..

It was just an amazing place, and I will sooooooooooooo be coming back to Colombia!! Even in spite of the farewell that I was dealt at the airport! I was interrogated by several official-looking blokes in army uniforms at the airport, and apparently because I spent such a short time there, I was a person of interest!.. So my baggage was searched VERY thoroughly! I thought they were going to open the coffee I had bought too! I was patted down, and then told that I should go upstairs.. Upstairs involved a further interrogation, along with xrays and a more in depth pat down... Holy crap!... Eventually they were satisfied that I wasn't taking any of Colombia's finest with me, and I was allowed to board the plane.. So I didn't get abducted by Colombian druglords!... Nor was I acting as a drug mule- luckily!

And I am now chilling in Quito. (Chilling is right, it's bloody cold here!)...