Leticia

We left Iquitos very early in the morning by speed boat through the Amazon river and arrived in the town of Leticia, Colombia, 12 hours later. The border crossing was at the tri-border area of Brazil, Peru and Colombia. You can roam freely between the 3 border towns with no need for passports, you only need them if you go beyond the border towns. So we literally could have walked to Brazil for a coffee. Leticia itself was a depressing town, but luckily we were catching a flight the next day.

Cartagena

Our flight from Leticia landed in Bogota 10 mins before our next flight left for Cartagena. Though what can you expect when you book through a company called Cheapo Air. Amazingly we managed to change planes and make it in time.

Cartagena is a very touristy city on the northern coast. It has a walled city which has a similar feel to St Malo. It is heavily fortified as many pirates kept turning up and stealing all the treasure that was kept awaiting transportation to Spain. The biggest invasion was by England's Francis Drake who showed up with 140 ships and stole the entire city.

This is the main port that connected South America with it's motherland Spain. It's also very hot (35 degs) and humid.

We saw the main sights via a bus and a walking tour. As a tourist hot spot (including those arriving by cruise ship) there are sellers everywhere. They are very persistent and slightly aggressive here. This is a huge contrast to the rest of SA (South America) where we've found you have to pester people for service. If I see a T shirt with 'no gracias' written on it I'm getting it. Also not seen many gringo tourists, so as is the norm in SA, nobody speaks any English.

Santa Marta

With the heat and being on the Caribbean coast, we decided to head 4hrs north by bus to the seaside city of Santa Marta. This place wasn't what we expected and is more of an industrial port than a seaside resort. I (Dom) still managed a few swims in the murky water. The really nice beaches can only be accessed via a taxi ride, 2 bus journeys, a 2 hr hike and a £15 entrance fee. We didn't bother, we'll be back on Guernsey's pristine beaches soon enough. There was a sea festival going on, so the roads were closed and crowds of people were filling the streets. In typical Colombian style it was noisy as anything with deafening music and loud people.

Medellin

We took a 16 hr night bus to arrive into Medellin. We have discovered that in Columbia and mostly on buses they play terrible music and really loudly no matter what time it is. The aircon is cranked up to the max, which means youre literally frozen on arrival.

This city was the home of cocaine drug lord Pablo Escobar. It is now relatively safe, however only 10 years ago, many areas were totally inaccessible even to police due to shootings and bombings. We did a city and a Pablo Escobar tour. This highlighted the struggle of the country through violence and corruption. This has been never ending and still continues. The corrupt politicians, the guerilla warfare, the FARC and drug cartels made this country the most dangerous in the world and Medellin was at the centre of many of the problems. The selfishness of so few, destroyed the lives of so many innocent Columbians. The power struggle was achieved with the simple mentality 'silver or lead' ie be bribed or be shot. When people think of Columbia they associate words like 'cocaine, cartels, corruption and Escobar'. This association is something the locals find deeply offensive and is something they are desperately trying to move away from.

Despite offering Pablo Escobar tours, Medellin showed how the city is recovering from this with many of the most dangerous areas now containing libraries to symbolise it's progression. Their metro system has even won awards for being one of the world's most progressive and includes cable cars to the remote slums.

Despite being a safer city, we were still alarmed by the amount of drug addicts roaming the streets. Its common to come across stoned people shouting to themselves and walking in circles.

People here do seem generally friendly and helpful (excluding the crack heads), though their spoken Spanish is very hard to understand. People don't make any effort to speak clearly or slowly enough for their sentences to resemble anything other than an unintelligible slur.

We've also been slightly shocked by how bad the food is. If you like eating nothing other than tasteless pastries, corn flat breads (arepas) and fried chicken with beans then this is the place for you. It seems strange when the country is blessed with so much fresh produce, that they can't throw it on a plate. The coffee is the worst we have had! Apparently they export all the good stuff! Oh well only 2 more weeks to go.