Goodbye South America. For now.

Dancing in the streets of Cartagena

To Cartagena on Colombia's Caribbean coast is a 12 hour bus ride from Medellin. This journey tips the scales of our total bussed hours over the 350 mark, nearly 15 days. It's reassuring in an unusual way because I sometimes worry that bad bus travel too often becomes the subject of these posts. This figure justifies things a little; bus trips make up 10% of our holiday time so things aren't too out of proportion. For those reading this on their phone on a busy tram and under a sweaty armpit or popping out from a tube station into the 3.30 gloom, this is the closest thing to common ground. And as one traveller pointed out to me in a conversation about travel writing, 'no-one wants to hear about the good shit'. Disaster stories make for better reading; let the photos of exotic beaches, mountains and cities show the full picture.

That's not to say all bus journeys are as tiresome as the daily commute. I've come to enjoy the time spent on buses, provided a few important criteria are met and it can sometimes be a relaxing even productive aspect of traveling cheaply. We read a lot, plan our days and get lost in the things happening out the window. But too often it's marred by someone doing the due diligence on their ringtone inventory or Freddie Mercury reminding me over the bus PA that he's under pressure. Presumably from the weight of cold air being blasted from an air conditioner set to snap freeze. Or a seat that won't hold its recline and slingshots forward intermittently through the night.

The old city is surrounded by a wall built out of coral to protect from Jack Sparrow and his cohort

Unfortunately this trip suffers from most of these symptoms and we arrive in Cartagena weary and with stiff necks. The immediate prospects for a good night sleep don't look good either as we've left our booking to the last minute, it's two days before New Years and the city is crammed with travelers and holidaying Colombians. We have to settle for a poky, airless room at inflated rates but reconcile it with the thought that NY's isn't really about sleeping anyway.

Toilet come jacuzzi

The revitalizing properties of a cold shower, fizzy coke and a full stomach are a good medicine for bad bus trips and this is no different. Coupled with all the activity in the Cartagena old city, busy preparing itself for NYE, any lingering travel fatigue is washed away. 

Without wanting to mix superlatives and colonial cities (Central America is sure to throw up some good examples) Cartagena easily beats anything we've seen in terms of beauty and preservation. Paraty, Sucre and Cusco can get in line. Will I be shot if I use the words charming and colourful to describe a colonial town yet again? If so, then I take back what I've written previously and save it for Cartagena because it deserves exclusive rights to these descriptions and any others I made. What adds to the atmosphere is that it's our first taste of the Caribbean and even though the beach here is just OK by Australian standards, there's something about the 'C' word, the palms in the backdrop and the local's lilting english that gives it a lift.

If all these things weren't enough to keep us happy for 5 days there's also New Year Eve. We're lucky to have the good company of some friends we met in Salento to celebrate with, in addition to the thousands of happy Colombians and others that flood the cobbled streets on the night. It's a party atmosphere to match any big NYE celebration around the world with bars and cafes spilling onto the streets and plenty of salsa and fireworks for entertainment. The end of 2011, the end of a year to remember and one we won't forget too soon. And when familial alzheimer's kicks in there will always be the nearly 5000 photos we've taken to draw on.

The most disappointing part about of our visit to Cartagena is that we're finally able to get some information about departure dates for boats sailing to Panama and the news is inconvenient. They're nearly all departing in the first few days of January with nothing else confirmed later in the month. Our plans to head further up the coast of Colombia for a week are scuppered as we've been looking forward to this sail trip for some time and don't want to pass up the opportunity. (On a whim we booked flights to Cuba for mid-Feb which fly out of Mexico. By far the cheapest option into Cuba, only we didn't count on flights to Mexico from Colombia being astronomically expensive. In light of this we're hoping to travel overland through Central America to Mexico instead.) 

Looking back from the yacht as we sail out from Cartagena the coastline and finally the high-rise buildings of the new city gradually disappear from view. We're in the open sea. I realise that we've left South America, our home for the past 5 months. Nic and I share a nostalgic moment or two, but it's a queasy thought because the boat is pitching and rolling heavily. Where did the last 5 months go?! Nevermind that, fetch me my sick bag.

xN&G