Although not as exciting as taking a boat from Panama we boarded a dinky little twin engine plane with a handful of other tourists and bade Central America a fond farewell. As interesting as it was unexpected (given we never intended to visit that region) it gave us some truly wonderful beaches, plenty of wildlife, really friendly people, and of course that unforgettable volcano which has satisfied so many childhood dreams...we still can't believe they let us play with lava!

We touched down in the famed walled city of Cartagena late in the evening and quickly teamed up with the other backpackers on the plane to share a taxi. There were 7 of us in total, two Brits, a Spaniard and two others who spoke some unfathomable language but seemed to get the gist of what everyone else was saying. The Spaniard, let's call him Pedro, took control, immediately entering into some very aggressive haggling for the 15 min taxi ride into town. The driver wouldn't budge from 10,000 pesos but Pedro's friends had recently got a cab for 8,000 so he was refusing to pay more. We tried to subtly remind him it was almost midnight which might explain the increased fare and, after all, IT WAS ALMOST MIDNIGHT SO WHO CARES! He continued to argue in vain with the driver while we and a guy from Leicester made a break for it, agreed the price and left him with the unfortunate 3 others arguing over 2000 pesos, a saving of around 64 Great British pennies to be split equally between 4.....we felt he may have lost his perspective somewhere along the way!

The following day we set about exploring what is, truth be told, a pretty nice colonial city. We tackled the most important task first.....scope out the cheap eats. Things weren't that much different from Central America, only now the standard fare was called a corriente which constituted a soup, a plate of rice, meat, fried plantain, beans, and a juice. All of this for less than £1.30 provided you aren't fussy about where you eat and who cooks it!  Every now and then though a place tries to go a little upmarket and swaps out the perfectly good vegetable soup for intestine soup. We have consumed some dubious cuts of meat on our trip so far but still cannot quite bring ourselves to chow down the parts of an animal primarily concerned with the transportation of crap. It simply doesn't sit well. Standards have however slipped. Once upon a time such a dish would have immediately triggered the gag reflex and been quickly removed from sight. Now we simply eat the soup from around the offending organ, leaving a pile of intestines for the cook to no doubt scrape back into the pot for the next unsuspecting customer....

We had heard about a rather intriguing site a couple of hours outside of Cartagena called Volcan De Lodo El Totumo. What made this different from other volcanoes was that rather than spewing lava it oozed mud, and not just any old mud but the kind that apparently makes you look 10 years younger! Of course everything we read suggested you could only visit on an organised tour so of course we set out to prove them all wrong. After a couple of false starts we finally found ourselves on a chicken bus headed in what we hoped was the right direction, praying the driver had understood our garbled Spanish attempts at 'we are stupid gringos so please tell us when to get off'. We were just starting to worry when the bus pulled over and every single passenger turned round to tell us it was our stop. Clearly we are not quite as inconspicuous as we like to think! It was all very nice though and so many people seemed genuinely happy to see a tourist...and not one person tried to sell us anything, well apart from some amazing cinnamon biscuits which were most welcome!

We arrived at the volcano just in time to wave farewell to the hordes brought in on the tours and settled down with a beer to assess the situation. After hiring a guy to take photos of us in order to avoid breaking another camera we tentatively lowered ourselves into the thick gloop. It is an odd sensation swimming around in what looks and feels like chocolate sauce. We can however testify to the fact that it doesn't taste anything like chocolate. On occasions a bubble of gas will reach the surface bringing with it an interesting smell, much like a fart in a bathtub. This prompts everybody to flash the 'it wasn't me, honest' look at each other. Further amusement was to be had watching the rather rotund haul themselves out like wallowing hippos, regularly flashing more than would be allowed before the watershed. After we had rolled the clock back 10 years and being mindful of our dignity we waddled off to the lagoon where a couple of old ladies gave us a good scrubbing down. It's safe to say they weren't shy about where they scrubbed!

A couple of days later, after the last of the mud had been washed from our ears, we headed along the coast to Taganga, a little fishing village gearing up to become a future backpacker hangout. We spent a couple of relaxing days on the beach, unable to resist the deckchairs which wouldn't have looked out of place on Brighton beach. A fair number of people come here to take their diving certification as it's a pretty cheap place to do it. We haven't managed a dive for a while now since, compared with the diving we did in Asia, it really is lousy in this part of the world. We have been thoroughly turned into diving snobs!

We left Taganga, along with a nice old lady called Beverly who was going the same way, and travelled the 10 hours to Bucaramanga. We had no intention of spending more than a night so after putting our Spanglish to good use we managed to score a cheap room in someones house just down the road from the bus station. The locals were most intrigued by us, having never entertained gringos before, and so we spent the evening chatting and drinking, all the while clutching our Spanish dictionary since nobody spoke English. Sam spent a fair amount of time fending off the amorous advances of a couple of young drunk lads, whilst I had the undivided attention of an old toothless guy who kept on insisting I call him when we reached the Capital for reasons that remained unclear. We eventually retired, Sam having been offered 'alternative' sleeping arrangements by the young drunk guys and me clutching a piece of paper with a weird old mans phone number on it....it certainly was an interesting night!