just thought we would update you with the last known news of the good ship Valhalla. the norwegian couple split and the girl ran off with one of the germans on the back of his motorbike. the captain is handing over the ship to morris the kuni indian for six months(drunken talk may not eventuate). the english chap spent a drunken night in the harbour on another yacht, went to shore sinking the dingy and wetting his passport. with our feet now firmly planted on shore we feel that although the journey was drawn out and full of mishaps we had a great experience and a little part of us is still at sea. now we are deep in the Colombian mountains in a small village called San Augustin.

Being in Cartagena was a little shock to the senses after being at sea. the old part of town is beautiful but we found it quite dirty and unfriendly. It was way too hot and stuffy we had to climb the fort to get some fresh air. spent a night at Playa Blanca on the carribean coast nearby. We took a boat back full of screaming girls, they sang all the way and asked for requests, they were particularly good at shakira. Next we headed to another city, Medellin. We were not too keen on staying in the big cities so quickly moved on to the valley of Cocorro and stayed in the mountains in a little town called Salento. This was a very picturesque place and inspired us so expect lottsa picts. set high in the mountains,surrounded by coffee fincas. We visited an organic Coffee farm and had a tour round. They grow and use bambusa(type of bamboo) for all kinds of purposes, from construction for coffee drying to fences. louise enjoyed the smell of fresh beans and mike enjoyed the taste of a cup to round things up. they have these really old italian coffee machines that have to be seen, Jerome you would love them. The weather here is very changeable, kind of reminded me of England (first place with the same cows too)and the sunsetsare amazing. We had a specific request for some mike pictures. feast your eyes here he is swinging on a bar. here he is surrounded and done for.

we decided to do a trek into the nearby parque los nevados. we were self sufficient with maps, camping equipment and food the first time for both of us so were quite excited as we set off into the wilderness. due to the size and height of the parque there are several climatic zones. the first at the base has the wax palm, which is colombias tallest tree and renowned in the area growing up to 60m. we took horses for the first 4 hours on a gradual climb of 1200m. the going was steep at times and hard for the horses but they came through. louise had the bravo horse. it bucked up a couple times but she held firm and controlled the beast. we reached the point where Gustavo, our guide, would return with the horses and we would continue on foot. he urged us to take care and not lose the track as sometimes its unclear. we hiked the rest of the day, another 4 hours up another 800m until we reached our destination, a lake next to a snowy mountain at 4000m. at the lake we found a sign left by the FARC guerillas, who control a third of the country. we were told that they have movements in these areas but in january 2 hikers bumped into them on a finca, and they shared coffee and discussions on politics and left safely the following morning. we passed through a few small farms and met some mountain farmers including this little one with red cheeks due to the cold. Camping was bloody cold, we cooked and went to bed as the sun went down and it was very hard getting out of bed in the morning. Packed up in the morning and headed up a bit closer to the mountain´s snowy peak then headed on back taking a new route. It was pretty much downhill all the way back and ouch did our legs and toes hurt! to the upmost annoyance of louise, mike took a different track back part of the way and got us lost in a swamp. we continued down and eventually camped by a river. the following day we slowly headed back to where we started stopping at rivers and waterfalls and it was here mike caught a little trout. Yipeeee! If you have read the old man and the sea, then mikes travel story would be called the young man and central and south america. he has tried everything, asked the locals for advice, bought hooks and lines, killed hermit crabs to use as bait and still louise has gone hungry. so when this trout was hooked on a worm it was an exciting moment. louise managed to find a peaceful momentand had a stretch on a broken wobbly hut about to fall into a valley. Cant make my mind up here if mike looks like a thundercat, snarf or action man. It was a good adventure and workout and it was hard to walk the next day. We didnt see any spectacled bears but we did see the tracks of a puma.

Back in Salento in our cosy hostel we treated ourselves to trout, the local speciality, Mike cooked this plus the little fella he caught! This was a mistake as we got food poisoning from this Mike was up puking and pooing himself all night! Luckily louises case was not so severe. anyway not to dwell on it here are some nice photos. this little beauty sat on louise most of the afternoon as she read in a hammack. oh yes and before we move on we got to play a Colombian game called Tahoe. you throw a weight underarm into a patch of clay and try and make it stick. if you get it to stick inside the horse shoe you get 6 points and if you blow up the gun powder stuck to the horse shoe you get 3, lottsa fun we say.

we made our way to Cali, the latin american capital of salsa. it was another large city and its become very clear to us that we dont want to spend our time in cities, looking more for natural beauty. it seemed to be a city built around traffic filled with kamikazi drivers. anyways we made a day trip the following day to san cipriano, a national park. you supposedly get to be punted along railway tracks on crates. sounds great, well it did to us and we almost made it but the bus we were in was pulled over by police and thoroughly searched. there were a group of kids going camping and one was found to be carrying weed so was arrested and taken to the station along with us. it seemed we needed our passports, which we didnt have so they would have to hold us, which turned out to be 4 hours. they then drove us back to Cali to DAS, the department of security where we were interrogated about what types of music we like and so on. eventually someone from the hostel brought us our passports and we were released from custody. What an ordeal it was anyway we still had energy for a salsa class,well actually it turned out to be salsa,aerobics,hiphop workout. Mike was the only blokey in the class out of 15, brave boy. He tried hard and although he was moving i dont really know what he was doing at the back, it wasnt salsa!

now we are in San Augustin after a long day on the bumpy road. this area is full of statues and nobody knows where they came from. we are taking horses to investgate tomorrow and then sat they are having a festival of horse racing, dancing and hopefully frolicking fun fun. ciao for nowxxxxxx