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.