A-bomb-inable behaviour

Imagine a beautiful old Colombian town on the Caribbean seafront. Standing in a small square in the workers quarter of the old town... a handsome church adorns the plaza and its colonial buildings are washed in a myriad of different colours.

It´s five o´ clock in the afternoon and the plaza is packed with people swinging and grooving to sweet salsa sounds. Young and old are dancing to the beats, everyone looks like they´ve been born on the dance floor (and Conor looks like he was born with water on his brain).

A messy parade with a plethora of different dancers push their way through the mob, who in turn give them their full attention. People are selling bags of water, water balloons, flour, snow in a can and a variety of other things for throwing on people... Every now and then someone clasps their hands around your face covering you in blue face paint if you´re lucky... motor oil if you´re not... You have your bottle of Aguardiente in your pocket and pull it out every so often to drink to the health of you, your friends, your dogs, the random person you just bumped into etc. etc. etc.

This is Carnival in Cartagena.

Its the same carnival that happens in February all over the world, but Cartagena has their one in November because that's when the city gained its Independence from the Spaniards. (They also vote for Miss Colombia in Cartagena on the same weekend just to fuel the testosterone levels).

We were in the slightly poorer (and hence funnier) part of the old city and when there was a gap in the parade, the locals ran over from the other side of the road to soak us (the only five "Gringos" on the plaza) with water or fake snow... next gap, we would run over and soak them... it was a fun Gringo v. Locals war... but they outnumbered us about a trillion to one and naturally took the battle. We were left soaked to the skin. All we could do in the end was wave a white t-shirt as a sign of our capitulation and a drunken peace was declared with a few shared shots of Aguardiente.

I´ve gotta say that it was some experience... I have never, ever seen anyone party like these dudes did on Carnival... They were throwing bangers (or little bombs to be more accurate) everywhere. It was what I would imagine Fallujah to look like if the Americans gave everyone a bag of Semtex and a ripped-up Koran for Christmas. Pics of Carnival and Cartagena can be found here.

Since then I have been shown around every corner of the city (rich and poor) by a local friend and tonite I´m leaving Cartagena, the last city on my itinerary, for the hotter (and wetter) eastern coast. The plan is a last forage inland to see the Lost City of Santa Marta, previously inaccessible due to guerilla-paramilitary fighting, but now a bit of a off-the-trail gringo attraction.

And yeah, I lost my credit card, so I´m a kind of up shit creek with a toothpick for a paddle. I´ve cancelled it and we´ll see what happens on that front. (Nothing was spent, I think I just lost it down the side of a seat somewhere).

Peace brothers!