So I'm not going to start from the beginning because thats a bit too scary. So we'll begin with our most recent experience of Taganga. After a week of being spoilt rotten by our friends Kerryanne and Conner in Bogota we decided to be lazy and fly up to the Carribean coast instead of busing it.
Our first impressions were a bit underwhelming. Lonely planet describes it as a small backwater fishing village that doesnt quite know whats hit it, and thats pretty accurate. It was cloudy and oppressively hot and humid when we arrived, so you couldnt really see the stunning rolling hills that surround it. Instead we drove along heavily littered streets to Hostel Bayview, which was everything I had been dreading that hostels might be like. It was dirty and cramped, with a group of unnecessarily loud teenage trustaffarions mooching around talking rubbish, all topped off with a stoned porter. We couldn't face walking round with our bags in the heat, so we booked one night there and decided to go for a walk, feeling decidedly dispondent. I got the impression that backpackers like this place so much because of the lack of police presence. Although thats changing as the police do a round of the whole town at 1am every night to ensure that all the bars are closed. It seems however that police don't like walking uphill, as everyone just walks up to a bar on the outskirts of town which stays open as long as there are people buying drinks.
Despite all this, some food and a wander round allowed us to see a bit more of the coast and we managed without too much hassle to swap rooms to Casa de Felipe which was a beautiful big hostel, with shady gardens strewn with hammocks and a beautiful mirador with a view down to the sea. And we saved 5000 cops! woohoo! We spent the night hanging out with 2 french, 2 norwegians, 2 swiss and a guy from Alaska on the Mirador and I felt very much at home - even with the electrical blackout that lasted the rest of the night.
We went scuba diving the next day, which is really cheap there. We had a really nice tutor who took us on two dives off the back of a boat, just like in the movies. The visibility wasn't great, but we saw loads of different fish, and when we surfaced there was the most amazing sunset. It was Dermot´s first ever dive and he thought it 'wasnt that amazing' (?!#%?!) but I really liked it.
The best bit was definitely Park Tayrona. Its a national park a bus ride away from Taganga. One entry pass allows you to stay there for up to four days and you can camp there or sleep in a hammock. Our journey there was made all the more exciting when somebody smelt smoke in the minibus and we realised that the engine was on fire, but we made it there in the end. Once you get to the entrance its a 45 minute walk through the jungle to the first beach. Well, its not quite jungle, I think the book calls it a semi-dry forest or something, but it felt very jungley. We stayed in Arrecifes in Finca Don Pedro which was an idylic opening in the forest dotted with palm trees and banana plants. There seemed to be two families living there, one ran the restaurant and the other the bakery. As well as the obligatory selection of dogs (they are everywhere in colombia) they also kept ducks and turkeys, which at night were replaced by frogs and bats. 
There are three beautiful beaches in the park and you walk through the jungle to get to them. There are huge butterflies, crabs and a wierd giant guineapig type thing. The dawn chorus was beautiful, and day and night we were treated to a cacophony of insects who rivalled the car alarms in Bogota. We saw two troups of monkeys. The first were a type of Lima that only survives in Colombia. The second troup looked like Cappucins. There were loads of them and some of them got really close. We decided to move on when we realised that a couple of them were squaring up to us though. Unfortunately we didnt see any pelicans though
The wierdest thing we saw was the ants, they had ant motorways cutting accross the paths and through the forest, six lanes wide. Some of the lanes just had ants going in both directions, others had ants carrying leaves and petals back and forth and sometimes you'd see one that had been abandoned, with no ants at all, just bits of leaves left on the ground. Dermot thinks they are planning something big.
The beaches are stunning and more rugged than I was expecting. They were strewn with huge boulders that look like they had been picked up and scattered about by giants. Some of them were split clean in half. The government had built huge artificial reefs around most of the beaches to make them safe to swim in and the sea was crystal clear, although still not completely free of litter, which I was pretty shocked by.
We stayed for two nights instead of the one we had planned. But hammocks sound a lot more comfortable than they actually are so we couldn't face a third night in the end. Once again my attempt at packing light basicly involved not bringing most of the things that I actually needed - so getting home to a proper shower and a bed was very welcome. Unfortunatley the fan in our room started making the most horrific noise as soon as we got into bed. So it was another sleepless night choosing between a sweltering room or the deafening noise of a fan that sounded like it was going to fall on our heads at any moment. Dermot snored through most of it, and of course as soon as we got up the fan magically fixed itself so there was no point in complaining.
So now we are in Cartagena, a colonial city 4 hours along the coast. The historic centre is beautiful and there is a nice relaxed atmosphere. Nevertheless after park Tayrona it feels a bit artificial and touristy. To be honest I feel quite relieved to be in a proper city with an ATM that works and a supermarket that has proper food in it. We are staying in the Media Luna Hostel in Dorms. Its a big old colonial building with a pool and sun lounges. It also has a giant alsation whose favourite past time is to stand right on the edge of the pool, poised as if its going to jump right in, but it never does. Its really nice but I can't shake the feeling that I've stumbled into a frat house. There's a party here tonight so I'll reserve judgement until then, although the free jelly shots aren't instilling me with much hope!
Anyway, I've talked far too much already so I'll leave it at that. Next stop Medellin!
And a computer that will recognize my sd card so that I can put up photos! (hopefully)
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