We?re finally at the beach - yay!!! Well, I don?t think we?ll actually go swimming right here in Cartagena, but we?re oh so close.

Cali was alright - definitely a city that would be better to live in than to be a tourist in. There wasn?t much in the way of tourist stuff - a few small, moderately interesting museums, a few churches... not much else. It?s a pretty large city - 2.2 million people, and I can?t say it was all that pretty, either. Most of the older buildings were destroyed in earthquakes, so the architecture is, for the most part, fairly boring. I think it?s the type of place where you?d have to spend a few months to really get to know it and like it. You?re right about Quito, though, Dad - the old city was wonderful, and I couldn?t spent long days wandering around the narrow winding streets just enjoying it - it has everything, too. Once we went up Pichincha, though, I really realized how small the area we were in was - it?s a pretty big city.

So, for our last day in Cali, we walked over to the old town, went to a tiny little archeological museum and then a gold museum, and a little art gallery with the sort of modern art that focuses on shocking people by painting babies with meat hooks in them... and the rest of the day we kind of relaxed, as we?d seen everything that there was to see as far as tourist stuff went, and the areas we walked around in weren?t really the types of areas that we wanted to spend ages wandering in. Played lots of cribbage, backgammon, cards, etc and drank lemonade and beer. I?d gone out to the clubs the night before (there?s a new law in Cali that all the clubs have to close at 2, which felt very strange - usually we?re out and thinking it might be kind of late, but everything?s still going strong, and we find out it?s 4 or 5 in the morning!), and I?d still gotten up before 7, so I was too tired to go out again, and Erika was feeling a little under the weather. We sat out in the courtyard at our hostel and read and chatted and drank beer and generally avoided lying down on our beds, as they were the hardest things this side of a concrete slab (quite seriously - it actually hurt to lay on my side, and we both woke up in pain in the morning).

Off to the airport this morning, and it seemed like a good day to leave, as it was raining and rather yucky. Landed in Cartagena at 10:30 this morning. It would have been nearly 24 hours of buses, which we would have split into 2 days, since you?re not supposed to travel at night along that route, and apparantly buses still get jumped even during the day... and the plane tickets were pretty cheap, so we went for it. Oh, and San Augustin was out, Dad - it was 9 hours each way to get there, and I asked our hostel-guy in Popoyan about it, and he said it really wasn?t safe there right now, that there was a lot of guerilla activity around, and that he probably wouldn?t risk doing it as a tour, never mind on my own.

So far, Cartagena seems raelly nice - big (850,000), but we?re staying in the old walled city, where the buildings are beautiful and there are parks and plazas and lots to wander around and look at. Erika took me out for a nice French meal, where I had some tasty seafood. We went for a bit of a walk, whne it started to pour - really, really pour, so we?ve taken refuge here. In a couple of days we?re going to take a boat to Playa Blanca to start our beach-bumming in earnest - quite excited about it!

Hopefully will have some pictures of lovely, bright blue water and white sand and palm trees for you. Not mush else to say, except that it is freaking hot and humid here - I think I was out of the shower for about 2 minutes before I started sweating again! We need to be somewhere where we can jump in the ocean!

Hil