Travels

Hello! Feliz navidad and all that, hope yous all had a gid day. Me and Cherie went to an island off the coast and lazed about all day, swam in the sea and i had the world´s most well travelled tin of Bru - it went from Glasgow to Bogota (via New York), then overland through Medellin, Monteria and Cartagena before it finally got tanned on Puente Arena on the Isla de Tierrabomba, Caribbean. And pretty damn good it was too.

Travels have been a riot so far, in Medellin we went dancing to a tiny sweaty salsa club where the most incredible dancers strutted their stuff, at one point everyone cleared the dancefloor for a solo demonstration by this suave guy in white flares, whirling and spinning round but making it all look totally effortless. One of Adriaan´s pals kindly taught me some moves and for the length of "La Pantera Mambo" by La 33 i didn´t quite own the dancefloor but certainly held my own. We also went to sit on the doorstep of some pals´ house away up on the hillsides of the city, everywhere was strung with fairy lights and we sat under the eaves of the house in the bucketing rain drinking rum and hearing stories of wild gang life in the barrios of Medellin.

Then we headed to Monteria on an interesting overnight bus, the woman behind us was quetly but regularly sick as the driver wove his way through a series of endlessly brutal bends in the road, i´m really glad it was dark because it was probably totally terrifying. Monteria is very hot - i bouhgt apair of REALLY tight Colombian jeans and we saw huge iguanas running throuhg the park as we went to take a shoogly wee ferry across the wide, coffee colored river to have a cheeky beer in a scruffy bar.

Cartagena is HOT and really touristy, i can´t really be arsed with it although it is really beautiful. Last night we went to an incredible Cuban bar, covered in black and white photos of son cubano heroes and all mojitos and cigars and old guys in white shirts. Magic. As soon as i pay up in this internet cafe me and Cherie are off to Santa Marta for more seaside fun and perhaps some jungle fun into the bargain. More to follow soon, til then this is your Caribbean correspondent K. >Mackinnon signing off xx

Stormy Tuesday

Hello there chaps!

I must apologise for any shocking typing errors today, i´m on computer number 7 at the local internet cafe and it´s rubbish, number 8 is much better because all the keys actually function, whereas sad #7 is distinctly shaky around the caps lock and shift key area.

This weekend was a lovely puente so quite a lot has been packed into it. On Friday night there was a cheeky Halloween party.To which i went as a really shoddy Alice in Wonderland, i tell you trying to find a blonde wig in Bogota the day before Halloween is a deeply unpleasant and ultimately unfruitful experience. Party was quite a laugh, heard chaps were slagging the tunes blaring out of my boogaloo-riddled ipod though which is totally NOT ON.

On Saturday i staggered into class and made the students talk about the merits of a healthy lifestyle, while we all ate the huge arequipe-stuffed doughnuts i´d brought in as penance for arriving an hour and a half late the previous week. Then me and Adam and Cherie had mince and tatties for lunch, can you believe it, before going out on a delightful tour of some local bars. Here are the chaps in question, without a doubt Bogota´s finest:The weekend was quite a lazy one, the weather was absolutely foul so we didn´t go to the big free rock festival in the Parque Simon Bolivar, frankly i got enough standing in a wet field in the pissing rain watching a band miles away play a tune you think you once heard on the radio but can´t really remember the time i went to Glastonbury and am not really interested in repeating the experience, Colombian style. Instead we went to see a crap film, ate out a LOT, sat in dark bars listening to tortured singer-songwriters and drinking rum, walked along the Ciclovia in the bucketing rain and just generally lived it up.

The weather continues to be really depressing, the clouds hang low and it´s pitch black all the time, and you get drenched just running across the road for a bag of milk (Colombian milk comes in bags, not cartons or bottles) and everyone´s always got wet feet. It would be really shite if i didn´t have such excellent pals with whom to hole up in cozy bars full of mismatched furniture and big French windows looking out onto a drizzly plaza, or to laze about someone´s bed watching stupid films and eating Jet chocolate bars which have free stickers of animals inside them, or to go to ancient bowling alleys with and slide around the polished floor on haggard bowling shoes and cry with laughter when someone (no names) fell over in mid-bowl. Aye those two really are ten out of ten pals.