South America

We drove along the coast, passing many beaches and beach towns. Whenever the truck stopped and the air stopped circulating, the heat was unbearable. Our posada didn't have air conditioning, only dorms with mosquito nets over the beds. The evenings were inexplicably warmer than the daytime, as the breeze dropped. The heat didn't stop me having a go on the free climbing wall though. I completed the easy course without a problem but my unsuppleness and stumpy legs hindered my success at the next level. Damn my stumpy legs.

There's not much to do at Playa Colorada except go to the beach or kayak to the islands off the shore. We were here for 2 days so we booked in the kayaking for our last day. The next day we spent on the beach, which was beautiful and relaxing, but not as exciting as the waves at Playa Colombia.

The kayaking was not something either of us had done before. The group that went out the day before didn't see any dolphins, and the chance of seeing dolphins was the only way I could convince Dee to get in a boat again after the "rafting incident" back in Ecuador. Me and Dee were in a kayak together and I knew there was going to be trouble by the way Dee had a panicked look on her face at the sight of water. Sure enough, as soon as we got in the sea the abuse started; "what are you going that way for?", "why aren't you paddling?", "you're tipping the boat", "well paddle then", "you're splashing me", "we're going to crash" etc. The others laughed as I rolled my eyes. I did make the mistake of letting Dee sit in the back, which meant she could get away with not paddling very hard, while I put in all the work. She was also in charge of the rudder.

We followed the guide out to sea towards the islands in a zig-zag path, hoping to see dolphins. James, in another kayak, took some photos of me with my camera and threw it back to me, which I unthoughtfully leant over to catch. My mistake here was that I thought these things were supposed to be hard to capsize. We both ended up in the sea, our kayak upside down and full of water. Good job my ears were full of salt water at that time so I couldn't hear Dee screaming abuse at me. We swam around and collected the floating debris from around the crash site (bottles of water, sun cream, sandals etc) and the guide helped us empty the water out the boat. Dee gave me a look that could have made Satan tremble in his boots as we pulled ourselves back into the kayak. Luckily Dee's mood lightened when we saw a family of dolphins swim past us about 10m away. I was going to suggest we capsize the kayak again so I could swim with them, but I didn't think Dee would respond positively. It would have been better if the dolphins swam under us, because the water was the clearest I've ever seen, but they just observed us from a distance. After they left we parked the kayaks on a dirty beach on an island about 3km from shore where we did some snorkeling. To be honest, after the Galapagos, any other snorkeling experience is going to be a disappointment. We didn't see much we hadn't seen before, except a sea cucumber which I picked up and played with. After we were bored with the snorkeling Dee had a sleep on the beach while me, Anders, James and Ian went off in search of ice cream.

There was 1 restaurant on the island and when we got there it was overrun by giant iguanas. There was a family eating lunch and throwing scraps to the hungry, aggressive lizards which surrounded their table, up to 1.5m in length. I, as ever, was keen to get up close to the animals and feed them myself. I found some leftover rice on another table and rolled it together to form a nice iguana snack. Timidly, one of the big iguanas took it. I got a smaller piece and tried feeding another one, which looked at the rice hungrily, just as another, smaller iguana ran up to me and took a big bite of my finger. The razor sharp teeth went right into my flesh. It quickly let go and ran off before I could introduce the little bastard to my foot. The bite mark covered the tips of my index and middle finger and blood was pouring from the wounds, which I washed in the sea (looking out for sharks). I used to quite like iguanas, now I hate the little bleeders.

For the return journey I insisted that I sat in the back so I could keep an eye on Dee's paddling and we went a lot quicker (and straighter). We had done a lot of paddling that day and I got blisters on my hands, which, along with the iguana bite, stung really badly when I cooled off in the sea. Bloody iguanas.

That evening, Tim announced that he has had enough of the jungle and wants to stay in Playa Colorada for the next week, so he arranged to meet us again in Manaus at the end of the leg.

Back to Caracas and the end of another leg. We arrived at Caracas in rush hour which was a big mistake. Noel took a wrong turning so decided to go round the block. 2 hours later we were passing the same square we've seen before, just from the other side. It had taken us 2 hours to go 200m round the block. Apparently Caracas has never had town planning, resulting in total gridlock during rush hour and there are still areas of the city that don't have running water.

It was another group meal that night to say goodbye to more wayfarers. Katrina and Mikkel, the Danish couple, were leaving to be replaced by some more Danes. Also there was a white-toothed, smooth-skinned American joining from LA, who had no idea what he was getting himself into. He would become the butt of many jokes during the next leg of the trip.

Our meal was at TGI Fridays for some reason, which was expensive and crap. We left skint and sober so didn't go out afterwards, saving ourselves for the meeting the next morning and welcome party the next night.

As usual at these meetings, we were briefed on what to expect on the next leg. The included a lot of places where there was no access to the internet, a worry for me because my granddad was ill in hospital. We were also told that the price of the Angel Falls trip had risen by US$150 to US$400, which meant we would have to save up for it.

That evening we ended up at a cheaper restaurant where Dee could afford a bottle of wine. Despite her ordering the wine and asking for 1 glass, the waiter looked confused and still brought out 2 glasses. He obviously didn't think Dee could drink a whole bottle for herself, the fool. We all went to an English bar afterwards which was small, trendy and expensive.

It was such a nice feeling setting off to drive to the beach after being in the sweaty mosquito infestation of Los Llanos. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed Los Llanos, but I enjoy sand, sea, sun and hotel beds a whole lot more. We had a 5am start as Puerto Colombia only has one road in and one road out. After an obligatory stop at McDonalds for lunch decided by the truck majority (I had arepas from the servo, won't eat from the golden 'M') we headed into Henry Pittier national park. It’s this N.P. that makes Puerto Colombia so hard to reach. The one road snakes round lush tropical mountains and valleys. It’s hardly wider than a single carridgeway; it is a two way road that makes things interesting when another vehicle approaches. There are very few passing places and the bends are so tight climbing the sheer mountain faces that our truck had to make several attempts to get round them. Once we hit the town we realised the town wasn’t really built for vehicles, narrow roads with tight corners made our truck destroy more than one house roof corner or wall. 14 hours later and we'd made it. With the budget dwindling with the rising Venezuelan economy I enjoyed every drop of my glass of cold white wine I’d ordered instead of food, Ollie had the beer and we tucked into the free table bread with gusto.

After spending a luxury night with aircon we woke to bright sunshine and headed for la playa. 10min walk over a footbridge and down a small road which opened into a beautiful small cove. Sheltered on each side by green mountains that curved round to hug the beach, the sand was white and the sea crystal clear. Ollie got straight in the water, to do battle with the six foot waves. They were obviously a lot more entertaining then me as he emerged like a bright red prune 8hrs later. I went in up to my ankles but it was cold, involved water and I had a really good book to read. I played roast chicken, gently cooking myself in the long awaited sunshine until I was golden brown and hungry.

That evening we wandered down to the harbor. I sat opposite Ollie at dinner and sweated in the radiating heat coming of his bright red burnt face. As we ate our tea, we watched the fisherman bring in the days catches. There were hundreds of fish; most of them were the size of dolphins and some with long pointy faces? marlin?.

We had the next morning to enjoy the town before heading out. I went down to the beach and actually went in the sea up to my knees. Ollie stayed at the hotel and watched wild monkeys playing in the trees outside our room. Puerto Colombia is hard to get to but well worth the visit if it’s the quiet idealistic tropical beach stop you're seeking.

One thing I must mention that I have noticed in northern Colombia and Venezuela. What is it with the bellies guys? It seems here it's cool to pull up your t-shirt to your chest and let it all hang out. And really, size does not matter, the bigger the beer belly, the higher the t shirt gets pulled up giving you a great view of what appears to be the male version of late pregnancy. I know it's hot, but really, must we all suffer? It's even coming to the point when Ollie thinks its a good idea, god help us.

6am start and we were on the truck heading into the Los Llanos region of Venezuela. This region is similar to the Pampas in Argentina in that it has many huge cattle ranches and real cowboys with real cowboy hats and horses. We passed through thousands of acres of lush green farmland, grazed on by the Indian "Brahman" breed of cow, which are very docile, more resistant to ticks and, best of all, have funny big ears.

We stopped for lunch in Barinas, a typical town in this region. We were surprised to see huge 1m long iguanas in the central plaza, darting easily up the trees when we approached. There were beautiful yellow birds and even an owl sleeping on a branch high in a tree, which we tried to wake up by shouting and impersonating mice. The locals looked at us as if we were mad to be taking photos of these animals. Just as everyone was relaxing by the park we heard a huge crash in one of the trees followed by an almighty thud. We spun round to see a huge iguana splatted on the path, still on the branch which had collapsed under its weight. It sat there for a bit looking around puzzled, and, as casually as it could, it climbed back up the tree it fell from. Everyone found this hysterically funny and we laughed for a long time at the poor iguana's expense.

Our bed for that night was at a jungle lodge outside town in the middle of nowhere owned by a New Zealander. There were opportunities to do white water rafting here, but there was no way Dee was going anywhere near rapids again. I swam for a while in the river with the Danish couple, Mikkel and Katrina, and then 4 of us went on the jungle trek with Alan. Alan is our wildlife guide for the next few days in Los Llanos and fancies himself as a bit of a Steve Irwin. We didn't see much we hadn't seen before in the jungle in Ecuador. I was hoping to see a snake, but the best we could come up with was a furry caterpillar. Alan is also a collector of butterflies and had discovered a couple of new species, but apparently that isn't too uncommon in the butterfly world. We slept in our mosquito-netted lodge for 14 people and lit a mosquito coil to kill all the creepy crawlies that had somehow snuck in.

The next day we got on the truck with Alan instructing us as our guide. We were heading towards his lodge in the middle of Los Llanos when we spotted our first anaconda. Unfortunately it was dead on the side of the road, having been run over, but it still got people excited and hopeful that we would see one alive. If one man can get us an anaconda it was Alan (he told us) - his record is 11.5 in one day (10 alive and 3 dead - they count as half).

Alan's lodge was in a village called San Vincente on the Apure river. Most people here are farmers or fisherman, and some of the money we have paid goes back to the village, supporting the school and educating the people about conserving the wildlife. When we arrived, the heat was oppressive and the lodge didn't have aircon. 8 of us were in the room with beds, the rest were in hammock room upstairs. After a sweaty siesta we headed out on our first boat trip on the river. We were trying to spot river dolphins and Alan knows where they like to hang out. The boats stopped at the mouth of a tributary and the drivers revved the engines, which gets the dolphins curious. Soon enough someone would shout "OVER THERE!" and we'd all spin round excitedly to see the remnants of a splash. A couple of times I saw a fin above the water but was too slow to photograph them. The dolphins got braver and more inquisitive and started to jump higher to see what was happening on the boat. I got a lucky shot with my camera and photographed one with it's head out of the water, which, Alan says, is quite a rare thing to do. They are ugly. Really ugly. They aren't cute, like Flipper, they are an ill-looking pink colour with swollen looking f aces. More like Flipper with some kind of terminal blood disease. They had begun to lose interest so I asked if I could get in the water to try to bring them back. Alan thought it might help so I jumped in and made plenty of splashing sounds and funny noises underwater. One dolphin surfaced briefly about 4m away from me, but the water is so murky I wouldn't be able to see them if they came close anyway.

We were shown some more wildlife which is indigenous to this region. The boat driver caught a vegetarian piranha and we saw a strange, prehistoric turkey-type bird called a Hoatzin bird. It is thought to be the missing link between dinosaurs and birds because before 3 months old, the young have claws on their wings, like little dinosaurs. The bird is not a member of any super-species, and has no sub-species, it is it's own genius. And it's loud, fat, ugly and flies badly, so I'm surprised the species has lasted so long.

The 2 boats pulled into a tributary and we were handed fishing lines with cuts of meat on the hooks (the vegetarians opted out). Here was a good place to catch piranhas. As soon as I threw the line over the side I could feel slight pulling on the line as the fish nibbled the bait. There were a lot of piranhas around the boat and they were hungry. I would quickly yank the line to find that those damn piranhas had nicked my bait. Each time I was so close, but these piranhas were too nifty. Joakim, a skilled American fisherman, was the first to catch a big one. Alan passed it around, showing off the red bellied piranha's huge razor-sharp teeth. Not many other people caught piranhas, but the free beers were being handed out and it was fun trying. After losing half a cows worth of bait, I managed to catch a small catfish, and, right towards the end, James amazingly caught 5 piranhas in a row, with the same bait, which we had fried for dinner that night (the fish, not the bait). Dee put her fingers in her ears to block out the sounds of the fish being whacked on the head by a wooden club. She was enjoying just feeding the fish and didn't want to catch any.

After the sun went down things got serious again as we went anaconda hunting. The boats had big lights powered by the engines which were shone on the banks of the river and in the trees as we sped past. After about an hour we hadn't found any anacondas but Alan disappeared into one of the trees and emerged again with something big in his hand. He threw it into the boat and the animal scuttled around under everyone's feet. People screamed as the thing moved from the front to the back of the boat, like a Mexican wave. The large iguana was quick and panicky but I managed to grab it by the back legs and pick it up. Alan released it into the water and it swam to the shore and climbed up a tree. Over the next hour in the boat we didn't see any anacondas, but Alan caught us another couple of snakes. He broke off a branch which contained a brown tree snake. It bites, but it's not poisonous. Alan passed it around the boats so everyone could get a photo. Me and Dee were surprised to find out that Tim had a fear of snakes and when Alan moved the branch towards us, Tim all but jumped out of the boat to escape. The snake tried to attack Alan a couple of times but he was too quick and moved the branch away from himself and the snake snapped only the air.

The next day we were awoken at 4:47am to adventure out looking for special animal on the plains, and early morning is the best time to spot them. It was still dark when we woke up and bats were flying around the courtyard and coming to rest above the toilet door. They were tiny and cute, like mice. They disappeared up a crack in the ceiling and we left in the back of a cattle truck, the sun rising in the distance.

It wasn't too long before we stopped on the road between 2 fields. 2 of the drivers got out and legged it into the field on the right. Far in the distance like a tiny black dot, a black animal, the length of a human, bounded further into the field. The 2 drivers sprinted for ages after the giant anteater, until they were like 2 dots chasing another dot. Alan had a pair of binoculars, but soon they were so far away it didn't make much difference. The anteater had escaped and the sun was rising higher, making it less likely to spot another one. The drivers returned slowly, knackered after the chase. We didn't see another anteater that morning, but we arrived at a local ranch where we could walk around and spot wildlife.

Straight away there was a pond full of caimans, with a huge family of 30 or so capybaras in the distance. Us 'oldies', who had been on since Rio in February had already had our fill of caimans and capiburas in the Argentinian Pampas so we yawned our way through the first bit while the newbies took photos of the sunbathing caimans and the dead, vulture-chewed capybara on the side of the road. Alan told us that there are only 2 species of crocadilians in South America; the common caiman and the almost extinct Orinoco crocodile, which was over-hunted for its beautiful, handbag-patterned skin. The owner of the ranch told Alan he saw an anaconda in a pond up ahead and we all perked up. The driver picked up the dead, eyeless, half-eaten capybara and threw it in the back of the cattle truck we were travelling in, which grossed us all out. Further up the road Alan spotted where the anaconda was. Part of the snake was poking out from under the reeds and it had eaten something big, like a baby capybara or big caiman. Pete, with his eagle eyes, spotted the head poking a foot away from the bloated, floating lump in the stomach. The head was the size of a big burger, Alan estimated it was 3 metres long, a big one by any standard. He needed some people to help get it out of the water and I jumped up to lend a hand. Alan was looking a bit nervous as he prepared to grab the snake's head. I was in charge of the tail and the 2 drivers and Ian were in charge of the body. Alan counted down and we all pounced on the huge animal. It was strong - I struggled to stop it's tail coiling around my arm. With the added weight of it's dinner, it must have weighed the same as a human. It was 8 years old, 3.5m long, female and it pumped out stinking white liquid from it's anus, which, I didn't realise till later, was impossible to get off. I should have grabbed the body, not the smelly end. Alan passed around the snake for everyone to have their photos taken with it. When Ronak took the snake, everyone backed off. Ronak can barely hold his own bodyweight, let alone a huge, deadly snake's. But, to everyone's surprise, he didn't let go and no one was horrifically mutilated.

Once we all had our fill of photos, we put the anaconda back where we found her and she swam off, the lump in her belly still floating above the reeds. Alan told us there was a special animal that we were going to see next, so we drove deeper into the ranch, the smell of anaconda goo and dead capybara making us all gag. Good job this is an open-air cattle truck. We speculated that we might see a puma or jaguar as we stopped by another caiman infested pond, as the drivers began hacking the limbs off the dead capybara from earlier. They attached the bits of flesh to a rope and threw it into the water. Soon enough we saw the special animal - it was an Orinoco crocodile. It was 5 times the size of the caimans, which silently watched the croc take its share if the meat. It was obvious this was king of the pond. The patterns on the skin of the crocodile were beautiful. It certainly would make a nice pair of boots.

On the way back one of the drivers told Alan he overheard the ranch owner say he was going to kill the anaconda because it was too big. It was time for a rescue operation. Like the Thunderbirds, we found the snake again, threw it in the back of the cattle truck and transported it 100m away into another pond where it should stay away from the farmhouse and the cattle.

After returning to the house, washing my hands a lot and getting some sleep, Alan told us of a cow crossing which was happening that afternoon. Some cowboys were going to transport a herd of cattle across the 120m wide river. They herded the cows in 2 batches. The first batch we watched from the bank and for the second half we got in a boat and drove alongside the cowboys. The cows looked completely panic-stricken as just the tops of their heads protruded out of the water. It didn't help that the cowboys were whipping them with big sticks to get them all swimming together in the right direction.

That afternoon we headed out in the boat again to see what we could find. Alan managed to catch a weak, young caiman which we could hold. The drivers of the boat said he saw a turtle, but Alan insisted it was just a log, even after driving past a couple of times to check. The boatman drove to the bank anyway and jumped in the river and pulled out 2 massive mata mata turtles. The turtles are prehistoric and really weird looking. Their heads are flat and their mouths look like they are smiling. They have little pig noses and are nearly blind, but they can scratch with their claws so we needed to be careful when holding them. We let them go in a small tributary and got out the fishing lines again.

This time was even less successful than the first time and nobody caught anything of any note. The driver used a net and caught a big catfish for us all to look at. The sunset that evening was spectacular and everyone watched in silence as the colours went from grey to dark blue to pink and red. We drove around for a while in the dark, looking for more anacondas, but to no avail. In the distance we could see flashes of lightning in the huge clouds from the Maracaibo Lake.

That evening, Pete called me upstairs to the hammock room. He had found a baby bat that had fallen from the ceiling. It was crawling around on the floor squeaking. I picked it up and it was barely the size of the end of my finger. It gripped tight but was so light I could hardly feel it on me. I put it back up in the rafters and it instinctively climbed upwards towards its parents.

We left early the next morning as we had a dangerous drive at the end of the day and Tamar didn't want to drive in the dark. We bid farewell to the Crocodile Dundee of Venezuela at sunrise, and set off towards the coast for some beach time.

The night bus/mobile hotel arrived 2 hours late into Merida, at 11am. The trips to Maracaibo Lake leave from here and is a major tourist destination in this area. The lake is between 2 mountains and at night the cold air from the mountains descends over the warm lake and creates huge, statically charged clouds where lightning strikes up to 180 times a minute. We had been looking forward to this overnight trip but this wasn't the most active time of year and the price had almost doubled to US$200, so instead we decided to do paragliding the following day for US$85. That afternoon we visited the ice cream shop that has the world record for most flavours ever created - over 1000. Some of the flavours available included: beer, onion, garlic, tuna, eggs, Bacardi lemon and the conspicuous 'meat' ice cream (she couldn't tell me which meat in particular). I had coca-cola, sangria and ham & cheese flavours. Surprisingly, despite advice from my brain telling me otherwise, ham & cheese was the nicest of the 3, but mostly because the other 2 were a bit disgusting. I also had a taster of chipichipi, which wasn't some kind of tasty chocolate chip ice cream, it was actually some kind of fish ice cream which tasted like normal ice cream with some kind of fish in it. Yuck. Other flavours in the past have included Viagra and salmon. Mmm mmm.

The next day, I dragged myself out of bed at 6am to ride the longest and highest cable car in the world. Dee wasn't as enthusiastic as me so she grumpily informed me that she wanted to stay in bed. It gets cloudy later on in the day, so we were told to to get there early at 7am. Unfortunately, we weren't told that it only opens at 8am off season. I had to make the decision whether to go back to the hotel and bed, or hang about for an hour. Some other similarly confused people also arrived early so we went for breakfast together, to return at 8.

The cable car is in 4 sections totalling 4765m high and 7.77 miles long. There weren't many people there so we didn't queue long. Each section took about 15 minutes to ascend to the next level and the flora changed dramatically as we increased altitude, cruising up the side of the mountain. City and farms at the bottom, then humid jungle then cold sparse bush land and, at the end of the third chairlift, the weather worsened and the cable car started swaying violently in the sleet rain. The second to last platform was freezing cold and the storm winds blew through the station, and through our ill-prepared clothes. We hurried to the café for a warming, overpriced hot chocolate as the windows and doors howled as they were bombarded by the weather outside. The thermometer on the wall outside read 2 °C. We tried to get into the final, oxygen mask equipped cable car, but we were told to move away from the doors in case they were blown in by the gale. There was no way we were going to be able to travel the last leg and we were cold and feeling dizzy and headachey from the altitude, so we travelled back down to the bottom and the warmth. We managed to get a part refund, but it was disappointing not to be able to get to the top of the world's highest cable car.

I returned to a more awake and cheerier Dee and we were picked up to be taken to our paragliding trip. Neither of us had done paragliding before so we were quite excited as we were driven higher and higher up the side of the valley. Conditions weren't perfect - there was very little wind and the sun wasn't beating down on the valley as hard as usual. In fact, there was even a little rain when we got to our jump off/suicide point. The pilots got out the jeep and deliberated whether to cancel the jump or not, as the clouds had now formed a thick fog so it would be hard to navigate the first few seconds. Every now and again there was a slight break in the clouds, so the head pilot said we will give it a shot. Ronak, one of the new guys, jumped first. We were told to run as hard as possible into the fog and lift our legs at the last minute when the pilot screamed 'pull!'. Ronak didn't run as hard as he could and just clipped the top of a tree as he lifted his legs. Dee was up next and she wasn't looking too confident as she was jumping off over an area covered in cactus. She jumped over the tops of the cacti into the cloud and silently faded into the grey mist. I was up next and me and the pilot ran as hard as possible towards the edge, one minute I was running but not moving anywhere until I looked down and I was running on air. I pulled my legs up and we were engulfed by the fog. For a few seconds visibility was minimal then, almost as if someone turned on the light, we came out of the cloud and we were looking over the bright valley below. The feeling was so serene as we silently glided over the cacti and goats and the pilot pointed out the towns spread around the valley below. It felt like we were weightless as we traversed the side of the valley. I was strange looking down from my seat and seeing my unsupported legs dangling over the landscape shooting past below. The pilot took us into a final 360 and we landed perfectly on the disused land behind a petrol station. The whole flight took a maximum of 20 minutes, but I would have been happy to have stayed up there all day. Apparently Rio has good paragliding over the city, which we are both wanting to try when we return there in a months time at the end of our trip.

This has got to be the most exciting entry this blog has had to date. Prepare yourselves.

It was sadly time to leave Colombia and head to the greenery of northern Venezuela and the luxury of our truck. We left Cartegena at 4.30am to get an internal flight back to Bogota, Columbia's capital. We then got an international flight and another stamp in our passport as we arrived in Venezuela s capital Caracas at noon the same day. Not a bad days traveling, except Caracas was a stopover, the truck was sat in Meridia waiting for us, another 12hr bus journey away. We were using local transport so it was decided to avoid the crushed daytime coach that arrives at 3 in the morning and get the comfy overnight coach. Great idea in theory just meant we had 9.5hours to kill in a bus station in the outskirts of Caracas. Traffic is too temperamental in the city to risk going into town in case you can't get back in time (petrol’s cheap, everyone drives, everywhere, always) so we sat in the bus station. This consisted of toilets, a few hard plastic seats and a shop that ran out of all food except empanadas that looked 3 days old. The same ones were there when we arrived and when we left, 3 days is an accurate guess.

We played poker for 5 hours, I won. I people watched and guarded the bags. Ollie walked around and found takeaway pizza for the price of a restaurant meal in England - rip off!! We all got sore arses from sitting on a hard floor for so long.

I've never been more excited to get on a coach. We were upstairs at the back, it had a toilet, curtains, fully reclining seats that were wide enough to lie horizontal in and played a movie in English (Spanish subtitles)! Intermittently the crazy Venezuelan driving would wake me as he swerved on the road and I'd find myself head butting the window, but tucked up in my sleeping bag I slept like a baby - even in the minus 10 degrees air con.

So that's the tale of our 30hr journey from Cartegena to Meridia. Enthralled, weren't you?

As soon as we got off the plane at Cartagena (pronounced Carta-hey-na) the heat hit us like walking into greenhouse in summer. By the time we got to our hotel I was already looking like I’d been melting like a snowman. "Please let our room have air con. Please let our room have air con." I was chanting under my breath. Luckily it had air con and a fan. I didn't want to leave the room but we had a city tour booked, so we got back in the sweaty minibus and drove around the city. There's no denying, this is a beautiful place. It is a colonial city located on the Caribbean Sea. It was built by the Spanish using the local tribes and slaves from Africa and these influences show. The building types in the old town are a mix of Spanish colonial, post-colonial South American, Caribbean and African styles. Cartagena is traditionally a very rich port as it was on the main trade route between South America and Spain. All the gold that was stolen from the natives passed through this town, which made it a prime target for pirates. There is a total of 14 forts in this town, huge city walls and a harbour that is half blocked off for protection. The city has been under siege 5 times, mostly from the English. Sir Francis Drake was the only successful one and he stormed into the main square with a cannon and demanded that everyone give up their jewels or he will destroy the beautiful cathedral. After an hour he was still not satisfied so he fired a shot through the cathedral doors and soon enough, everyone brought out their treasures. Doesn't it make you proud you to British?

We also went up to the highest point in the city at 150m. We had to pass through the rough area of town to get there and when we got out we were bombarded with sellers trying to sell us stuff. One old guy had a smiley sloth which you could have a photo taken with for the extortionate price of £5, but it was so cute it was worth it. I turned a blind eye when the owner pinched its neck to get it to face forwards for the camera.

We also visited the largest fort which guarded the main entrance to the city.

It was a public holiday in Colombia that weekend and a couple of the plazas had stages set up for a free festival. We ate at a restaurant called Crepes & Waffles, which seemed to be the only reasonably priced restaurant within the city walls, and then headed towards the music. The beer sellers on the street looked at Dee like she was nuts when she asked for wine and after journeying around for a long time looking some, she went home while I stayed with some others and drank good ole beer.

The next morning we headed out to the city beach at Bocagrande. We were told this beach was dirty and busy, but we liked the atmosphere and the water was warm and (seemingly) clean. Every few seconds someone would appear trying to sell fruit, ice creams, beads, arepas, 'real' ray bans, ashtrays, crabs etc. Dee liked it because it was like shopping but without having to walk round shops. I spent almost all the time in the bath-temperature sea until we had to go back for our trip to the mud volcano.

An hours drive from the city took us to the mud volcano; a 25m pillar of mud rising from the ground with steps leading to the top. A quick change into our swimmers and the 9 of us scaled the steps to the platform at the top. The mud pool was full of grey, sloppy, clay-like mud. We descended down the ladder (me first) into the warm mud below. The mud is 400m deep but it is impossible to sink below your chest. Even trying to hold yourself under is hard. Moving around is almost impossible, except if you lay on your back and let someone push you. Whatever position you move into, the mud supports you and you float in that position. Within minutes it was hard to tell people apart as they all look like scary stone statues with lifelike eyes. It is supposed to be good for your skin but I don't know if that's true. Entry is free but there are a lot of people who work there and they all expect tips. There was a kid helping me down the steps into the mud, 2 masseurs in the mud, a photographer who took my camera and sandals, and some women who washed me when I got out. There had been a storm brewing for quite a while and when it started raining the mud splattered into everyone’s eyes. The masseurs screamed "Peligro!" (danger!) - the rain was making the mud splat up into our eyes, so we climbed up the ladder, holding onto our swimming costumes for dear life, as the mud was heavy and pulling them down. We skated down the steps to where women were waiting to lead us to a warm lagoon and wash the mud off our bodies, out our ears and even asked us to get naked and gave our bum cracks a quick rinse. It was definitely one of the weirdest things we have done on this trip.

That evening we went back to Crepes & Waffles again because Dee liked the cheap salad bar (only £2 for a serve-yourself salad).

The next day in Cartagena was spent on the beach again and that night ventured outside the city walls to Bocagrande in search of a cheaper restaurant, but managed to find one that was only slightly cheaper.

After the meal we all decided to go to the casino. I changed up the £1.50 I had left from our daily budget and stood with the others at the roulette table, much to the disapproval of Dee. I was happy to stand back and watch for a while, while the others lost their money. Randomly, Dee wanted me to put some money on black 10. To humour her I put 1 chip on that number and amazingly, it came in! I won nearly £5 on my first bet. She wasn't as lucky again, so I cashed in my (or, now according to Dee, 'our') winnings and bought a couple of beers at a bar before heading back.

Our last day in Cartagena was also spent on the beach and that evening we tried to go to a different restaurant, but couldn't afford it, so went back to Crepes & Waffles again.

We stopped at the delicious stawberries & cream place on the way back to Bogota and the coffee table bedded hotel. We were going to see the new Indiana Jones film that night - a film I had been excited about seeing since it was released a week ago. A lot of the group went to eat at Hard Rock Café which we couldn't afford (£12 for a burger) so we met them after. The film was good clean fun and me and Dee went back to our separate dorm rooms because there was only one double bed in the whole hotel, and it was the other couples turn that night.

I don't really think we have made the most of Bogota. There's a lot that the city has to offer (like the world famous gold museum), but on our budget of only 50,000 pesos a day, there's not much we could get out of it.

So we headed out of Bogota on a local chartered coach to the town of Villa de Leyva. A small town, popular with tourists, it was built in the seventeenth century then abandoned after the revolution and not lived in again until the 1950s, so all the original architecture and cobblestones still exist.

Half way into our journey we stopped at the Salt Cathedral of Zipaquirá. Here the miners had decided to honor the productivity of the salt mine by building a cathedral underground. Not all the group went - Ollie thought this wasn't worth paying £4 to see, but I was intrigued. We headed down into the opening of the mine to be greeted by carved salt steps, with blue lights illuminating the crystals in the angel and cross carvings. It was a labyrinth of high corridors and huge chapels with giant salt alters. I thought it was mystical and impressive, some Catholics thought it was offensive (being underground where hell is meant to be - freaks), either way, well worth my 4 quid.

The next stop Ollie enjoyed and I hated, we stopped along one of the highways to buy fresh strawberries and homemade cream. I had some strawberries; Ollie had mainly cream with a strawberry topping.

Dusk was fast approaching as we pulled into Villa de Leyva. It took us a long time to reach the small hacienda we were staying in, as the narrow streets challenged the skills of our coach driver, but we made it in the end. The hacienda owner took us on a quick town tour (it was dark by this point, by the end of it we still had no idea what Villa de Leyva looked like) but we did see the old mill, old brewery and church. And fell over the old cobblestones.

Back at the hacienda a local band greeted us and played music around the campfire while we drank the local sugar cane alcohol 'aguardiente' (like weak sambuca) served warm with cinnamon.

The next morning we were going rapelling so got into our mucky clothes ready for a 50m decline into the La Romera cave. 6 of us got into the back of a small jeep and endured the hour long drive to the cave location - remember roads are pot-holed dirt tracks here; the drive was painful. We all got into our harnesses and one by one abseiled down into the cave. After the cannoning the other week I felt like a bit of a pro, jumping down most of it and really enjoying it. Ollie went smoothly too, however one of the guys just couldn't get the hang of it and basically ended up upside down, lying sideways on the rock face, infact any position that you can't actually absail in. We walked for an hour or so in the cave that was actually more of a huge cavern once you were down, saw a family of bats sleeping and got really, really muddy. As I was walking through the cave the guide told us it had only one entrance and exit, (the way we entered) they used to chuck unfaithful females in the cave as punishment. Nice. Never the mans fault is it?!? This is when it occurred to me - how the hell do we get out. He said climb, I laughed "no really- how we get out?". Straight-faced "climb" he repeated. I learnt there was a small pulley system, but people had to climb out first to use it. Ollie volunteered to be one of the first to climb out unaided to help with the pulley. "Crap", I thought, we're doomed to live in cave, but fair play to him he lived up to his monkey man name and shot up the 50m cliff like Spiderman on a sugar rush. The last guy was the one who couldn't absail, he can't climb either. It was taking an average of 10mins to get up, 40min in he was hanging half way up saying he couldn’t feel his arms and the guys on the pulley couldn't lift him without his help. I couldn't do anything but laugh, I know, tempting fate, cos I'd not had my go yet, but it was seeing his dead weight dangling and the guys sweating and swearing on the pulley that had me in stitches. When it came to my go I think the pulley boys had a bit of a system going cos as soon as the guide said 'ready' I found myself launched halfway up the cliff in some kind of cartoon reverse bungee, telling them to slow down while I tried to avoid oncoming branches. I made the top in less than 2min.

We stopped at Angel Step on the way back that afternoon. It was pouring with rain as we followed a small path on top of a ridge between two valleys. As we came to the highest point the path narrows to only 30cm with a 150m sheer drop into a river one side and a 250m sheer drop the other. The guide told us to walk over it on the right, as the left was overhanging and unstable. I looked at it, turned round, and refused to walk over it. If I’m not jumping off it, or abseilling off it, hell, if I've not got a rope attached to me I'm taking no chances.

The next day I realised I must have done some climbing when I had to get Ollie to help me get dressed cos I couldn't lift my arms above my head.

Our flight from Ipiales to Bogota was delayed so we played cards at the airport till the propeller plane arrived to take us to the Colombian capital. It was lunch by the time we got to Bogota so we ate a quick bite at the airport (my second McDonald's in 10 years, and the same price as England) and got a minibus to our hotel. The Jewish-run hotel we were at had beds with mattresses harder than coffee table. Actually, I think coffee tables are softer. Dont do what Tamar did and jump onto the bed to relax - youll end up breaking your arse bone. We didn't have time to relax though, as we were met by the tourist police to be taken on a tour of the city. It felt funny walking around with 3 too-young looking, armed policemen as they showed us the important buildings in the Old Town area. We stood and had photos taken with the president's guards outside his presidential palace. A couple of street sellers and beggars came up to us in the main square and they were scared off by the tourist police's stern stare. Simon Bolivar is an important man in South America, as he headed the resistance against the Spanish and eventually won independence. He was from Colombia and nearly every important building or statue has something to do with him. Even the country Bolivia is named after him.

Because of the McDonalds we had earlier, we couldn't afford to go out for the group meal so had some disgusting local food called 'arepas' instead from a dirty local restaurant. Arepas are basically flour and sweetcorn mashed up and grilled, with salt-flavoured cheese inside and melted margarine. Dee liked the bland, powderey taste however and she ate mine while I went hungry.