Quito

I´m writing this in old city of Quito, the capital of Equador, where I arrived last night.

Like Bogota it is high up in the Andes mountains and has a very pleasant climate. Unlike Bogota it has an imposing colonial centre, large three and four-storey buildings festooned in exuberant carving and painted in bright but harmonious colours. There are also more squares, shaded avenues and churches. Bogota´s colonial centre, the Candelaria, where I have been living, seems to have happened by accident when forgotten pioneers all chose to live on the side of the same hill. Because of this it is on a much more modest scale with no sense of ever having been planned or designed. As well as dictating the climate, the Andes, I think, also affect the nature of the people. Like in Bogota they seem conservative, reserved and generally polite. I often heard while traveling around Colombia that there is such a thing as an Andean personality, marked by a certain melancholy, which gets more pronounced the higher you go. I generally heard this spoken of as a bad thing by people who lived at sea level and spent most of their time swinging in hammocks and swapping fish for mangos.

Anyway, so much for Quito - I won´t really have much time to explore it as I have to find a flight from Madrid (where I arrive on Thursday) back home. Anyone who knows me will understand the difficulty of this - computers were put on this earth to taunt and frustrate me and I hate relying on them to get stuff done. I´d rather break my toes with a small toffee hammer than search through budget flight websites. Just when I think I´ve got it sorted I´m told my card number is wrong, or that I haven´t specified my reason for travel or that I haven´t correctly entered my inside leg measurement.

In case I haven´t mentioned it I´m heading back to Blighty for the summer, in particular for the wedding of my cousin Andy and Ellie on Friday afternoon. The question of whether to return has been simmering away for quite some time, and the constant lingering indecision helped my last month in Bogota fly by as though it was a long weekend.

We had another film crew in the palace the other day, which again earned us a few pesos to cover the rent. Their production was a story of two old sisters who rent rooms in their ancestral home. Two of the lodgers turn out to be thieves, and after lots of running around on the front terrace they are shot by the police. Then it turns out that the money was originally stolen by the one of the old ladies from her sister, who she then kills. A simple tale of everyday life in Bogota I suppose. Us, the tenants, ended up crowded round a table on the back patio, trying our best to be quiet - which, of course, set us all off giggling throughout the afternoon. Some Colombian friends of ours arrived and were gobsmacked - apparently all the actors, and the two old ladies in particular, are very famous here. It would be like walking into somebody´s house and finding Mollie Sugden and Patricia Routledge rolling around on the front room carpet.

Actually, it was probably the same sensation I had when I saw an English friend of mine towering over a skyscraper like King Kong. The lad, known as Fotty, was injured out of a football career a few years ago but was sensible enough to have invested his money wisely along the way. He is now spending a while in Bogota with his girlfriend, a model, who sorted him out with a very lucrative day´s work advertising beer. Perhaps better than the money was the chance to spend the day with the legendary Aguilar girls. These are the official faces of Aguilar beer, which is brewed in Barranquilla, Shakira´s hometown. Every year they find the four most beautiful girls in the city, and, for twelve months, they are the nation´s sweethearts. It is arm in arm with these lovelies that Fotty looms over the city in all his plywood glory. He´s plastered over all the bus stops as well, which has put him off using public transport because of all the double takes he gets from fellow passengers.

After the crew had finished we headed out to a party at a friend´s art centre for the release of a new music video. We arrived hopelessly late and just caught the end of the band´s live performance. My first instinct was to hide - it was the same band Chappy and I had gone to a party with hundreds of miles to the south in San Augustine. That evening had ended under quite a cloud of hostility after they had started prancing around the room wibbling incomprehensible Spanish that was designed to confuse us. We both bridled at this and responded by flicked peanuts at them. Fortunately they didn´t notice me skulking around in the shadows and so couldn´t denounce me from the stage.

The next morning a Colombian friend of ours, Alejandra, turned up to take me, Little Dave and Janey (a friend from New Orleans) to her parent´s home in Villavicencia for the weekend. This is a little town two hours straight down the side of the Andes from Bogota, which makes it pleasantly tropical.

Soon after we arrived it was time to head out to the town´s famous club, I can´t remember the name, but it´s named after the local version of maracas made out of hollowed and dried bull testicles. It was an enormous place, like Mangos in Medellin but without the fighting dwarfs. They had a lot of the typical music of the region, called Llanera. This is performed by four or five chaps dressed as cowboys and is based around the sound of a giant harp, the sort more usually played by medieval Irish princesses than gunslingers. The dancing that accompanies this style is known as Joropa, after a local river. This is a cross between salsa and frantic tap dancing, quite an impressive effect. It brings to mind the odd ´paso fino´ gait that is unique to Colombian horses, and so in turn conjours images of Tina Turner.

The next evening Ali´s dad took us out for a game of tejo, another thing only found in Colombia. It dates back to a game played by indian tribes and involves throwing heavy metal discs (about the size and shape of mince pies) at slanting boards covered in soft clay. The right throw will see the discs sticking into the clay with a satisfying thud. More satisfying is hitting the small packets of explosives stuck to the clay, which explode with a giant crack and puff of smoke when struck. It´s a bit like the game called ranas, in which players try to throw smaller discs into the mouths of metal frogs. You need to see it I think.

As it was a bank holiday we headed back to Bogota on Monday, eager to discover what had happened to Jess, who had lost patience with waiting for everyone to get organised for the trip to Alejandra´s and so had headed out by herself.

Her story didn´t disappoint. Soon after arriving in a town a few hours past Villavicencio she had gone for a walk to find the river in the town. As she wandered blondely through the streets she was approached by an army captain. "What are you looking for? Do you need any help?"

"Yes," she said, "I´m looking for a canoe." And so did a romance begin. Later that day she was taken to his barracks to meet his men and his coronel and to have a sit in all the helicopters. Then he asked if Jess would accompany him to the medical centre, because he needed his daily injection. "I saw him get injected in the bottom," Jess said later, "the needle was huge." She asked him if the injection, which apparently also contained drugs to keep him awake and alert, were dangerous. "Oh no," he assured her. "They´re not dangerous, but next week I have to exchange one-and-a-half litres of blood with my grandmother."

The next day he asked if she wanted to go out into the jungle with him to drop off a sniffer dog with a unit of special forces out on operations in the red zone. Apparently the unit did have a dog with them, but it was the wrong one. Apparently they´d taken a biter rather than a sniffer by mistake. So off they went into the war zone on a dangerous dog-swapping mission. After the handover the dog they had brought was taken off by helicopter, the soldiers melted into the jungle and they were left to find their own way home. It was then that Jess discovered just how difficult it is to hitchhike in a war zone, particularly when accompanied by a uniformed soldier and a dog bred and trained to be particularly vicious.

As Jess was recounting her adventures she got a call from her captain with some troubling news. Apparently his first job after waving her goodbye was to guard a large consignment of hand grenades and top-secret army documents. "I only turned my back for a moment," he explained, "and when I got back they´d been stolen by the rebels."

This lent a certain paranoia to the house for a few weeks. Naturally, we assumed, the captain would soon find himself strapped to a chair and encouraged with lengths of hosepipe to give a full and frank account of everything he´d been up to recently. It couldn´t go unremarked that he´d been in the company of a mysterious western woman who´d been wandering around the area with some cock-and-bull story about looking for canoes. I for one was convinced that the palace would soon be visited by the military police.

As it turned out the knock never came, but the captain did come and visit for dinner a few weeks later. It was quite interesting to find out about his life in the Colombian army´s special forces. He said how his tours in the jungle were six months, a long way from his home in Medellin and usually chest deep in water. This is water, it must be remembered, that contains some of the world´s most ferocious and unpleasant creatures. He also gave some insight into just how dirty the war is out there. "It is always difficult to shoot rebels, particularly if they are pregnant women or children - but they are the most ruthless and would kill you without hesitation," he explained between mouthfuls of Paxo sage and onion stuffing.

But despite all these very real worries in his working life, he reserved his deepest fear for much less tangible things. "Witches!" he said. "That is the worst thing about being in the jungle. You can be wading across a river and they will be there right behind your shoulder. Then, suddenly, they can be miles away, and then somewhere else." He even imitated their cry, a cross between a scream of hatred and a wail of anguish.

Later he explained how the rivers were the natural dumping ground for casualties of the war, and how bereaved wives and mothers would gather on the bank to grieve as their loved ones floated away down various tributaries towards the Amazon, making, no doubt, very similar sounds to the witches. Somehow he´d never linked these two things together, but he did say that many witches turned to the devil in the first place to get revenge on those who had bereaved them. I know his belief in witches was sincere; at one point Jess told him she´d had a nightmare. "Witches!" he said. "You must mix mustard, honey and coriander leaves and leave it on your windowsill tonight, that´ll stop them giving you bad dreams." That struck me as a very good idea, because even if the witches could get past it you´d be left with a lovely marinade for chicken.

Anyway, the sun is starting to set on Quito, so it´s about time I started to look into the possibility of finding a pleasant spot for a beer.

death to the rich kids

It´s been a long time since I wrote, and there´s no excuse really, other than the fact that I have uneasy relationship with computers since my laptop was stolen. I can´t help but be annoyed by the ones that I use in internet cafes; all big and shiney and not nicked.

We had the film crew in the palace the other weekend. They´d agreed to pay us about seventy quid for using the palace, which we thought was a splendid reward for having a few people in the house waving camcorders around. Then the day of the shoot dawned and the doorbell went at about six in the morning.

Outside were about twenty people with two trucks full of equipment. There was a generator, a traintrack for lighting, various bits of scaffolding, a portable editing suite and lots of other things I don´t know the name of.

The film was about an eight-year-old boy who is dying of cancer. One night in his bedroom (which was Dave´s room repainted in a sombre blue) death appears to take him away. Somehow the boy ends up playing scrabble with death for his life.

Carl, the Swedish chap who has moved into the Billiards Room was quite outraged. "But that is just a copy of a very great Swedish film," he said. "Ingrid Bergman, the Seventh Seal. Playing chess with death." He got a bit more annoyed when I suggested that the Bergman film was plagarised from Bill and Ted´s Bogus Journey, where they played twister with death. "You are a very silly person," he said.

I had another taste of tear gas on May Day. Jess, Little Dave and I had walked down to the centre to see what was going on. We´d obviously missed the main riot, as Septima was already trashed. Shop windows were smashed, graffiti was daubed on every wall and troops of riot police were on every corner relaxing and eating their sandwiches.

Just as we thought everything was calm the robocops finished their packed lunches and decided to clear the centre of town. The first we knew was when the gas hit us. This must have been a new recipe, because it was so much more powerful than any I have ever experienced. It´s impossible to resist it or even giggle, as soon as it reaches your nose you have to run. Strangely, it didn´t seem to affect Bruno, who was quite relaxed by the whole thing.

As the lines of police began pushing the public away from the central square the anarchists and lefty warriors returned and started throwing rocks at them. It all seemed like a bit of a game. They´d turn up, make some noise, brandish sticks, throw a few cobbles and then run as the police surged forward. Each confrontation would end with the punks being replaced by the crowds of families who would reappear and start wandering around eating ice creams in the bank holiday sun.

Watching the clashes really brought home to me what a topsy-turvy world we live in. All the ´revolutionaries´ were clearly middle-class university students who are probably scions of very rich families. After all, imported Sex Pistols t-shirts and Doc Marten boots don´t come cheap here. The riot police, on the other hand, are all from the poorest families. National service can be avoided here if you can scrape together a few hundred dollars to buy your way out. They obviously couldn´t.

So there it was - rich kids throwing stones at poor boys in the name of international socialism. Something, surely, has gone wrong somewhere.

English rose

I've just heard the sad news that my dear friend Jenny has died. She passed away peacefully in her sleep on Friday, in her own bed and surrounded by friends.

After discovering a few weeks ago that her pneumonia was actually inoperable cancer and leukemia, she took the brave and somewhat old-fashioned decision to 'take to her bed' and await the end. She told me when I phoned her a few days ago that any treatment at her stage would be nothing more than a form of torture.

Reflecting on that phone call now reminds me of everything so wonderful about Jenny. Despite what she was going through, it seemed to be her who was comforting me. "Goodbye, George my love, take care of yourself," she said as we made our final farewells.

Or maybe those farewells weren't so final. On Saturday morning I woke up with the distinct impression of her laughter. Apparently she found it funny that I've overcome the problem of having too large a bedroom by putting a tent up in it. Perhaps it's just coincidence, but I know that she would have found it funny. Jenny always enjoyed my oddness, and camping in your own bedroom is, on reflection, an odd thing to do.

But there was a sensible reason for the tent. Over the past week or so the house has started to spew water (often out of the sewerage system) from the most unexpected places. It all started with complaints from Jess that there was a smell of poo coming from her en-suite bathroom. Obviously, living with a bunch of blokes, she didn't get much sympathy or active assistance, just giggling mockery and insinuation. Then the source of the smell became apparent, as foul water began to bubble through the drain in the middle of the room. Then the ceiling of the room underneath her at the back of the palace opened up, and a filthy brown torrent began splashing down onto the concrete floor. We called the landlord's odd-job man and he came round with the plumber. I think they've fixed it now, I'm not sure how - but it involved pulling down seemingly random sections of ceiling and smashing holes in the basketball court.

Despite its diminished circumstances, the house continues to act as a magnet for the great and good of Bogota. We've had a film crew in asking if they can hire a room for a few days and we've been offered about a hundred quid to host a charity party. We didn't have to think about the latter offer too long; the charity is run by a group of socially-concerned lingerie models.

I've been meeting a fair few models recently. On Wednesday we were all invited to the 20th anniversary bash of Latin America's fourth largest agency. My goodness, but some of those girls are tall.

Anyway, today is St George's day, and I feel the need to go and raise a few glasses to Jenny; who embodied all the finest qualities of the English, none of the bad ones and a whole host of others besides.

resurrection

I've just enjoyed the laziest and quietest easter I can remember. The palace was more-or-less empty, with Dave in the coffee region, Jess on the Rio Magdalena and Chappy at the Caribbean coast. This left just Chris and myself, along with one key for a broken front door, that could only be opened from the inside. In the spirit of messianic sacrifice I agreed to sequester myself in the palace for three days, starting, like Jesus in his tomb, on Good Friday.

The door was out of order because of the landlord's botched attempts at improving the security of the palace. The thieves got in last week through the garage door, which he had left secured by a single external padlock, saying he wanted his own access to the front courtyard. Since the break-in he has festooned the front of the house with a baffling array of locks, which would take a Hindu diety to open, if indeed they worked.

So it was that I spent easter as a prisoner in the palace, like the Man in the Iron Mask, but without the mask, and wearing pyjamas.

Despite not leaving the house I still got to join in the easter celebrations, with the neighbourhood procession passing right in front of the palace on Sunday night. This was led by a marching band, playing a bizarre medley of music including, I think, Colonel Bogey and the Damnbusters' March. Behind the musicians came a long line of hooded men - exactly like the Ku Klux Klan but in colour-coded robes - carrying statues of Jesus, Mary and various saints. These seemed to sway drunkenly on their flower-laden biers as they were carried up the hill. There were also chaps dressed as Roman centurians, which added a surreal aspect to an already odd event.

Following up behind was a large crowd of local people, all wearing looks of grave piety. I got a feeling of hostility from them as they passed me, Chris, Sam and Bruno standing in our doorway, and I wondered if this was because Chris was taking pictures. On the other hand it could have been because we were the only people not crossing ourselves furiously as the garish plaster icons staggered past us.

Semana Santa

I´m Back in Bogota now. I wasn´t having much fun down in the jungle because of the bad news I had about my friend. I also discovered that in my absence the palace had been broken into and my laptop stolen. So I was angry as well. I had a mental image of myself floating down the Amazon in a foul temper, glowering on a boat, cursing the dolphins and the anacondas. I think it defeats the point of messing about on the river if you´re trapped in a muttering rage and annoyed by trees and monkeys.

Thankfully, I got what I went for, which was a free three-month tourist visa. The man from the DAS (department of security administration) seemed a bit suspicious of me and asked lots of questions, to which I replied "what? sorry? I don´t understand." It seemed to do the trick, as he gave up asking me what I was doing in Bogota and gave me the maximum amount of time - out of sympathy, I think.

So now a quiet Easter week in Bogota beckons. The city is beginning to clear out at the moment, so it will be a nice relaxing place to be for a few days.

Rainy day

I´ve just had some terrible news from home. A very dear friend of mine has discovered that what she thought was pneumonia is in fact a lung tumour, with a dose of leukaemia thrown in for good measure. Suddenly, being by myself in a jungle border town feels lonely. That may seem like a selfish response to another person´s tragedy; but sometimes I suspect the essence of loneliness rests in not being able to help those you care about.

The rain began to fall today. Within minutes the streets were flooded, and soon the electricity supply was cut throughout the town. Some enterprising businesses turned on clunking generators, and I had to run back to the guesthouse to bring in the laundry I´d spent all day trying to wash in a museum-piece machine.

The downpour made a pleasant change to the scorching weather of yesterday, which left me terribly sunburnt after several trips to the Brazilian immigration office. I first got there shortly after noon to find a sign announcing that the office was shut from 12-2. With nothing else to be done I walked back over the frontier to Leticia, had lunch and wrote my last entry.

I walked back up after two and found a friendly chap behind the counter ready to help me. (Again, he spoke good English, which still amazes me about this place.) He took my passport and asked for my yellow fever vaccination form. I knew I needed it to get into Brazil, but in a fit of absent-mindedness I´d left it at the guesthouse. So it was another walk to and fro until I arrived, bright red and sweating, with every piece of paper I had in my possession.

He then asked me how long I needed the visa for. I could´ve just said "two weeks please, squire" but instead I poked my return plane ticket through the glass. He held it with his fingertips and regarded it with a look of perplexity. It was then I realised, or remembered, that it had "GOOD CRACK" scrawled across it in capital letters. As the immigration office was in the reception area of the federal police station, I didn´t fancy having to explain this message, which must have seemed to him like a very simple but highly illegal shopping list. He already knew that I was absent-minded, so he could well have assumed somebody had seen fit to remind me of what I needed to collect or something.

As it was he stamped my passport and I didn´t need to explain. I´m not sure if he would´ve understood or believed me if I´d tried: "Well, you see, er, last week we bumped into these Norwegan disk jockeys in the street, in Bogota, and invited them and their large female entourage back to our palace for a drink. One of them, the girls, used to live in the states and had a very annoying whining accent (that made her sound like a six-year-old asking to stop for a wee on a car journey) so myself and a friend from Middlesborough, yes, that´s right, the smog-bound industrial town in the north of England, decided to teach her some British turns of phrase. Including ´crack´, as in ´to have a good crack´. No, really, that´s why it´s written there. Please don´t do that to me with your truncheon . . ."

After finally getting all my paper in order, and officially being in Brazil at last, I headed back over the border to my guesthouse. I asked the lad there if he knew of anywhere to go for a drink. He said he was going out with his girlfriend and some other mates, and that I´d be welcome to join them. That sounded ok, so we went to call for his missus. When we got to her house we found ourselves in the middle of her ten-year-old sister´s birthday party. There was a huge cake on the coffee table and plastic cups full of alarmingly-coloured fizzy pop. (This stuff is actually made in the town, and carries the boast that it is "Leticialicious".) Despite my unexpected arrival I was suddenly designated as the guest of honour and given the first slice of cake. The mother underlined this hospitality by carefully retrieving one of the decorative sugar flowers and, using her little finger, poking it back onto the icing of my slice as she passed it to me.

The cake was soon demolished, and then it struck me that for the first time I was in the company of a family of fat Colombians. It was like a Botero painting. They were all cheerfully plump, except for the father who was as thin as a whip. Then I noticed that there were about a dozen sisters, and goodness knows how many cousins, and that he was the only one who didn´t have any cake. Perhaps the others trough their way through birthday treats on an almost daily basis.

After taking our leave with profuse thanks I was left on the corner smoking a tactful cigarette while the lad from the guesthouse had a whispered chat with his girlfriend. Later he told me that she was pregnant. "I am in such trouble. So much trouble. Her father is going to kill me. He´ll kill me!" There was nothing I could say to console him on that front. Her father did look like one of those wirey blokes with a penchant for sadism, and (judging by the collection of religious books and videos) was a bit of a bible-basher with high moral standards. Indeed, the first thing he said to me, as he handed me a cup of the bright pink Leticialicious stuff, was: "We don´t have strong drink in this house, except at Christmas." The poor lad is doomed - and all for a fat lass.

Leticia

As I write this near the banks of the river Amazon I am not officially in any country. I have been stamped out of Colombia at the tiny airport here, and haven´t yet made it to the police station over the frontier in Brazil. This isn´t a problem because the Colombian town of Leticia and the Brazilian town of Tabatinga merge into each other and it takes a trained eye to spot where they join. Movement across the border is entirely free, and all the shops here perform the mathematical miracle of taking payment in two currencies, often at the same time.

My main reason for being here is to leave Colombia for a few days and then re-enter the country as a tourist. The alternative would have been to spend a fortune sorting out a student visa in Bogota. I had to fly here as nobody has ever been foolish enough to attempt to drive a road through the miles and miles of jungle that surround the place. Apart from flying the mighty Amazon is still the main means of getting in and out of here. In the town itself everybody drives motorbikes or scooters. I suppose it´s hardly worth having a car when you only ever zip to the shops and back. It strikes me as quite a charming town, and surprisingly clean and orderly for an outpost in the middle of the jungle. The roads are broad and well-maintained with brightly painted shops and businesses along either side. I´ve also been struck by the amount of people who speak good English here - seemingly more than in Bogota. This could be because they all have to grow up speaking two languages - Spanish and Portugese - and so retain an aptitude for language learning. On the other hand I get the impression that they have long recognised that tourism is their main hope for the future here. This is also obvious from the amount of tour agencies and souvenir shops on every street. All they are missing are the tourists - but I think they are due to arrive in Easter, when Bogota and the other big cities empty out for the week.

I´m already being stalked by a tour guide who introduced himself as Mowglie when I arrived at the airport. I took his card out of politeness and asked the chap at my guest house if he would recommend him. ¨Well, he is a friend of mine, but I would not advise you to go with him. Last year he lost a German in the jungle. His parents came and stayed here to look for him, but nobody knows what happened to him. I think there are better companies to go with.¨

The last weekend in Bogota was, as usual, hectic. We ended up being invited to some sort of art show by a friend of a friend who is a famous soap opera star here. He´s obviously some sort of larger-than-life comedy actor in the shows, telenovelas as they´re called, and must be recognised a lot because he is constantly in character. This was a little wearing, as it was like spending the evening with a latino Frank Carson preparing for a season as Widow Twanky in the Birmingham Hippodrome pantomime. At the exhibition (which was in a pub near where I used to live) he was rather embarrassing. But I suppose because everybody else knew him from the telly they didn´t being roared at and crushed in giant unbidden bearhugs.

Hail!

The rainy season got underway today with a sudden clap of thunder and a fall of giant hailstones. This soon turned to sheets of rain which steadily filled up both of the patios, forming large pools in front of and behind the Palace. These began to grow and eventually the front lake began to spread into the Blenheim Suite (the living room), soaking the carpet. I had been worried that the Palace would leak, but apart from a few drips on the stairs we seem to be reasonably waterproof. Dave and Jess bravely dealt with the lake problem by rolling up their trousers and attacking the drains with bread knives. Amazingly this worked, and with a loud gurgling sound the waters began to subside. Now, for the next few months, life will be very different in Bogota. Umbrellas will again become indispensable items, and wet shoes a fact of life. In a way I'm quite looking forward to it - it was during the rainy season last year that I first fell in love with this place. The showers have the effect of washing the pollution out of the air and guarantee a daily show of rainbows that arch over the city and frame the green mountains beyond.

I'm also hoping that the rain and floods might help to stem the constant flow of visitors we have been receiving here. Hardly an hour goes by without somebody arriving at the door, which is nice, of course, but can get a bit much. The weekend was a case in point. Folk started turning up in twos and threes on Friday night, and before we knew it we had a full-blown party going on. We were all a bit bemused, because none of us had invited anybody. The same thing happened on Saturday, and throughout Sunday, when we had a roast pork dinner (with apple sauce, stuffing, roast potatoes, cauliflower cheese and gravy). There was no let up in the evening either. It was gone midnight and I was watching a film with Chris when the doorbell went. Standing there were two girls we know from the neighbourhood who announced that they were a bit tipsy, and just happened to be passing, and could they have a glass of wine or something? Naturally, we invited them in and had a pleasant chat for a few hours about the ghosts of the Candelaria. To be fair the girls earned their visiting rights with the bizarre and delightful assertion that their flat was haunted by the ghost of a 1970s hippy, called Fred.

At the moment we have a well-known author here interviewing a former child soldier who joined a paramilitary death squad after being rejected from the army because of his height. He wanted to enroll in order to avenge the death of his aunt, who was killed by guerrillas. I can't name the writer, because as soon as he finishes his book he will need to leave Colombia and never come back. He's been interviewing a few of these former killers here this week, charming fellas the lot of them, but I'm not sure how comfortable I am having them as house guests. I'm also beginning to question why he wants to do the interviews here, rather than at his luxury three-storey penthouse apartment in the north of the city. He says it's simply because his subjects all live in the south and the Palace is a good central meeting point. Hmm.

Sam has finally managed to emerge from his shamanic trance and has picked up Bruno. He said he didn't get to meet his 'power animal' or experience any particularly interesting visions. "The place was full of goddam hippies," he said, "and they all had their heads right up the asses of the shamans. These fat little dudes were sat around surrounded by gorgeous girls who were worshiping them. I gotta start a cult." He said the main effect of the drug was to induce vomiting. "It was like a symphony of puking, going on all around - bwah! bwah! bwah! You're supposed to vomit out all your negative energy, or whatever, but I just couldn't puke. The last night was horrible, I wouldn't recommend the experience. Too many hippies."

At the moment I'm entertaining a vain hope of having a quiet night tonight, but Wednesday in Bogota is a sort of mini midweek weekend. It's often busier than Friday and Saturday night, and going by experience the doorbell will start to ring at any time.

Aha! Right on cue; there goes the door. Let's just hope it's not another reformed murderer or a hippy from the spirit world. Whoever it is, I think I'll let them get rained on for a bit before I let them in. Ha!

Rat-rat-ratting

We've been looking after Bruno this weekend because his master, Sam, has been off taking ayahuasca (a potent hallucinogenic mushroom) with Amazonian shamans. They've traveled up from the jungle with their bags full of the stuff and are administering it to Bogotanos in some woods near the city. His thinking was that a visionary experience would provide him with some inspiration for his painting. I'm not sure it worked though; we spoke to him yesterday to ask when he wanted to pick up his dog: "Oh, right, hello," a weak voice croaked, "I'm sleeping. In a deep place. Can you keep him another day? I'm just . . .er . . . ok . . . yes . . . thanks." He didn't sound too happy about the whole experience, but then you never know what you're going to see when you peer into your soul under the stewardship of a wrinkled old cove in a pointed hat whose job is to hit you with a handful of feathers every now and then. Other people I've spoken to about taking the stuff describe moving encounters with their 'power animal'. Without exception these spiritual totems are creatures like panthers or wolves, the sort of animal that you'd be happy to show off to your friends. But what of those who end up with guinea pigs or Shetland ponies as their guides-to-other-dimensions? Maybe that's what happened to Sam; perhaps he was disappointed to discover that his inner being was inextricably linked to hedgehogs or flamingos or something. We'll find out later.

Whichever way, I'm sure he'll be glad to be reunited with his real power animal - a small, exceptionally greedy tan and white Jack Russell terrier called Bruno Diaz. He's already proved his worth here by keeping the inner-city rats at bay. On Sunday morning I found him running round and round the oven in a state of high excitement. Using the international language of terriers he told me, quite clearly, that there was a rat hiding underneath and, with my help, he might be able to catch it and and call down savage vengeance upon its small furry head. But something was going wrong; every time he stuck his nose under the oven he would leap back with a yelp of pain and confusion. At first I thought we had come across some sort of super-rat not afraid to sally forth into the jaws of death. Then I remembered, the cooker wasn't earthed, and a dog's cold wet nose is a splendid conductor of electricity. Our landlord, Peter, did try to sort it out last week, after we'd all had several shocks. He ran yards and yards of cable from the cooker, up the wall, across the ceiling and out the door to some sort of gas pipe in the patio. "It's rather a bodge-job," he said, "but it should work." It didn't, as Bruno discovered. Eventually, after Chappy and I had poked broom handles into the gloom the rat wandered out and trotted off across the patio. Bruno either didn't notice, or pretended not to - he just stood, quaking, staring at the oven. I think I should send the results of this accidental experiment to a medical journal of some kind. It would be the final proof of the value of electro-convulsive aversion therapy if it can quash a Jack Russell terrier's inbred enmity towards rats.

riot pictures

I have Little Dave to thank for these pictures, he recognised some people at his hostel who had also been caught up in the riots. So, I'm not sure who took these pictures, but all credit to them.

This next one shows the line of traffic cops who faced off with the demonstrators. Shortly after this picture was taken they wheeled round and speed off down the road. The crowd cheered and ran off after them. Only to be met with . . .
. . . these fellas. By this time we'd already headed up the hill to get out the way. But when this line of Robocops began to charge we found ourselves at the head of the fleeing mob.
The riot police here have remarkable uniforms. The designer must have been one of three things: an expert in bodily protection; a science fiction enthusiast or a sado-masochistic leather fetishist.
I didn't see any of this; but quite a few banks and shops were smashed up. I like the way the torn poster in the window is still displaying the V sign.

The Palace

My attempts at taking pictures of the palace were terrible failures. The rooms are so big it's impossible to get them all into one shot. But then Chris did something clever with his camera and got the following pictures of the front room. To give a sense of perspective and proportion, the dog in the foreground of the first picture is a particularly large Jack Russell.

it's a riot!

Tear gas really isn't that bad, considering the alternatives. But exposure to the stuff when you've got a cold anyway can be really messy. I'm hoping that the curry that's on the go in the kitchens will help matters.

Along with Jess, Dave and a chap called Little Dave (a traveler from England who, I think, is destined to always find himself in the company of another Dave and so have to be qualified as 'Little') I'd headed out to see if the flea market was open. All the centre of town was cordoned off and, apart from thousands of soldiers and riot police, was largely deserted. I wish I'd had my I-Spy book of Colombian armed forces on me, I'm sure I could have ticked off every battalion and regiment.

Everything had stopped for the visit of George Bush, who, we knew, was due to sweep into town at any moment. I'm still not sure if we saw the presidential motorcade, there were several over the period of about an hour. Eventually we realised that there was no way that the fleamarket would be open, being as it is on the main drag. Having got so far we decided to keep walking and call over to my old flat to say hello to Sam. As we got to the Bull Ring we could see that there'd been some trouble. The road was full of bits of brick and there were dozens of tense-looking riot police around. These chaps are some of the best equiped I've ever seen. They wear the sort of full-cover body armour that Batman would be proud of and the rest of their equipment would be just the ticket for the Terminator. Quite a fearsome bunch when they're ready to go, but if you spot them off-duty with their helmets off they are just jolly laughing lads seeing through their national service like everyone else.

We had no other way to go than through a line of these chaps and up the hill towards La Macarena. Dave headed the other way to go and visit his baby son, unsure if he would make it through the security ring to the south. As we walked through the police line some looked at us a little askance, but they didn't seem to mind that we were heading towards a crowd of rioters. These had gathered a few blocks up, on the edge of a very pleasant little park. We stood to watch a while as there seemed to be what football comentators call 'a carnival atmosphere'. There was a thumping beat from several drums and many demonstrators were picking out a salsa rhythm with whistles. Just as I was wondering how they ever remembered to bring them an old chap came up with a whole bunch and offered us one for a very reasonable price. I almost bought one out of respect for his entrepreneurial spirit.

At about this time a phalanx of motorcycle police roared up to the crowd and came to a stop just before the front line of the cheerfully jigging mob. There were a few catcalls and a big increase in whistling, but nothing else, and after a few minutes the biker cops swung round and headed back the way they came. The crowd took this as some sort of victory and, with another increase in whistling, streamed off after them. Despite my relative lack of experience in rioting, I got the distinct impression that they were being led on to some sort of trap, so I suggested that we head up the steep slope towards the Pimp's Penthouse. We'd got about half way up when there was a whistling roar behind us and the whole mob began racing up the hill behind us, followed by the Robocops, who were now backed up by armoured vans with water cannons. We started running at their head, and because I was back in my old neighbourhood, I led the way down a quiet street. The mob followed. Again, we turned a right, and the mob followed, but this time coming from both ends. It looked for a moment like we were going to be caught right in the middle of the action (by this time a few rock throwers had arrived) but another cry went up and the protest moved back to where it had started after having run round the block. By this time we were all exhausted - we've all got the same chesty cold since living together and running up hills at nearly 9,000ft through air misty with tear gas is never easy. Particularly not when you're laughing so much you've stomach cramps as well. We made it to the old pad and relaxed on the balcony with a coffee.

Now I'm being called to work my magic with a sag aloo - potatoes with spinach. It's not usually a very spicy dish, but I'm planning on extra chillie to try to clear my tubes.

Cartagena pictures

I'm writing this in the comfort of the palace kitchens, where we are now online. I can't spend too long on this as I have to go to the dentist. I had my first appointment yesterday with an English-speaking Hungarian who had been recommended by German at Platypus. His practice was in an unmarked apartment on the eigtheenth floor of a residential block. His wife let me in and I spent about half an hour flicking through old magazines in his living room. Finally he took me through to his consulting room, which seemed to be part of his kitchen. We had a bit of a chat and he told me that he fled to Colombia with all his family because of the Hungarian revolutions of the 1950s. I didn't like to question his choice of safe haven - but I've never heard of anyone coming here to escape political violence. He made a lot of disapproving noises as he examined my mouth and ran through what needed to be done. At this point I realised that because the chair was right up against a wall he'd only been able to check one side of my mouth. I craned my head round and said: "What about all these?"

He then betrayed how long he has been in Colombia by making their national noise of suprise and horror, which sounds something like "oo-weesh" and added to the list of things to do. At this point he told me I needed a temporary filling straight away. I was expecting this as I have had two fall out recently. The first was back in England when I was eating a cherry drop and going too fast over a speed hump. The second was during lunch last Sunday, just as I was explaining that the treacle tart I'd made shouldn't be so sticky. I was expecting to be injected, but instead he just told me to hold my tongue to one side with his mirror and started to drill away at my molar. "Don't worry," he said as smoke started to issue from my mouth, "this is only a very little drilling." At that point the phone rang, so he pushed his drill into my other hand and went to answer it. I was lying back on the chair trying to cool my tooth with my tongue while he stood at the phone for a full minute saying: "Allo? Allo? Con quien? Who is there? Allo! Allo?" He eventually gave up and came back to me, imparting the fairly redundant information that there was nobody on the line.

Anyway, back to Cartagena. Isn't annoying that whenever you take a picture of an interesting door you always get a gorgeous bird walk into the shot?

This little alley runs alongside the city walls, built to keep out pirates like Sir Francis Drake.
It's a colourful place, Cartagena.

I'm really not sure what this shop keeper was thinking with his choice of mannequin - particularly in a town where all the girls are so slim.
Ah, that would be it; a tribute to Botero.





This is the view from the city walls. In the distance you can see the new town. Just along from here is the Colombian branch of Cafe del Mar - the legendary Ibiza chill-out bar. It is a great place to relax; with the Caribbean on one side and the old town on the other. The DJ plays his LPs in one of the watch towers. We only stayed for one drink because we thought it was horrendously expensive - almost a quid and a half a pint. Oo-weesh!

Everybody at the palace has spent all week recovering from the housewarming, but hopefully this weekend should be more sensible - and all thanks to George Bush. Because he's coming to Bogota on Monday, there's a complete ban on alcohol sales all weekend - what's known here as a Ley Seca, or Dry Law. On the other hand, experience tells me that these attempts at calming the populace usually backfire where gringos, particularly the English, are involved. We have already had a stream of visitors asking if they can store booze here . . . so it could turn into another palace-bound weekend like the last one. It may be just as well, because we're only a block or two from the Presidential Palace the whole place is crawling with soldiers and American spooks. There have even been tanks spotted in the neighbourhood. So perhaps it might be wise to keep a low profile. Being searched is never very pleasant.

Casita

Sorry it´s been so long since I last wrote, but it takes ages to move into a palace, and even longer to perform the necessary house warming functions.

The move happened suddenly after I returned from Cartagena. I´d spent a great couple of days with John and the others, and even managed to get hold of pancakes on the Caribbean to make up for my Shrove Tuesday disappointment. This was thanks to Colombia´s best restaurant chain, Crepes and Waffles. The story of the company is quite heartwarming - a single mother down on her luck had the brainwave that crepes and waffles can both be made from the same batter, so she started her first branch. Now they´re all over Colombia and she is a multi-millionaire. Despite this phenomenal success she has never forgotten how she started and still employs only single mothers in all her branches.

It was sad to see John head off. We arrived in Bogota at about the same time and, along with Nicole, found work together at the Brewery. Now he is heading off to England to make good use of his two-year work visa to earn enough to buy a place in Colombia and settle here. We had a bit of a look around Cartagena, but were told by an estate agent that there was absolutely nothing available within the city walls for less than a thousand million pesos - which is about a quarter of a million quid. This seems an awful lot over here - but on British prices is it really too much to live in one of the most beautiful, cultured, atmospheric places in the world? I´ve never been so impressed by a town.

No sooner did I arrive back in Bogota than a message reached me that we had taken possession of our mansion, and that my help was needed to move stuff in. I rushed there as slowly as I could and was just in time to carry some cushions. I can´t remember if I described it before, but it is a quite amazing colonial house right in the very heart of the old town. There are two large courtyards, the one at the front surrounded with columns and the one at the back containing a basketball court. You can´t play a full game on it because a small garden has been planted in front of the far hoop, but this attracts humming birds, so it´s not all bad. The living room is gigantic, with stained glass windows, a baronial-style stairway and a granite fireplace with lions and heraldic devices on it. It´s also got a billiards room, but unfortunately the table was taken by the last owners. My bedroom is at the front of the house overlooking Monserrate. I think it used to be a ballroom. My bed looks very small and odd plonked in the middle of it.

We were lucky to find the place. Dave and Jess spent almost the whole month I was in England traipsing around the city looking for somewhere, but without success. Then Jess started chatting to an old English hippy bloke who she studies Spanish with at the National University. ¨Oh,¨ he said, ¨I´ve got a couple of little places you might be interested in renting for a while . . . ¨ He´s got more than that, he seems to be buying up the whole of Candelaria. He´s got plans for restaurants, cultural centres, hotels and all sorts. The amazing thing is he probably only needed to sell one of his places in England to buy all this. I think he paid about seventy or eighty grand for our palace. He´s had problems though, after all, estamos in Colombia. I won´t give the whole sorry tale of how he got ripped off, suffice to say the story started with ¨So I´d given this Colombian friend of mine, who I´d known for ten years, power of attorney over my finances. . .¨

As soon as we began to move in guests started drifting over. For some reason the place seems to be particularly attractive to the English, and more and more have been coming out of the woodwork. It can be a problem though - we got our first complaints from the neighbours after a game of cricket in the rear courtyard. To be fair some of the players were being a little over-enthusiastic with their appeals. And anyway, it was never leg before wicket.

Cartagena

I´m writing this in the town that is widely accepted to be the most beautiful in the western hemisphere - Cartagena de Indias. All around me brightly-coloured buildings are huddled together within the ancient walls that bristle with cannons pointing out over the still, blue waters of the Caribbean.

Despite these pleasant surroundings I can´t help but feel annoyed and thwarted; I totally forgot it was Pancake Day on Tuesday. It´s the third year in a row I´ve done that. It only dawned on me the next day, when I noticed that about half the people in Bogota had ash crosses daubed on their foreheads. I have to admit I found it quite unsettling, a bit like that film about bodysnatchers from outer space. Chris and I were walking down Septima and noticed a freshly-daubed stream of people emerging from a church, so we decided to investigate. The queue of people waiting for their cross was moving remarkably quickly (the daubers were slapping the stuff on like Zorro with his sword) but it still stretched all the way down the nave. It´s a good job Jesus was killed all that time ago - because it would have taken ages to draw a little picture of an electric chair on everybody´s head. The oddest part of the event was the choice of music. For some reason they were playing a panpipe version of Carly Simon´s Nobody Does it Better - the theme, I think, from The Spy Who Loved Me. It was certainly an odd choice, but Chris and I agreed it was the least strange part of the whole thing.

It was while walking through the crowds of becrossed people that I decided to book a flight to Cartagena to meet up with Australian John before he leaves the New World for Spain. Along with Jess and Chappy, he should be arriving at the hostel here sometime today.

I got here last night and turned in early so I could get up early and take photos of the town before it got too busy. It really is a lovely place. It was founded in 1533, but not much of that age remains because of the attacks by English Pirates, including one by Sir Francis Drake in 1586. Unlike some of the other raids he agreed not to destroy the town in exchange for a ransom of 1,000,000 pesos, which was a lot of money in them days, y´know.

I had been warned by friends in Bogota that the street vendors and hawkers were a real problem here, and that I should be prepared to exercise a great deal of patience. However, I didn´t have any problem, because I have discovered the secret of invisibility. One simply needs to walk around with a supermarket carrier bag and nobody notices you. Not one single sunglasses salesman, money changer, guide or beggar approached me, unless I had my camera out of the bag. Even then, I could just pop it back in and they would lose interest in me and wander off to pester somebody else.

Oh, here are some of the words for the cross daubing song. It almost works as something "a-bit-like-Jesus-really", but not quite:

I wasn't lookin' but somehow you found me
I tried to hide from your love light
But like heaven above me
The spy who loved me
Is keepin' all my secrets safe tonight

Oh, oh, oh.

Miss Colombia

Yes, I did miss Colombia while I was England. And I missed Miss Colombia; Sam bumped into her on Monserrate (the monastry on the mountain overlooking Bogota) shortly before I got back, which says a lot about my timing. He was with his brother who had been visiting for a month. He arrived full of filial concern for his little brother living in such a dangerous place (even though he is from Beirut) but had the scales fall from his eyes and left as a new apostle of this wonderful place.

It does seem to convert people, Bogota. Many of my friends here arrived, like me, for a few days before deciding to stay for much longer. Others, like Jess from Cornwall, Middlesborough Chappy and Swedish Marcus, go home and then find that they miss the place too much, and come back.

Even though I was missing Bogota, my time in England went all too quickly and I didn't get to see half the people I planned to. I spent a nice couple of days with my sister and her family, even though it seems that my main role as an uncle is to be a punchbag for tiny fists.

That all seems a long time ago now as I sit in the common room of Playpus writing this entry. I'm not staying here, I just popped in to hook up on the wireless internet. I'll be staying at the Pimp Palace in the Sky for a few days before moving into what can only be described as a palace with Jess, Hitchen Dave and American Chris. The new place is right in the middle of the city and boasts a billiards room (with full-size walnut table) two courtyards (one a basketball court) and a baronial style granite fireplace festooned with lions and heraldic devices. My bedroom will be the upstairs ballroom. I know this sounds a little indulgent for someone on a budget - but it's cheaper than my last place and comes in at about twenty quid a week. I'll get some pictures up on here as soon as I can.

Now I have to pluck up courage and make a dental appointment. While I was at home I lost a filling eating a cherry drop while driving too quickly over a sleeping policeman, and living in a place where everyone's gnashers are white and perfect makes me constantly aware of how decrepit mine are. If I ever do meet Miss Colombia I want to be able to smile back at her with at least some confidence.

Picture post

I've finally got round to developing the pictures from my film camera, so here are a few of them.Above is my home, the Croft, covered in snow. Just three days before we'd been sitting in the garden drinking gin and tonics in the sun. (By the way - if you look upwards from the apex of the conservatory to nearly the very top of the trees behind, you can see a small speck. That's the magpie nest I mentioned in my last entry.) Next are the rocks at Shakira, just down the hill from Philipe's vegan farmstead. This is where he comes to drink his home-grown coffee every morning. The view from here is amazing - far, far below the Rio Magdalena cuts through green hills, that have twelve waterfalls cascading down them. The following are some of the monsters that litter the countryside all round San Augustine.

This is the racing butterfly that came and landed on me while we were walking around one of the archaeological parks. I wonder what happened to the other eighty-eight of them?

This is the pleasant little guest house we stayed at in San Augustine.

Ah, back to Shakira. This was taken from near the rocks where we were sitting in the first picture. I somehow managed to miss all of the waterfalls. That's Chappy on the horse. He's from Middlesborough, him, like.

I think the next four pictures were taken around Salento when we went to visit the coffee finca.

This is the main square in Salento. You can see the mists rolling off the mountains to the right.

Here is the night-time view from the cabin in Taganga. What is incredible is that absolutely nobody in the village pays for their electricity. Everybody just hooks a coat hanger up to the power lines.

This is the beach at El Cabo, in the Tayrona national park, where we spent New Year.

This is Pershore Abbey covered in snow. It once extended to about where I took the photo from, but most of it was knocked down in Henry VIII's dissolution of the monastries. It was all supposed to be demolished, but the people of Pershore had a whip-round and gave the wrecking squad £400 to leave the part that remains today. The butresses were added in 1911 to stop it falling over. I've always thought they make it look like a puppy sitting up waiting for a biscuit.

This is one of my favourite pubs, The Fleece at Bretforton. It's an incredibly historic place - it has one of Englands largest collections of pewter plate and there are designs painted on the hearth tiles to stop witches coming down the chimney. One of the last stories I wrote for the Evesham Journal was my eye-witness account of it burning down. It's since been immaculately restored. My cousin Andy is getting married to Eleanor there in June.

The Weather

Coming home for Wassailing was quite momentous - aside from the hundreds of quid I spent getting here. Last year I left Blighty on Wassail night, so coming back for this year's celebration should (you'd imagine) be the chance for some introspective and insightful words about how I have trundled my way through the dozen months in between. (What I've learned, how I've grown, n'all that.) But that doesn't come easily to me, so instead I'd like to talk about the weather.

I woke up this morning to find the world covered in a thick blanket of snow. I won't describe it - just try to imagine everything covered in a thick, white, cold blanket and you'll get the idea. I was very excited - it's the first proper snow we've had in this part of England since the early eighties; when Dad used to tie our sledges to the back of his car and drag us round the lesser-used lanes of the Cotswolds.

It's a shame really - for the past few weeks the weather has been unseasonably warm. The birds have been flying around collecting twigs for nests, squirrels have been emerging from their winter hidey-holes and I've even seen a couple of butterflies. Of course, they're all buggered now, poor sods. Apart from the magpies that is. Last year they nested in a birch tree by the tortoise enclosure, so Dad poked their nest out with a stick (for those who don't know - they are terrible predators of song birds). But now they seem to have learned - they're building their nest at the very top of the tallest poplar tree in the garden. But they'll probably be buggered too after this weather.

The weather on Wassailing night was very pleasant. It was the middle of an English January in the middle of the night, but we all sat outside quite happily. I suppose we all had our cider anoraks on to keep us warm. For those who don't know; Wassailing is about opening a new barrel of cider and then thanking the trees for their bounty. It's a complex ritual, involving several guns, some toast and a virgin. It all went very well, and I have high hopes for next year's apple crop.

My last week in Bogota was unusually warm. Even though I'd just come back from the Caribbean coast I still managed to get sunburnt on the few occasions I left the house. It was a particularly pleasant night when I went to a wedding with Dodgy Dave, from Hitchen. We arrived about three minutes late, and as English people we were worried about being tardy. As we walked in Dave was approached by a stunning bridesmaid in a scarlet dress who told him he was was best man. "Why did nobody tell me?" he asked. She giggled and pinned a rose to his chest.

Later in the evening I won my first ever dancing contest. All the single men at the wedding had to grab a girl and shake their stuff in front of a crowd of baying aunties. I shook mine, and by common consensus my ridiculous wiggling won me the bride's girdle. I was genuinely shocked - all the other fellas were doing all sorts of salsa things and I was just being very silly. But the aunties had their way and I was victorious.

After the wedding I headed on to a friend's club where he was celebrating David Bowie's birthday. I milled around for a while making disparaging remarks about boss-eyed paltroons before going home.

Next thing I remember I was at an airport near New York, and it was snowing. Nothing like British snow, of course, but I appreciated the effort.

And now I'm in writing this in the study of The Croft. It's a good place to pretend to be an explorer. As I look around me I see Nubian swords, ostrich eggs, dried starfish, Ethiopian birthing stools, stuffed birds and one of those fish that sing 'Take Me to the River' when you bark at it. Oh, there it goes again.

John & Nicole Picture Special

I have been taking pictures recently, but on a film camera and I haven't had the chance to get them developed yet. In the meantime here are some pictures taken by John and Nicole, which are probably a lot better than anything I have waiting on my films.


Their pictures start on our horseride in San Augustine, about ten minutes after I fell off my horse, while attempting to clamber on. As you can see I have mud on my knees and a sheepish look about me.
The countryside around San Augustine is absolutely lovely. The picture below was taken from an ancient archaeological site called Shakira (no relation), where figures have been carved into a pile of rocks on a hillside. They must have been bored. The site is actually bounded by land belonging to Philipe, he wanders down to have his morning coffee contemplating this view. You can't see in this picture, but from the rocks you can see twelve waterfalls cascading down the hills in every direction. It's amazing that this picture missed them all.
This is Popayan, which I think is the most elegant town I have visited in the New World.
Again, Popayan.
This is how the Indians in the south of Colombia dress. In the north the Tayrona Indians are completely different - they dress all in white with pointy hats.
The countryside around Salento was even nicer than around San Augustine. But everywhere you go in this country there are amazing vistas.
This is the old chap at the coffee finca we visited.
And these are his grandchildren. Really, they must wonder about the one on the left. It's about six years since they opened their farm to foreign visitors . . .
As well as the coffee, Salento is also the place to go if you really must see the tallest palm trees in the world.
This is up in the slums of Medellin. Just incredible how happy everyone was up there.
This is the cablecar that travels over the city.
Nicole will probably hate me for using this picture - but it's the best shot of the view from our cabin in Taganga. And that pose is great.
This is the beach at El Cabo, in the Tayrona national park.
The picture was taken from here, were we camped. You can see just how far those coconuts would fall before landing on your head. I never knew such terror could lurk in paradise.
The threat of instant death brought out the hedonist in everybody.