All the way south

If I have a choice, I'm never again going to pick Canada as a country to transit through when flying long haul. I should have known, but didn't, that you need a visa even when just transiting through the airport. I had to frantically apply for one via my phone at the Heathrow airport gate, when I was boarding the plane to Toronto! Once I landed at Toronto to transit, I had a couple of hours for my connecting flight, but because of extreme cold conditions there was a big delay in docking at the gate. I was extremely late for my connecting flight, but I still had to go through full Canadian customs, including questions about why I was visiting Canada! Crazy stuff. Despite my rush, my connecting flight to Santiago was also delayed, so I made it. In the end, it took off three hours late. By the time I arrived in Santiago, I was done with long haul flying, and looking forward to exploring a new city and basking in the 30 degree heat. I found my hostel easily enough, and instantly...

Being used to long haul flying, I barely noticed the short hop from Bogotá to Quito, the high-lying capital of Ecuador. An airport taxi pickup from my hostel gave me an easy introduction into this new country. Luckily there was a Danish hipster heading to the same hostel at the same time, so I was able to share the cost with him. View from Secret Garden rooftop With an ultra-modern airport highway, the taxi cruised along until hitting the higgledy-piggledy old colonial streets of the San Blas area of the centre, where The Secret Garden hostel was located. The hostel was recommended to me by a couple of Canadian girls I had shared a dorm with in Medellín, more so for the three day trip to the sister hostel near Cotopaxi mountain that was not to be missed. With the December 10th deadline for the Inca Trail in Peru looming, I only had just enough time to do this three day'er before hitting the Galapagos for four. That would be it for Ecuador. After grabbing a lovely lunch wi...

So far, the rule with Colombian buses had been to take the prescribed travel time and add an hour or two. Having been informed that the bus to Bogotá takes 7-9 hours, I feel into a deep VIP-seat slumber expecting to get at least a solid 8 hours of sleep. I was in the middle of a dream when Xavier poked me awake at 6am. I still wasn't fully awake, and still wasn't fully sure if we were actually in Bogotá just 7 hours later, when I said au revoir to him and clambered into a taxi. Finally, a daytime arrival at a new place. My first impressions on the near hour-long journey into the centre were...underwhelming. Lots of traffic, lots of buses, lots of flat sprawl - Bogotá wasn't impressing me so far. Having been hostel dorming it for a while now, I decided it was time for a break from backpacking. I had booked myself into a four star hotel for the next couple of nights, right in the historic central region, known as Le Candelaria. My extremely early arrival meant that my hot...

The highlight of the five hour bus and taxi journey from Santa Marta to Cartagena (besides the great test of my dexterity in the pinball toilet), was the sight of masses of local hombres all sprinting urgently to the site of an overturned truck on the other side of the highway. It wasn't to provide assistance to the driver, it was to take advantage of a situation we all dream about - it was a beer truck. Unfortunately the police had already arrived by the time the taxi I was sharing with three Germans went past, so we decided against joining the affray. Again it was nightfall arriving in a new place, except this approach was very different from Tayrona park. Cartagena is Columbia's top tourist destination, and the old city, where I was staying, is a World Heritage Site. The ramparts, surrounding the old city, and the various churches and monuments, are bathed in golden light after dark. I was already enthralled. After dropping the friendly Germans off at their hostel, I ...