One advantage of always travelling to countries in West Africa is you know exactly where you are. You know where to go, what the people are like, what to eat and understand a bit of French. You pack a couple of T-shirts you wouldn't walk the dog in at home and off you go. You also know that some places you may be killed there but are less likely to be mugged. As Ween pointed out, I am much more likely to be robbed in Colombia than killed, and advised me to stuff my money down my bra. As I can only squeeze in a couple of small coins and a very flat ten dollar note, I decided against this action (not much room down there in case people hadn't noticed).

The other problem is clothes. It is 14c in Bogota but 32c in the North. As I am used to having literally nothing in my bag except medical supplies to take out, this came as a bit of a shock and I am now overloaded with fleece, mac, cardigans, T-shirts and furry hat. It rained in Bogota but none of it will come in handy now as we go off to a place North East of the capital.

I was a bit puzzled about seeing a salt cathedral as wouldn't the rain melt it down? I was imagining that maybe they rebuild it every year as mud mosques are rebuilt in West Africa. I was also getting a bit emotional about all the salt killing little insects and frogs as it trickled down gullies. Obviously I have a very vivid imagination.

As it turns out we walked through tunnels to an underground cathedral which is still used today and can house about 8500 people. It is 200 metres underground and used to be a salt mine before chambers and passages were hand dug leading to lots of small chapels and the cathedral. The place was pretty impressive, with huge tunnels all carved out of white crystallised salt with stalactites hanging down.

No dead nuns here - apparently when nuns die, they go off to become the brides of Jesus. What??? Doesn't that mean that Jesus has THOUSANDS of wives? Whatever happened to the church's stance on monogamy???

We then drove up through mountain pastures full of wild flowers and eucalyptus forests to the Spanish colonial village we are spending the next couple of days.

Thank you everyone for all the comments and hello Kaye's mam! It wouldn't be the same without you with me. Enjoy NZ and I will hear of your North/South bewilderment when I see Kaye. X