We woke up early and got breakfast before we checked out of the hostel. Most mornings, we haven't been getting up in time for it, so thought we should really get it here as its quite cheap, around 3500 pesos, which is just over a £1.00. After breakfast, we asked the lady who worked there to order us a moto taxi each so we could be dropped off at the bus stop. About 5 minutes later, the bikes came to pick us up, so we both loaded our rucksacks onto the front and drove off down the road. Again I asked the driver to go slowly, but John and his driver went speeding off down the dirt track road. Once we got to the bus stop, there was a bus which had just turned up, the driver called out Santa Marta, we said yes and jumped on the bus. We left our rucksacks on the front and kept out daypacks with us. It cost around 8000 pesos to get back to Santa Marta, so it's pretty cheap. Once back in Santa Marta, we told the driver we wanted to get off in Mamatoco, and he shouted we were here, it didn't look familiar but there was a taxi waiting where we got dropped off, so we just got off there and jumped in the taxi to take us to the airport. It was an old taxi, and looked a bit dodgy, so I reckon he wasn't a licensed one. We set off on the journey to the airport and the driver took us down a really dodgy looking place, like some warehouse place. I thought he was going to take us somewhere and then get loads of people to rob us. But he later explained that he just took a shortcut to get to the airport as the roads can get really busy, which was fair enough. He charged us around 27000 pesos to get there, which I did think was a bit expensive, but we needed a taxi to get to the airport as its out of the main town in Santa Marta. 

Once we'd arrived at the airport, we needed to go to the Viva Colombia desk as we'd managed to book our flights online with them . It was by far the cheapest airline when we checked the Skyscanner website. However, when asking people if they'd flown with Viva Colombia, most of them said they'd had problems being able to book it without a Colombian credit card. But we were able to book it with John's Nationwide debit card perfectly fine. On the subject of banks, I'd ordered a Norwich and Peterborough bank account card specifically for travelling as I'd heard they don't charge any fees for using them abroad, and had a load of hassle getting the card in time. So when I got the card on the morning that we left, I thought great, I'll be able to use that no problem, but most of the ATMs we've tried in Colombia so far have not accepted the damn thing. So we've had to use John's Nationwide card for drawing money out, and being charged an extra £1.50 each time we withdraw money, which is a pain in the bum. So anyway, we found the Viva Colombia desk easy enough, as Santa Marta airport is tiny. Once we'd checked our bags in, we went upstairs to the departure lounge . It was difficult enough trying to understand their instructions as it was all in Spanish and I didn't want to risk getting on the wrong flight. However, we went upstairs, did the usual security checks and went through to the boarding room. We waited for a while until they started to announce that boarding was ready to commence, all in Spanish of course. I was trying to hear if they'd announce the flight was departing to Medellin but they didn't, so when showing them the boarding card, I just presumed that if we were getting in the wrong flight that they'd tell us surely. So we proceeded to board the flight. We had heard that if you go with Viva Colombia, prepare for delays as their fights never run on time, however ours ran smoothly and actually went on time. I'd recommend flying with them in Colombia as they are fairly priced, and save you the really long bus journeys. 

It was the right flight, and we arrived in Medellin about an hour and a half later than we boarded the flight . When we picked up our baggage, we needed to take another bus to the centre of Medellin as the airport was an hour out of town. As we didn't have any Internet access in the Dreamer Palomino, we hadn't booked anywhere to stay yet, which we normally like to do, as we look up where it is and how to get there. So we just had to turn up somewhere and hope they had a room for us. Luckily, in Cartagena, we'd picked up a Colombian hostel guide, so we looked up some hostels in here and found their addresses. We'd been told about Casa Kiwi, which was suppose to be a good hostel with a pool table and rooftop section. So thought we'd try that one out. We had to work out how to get a bus to the main centre of Medellin, and a helpful man who worked at the airport tried to explain in Spanish how to get a bus to the centre. He led us outside and to the main section where you catch buses from. We thought he was really nice, and then before he left, he wanted a tip from us and wouldn't leave until we paid him. We didn't have change, and didn't want to give him 20000 pesos, but he was going to give us us change . A young girl who spoke English came up to us and helped us out and said we should give him around 5000 pesos just for helping us out if the airport. Bit of a con if you ask me. The young girl was really helpful and said which bus we needed to take and they were also taking that one, so we just followed them and caught that bus. It took about an hour, and when we got to El Poblado, the main centre in Medellin, they told us where to get off. As soon as we got off the bus, a young girl came up to us, this time asking if we wanted a taxi and we said yes, she started to take our bags off us and tried to carry one of our big rucksacks. John went to give her his daypack, with all our valuables in. She could have been anyone and just run off with the our laptop and camera etc, so I told John he shouldn't have given her his daypack. Anyway, she turned out not even to be a taxi driver, all she was doing was trying to get a tip out of us for trying to carry our bags to the taxi, so we had to give her and some guy 1000 pesos each for something which we didn't ask for their help . You have to watch our for things like this here, as it looks like they are trying to help you, when really, they are just after your money. When we got in the taxi, we gave the driver the address of Casa Kiwi and asked him to take us there, he wasn't too sure where it was, and I told him which calle and correra it was on in El Poblado, eventually he found the place and dropped us off. 

So we pressed the buzzer to be let in and asked if they had any rooms. We weren't hopeful that they would have rooms because of what the Irish couple we met said, but was worth a chance. We asked if they had a double room with a bathroom and they said no, but did have a double room with shared bathroom, which was cheaper, so we decided to take it and book 2 nights here. The hostel was nice, with an outside seating area that overlooked the street. Our room was basic, but did have its own small outside patio with a couple of chairs so suited us. There was a pool table and when we looked upstairs, it had a roof top pool and a sauna . There were some guys up there playing cards, and they asked us to join them if we wanted, but as we'd just got there, we were hungry, so went to get something to eat and wander around the local area. There was an Exito supermarket right next to the hostel, so that was handy. There were also many small restaurants, cafes and bars within a few blocks of where were staying, so we'd definitely picked the best area to stay in Medellin. We found out that there are lots of restaurants that do a happy hour 3 for 1 cocktails, and half price food before 7pm every day, so we came to a nice restaurant and had a half price meal that night. We decided to take it easy and not drink, as we were tired so would leave that for another night. We took a stroll back to the hostel and John wanted to check out the bar area and play some pool. The guys who were playing cards were there, so John played them at pool, and I caught up on my blog. It's hard to stay on top of these things! I haven't been in places with any wifi in our room, so haven't really been able to update much of it lately . When I'm in the social areas, I feel a bit rude updating my blog, but there were loads of other people online there too, so I didn't feel so bad. I found out there was a hostel cat which was quite cute, it seems lots of hostels have cats over here, which is kind of nice as it makes me feel quite homely. So after John won every game at pool, we retired to bed.

The next day, we were going to do a free city walking tour, but hadn't booked it the night before, and you had to book ahead, so we didn't do that. We just decided to have a walk around the area ourselves. We saw a big shopping mall on the map so decided to walk there and check out the local shops. John being the navigator, followed the map to get us there. We passed what we thought was it, a large building with lots of restaurants and a few shops so went inside. But it wasn't that one, so we left and went to find the big mall. After walking a little further we came to the mall, and we passed a pet shop, inside the window was the cutest kitten ever . It was a little white fluffy one, and it had some kind of gemstone on its head and something was painted red. It looked a little strange on a cat, but I guess they were just accessorizing it to look even cuter. We carried walking up to the mall, the shops were more designer brand type. It was a lovely mall and once inside, there were lots of dinosaur type figures all around the place. We looked round for a while and then got something to eat, there were plenty of choices of all types of food from around the globe. I chose Subway tho.... John had some Mexican taco dish. After the shopping mall, we decided to take a walk to the metro station El Poblado, which is where you can take a trip to the funicular up to the top of the city. It was quite a long walk from the shopping mall, so once we found where it was, we decided to come back the next day to do this trip. We came back to the hostel and as we missed the 7pm food offers, we just decided to be lazy and got a pizza from Dominos right in the corner of the road where our hostel is . We actually bumped into a guy we'd met from the Dreamer Hostel in Santa Marta. John didn't recognize him, but I knew it was the guy we'd met. It's such a small place the backpacker world. Dan had just got to Medellin that night and was staying in a hostel down the road as he couldn't get a room at Casa Kiwi. We all sat in Dominos catching up on where we'd been and what we'd been up to. Dan did the lost city trek and said it was really good, but hard work. We said we'd meet up for some beers while he was staying in Medellin. We didn't really do much else today, so just got an early night ready to catch the metro to the top of the city on Thursday. 

As we now knew where to catch the metro from, we got up, had breakfast and walked to el Poblado to catch the metro. The map from Casa Kiwi had all the necessary steps to take to get there and told you which station you had to get off to get at to get the funicular. It also stated that the metro price included your funicular ticket too . It was around 1800 pesos for the metro ticket. It was simple to catch, just like using the tubes in London. So once we were on the metro, we were keeping an eye out for the station to get off at, once that stop came, we got off there and followed the signs for the funicular. You just go straight through to jump on one of them, there were about 6 people in our compartment. It takes you straight up, with great views over the city. We passed lots of favelas whilst going up, some of the houses were just little wooden huts with a tin roof, all on top of each other, and all on uneven ground. Some of them looked so inaccessible, and unsafe, but these were people's homes. 

Once you get to the top of that metro, it's still not as high as you can go, so if you want to go further, you need to take another funicular to the top. It's in an area full of favelas, so I don't think it would be safe to get off here and explore. As it wasn't right at the top, we decided to catch the other funicular. This one was not included in the price of our metro ticket, so we had to pay another 7000 pesos or so for us both to go to the top. We thought it was worth it to get better views of the city. Once we got on this one, it kept going up and up, to a point that we had reached the maximum height that it could go, and it then plateaued on to flat ground, but kept just going on and on. I wasn't sure where it was taking us once it was past the views of the city, as once you've got to the top on the flat ground, you can't see any views of the city, only the forests underneath you . It was a really long funicular ride, eventually, once at the top, you could get off and wander about. There was a local food market there selling snacks and drinks, and all kinds of handicrafts. We got some snacks and they even had jug to lulo, so I had some of that fruit juice. We looked round the stalls for a while and sat down to eat our lunch. Basically we'd come to a national park way beyond the city. There was a free guided tour taking place in half an hour we found out, so we decided to do it, although it was in Spanish. 

We headed off with our group of people, about 10 in all. The guide was speaking Spanish and I was trying to understand as much as I could, although it was difficult, as they were talking about the local flora and fauna. Luckily, there were a young couple on the tour, the guy was a Colombian who moved to the USA, so he could speak good English, so he translated some of the things the guide said. This helped us out quite a lot and it was really helpful of him to do this. The guide basically took us through a route within the forrest and told us what plants grew there, and what some of them were used for in medicinal purposes. We walked for about an hour, and when she finished the tour, she wanted to play some games with us all. We thought no what have we let ourselves in for..... So we all had to gather round in circles dancing round and singing and clapping like kids . We played a few games, I suppose it was kind of fun. Then when we finished, she wanted us to all hug a tree each to release any negative energy we had within us. We had to close our eyes for a while, and basically meditate around the tree, it was so funny to watch everyone doing this, we must have all looked so silly! Anyway, once finished, we all walked back to the start of the trail ready to catch the funicular down. You had to pay more fees to come back down again, as the ticket from before was only a single. We hoped to get our own cabin as it was a really long journey back down to the other funicular. We got on, but no luck, the driver ushered on 6 more people so there were 8 of us all crammed in, when the next one behind us was empty-just our luck. Once down, we jumped back on the other funicular to take us back to the metro. When we got back to El Poblado, there was another shopping centre, so we decided to take a quick look in there. It wasn't as big or as nice as the other one in Medellin. It was really strange as nearly every single shop inside the centre was selling electrical items of some kind . Each shop was selling pretty much the same things. It's a wonder how so many of the same shops can survive right next door to each other. We found an item John had been looking for ages, some kind of connection adapter for a USB headset, so bought that. After that we left to go back to the hostel to get ready to go for dinner. We decided to eat at Hooters, which John reckons he remembers going to in England. You are basically served by pretty girls in skimpy or next to no clothes, who go round on rollerblades and hot pants as waitresses. It was buy one get one free on the mojitos so we had one of those each. The food was average, but I'm sure the blokes who go there love the place. We left after the food, ready to do the Pablo Escobar tour in the morning. 

Pablo Escobar Tour- Pais Road Tours

We had booked our tour through the hostel directly as they book it through a company called Pais Road. We looked up the reviews online and they seemed to be good . It was 35000 pesos each to do the tour. There is another tour where you can get to meet Pablo Escobar's brother for double the price, so we just decided to do the one where you don't meet his brother. We got picked up from our hostel at 10.30am in a minibus, there were around 15 people on the tour. It said it was an English speaking tour, so at least we'd be able to understand it. It was a young girl who was talking and another guy who was the driver. The girl was really knowledgeable and gave us lots of information about the history of the Medellin Cartel and lots of information about Pablo Escobar, from growing up and throughout his life right up until he was shot dead. On the tour, you are basically driven around to lots of different sites in some way relating to Escobar. 

The first few places we stopped at were where Escobar had some houses. The buildings were always white, with some palm trees nearby, and most of them had a pool within the complex. Since Escobar's death, the buildings have been derelict and they are just lying there empty . The government have bought some of the buildings, but haven't done anything with them since he died 20 years ago. We also went to a place of worship where many people pray to say thank you to the Virgin Mary for how she has helped them out within their lives. Most of South Americans are devout Catholics and are very religious, this place was basically a shrine to the Virgin Mary. In South American society, it's matriarchal, so the women are the dominant figures, they are looked up to more than the men. 

We got driven past some of the buildings that were bombed during the Medellin Cartel, including police station, schools, and some of Escobar's places. At one point Escobar was the 7th richest man in the world. He'd made his fortune starting from a very early age, and by the age of 29 he was the dominant character in the Medellin Cartel. What we did learn on the tour, was that he didn't actually take drugs himself, he just used to sell them on and make lots of money that way. Because he was so rich, he was able to do things for the poor people . Escobar used to buy houses for the poor and actually offered to pay off the country's debt for the government. He was well liked amongst the poor for all the things he did for them. As he had so much money, he was even able to buy his own zoo where he kept his own animals at his house.

After touring round a few sites, we stopped off somewhere for lunch. We sat down outside and got a drink as we weren't that hungry yet. After lunch, we were being taken to the house where Escobar was shot dead. He was on the run for 3 years from 1991-93 as he was the last one left from the Medellin Cartel. The tour guide said that people in the cartel either went to prison, or were killed. Escobar had around 1.5 million people working for him, not all within the drug trade. Some were working as cleaners and because he had so many businesses, he had to employ staff to keep things ticking over. Although he was on the run, he felt safest in his own country, so he never left hiding out of Colombia. He kept in contact with his family and called home a lot to speak to his own son . They said he was a devoted father and was a real family man. He used to buy a new phone number frequently so that the government couldn't intercept his phone calls, and he would never make a call from within a house, he would always be outside in a car so he couldn't be tracked down. Escobar resided with his aunt and a body guard to celebrate his 41st birthday, and on his birthday he even joked that they were never going to capture him. He got lucky on his birthday, however the day after his birthday he did not. Some say it was Escobar's cousin who tipped off the authorities as to where he was hiding, as he was shot before Escobar. Once the authorities tracked him down while staying with his aunt, they shot him dead on the roof as he was trying to escape. They also shot dead his body guard. There are conflicting stories to who shot him dead and how they found him, but this is one of the theories we were given on the tour. So we pulled up outside the house where he was shot dead and stopped to have a look. The house is now owned by a lady who runs some kind of agency from there, so she gets people pulling up outside it all the time . We left there and next stop was the grave where Escobar is buried. We drove outside the city for a while and got to the graveyard where he is buried. In Colombia, well at this graveyard in particular, headstones are not allowed to be raised from the ground, so they have to be flat ones. We pulled up at the graveyard and started to walk to where Escobar is buried. There was a monument type thing, which at first I thought was hid grave, but it was not. Escobar is buried next to some family members, the grave site houses about 5 family members and their headstones are flat on the ground, with flowers surrounding them. There are some palm trees right next to the graves, which were purposefully put there because Escobar liked them. Apparently the headstone we saw of Escobar was not the real one, as his was stolen a while back, so it was just a replacement one. In Colombia, the subject of Escobar is taboo as its still quite raw as it happened only 20 years ago. During the 3 years Escobar was being hunted down, the streets of Medellin at night were like a ghost town, so nobody went out after dark as it was too dangerous . But today, it's far from this in Medellin, and the city feels perfectly safe to me. It was quite interesting to learn the history surrounding the cartel and about Escobar. Enough of my history lesson for now. 

After the tour, we got dropped back to the hostel, so we were going to get ready for a night out on 3 for 1 cocktails and dinner at Thaicos the Thai restaurant. When we got back to the hostel, we bumped into Dan who was with a German guy and a Swiss girl. They said they were up for all getting together that night as our hostel were arranging a party. We said we'd join them after we went for dinner. So we got ready for dinner and went out. We. Were suppose to check out of the hostel the next morning, but I knew if we had a heavy night tonight that we wouldn't want to get up early to travel on a long journey, so booked another night at Casa Kiwi. We went to Thaicos and it was heaving in there, I think it gets busy every night because of the offer of 3 for 1 cocktails and half price food as long you order it before 7pm . I had some strawberry daquairs and John had his usual mojitos. When we got 3 cocktails each all at once, we both thought were going to be quite merry by the end of the night. The cocktail I had was really nice, and actually had real bits of strawberry in and tasted really fruity, and not too strong. Just how I like them. Once the food came, it was really nice too, no wonder it gets packed here. So once finished we proceeded to go back to the hostel to meet the others. They were there so we all sat down for drinks. By this time, we were already quite merry for all the cocktails we'd had already. Drinks were flowing well and we decided to get a bottle of rum and some aguardiente from the supermarket nearby. The boys had the rum and myself and Sarah the Swiss girl had some aguardiente, but they also had some of that too. After a few hours of drinking and all quite drunken, we wanted to go somewhere else, so went for a wander about to try and find a bar to get some more drinks. We came across a place doing late drinks so went inside . It was more a social club for locals, but I think we blended in well. We stayed there until they chucked us out, and afterwards we walked back to the hostel. Dan and Andy the German guy were staying at another hostel, so they walked off a different way to us, and John, Sarah and I walked back to our hostel. It was pouring hard with rain by this time, so we just wanted to get in from the wet. After returning to the hostel, I couldn't tell you what happened next as we were so drunk! Neither John nor myself remember coming back to the room. We must have passed right out. Thank god we booked one more night or we would not have got up the next morning to catch a bus. 

The morning after the night before was a sore point, we were both really hung over and I felt really sick. We were really lazy and did not even get out of bed until about 2pm... We were starving tho, so only went out to get some food. We needed greasy hangover food, and luckily there was a KFC right near us, so we headed there to get a bite to eat. Having some fried chicken and a Pepsi half sorted me out, but I was still feeling rotten. As you get older, the hangovers are horrible. I was still tired, so after the food we just went back to the hostel to chill out and get an early night. We had to pack up all our stuff ready to leave the next morning as we are going to Salento and it's about a 6 hour bus journey from Medellin. This will be our first proper bus journey, well one that's more than 3 hours. Lets hope we don't loose anything else on this bus journey.