Carribean Carousing

The whole 15 hour bus ride from San Gil to Cartagena I hid underneath a hoodie from the super-A/C and the swarm of children, whose presence on an overnight bus is akin to running a marathon with a piece of glass in your shoe. I arrived to the anticipated carribean sizzle that makes being a creature only of the night the desired thing to do. So, while awaiting Amy Smith´s arrival on Saturday, myself, an Aussie named Tristan, and an Israeli named Dor spent the following 4 nights soaking up the carribean culture. Salsa beats and aji spiked rice are an everyday encounter, while the humidity is enough to make you sweat out the entire night. I finally met a culinary foe I could not conquer when eating a local´s restaurant I was given a bowl of soup with the hacked off chicken feet protruding out at me from the soup. This was no chicken fingers from Applebees, it was the real deal and it was nasty. And so the line was finally found in South America. My appetite stops at unskinned extremities.

Saturday brought Amy´s arrival and the whirlwind of activies has begun. Yesterday day and night was spent touring the old city and today brought an excursion to the "mud volcano," which when I first heard other travelers talk about this I thought they were using code words for what happened when they ate bad seafood. But actually, not far from Cartagena exists a mound of earth with a core 2,500m deep with liquified clay at the top in which you soak in. Don´t ask me the scientific details of how or why this came to be because I don´t know. But, it was one pretty bizzare experience for Amy and I. Explanatory pics and a movie to be posted later as this computer is going schizo on me for the moment.

Hopping a boat for the island of Playa Blanco tomorrow to peel shrimp and my skin all day.

Until later,

Brian