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

Inept teaching and penthouse living

Ah i've got the day off work, how delightful. Unfortunately they've got me working EVERY Saturday at 8 (eight) am! Even at the Monkey you at least got a moderate lie-in on Saturdays, and a cheeky roll and sausage. Here i get 4 straight hours, alone, with a bunch of chaps who have passed all the available English courses but still want to learn more. These poor individuals have actually paid for the pleasure of me rocking up at 8am, half-dead and clutching a massive coffee, and inflicting my, shall we say idiosyncratic in place of non-existent, teaching methods on them. My first class is tomorrow so i've decided they're going to get Scottish culture full blast, total 8am haggis chat followed by a cheeky episode of Still Game. No, really.

This unexpected Saturday work has scuppered my plans to go to Medellin for the weekend, it is rather shite because i'm never going to get more than 2 days off in a row now (i get a day off during the week to make up for the Saturday), and most places are 10 or 20 hours away by bus. Thanks, university. I can't really complain about it since i've got such a sweet deal here, i'm only giving 14 hours of classes a week, and all of the other teachers work full time and most of them are doing their Masters at night school as well. Colombians are incredibly hard-working, aye they might be late all the time but once they actually get started they all work so hard, it totally puts the U.K to shame.

I've finally got shot of the creepy house i was staying in beside the university! I hated it because there are never any foreigners in Minuto de Dios and everybody's dead interested in what you're doing, which is fine if you're going to class, actually doing some work, not so good when you're slinking back to your sad wee house with nothing but a hot dog for company. Now, can you believe this, i'm staying with a pal who's house-sitting a massive palace of a flat in the swankiest area of Bogota, it has a balcony and 2 levels of plush loveliness AND a proper kitchen. I'm going to make a massive din dins tonight to celebrate my first access to cooking equipment in about a month. Magic. It isn't actually a penthouse but it's certainly the closest thing i've experienced, tonight i have the added luxury of washing my horrific clothing in an actual washing machine, how good is this?! Arf i've taken to buying cheap pairs of jeans from the supermarkets here, this isn't quite as naff as it might be in Scotland since the supermarkets are these vast warehouses with every concieveable product for sale, but the fashion for jeans here is really tight, often with horrific spangly embroidery on the arse cheeks...