I have had my blog hacked into by advertisers so haven't been able to write the last 3 days of my trip. The last day at Cartagena was a dull morning of monasteries and fort visits - not my kind of thing but I gritted my teeth. We started misbehaving in the monastery by taking photos of us draped around a well rather than listening to Jesus business and were swiftly reprimanded by the guide with a loud ' Come along girls!!! '. There was nothing very exciting up th...

Once upon a time, many years ago ( 1741 if you want to be sniffy ), there was a Spanish guy with only one eye and one leg. He'd lost them in fighting the English poor lamb and was still hobbling around trying to defend Cartagena. He hopped about the ramparts and found himself in another tiff where he stupidly lost his other leg. And then he died. There is a statue of him here -BUT HE HAS 2 LEGS. And no eye patch! I feel I've been cheated. This place used to be ...

The turtles stood me up for the second night- we had tried to confirm it was happening without much luck apart from someone saying they didn't think it was turtle season. So I went to bed not planning to get up but as always, I then woke every 20 minutes looking at the time and at 12.30 decided it would be very embarrassing if the ranger DID turn up and I was in bed. After all, Viva the guide had said it was confirmed before she left on Saturday. If I was i...

Before I left to come out here, Euan had told me that a bat weighs the same as 11 paper clips (as small boys do as you're quietly sitting having a cup of tea). Well the bats here haven't been told that and would have put one of my chickens to shame. They look huge but are only around at night. I was expecting the fruit bats of **** D'Ivoire which launch themselves from the trees in the daytime, flipping and flopping about for a few minutes, before getting tired a...

I woke up this morning thinking to make the most of today. This was quickly challenged as 2 seconds after having a shower you are as hot and sweaty as you were beforehand. I had decided to do the walk to the 3 beaches, the others had decided to walk to the first one and see what happened. This quickly unraveled and due to illness, it was only Jeff and I that set off. The first leg of the walk took us along the beach with a lagoon alongside it with large warning ...