After a 2 hour speed boat jaunt along the coastline of the darien gap we arrived at the small tranquil town of Capurgana. Surrounded on three sides by dense jungle with no roads leading to it, Capurganá is the last town of any reasonable size on the Colombian Caribbean coast before the border with Panama. It is a sleepy little place with a laid-back atmosphere, popular with Colombians, but is only just starting to put in an appearance on the Gringo trail. The f...

By the time we had arrived in Doradal and had lunch we decided it was best to wait til the next morning to venture into the National Park of Rio Claro. Instead we relaxed by the pool of a local hotel and spent the evening hanging out in the very small, but lively town. We were really admist the locals living their everyday life and must have been the only gringos. It felt good to be off the gringo trail again. After waiting for half an hour on the side of the ma...

We left for Medellin with a stop over in Santa Rosa. We spent the afternoon relaxing in hot thermal pools that looked out across a big waterfall, a really peaceful and picteressque setting. We arrived late in Medellin so caugh a taxi to the hostal. On arrival the taxi driver tried charging 5x more than the price on the meter. Stu gave him a note expecting change, but then he wouldn`t give us change. So i went to get someone from the hostel and the matter was reso...

The next day we travelled through beautiful scenery, full of banana trees and coffee plantations until arriving in the lovely, small town of Salento. We checked into our hostel "Plantation House" which was set amongst a lush garden with stunning views of jungle valleys and coffee plantations. We strolled into town, past the charming main plaza that is surrounded by 2 storey old traditional multicoloured terraced building. We went up some steps that lead...

We spent our 1st nite in Popayan, a pretty white colonial town. We experienced our 1st Colombian breakfast & coffee. The fried eggs are served in a minature frying pan (similar to an Indian dish). They come with Arepas - fried maize cakes which are rubbery and tasteless. However, the coffee was pretty good and we drank it inside a very male dominated pool hall/cafe/bar. They also have pool tables without pockets in!! These pool halls are everywhere in Colomb...