we stopped for a couple of days in the intriguing little town of Mompos. Its the setting for Chronical of a Death foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and it seems to be completely in the miggle of nowhere.

To get there we had to take a speedboat, 4x4 jeep, taxi and a bus. It used to be a very important trade route town as it is halfway up a big river, but was disused from 100 years ago so is stuck in the past somewhat. It used to be wealthy so has loads of lovely colonial houses but is surrounded but swamp and is now so cut off that it seems a bit like Norwich or somewhere.

We hung around for a day or 2 eating the obligatory meat on a stick and then drank some beers, and visited an excellent botanical garden with a barefoot herbalist man who showed us what herbs to eat to cure our ailing kidneys and prevent sickness of the liver. Possibly very useful.

we left on another speedboat/ taxi/ collectivo/ bus combination and travelled to bucharamanga, a city of a million people. this took 8 and a half hours, which was more than the 5 we had expected...

THere is an excellent 5 storey market in Bucharamanga, selling about 20 fruit that I´ve never heard of, like tree tomatoes and pipion and lulo and one that looks like a brain and smells of cheese. theyre all amazing and on the streets you can buy smoothies made of them for about 20p. we have been guzzling fruit. In the market we got a smoothie that was made of:

strange orange fruit (unknown)
the inside of the eye of a bull (its cut open and the jelly squeezed out)
ginseng
royal jelly
red powder ("vitaminas")
2 raw ducks eggs (including shells)
cherry wine
rum (of course)
milk
ice

This tastes odd but was meant to make us stronger!!!

We'll see..