Ding Dong Merrilly on high...

some photos of the pre-christmas banter to be found here.... here's one of me and the oul' fella selling Christmas trees

Oh yeah... a big-up to my cuz Dave Green and all his homies in work.

The Prodigal Son

hey guys,

back in ireland a week now... Sorry I haven't updated but I've been sucked into the blackhole that is the week before Christmas.

Am thrilled to be back... have met up with lots of friends and have had a couple of great nights out. Sold Christmas trees with dad which helped me bridge the financial gap for a while and which allowed me to have a good few festive drinks and liquid lunches. I know everybody always says this but it's really great to see everyone and to see what they are doing with themselves.

My travels already seem like a distant memory but I know that they existed and my rapidly fading tan is still proof of an odyssee undertaken.

I think that I will keep the blog going if for nothing more than a method of sharing some pics with people. Speaking of which, I will post some photos soon. (Am still on the photo high from SA). I hope you are all enjoying the run up to Xmas as much as I am. Will update soon.

Last photo update (sniff)

Click here for photos of Taganga, the fisher village that I stayed in for three weeks before I had to leave for this hellhole of Caracas...

The End (for now)

It would appear as though the fat lady is singing for me and my South American travels... I've left Colombia, by far the highlight of said travels and a country that I will revisit again soon. Last night, I got a bus from Taganga, a beach side paradise that has seen me through the last three weeks, and made my way west to the Venezuelan border and then on to Caracas, from where I now update.

I was sad to leave Taganga and Colombia. The last few weeks have been special there: I met a lot of cool people who helped me chill-out and soak in some Caribbean lifestyle. I spent my time there lying on the beach, reading books, diving and generally taking it easy. I even managed to fit in a day of deep-sea fishing yesterday during which I caught my first Tuna (albeit a smallish one) and I witnessed the magical catching of a Marlin.

Leaving Colombia has the additional baggage that I'm leaving it to go home: I am flying out of Caracas to Frankfurt (and reality) in two days, so this could well be my last post from South America.

I have very mixed feelings about going home. On the one-hand (if I had another couple of pesos), I would be more than content to follow the natural progression of my travels into Panama and then up through Central America. I would be very drawn to Panama, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Mexico. On the other hand, I am coming home for Christmas, to see my family and friends who I miss a lot. I am also planning on working in London from February, so that will be something new and exiting to look forward to. (In a healthy, if somewhat bizarre turn of events, I am actually looking forward to throwing myself into work, which is good because I really need to).

Venezuela is also a country that I would like to get to know. I've only been here a couple of hours but I sense that its very different from Colombia and from any other country that I have been in down here. It has a bad reputation for crime and unfriendly locals but I learned a long time ago that foreign perceptions of these countries are frequently misleading. I would like to discover Venezuela for myself, if for nothing more than the interest that the country's politics and president, Hugo Chavez, awake in me. But that will have to wait for another day. (For those of you unaware of Venezuela's role in world geopolitics and Chavez, then click here for a BBC profile).

So, I will update from home with the last of the photos as well as a long-and-drawn-out Conor's final thought on travel and South America. In the meantime, this is your man in SA signing off for the last time.

Suerte amigos.

Two weeks to go...

well hello there,

I thought that I would attack you with a small update since much has happened since finding the Lost city. I am now in Taganga, a beachside suburb of Santa Marta on the northern colombian coast.

I am also happy to announce my status as a certified diver having completed Padi`s Advanced Open Water course in record time. I was lucky enough to fit in a night dive where and also a wreck dive where we visited the seventeen year old wreck of a drug-smuggling boat at 27 metres. Scary stuff!

Unfortunately my course ended up with an ear infection of seismic proportions, but I bumped into a seasoned French diver who was kind enough to pump a variety of drugs and antibiotics into me and I am now well on my way to a full recovery. The last two days were pretty bad, couldn´t sleep at night and spent all day feeling like shit, but at least I was in the right place for it. Taganga is a sleepy little seaside village where the locals are really friendly and everything runs at a slow pace. Went to the beach today for the first time and it was pretty idyllic with a burning red sunset to finish it off.

Anyway, will be hanging around here for the next few days while I contemplate what I will do with the remaining two (!!!!!!!!) weeks of my trip... will update if and when I have an agenda.

Live it large mis amigos...