Hot Caribbean nights

Fairly uneventful flights on Tuesday from Manizales to Bogota and then on to Cartagena in the north of Colombia.

We have seen a fair bit of colonial architecture on the trip but Cartagena has a better preserved and bigger historic centre than any other place we have visited. The population is actually over a million but most live outside of the walled city. Having said that, and despite the very touristy but cheap and effective way to see the sights pictured above, the centre of Cartagena is surprisingly free of Enlgish speaking tourists and seems in many ways a typical bustling South American city - although the people are quite different to many of the places we have visited - there are no indigenous Andean people - the influence here is very strongly Caribbean.

The weather has been pretty good - just very hot and humid. Temperatures of around 32 degrees during the day, only dropping to 26 degrees at night. Very glad of the large fan in the room supporting the less than effective air conditioning. Great though to have that 'holiday moment' when you step off the plane and are hit by the heat!

Views of the old town - and a glimpse of the more modern resort developments further down the coast.

Noticeably more expensive than much of South America - blame it on the cruise ships from the United States which regularly dock close to the city centre. Seems a safe place although pretty sure someone tried to unzip Tina's bag walking along the main street today!

Good to relax for a few days - will be changing hotels tomorrow as the one we are in at the moment is fully booked from tomorrow but have found a nice 'boutique' hotel (i.e small!) with a good balcony.

Strange to think that Cartagena is our final destination of the trip (apart from a stopover in Quito) and we will be on our way home this time next week - still, all good things have to come to an end - and we have to get back to working for a living (and Ian definitely needs a haircut!)