Our flight was uneventful but it was really nice travelling by plane rather than by bus for once and it meant we missed out a night bus which was really good!
We grabbed a bus to the center which had giant speakers blaring out music and a crazy driver which is standard in South America. Locals told us to hop out so we did and then walked to a street which in the lonely planet had loads of hostels. We spoke to some people who were in a dorm for 28,000 ($14) so we aimed for less than that. We managed to get a three bed room for 20,000 each so we got a good deal.
We went to ask about boats but the company I had been emailing, which were conveniently located directly opposite the hostel, were shut as it was after 5. We decided to book a day trip to a mud volcano just outside Cartagena for the next day.
In Colombia we could only get out a max of 300,000 pesos which was less than £100 which was really inconvenient considering the boat to panama had a flat rate of $550 each! So the rest of our day consisted of getting cash out at different ATM's.
Our last full day in Colombia started with the trip to the mud volcano, the drive wasn't very long and once we arrived we could see a tiny mound about 15 feet high with rickety stairs on either side to get up to the mud.
When we reached the top we were disappointed because it doesn't look like a volcano on top its a big made man cube cut down into the volcano with lots of Colombian men offering massages inside. The hole was also really small so it couldn't fit a lot of people, luckily we were one of the first to get in!
The mud felt really really weird. Really thick and buoyant you could stand upright floating without having to kick or anything. It also felt warmer the lower down you could feel which was a strange feeling. We stayed in there for quite a while putting the mud on our faces and pretending to be mud monsters for the camera. It eventually got completely full in the mud volcano and we were squished for room! We got out and took some more photos then headed to the lake next door to wash off.
In here were local women wanting to clean you for a fee even after saying no numerous times they washed you anyway and it was easier to just let them in the end. The woman that washed me did a terrible job and I was still black! And I had to pay her £1!
We then headed to a beach resort where people who had paid for lunch would get their meal and then you could swim in the sea. We hadn't paid for lunch and were anxious to get back to book the boat for tomorrow so the lady let us stay on the mini bus going back to Cartagena! Very very lucky.
We headed straight into the blue sailing shop to book a boat I had seen online going tomorrow called the ave maria, it had an Australian captain and all reviews online had been really good saying it was the nicest sailing boat on the harbour. We went to go get our money and realised that the key was missing from the bag after the volcano tour! Our first ever missing key! We pretended Tara had it who we had left at the beach and asked to be let in to get money. When we came back to the shop the guy told us that as we were the only ones who had booked on the boat it wouldn't be leaving.
This was not good news, there was another boat called the Jacqueline leaving tomorrow also but it was a party boat and we did not want to be with a load of drunken idiots for 5 days of paradise islands. We wanted to be with people that would also appreciate where we were going. There were also two other boats going 3 days later another party boat and another called the Independence. We headed back to the hotel to discuss our options and after a few tears and an Italian lunch we decided to go book the Independence as even though we really needed to get moving to Central America the Jacqueline had a new captain which worried us and we didn't want to pay the same for an inexperienced captain on a party boat.
We went back to the blue sailing shop and the guy told us that a boat due to go two days ago had been impounded because a traveller was caught trying to smuggle drugs into Panama. This meant the ave maria was now full and they had saved us a spot on it!! That guy getting caught was the best thing to happen to us, so we were officially booked onto the boat and it was due to leave at 8pm the next day.
We couldn't believe our luck so feeling good we owned up about misplacing the key and went to search around Cartagena for a key cutting place. It was a hard task when you don't speak Spanish and we asked inside a few shops to show us the way, eventually we found a man sitting on the street with a little machine and he did it for us for just $2.
Tara turned up after finishing the tour and we all went wandering round the old town. Cartagena is a old fort town and still has the old city walls protecting the city. It also has loads of old colourful buildings with vines and flowers growing on the walls. The city had a very Caribbean vibe compared to the rest of Colombia and this made us excited to be heading to the mainland Caribbean. We also found a Greek restaurant that did gyros! We obviously ate there, we're being spoiled with actual choices in cuisine at the moment.
Our final day in Cartagena started out with us getting to the marina where the ave maria was to meet everyone and go to immigration. The other passengers had spent 5 hours there the day before getting their Colombian visas annulled as they had been stamped out of the country before the drugs bust took place. They were all talking excitedly about what had happened and apparently the guy had half a kilo of cocaine hidden in a neck pillow. The police had waited until they all collected their bags so they could tell who the drugs belonged to before making an arrest. Apparently the guys best friend got out of the country sharpish after the arrest, suspicious...
Immigration went smoothly and we were there less than an hour so it wasn't too bad and we were able to walk back to the hostel. Our final few hours in Colombia consisted of buying snacks and alcohol in the supermarket for the boat trip and heading back to the Greek for dinner because it was so yummy! We also had to say goodbye to Tara who we had been with for two weeks which was sad! But we were REALLY excited to be leaving South America!