Cartagena

A not-so-early start the next day, firstly getting a local bus to the main bus terminal (a tiny little minivan from the beachfront, which was a tad awkward with our big rucksacks). Then a cheap mainline bus direct to Cartagena. Although the bus was an hour late in arriving, it was super comfy and made up a good bit of the time on the way, getting us to Cartagena in the late-afternoon nicely before dark.

Sarah did a great job of checking out a good number of central hostels. We'd been warned that Cartagena was an expensive place, so we wanted to try and get the best deal we could as we expected to be staying a few days. Luckily we found a really cheap place that was clean, had a fan, was central and was quite (Hotel Santander). OK, so it was also extremely basic, in fact our room felt at times like sleeping in a hay barn due to the really high ceiling and corrugated iron roof!

So once we'd settled in there we checked out the town a wee bit before meeting up with our Ozzie mate Glen, who we first met in Cusco and then again in Lima. Glen regularly meets some local ex-pats in a bar near our hotel, so we joined them all there.

The next couple of days we just strolled about the town. We managed to swap both our South America guidebooks for Central America ones, which was a great relief as guidebooks are mad expensive to buy. I also booked flights to Panama (I liked the idea of sailing there, but it takes too long and costs too much - there seems to be a fixed price for the trip, with no competition amongst the various boats for some reason). The flights were frighteningly expensive too (all relative of course), but there is no easy, quick overland route into Central America due to the vast wildness of the Darien Gap.

Anyway, Cartagena is a famously beautiful place alright, and I grew to like it more and more. I think that Cusco in Peru has a nicer central district though, probably as it's been exposed to tourism for a lot longer. Cartagena's old town has gorgeous streets with lots of flowering balconies, but every street will also have at least one or two houses that could use a fresh lick of paint. But I'm sure in years to come it will continue to improve, as there are lots of big cruise ships arriving there now, and their mostly elderly passengers roam about the city in big packs (leading to lots of hawkers hassling every gringo in sight, which is the inevitable consequence I suppose).

Unfortunately a few of the supposedly good museums were quite pricey, so we've skipped them (as we've seen lots of museums in South America already) - but at least the gold museum was free, and that was quite good.

Our last full day was spent meeting Glen for lunch (in the excellent Swiss restaurant, after he'd already introduced us to the lovely German-run Bistro), a good bit more strolling around with Glen as our guide, and then meeting the ex-pats again in what had become our regular evening haunt of Donde Pacho's.

The next morning was nice and relaxed, and we got a bus to the airport quite early in the afternoon. It's only a 10 minute journey as the airport seems to be right in the city. We weren't sure about exit taxes and the like, but luckily we didn't have to pay any, and after a bit of a worry when the check-in girl asked about onward flights from Panama (you can be stopped entering the country if you don't have onward tickets), we boarded without problems and were off to Central America.

So six months in South America, and definitely some great trip highlights. Iguasu Falls, morcillo sausages in Argentina, the cakes of Brazil (I'm thinking of Fellini's restaurant in particular), the incredible ruins all around Cusco (especially Machu Picchu but also Cusco town itself), the bluest skies I've ever seen in Bolivia, the mine in Potosi, the Galapagos islands...