Lee n Tan

Thursday February 18, 2010 – we arrived around 8am after a 14 hour rough bus trip. I don’t know if we changed drivers once we hit the mountain ranges or the same one just decided to do some rally driving but man we got thrown around.

We found a room at Casa Kiwi Hostel not the cheapest place at 70,000 but they have a room straight away for us. Ah that was the first hot water shower I have had since the UK in November, big rain water showerhead……..who could ask for anything more!!!!

We didn’t wake till around 3 found ourselves an amazing kebab for lunch then hopped on the net for a few hours. Lee touched base with someone from the local Underwater Hockey Club so he can play hockey & in the early stages he was going to play tonight but now Catalina has Skyped & said no because it was a crap pool. He’s a bit disappointed, maybe tomorrow night, they say they play every night!!

It’s 8pm we are back in our room ready for some more sleep. The only thing I can say about the city is it is much cooler than the coast.

Wednesday February 17, 2010 – we all woke feeling pretty dusty!! To begin with Lee wasn’t going anywhere but then we found out checkout was @ 3pm. So we motivated packed our bags, took a taxi to the shopping centre for some much needed food then said goodbye to Clare around 2pm.

Our night bus doesn’t leave till 6pm so Marcus kindly let us hang out in his ’solo’ room till 5. As we walked out onto the street Lisa was coming up the road (by herself……..no chaparon) so we said our final goodbye and she helped us with a cab to the terminal (10,000).

So glad I had a big lunch & that we stocked up on some nibblies as it’s 11pm we have just stopped at a terminal with only drinks & snack food on offer.

Tuesday February 16, 2010 – what an amazing day!! Lisa’s family is so lovely and welcomed us so warmly we really felt like part of the neighborhood.

We arrived in Soledad at around 11am and started drinking beer straight away, actually I don’t think there were many moments where we didn’t have a beer in our hand!! In my case yes I drank beer. There were a couple of times I said no and they found out I drink rum so one of the son’s friends went and bought a bottle and then plied me with shots for the rest of the day, along with a few more beers!!

We started off with the kids from around the neighborhood they had an awesome time drowning the ‘gringos’ with water and covering us with flour and foam. It got to around 2.30pm and none of us had had anything to eat so Lisa and her brother took us to a local chicken joint, it was tasty and so cheap.

After we got back the kids seemed to have disappeared and were replaced with older kids (17-23), it goes without saying that the drinking increased!! The water throwing seemed also to have disappeared and was replaced with getting drowned in a mud puddle. No one was left out of this ritual everyone was dragged kicking and screaming at least twice, they even dragged people out of their homes.

It was getting dark and the last of the 90 or so beers and 2 bottles of rum were being consumed and we were hungry, tired & cold. Lisa’s dad and a family friend had kindly offered to drive us home……or so we thought!!! All the family had showered and changed and we were being driven to a suburb called Galapa where their cousins live and were there is a huge ‘rumba’ going down……who needs food, shower & bed!!!!

We were introduced to the rellies at their house and then we all walked up to where the party was. There was a huge stage, loads of people and we were ushered into a courtyard area at the back of one of the bars were there was more family to meet. We were once again covered in flour and offered more to drink!

We lost Clare and the son for a while so a bit of the night was spent searching for them, they turned up in the end, we were starting to get really worried. That sort of finished the night for all of us, mind you it was about 1 in the morning!!

Our ride home was interesting to say the least. We were all in the family friends car following mum, dad, son and a couple of others. We lagged behind a bit and when we caught up they were in the middle of an intersection with a couple in front of them on a scooter – don’t know if they hit them or not- but the guy was a little angry and pulled a gun on them!!! Very freaky, nothing ensued but it put an even worse dampener an one awesome day!!!

I cannot describe how much fun we had and all without really being able to communicate with anyone (Lisa knows some English but not enough to have a full conversation and the rest of them basically none). Lisa’s mum & dad have invited us to stay in their home anytime we are back in Colombia…….I swear when that day comes I will know how to speak spanish!!!!

Monday February 15, 2010 – Clare was feeling better today so the 4 of us headed off to try and find the same carts we were on yesterday, as our ritual goes we stopped off at the shopping centre for something to eat then caught a cab to hopefully the same spot.

Well we got it wrong but eventually after walking a few blocks found our spot again, but with no carts. Marcus had left us to go and meet Melisa, luckily we were early enough to sit on the gutter right at the fence. We were really early, we waited nearly an hour for it to start but in the meantime we got chatting to a gorgeous young policeman who was manning the fence in front of us, his name was Ricardo.

He was our entertainment for the day – he would sing, inform us about the different groups passing us by and the different types of music……all he wanted to do was dance but he wasn’t allowed.

The parade was better than yesterday, I would say a mix of performers from the first & second days. We drank & chatted to Ricardo who took a very fond liking to Clare. When the parade finished he asked his superior if he could walk us to a cab, he couldn’t, but the young guy next to him did, very sweet of them. Before Clare could leave though he asked for a kiss and then a second, cheeky little bugger!

We got back safely and sitting on the front step of the hotel was Marcus who we had misplaced all day. He met up with Melisa, along with her whole family, bit of a shock for him!!! We had pizza for dinner then went out to have a few drinks. We found a cool outdoor bar and settled in with a bottle of rum. Melisa turned up to met Marcus.……with her mum & dad as chaperone! Quite funny, they seemed really lovely, they don’t speak a word of English so they just sort of sat in the circle but did not have a drink or chat.

They ended up leaving – with Melisa much to Marcus’ disappointment which left the 4 of us to go & party. We found a little night club where the boys bought some more rum and not long after the police came in and shut the joint down. I think it was just that curfew had been reached but we will never really know. We called it quits after that & headed home, we were all feeling a bit drunk!!

Sunday February 14, 2010 – Didn’t wake till around 11, Clare not feeling to good at all so she is going to give the parade a miss. The 3 of us walked out the door and ran straight into Judy & Rebecca getting off the bus from Santa Marta. We all made our way to the shopping centre for something to eat & then hopped in cabs to Via 40! We asked the driver to drop us at the end where we were yesterday but ended up further up the route, which ended up being better.

We are now a group of 10 gringos so we were swamped by guys offering us somewhere to watch the parade from. We settled on 2 horse carts to stand on for 2000ea person, pretty good view for $1. In front of us were heaps of friendly locals who couldn’t keep their eyes off the crazy gringos on the cart.

The other cart (Rebecca, Judy etc) started throwing flour at us and that started a war! We were all throwing flour and the locals were spraying us with foam, a very pasty affair! During this a few unfamiliar local guys jumped on our carts, we didn’t realize it straight off but they were there to pick pocket us! There was a guy on the ground targeting one of us with foam & then the guy up with us would then try to go through our pockets.

Luckily this did not end badly for any of us but it did for our light fingered friends, they were hauled away by a tonne of police! The police made a point of then coming over to let us know they will be keeping an eye on us and even asked us to step down off our carts because they thought they looked a little unsafe, they were fine but it was nice to know they cared!!

The parade itself wasn’t as good as yesterday, it was probably longer, said to be made up of 266 different groups. So it was mainly just dancers or people in costumes, still fun but a little disappointing.

When we left our friendly police officers pointed us in the safest direction. We all hopped in a local bus to get back to the hotel. We then rested and showered, ready for the nights festivities.

We hunted for a place for dinner but couldn’t really find anything restauranty, so we settled on a little fastfood joint. The others ended up going to a street party down the road and Lee, Judy & I went home.