Cartagena day 2

This is where we spent our weekend, el Parque Nacional Tayrona, home to the most beautiful beach we have ever seen, with Miami, New Jersey, Fort Lauderdale, Costa Rica, and the Virgin Islands between us. Sure, Costa Rica´s had the forest attached, but did it have these awesome rocks??

And was there gold in the sand, as Ian believes these shiny specs are?

We camped out for 3 nights, thus making it the longest time I have ever spent outside in fresh air. The trees from the forest made things only slightly cooler. On the second day we took about a 3 hour hike through the forest, with our lives threatened by holes between the rocks, rivaling our hike in Hawk Mountain, where if you fell off the rocks there, at least they would find your body. Here there was no chance, as underneath us were effectively caves.

Parting was hard, but we wanted to get to Cartagena. We spent Monday night back in Taganga, where a dance troupe of local knee-highs danced some afro-Colombian beats (I think it was mapale) at our hostel. Yes Ian was dancing with them!! :-) Tuesday we headed 4 hours west along the coast the next day via bus arranged through our hostel, to get to where I report from now. Cartagena is much more charming and picturesque than Santa Marta, and some prices to match, that is, in Colombian pesos. We are mostly exploring el Centro Historico (downtown historic center, see photo), where our hotel is also located. Not doing much beach time, as it´s hard to live up to what we saw over the weekend, so we´re spending most of the time checking out the museums and the sights and outside architecture, as well as not trying to spend too much on all the trinkets on the street.

So M si hay algo cartegenero que usted quiere, dile a P que me lo esriba aqui or en email antes de que salimos aqui el viernes. Y dime tambien que quiere de Santa Marta. Al menos la llamare antes de volver a USA.

btw, mi Spanish is no very good-lookeen.