Hello....................only a couple of weeks left!!

We have been tanning ourselves for the last few days in Taganga near sant Marta. We have a great place up on the hill overlooking the fishing village and the ocean and the rooms are like little apartments with a kitchen, living room and beds for 4 people. There are several nice beaches near us and the sea is beautiful although we have been told that the beaches in the national park (where we`re heading later) are much nicer.

We`ve met a good group of people in the apartment next to us who are all English and have spent several nights enjoying the local nightlife with them!! Most people are learning to dive here or are doing their advance course. We start ours on Tuesday and are combining our advance course with a dive safari in the national park. One of the lads unfortunatley got bitten by a fly that lays it`s eggs in you but because the guerillas in the jungle often get this they make the medicine very hard to get. The health service is also awful and he had to discharge himself from hospital as they were ripping him off and now he has to walk round with an IV in his arm so the local health clinic can give him his antibiotics twice a day. He`s thinking of flying home just to get it treated and then fly back...............Just glad we haven`t got ill.

It was Columbia day on Friday so the whole weekend has been one big party. They`ve had music pumping out over the beach all day yesterday and today and the locals have all descended on Taganaga for the weekend. Yesterday evening we walked up to the church where everyone was gathered for dancing and fireworks. The fireworks were crazy as they were set up to fire into the crowd and young lads would duck and dive out the way. Then another load would literally start exploding in the crowd and they would all jump around screaming and laughing, no firework safety code here!! There was talk that a cow would come out strapped with fireworks and would run round the streets and into the crowds but thankfully that didn`t happen, maybe tonight!!