Our main reason for heading to santa martha was a five day trek to the lost city, but i wasn’t up to the hard slog so i decided to dump Garrett for a few days and head to Tayrona national park. It felt strange heading of on my own trying to find the bus that would take me to the park entrance but everyone looked after me - the guy next to me even woke me up when the bus came to my stop (almost missed it!!). From the entrance i bought a park ticket had a chat with the local guerrilla’s!!! and then hopped in a small truck which took me and some others 20mins into the park. I needn’t have worried bout being on my own once the other people (Colombians) on the little truck realised i was on my own they invited me to walk through the park with them.
So an hour and a half later (fairly muddy and humid) finally reached the sea, got to see some monkeys and lizards along the way - oh there were donkeys and horses too (they carried food and stuff to the people living along the beach). Had a quick snack and then walked another half hour along the beach to Cabo san Juan (don´t worry i wasn´t alone two Colombian students and a french guy asked me if i wanted to walk there with them - i was well looked after). Once there i rented a hammock and went for a much needed swim. That evening i met Jenny - an Aussie i met in Cartagena so we had a few drinks to catch up.
I was truly in lazy mode and spent the next day lying on the beach, but i did practice my Spanish with the Colombian guys - i now know how to curse in Spanish!!!! The following day i headed back to Santa Martha as Garrett was due back from his trek - i´d spent a day or two just chilling around Santa Martha. When i got back into town the skies had opened and the streets weren´t just rivers they were enormous rivers coming up almost to my knees as i walked from the bus stop to my hotel - taxis were going nowhere.
The race back to Santa Martha was so we could leave the next day back to Bogota in time for an international soccer match. We thought it was on on the 21st but luckily we arrived in Bogota on the 20th to be told that the game was that evening so it was a quick taxi ride to the stadium were we bought tickets on the black market. Also ran into our friends Itay and Annabelle (from the jungle trip in Bolivia) so headed for dinner with them before heading back to the stadium to claim some seats (5hours before kickoff).
Although we had tickets it only guaranteed a seat within a specific stand and cause i´m so tall we thought we´d go early so i could hopefully get a good view off the pitch. After 3 security searches (including looking for identification we had none with us of course but we played dumb ie couldn´t speak Spanish worked a treat), we got to the ticket gate and after a few heart stopping minutes while the ticket collector and myself thought i´d a fake ticket (luckily it was genuine) we walked into the stadium. We found pretty good seats and joined in the chants and cheering which had already started there were loads there and it was only 3o´clock (game started at
.
Unfortunately around 5o´clock it down poured for an hour so the last 2hrs we were soaked waitin on the game to start. And then the crowds really went crazy as the Argentinian team came out on the pitch - the jeers were unreal (football is more important than religion here). Listening to the entire stadium sing their national anthem (trust me they were booming it out nearly went deaf stranding beside a Colombian guy).
The game itself was fantastic Messi (he plays for Barcelona ) scored a great goal beating four defenders and the goalie, got sent off Tevez, but the best bit was Colombia won 2-1. The crowd went mad hugging and kissing each other it was great being in the middle of it. We only sat on our seats during half time like everyone else we used them to stand on during the match. Was definitely worth the trip back to Bogota.
well that’s all for now
S&G
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