Unprepared…

“You have 10 more minutes..” he said texting someone on his phone and obviously frustrated.

“Okay thank you” Katie says as we step to the side of the line by the pillar.

“Crap… I don’t know where it is or how I lost it.” I say as we’re frantically scrolling through our email on our phones.

The 5th and final country on our trip is the first one that wants proof of onward travel and a reservation of where we’re staying…

Which we actually had an onward ticket this time, yet we can’t find it anywhere.

We just booked a hostel while standing at customs to show a place we’re staying…

“I found it” I say looking at an email I had received in Spanish and not paid attention to…

“Fall en su Pago” translates to “Payment failed”.

“Oh that makes sense” I say looking up from my phone.

“What?” Katie says.

“My card flagged the second plane ticket as fraud so we don’t have the return ticket…” I say with a tense laugh.

“Well we need to buy one before our wifi runs out” She says .

(the airport in Bogota offers 30 minute wifi, and we had been dealing with this for the last 20 minutes before he gave us “10 more minutes”).

“Wait, I think I have something” I said unzipping my backpack.

I pull out my computer, opening it and flipping through my docs.

“I got it, let’s see if this works babe” I say with a grin.

Pulling up a screen shot of the original ticket purchased (before the failure).

It has the flight number, I think that’s all he needs.

We slide back in front of the line and he beckons us forward.

Immediately texting someone and looking at us suspiciously.

“Did you figure your stuff out” he says in broken english.

“Yes, thank you so much! Lo siento..” We say holding up my laptop.

“Okay, you’re going to Cartagena, and then what?” He says running through all the questions again and taking down our hostel name and flight number.

Stamp

“Bienvenidos Colombia” He says giving us a nod

We high five and happily hurry through, we’ve got an hour to leave customs and re-enter the airport for our next flight…

We take off running through the airport, and make it in time to grab a coffee and some breakfast before our plane takes off.

I guess we got too comfortable with the other boarders, and it was a good reminder to have our sh*t together.

Cartagena

Upon landing in Cartagena they opened the back & front doors of the jet, letting us out on the runway outside the airport.

It’s a small airport, and it’s home to Shakira with a nice shrine welcoming us.

I take a deep breath stepping off the plane, humid, hot, and smells tropical.

It feels like I’m home…

Grabbing an Uber from the airport we ride into town, to the Hostel we just booked at the airport.

Casa Del Pozo Boutique.

It came out to $8 a night for each of us in a dorm and included a welcome drink and free breakfast.

It was a beautiful hostel, with a great vibe, and the dorm had A/C at night surprisingly!

In the heart of the tourist district in Cartagena.

Driving in there were loads of colors, fruit carts, outside vendors, coffee carts and churros… Pretty much everything you expect from a fun South American tourist town.

We settled into the Hostel, went for a walk then I grabbed my computer and did a little bit of work on a landing page before hopping on a discovery call with a future client.

It was an interesting discovery call, because the bar at our hostel where I had to take the call from was blasting reggaeton in the background, but the guy had just got back from 6 months in Thailand with his family so it made for a good conversation.

Santa Marta

The next day we hopped on a bus to Santa Marta at 1…

It was about a 5 hour drive along the coast and jungle.

Driving through all these small towns, it was good to end the trip somewhere extremely humbling again.

Very sad while driving through these towns, as it rains a lot, and you could see most of the houses were flooded with water covering the floors, it looked about ankle to knee deep at places.

Lots of people in the streets, groups of boys dressed as girls would run out and start twerking in front of the bus and they’d have to stop and tip them to pass.

It’s a big holiday coming up for Colombia and they pick Ms. Universe, I’m not sure if that has to do with these shenanigans or not…

We made it to Santa Marta, to The Baboon Hostel.

It’s another tourist town, I’d say you can tell the tourist industries done some damage too it.

Lots of hassling on the street which is fine, but lots of hungry and homeless kids which always makes it hard to go outside.

We’re planning where we go next out of (3?) options.

Halloween

It was a BFG (big frickin deal) in Lima…

The best Halloween I’ve seen in years (even though I went to bed at 9:30…man I’ve gotten lame)

Kate and I went for a walk through the city, it was packed.

Kids Trick or Treating at businesses, everyone dressed up.

We got to the outside mall and it was packed.

It was like Red Hot & Boom at Cranes Roost for 4th of July but the entire area of Miraflores.

We decided to make a good story of it and grab dinner at Chilli’s in the mall (why the hell not?)

Every employee was dressed up to the nine’s in costumes, and the bartender was slaying the drinks and extremely busy (watching a bartender who’s slammed is still my favorite hobby…If I can’t be the one back there)

Kids were Trick or Treating all through the mall as well, all the businesses gave out candy.

When we left there was a huge Street Skate Comp going on upstairs, everyone was lapping this (6?) stair gap as fast as they could with an announcer.

A huge crowd surrounded it and cheered as they counted down the timer.

It was quite an experience.

If you think Halloweens died for kids (like I kinda had) just spend it in Lima.

You won’t be disappointed.

We made it over to Parque Kennedy and it was shoulder to shoulder with people, they had a live band playing (we couldn’t get to because it was too packed).

10/10 experience!

9 Days Left

It’s been an exciting week.

It was nice to settle in to local life for a month (that felt like 5 months).

But it’s nice to be back on the road again, but to a humbling area, and back to a tropical jungle/beach.

Sad it’s coming to an end, but excited to spend the most time in Florida I have in 5 years!

Cheers,

Me