Lee n Tan

Saturday February 13, 2010 – Started our first day of carnaval at the shopping centre for breakfast. Then we got dropped off close to the start but found the parade had already started and all the public areas for viewing were packed with people. We asked the price to get up into one of the grandstands but that was a bit steep at 130,000. We made a decision to head to the end of the parade so we hopped in another cab and found a pretty good spot.

The Parade of Flowers was great, it was made up of heaps of floats with performers between each one. Most had a live band on board pumping music out over the massive sets of speakers. Each float also towed a generator to keep this going. There were lots of Queens aboard floats & then lots of other ‘queens’ walking the route!!

All the participants were so great, as soon as they saw a camera on them they would stop and pose! Lee ended up getting some amazing shots. The day was very sunny & HOT! We called it quits about 5.30pm, the parade still had a few more floats, but we had had enough.

Before going home we went to the soccer stadium where they are holding the big concert tonight and bought tickets. It actually starts at 6pm (the time we bought tickets) and finishes at 4am tomorrow morning. So we have plenty of time to go home for a shower and something to eat.

The concert was fun, we positioned ourselves in Playa Bar (the beach bar) it was 40,000 for the 5 of us and we received 24 beers in an ice filled esky……pretty good deal & we had a good view of the stage. The only problem was in the whole stadium all they sold was beer, Pony Malta (an energy drink) & water. So non-beer drinkers didn’t even have softdrink to get by on!! The headline act of the concert was ‘Daddy Yankee’ he came on at 1am. We left Marcus with his new found Colombian girl around 2.30am

Friday February 12, 2010 – We decided it was way too hot to do anything but walking around a shopping centre so all 4 of us headed off to the biggest one in the city. We spent the whole day there had lunch & dinner and watched ‘The Wolfman’ at the movies.

We got some more rum on the way home and spent the rest of the night in, drinking and watching TV again. It was really a repeat of lastnight as Marcus went out with friends again.

Thursday February 11, 2010 – Caught the bus to Barranquilla at 11am. Marcus is travelling with us as the girls have gone to Santa Marta to meet up with a friend, hopefully we will catch up again during Carnaval.

We are on a Costa Line bus, express to Barranquilla, 5-6 hours. Probably the most comfortable bus so far and it should be for 26,000ea. So much for inappropriate movies, this morning we have a reverend preaching his gospel to the masses……..this country is messed up!

Somebody must have been looking over my shoulder as they have made a bit of an improvement! They have put on Avatar (3D version on a bus TV) but it is in Spanish with no English subtitles.

We arrived into Barranquilla about 3.30pm, only took 4 & a half hours, a lot better than we expected. We ended up ditching the accommodation with Bruno and tagging along with Marcus to a hotel – The Colonial Inn. Much cheaper than Bruno, all 4 of us in 1 room, 100,000 per night for the first 2 nights then 180,000 per night for Carnaval. Not a bad saving for all of us. The room has aircon, TV, private bath & a bar fridge.

The city is pretty grimy and there are loads of people on the streets. A few cars, houses, taxis etc have been decorated up for the big event hopefully over the next few days that will increase.

We haven’t had lunch so we walked the streets and found a little restaurant & got the special of the day, soup & main meal for only 7500, fits our budget a bit better. On the way back we bought 2 bottles of rum & some coke for the evening.

We spent the night in just drinking and watching some TV. Marcus hit the town with some friends.

Sunday February 7, 2010 – bloody hot night, our room doesn’t have any windows, they have given us 3 fans but it has not made any difference. Tonight we will try sleeping with the doors open!

We headed out to Badillo River mid morning, it was a tight squeeze with 4 of us across the back seat. It took about 40mins to get out there. First section of the river is where all the locals hang out, it has bars & restaurants to keep them entertained. Most of the locals hang out here because it is the easiest section of the river to get to.

We kept going to the little village of La Mina & made our camp in this section of the river. The river & rocks are amazing, beautifully carved out by the water running through for hundreds of years! As for the local guys & boys – they are just insane – they jump/flip/dive off everything….big/small/shallow/deep…..they have no fear.

I think we have all got a little sunburnt and incurred some feet burn from the rocks. The water was fresh but unfortunately for us (fortunate for the locals) it rained yesterday so the water was not clear. All in all an amazing river to visit.

Just up the road we pulled over to visit one of Migel’s friends, she makes ‘mochilas’, similar to the ones we bought in Cartegena. We stayed here for ages, we of course could not communicate with anyone so it was a bit boring. But Migel & his mom had a great time catching up, drinking coffee & buying some carne (meat) for dinner.

When we got back we went to the supermarket to buy supplies for dinner. We found the meat section but it was like a butcher shop with large slabs of meat on display so we had to try and get across that we wanted some nice thick steaks for a BBQ!! We didn’t end doing too bad, we got help towards the end from a local that lives in Canada (spoke perfect english). The only problem was we had way too much meat so we shared it with the family.

Dinner was so good, Lee made a nice simple salad of lettuce, tomato & avocado for us and Clare made a vegie pasta. We also shared our rum with everyone so it ended up being a really great night. Our hosts are wonderful!!

Sunday January 31, 2010 – great nights sleep! Had brekkie for (probably) the last time with Alex……great juices. Then headed down to see David at the Tour place to see how he went with getting some accom for Carnaval. His dad had written down the number but it was in a book at their home so we gave him our email so he can forward it on.

Caught a cab to Santa Marta for only 8000! Checked into a 6 bed dorm for 25,000 ea at La Brisa Loca. Went down the road for some lunch then had a 3 hour nap……I think the heat has zapped our energy it’s 36, no wind & no real shade as there are no trees in this place.

Catching up on stuff now & waiting for Clare & Kirsten to get back from Tayrona. The girls arrived early evening then we went for some dinner. They seem pretty organised with what we have to do & where we have to go tomorrow to get to Coba de la Vella, so we were in bed relatively early.

There is also another girl joining us tomorrow morning, Martha that the girls met in Taganga.