Cartagena

Even though we had made it into Colombia, we were still in the middle of nowhere. Leticia is very well connected by river but unfortunately there are no main roads for 800km. Bob (the truck) was still on a slow boat somewhere in the Amazon basin, but even if he had made it to Colombia by now, there would be no way he could get anywhere near Leticia – what with there being no roads!
So our only option was to fly. We hopped on a flight to Bogota, had a quick change and before we knew it, we were in Cartagena. It was a bit of a culture shock as the place was heaving with tourists, particularly Americans who were there for their spring break holiday. This was the first place we had really encountered other tourists and we had certainly not been anywhere this busy before.
On our first evening, we were advised to go go to a local square outside a church. At 8pm, after the church service had finished, giant speakers were set up and hundreds of people started joining in a free zumba session! Unlike the keep fit sessions at home, street sellers were going around selling beers and snacks to the spectators!It was a very unusual sight!

The following day, we walked around the streets of Cartagena looking specifically for the street art. We could have joined a tour but it was fun to turn corners wondering if we would find any more examples. Street art is very important in Colombia and the standard of the murals is outstanding. Some of the pieces take up walls, sides of buildings, even half of a tower block! All the pieces of work have meaning attached to them as we would find out later when we visited other cities.
James (from our group) had been to Cartagena before around 10 years ago and he had been talking for weeks about how we would be able to find a sloth in one of the main squares in the city. We had been very impressed with our previous sloth sighting but to be fair, all we had really seen was a bundle of brown in a tree a far distance away! James was convinced we would be able to get close to a wild sloth. So armed with his very hazy memory of 10 years earlier, he took us to the square outside the old city (the square is like a mini park with lots of trees) and he carefully peered into and around every tree in the area. Much to everybody’s surprise – he found exactly what he had promised – a sloth! I was able to get the most amazing photos of the three-toed sloth. Turns out the sloth is not the only creature who lives in this area, an iguana crossed the path, as did a red squirrel and a monkey!

There is an old walled city that looks over the Caribbean sea and it was very pleasant to walk around the miles of outer wall. It did remind me of another walled city I know! The sheer amount of tourists though, that were in the old city did get tiresome so a few of us decided to have a day on the beach. Unfortunately, it turns out there is absolutely nothing to eat on the beach, if you don’t eat meat! After surviving on a diet of a couple of packets of crisps, we tried to be healthier and practice our yoga poses. Needless to say, we are not naturals!