We were dropped off at Getsemani - the Zona Rosa of Cartagena, traveller hub and red light district. We obtained two beds in a dorm of an enormous converted colonial mansion and went round the corner for a very cheap meal. Afterwards we spent a couple of hours wandering around the old town, not knowing what to think of the number of couples, men dressed all in white, women dressed in tiny, tight minidresses and just the sheer naffness of the place. It is beautiful though, and it´s a spectacle nonetheless.

We bought our cerveza del dia from a street vendor and sat on the old walls overlooking a wedding party in a terrace below (we recognized one of the songs from Brazil).

Day 55 - Today Alex realised that she had left her swimming costume, jeans and belt in Tayrona! We went to El Gato Negro for breakfast, which did muesli (very exciting for a traveller) and more importantly, tea with cold milk (very exciting for an Brit). On the way back to the hostel we passed a restaurant and as I glanced in I saw the Germans (from Jeri and the first boat). Alex was busy taking a photo of (another) door knocker and I signalled to her from the other side of the restaurant door!

We then spent 2.5 hours walking around the old town trying our best to keep in the shade. Being a Sunday morning last nights abundance of couples had been replaced by local street vendors, which was much much nicer. For lunch we followed the LP`s advice and went to a plaza in Getsemani that has locals serving up street food on Sundays... in fact we found two old men sat in the shade of the church next to an empty snack cart, and nothing else. So instead we went back to yesterday's breakfast restaurant for an arepa (pancake that you find everywhere in Colombia) and chicken. In the afternoon we spent some time on the internet and backing up photos - an event that has more significance than usual as you will see in later postings.

In the evening we went to a pizza place on a nice, quiet square in the Old Town and had the best pizza in South America and later went to Cafe del Mar on the walls surrounding the Old Town for a drink + more ambient music (think Enya meets Depeche Mode) and more couples.

Day 56 - I woke up at 7am and went straight to the internet room to check facebook. Both computers had people logged on but noone around, and since I was impatient I logged one of them off. Annoyingly an aussie girl came in (with beer in hand) and said that she was using the computer. I informed her that that's not how communal computers work and she'd have to wait 5 minutes... I had an important announcement waiting for me - the birth of my nephew!!

I woke Alex (and the rest of the room) up by exclaiming "it's a boy!" and we got dressed and went for a repeat breakfast of yesterday. We then headed back to the Iglesia de Pedro Claver to see his remains in a glass coffin in the high altar... somehow I expected him to be embalmed like Chairman Mao, but instead he's a skeleton dressed in elaborate clothing. After that we went on a ridiculous march around the city in search of a post office to buy stamps. We must have covered the entire Old Town and asked in excess of 10 separate people, all claiming to know the way, but all sending us in the wrong direction. After we finally found it we thought we'd reward ourselves by buying a cold drink from the shop next door... that actually turned out to be a shop selling drink fridges! On the way back to the hostel we stopped in a panaderia to get some bus-snacks for later, and met some old bombeiros (firemen) and inadvertantly had a joke with them although neither Alex nor I knew what we were laughing at. Apparently it was very funny though.

For lunch we went to a restaurant in Getsemani with plastic furniture and an eclectic decoration of taxidermy that sold very cheap, set lunches. Due to high local demand we were seated on a table with another man and woman, who also seemingly did not know each other either. The choice was meat or fish but the soup seemed to consist of a combination of the two. We chose fish, and then it's a case of 'you get what you're given' as some had a whole fish, others had different sections of a fish, with different accompaniments. For 2 pounds it was outstanding, despite the iced water they gave us which seemed to be contaminated with a full bag of sugar. At one point the man next to me accidentally squirted lime at me.

After lunch we walked to the fort and bought some ice creams for pudding. As we ate them a policeman called Jairo turned up for his shift on his motorbike - policeman's cap turned backwards under his helmet, gun in holster - it took at least 30 seconds of conversation with me for him to realise I wasn't hispanic. A success! The fort was really cool and had lots of tunnels to explore, although not all lead to an exit! In one dead-end we found bats and in another we found a tunnel with no light and partially submerged in water (which is when we thought we might turn back).

After the fort we went in search of a bar to kill time until our night bus, and walked the remainder of the Old Town that we had not covered this morning on the post office chase. We eventually ended up at Cafe del Mar again. It was closed, but a clever drinks vendor had positioned himself just outside and sold us two beers. Then two American guys who we first saw outside out hostel eating slices of pizza in the direct sunlight (which noone does in Cartagena), then buying a rubbish hat outside the fort, came up to us and said (and I kid you not) "could you help us with some directions... directions to your heart". We were in such amazement and they were so American it was too hard to pass up a conversation with them - the best fun all day was the 15 minutes talking to Tim Wheatville and Shaun Herner from Lake Tahoe, California. Apparently they had wanted to talk to us at the fort but 'wimped out' and when they saw us again they couldn't pass up a second chance. Oddly though, after quarter of an hour they said they were heading off to get a coffee and left us to our beers! We had another and enjoyed the tranquility sat in the shade on the wall, until another comical policeman showed up and started playing dance music on his mobile.

On the way back to the hostel we bought some groceries and made a avocado, tomato and speck salad with new potatoes. After a quick shower we caught a taxi to the bus station, just as the hostel's pool party and BBQ was kicking off. Shame. We waited at the bus station for some time - I updated my diary while Alex went to buy a couple of hot chocolates, returning to whinge about the shop owners not willing to accept a 50 pesos note (a lot and again).

On the coach we had two firsts: 1) everyone got frisked before boarding, and 2) we seem to be surrounded by other tourists, meaning we may finally be on the 'backpacker trail'. As we left the station the bus seemed to follow a rough, dirt single lane for about a kilometre, which struck me as odd access to a major city terminal. The bus was not as comfy as some, but the seats did decline at least. However, when I put my seat back and started to doze I felt a very assertive prod on my shoulder and some girl behind me told me to put my seat back up because she was uncomfortable. I put it up a little, but not before informing her that she was on a sleeper bus. So today I ended the day just as it had started... irritated by rude Australian women!