Cartagena, WOW; what an amazing beautiful place, it didn't take long to fall in love with this small city. Not only is it beautiful but full of backpackers which should make it pretty easy to get my party on; I have done a lot on this trip and the party has taken a bit of a back seat...not any more, let's do this. I didn't plan how many days I was going to stay here but it ended up being 5 days, the longest I have stayed anywhere on this trip which makes it my South American home! I headed straight for the Getsemani district of the city, which is situated just outside the old city walls and is where most backpackers stay. I got recommended to stay in Media Luna hostel and indeed this was the epicentre of the entire goings on in the evenings but as I had no clean clothes and my backpack stinking, I decided to check myself in to a place just around the corner which would be easier to unpack everything and get it clean with added luxury. The guesthouse was called Villa Colonial; unfortunately they didn't have any single rooms with a fan left...fortunately what they did have was an apartment that they would give me for the same price, sweet!! The apartment had its own front door, a living room, kitchen, bathroom and two bedrooms - so you can understand why it felt a bit like home.

As I expected the majority of these 5 days were drinking, partying and getting over hangovers but before all the haze set in I arranged a city tour. Cartagena consisted of an old and new town, the old town was the more historic and beautiful. The streets were cobbled with colourful terraced houses, restaurants and shops with old historic Spanish colonial style balconies. The old town, which was very small, was surrounded by a city wall which was built after sieges on the city in the 16th century led by Francis Drake and most of the inner city wall area has been preserved as it was back then.

Other than partying every night and meeting some really cool people, I took a party bus one night that toured Cartagena while you got drunk. This brings me back to the London party bus experience about 5 years ago and to keep things simple and short, it was terrible; the thing is it doesn't suddenly get better if you are abroad in an amazing city - so I found out! It was pretty bad, the bus had church like seats with 5 people per row and just drove around the city with a really bad guide onboard singing; his singing wasn't great and was drowned out by the constant sound of the maracas. Anyway, I was in good company as I went with a few people I met in the bars the night before and they served bottles of rum and coke continuously. Typically I ended up getting hammered and can't remember much of the night afterwards...it was a good thing, trust me!

My final night in Cartagena, I was having dinner when this lovely girl (Hannah) joined me, she was Swedish, blonde and had dimples...it was nice to have some different company on my last night in Cartagena and after a few drinks we ended up in this Salsa club. Well a few drinks wasn't enough to get "Salsa Drunk" (Salsa Drunk Copyright of Annica!), so I took to the mojitos and after necking a few in quick succession I was there; I was Salsa drunk. So we got our Salsa on, it's pretty difficult especially the quick steps but I found you can just dance old school disco style, grabbing the girl spin her around, grind like only Bodger knows how and put your hand just above the arse! So after 5 days in Cartagena I didn't accomplish much but it was one hell of a party!!