ultimos dias en Puerto Colombia

Everything has that rose tinted view when you know you're leaving soon. That is until you are shunted back to reality. A truck driver stopped in the road today and told me that I was everything he had dreamed of and could he carry me away? I said no. One of my pupils wrote to me on facebook chat- and started with the words 'Hey Baby'. I ignored him- you're 14. Took some awesome goodbye photos with some of the classes although one student kept trying to pinch my bum in the photos. Odd. Then he sent me the picture featured. Bless. One of Ledys's many male admirers popped round yesterday, he has taken a shine to me after I went to lunch at his house where he burned everything and I ate it all, claiming it was the most delicious meal I'd had here- he also seems to believe I'm intelligent after I told him the translation for cabra - goat- and could translate 'carpe diem', for once my degree has proven useful. Anyway he was carrying a paper bag and from within it he pulled out a copy of the Karma Sutra in Spanish and asked me what I thought of the translation. The translation?

Semana Santa and what not

Headed away from Puerto Colombia for the penultimate time on our Easter week off- what Colombians gain in random days off they lose in the actual holiday. Surely a week doesn't count?

After a pretty tough teaching week including a renewed barrange of porn quotations- Fiona had accidentally let slip that these were bad phrases which instead of discouraging them only served to make them enunciate more. 2 months of teaching pronounciation and this is what I have created. Although I have mnaged to get them to work more by promising to teach them swear words in our final lesson. Yes I love 15-17 year olds.

So Alex, Fiona and I purged our brownie cravings by heading up to the organic coffee region of Minca which is home to Colombia's best cafe and brownie. Got outrageously bitten by mosquitos in my hammack that first night.

We decided to rest alll our navigational hopes on a hand drawn map pinned to the wall of this cafe and set off on a full day trek to San Lorenzo in the heart of the Sierra Nevada. Walked a long way, hitched a lift in a truck with large sacks of a suspicious looking nature, reached a random bird sancutuary where the lady looked down on us for not wearing appropriate twitcher clothes. Apparently denim shorts and a neon bag cover are not suitable for birdwatching. Found out that Colombia has more species of birds than any other country, in fact a 1/4 of the different types of birds in the world are found in Colombia. No pigeons though.

We reached San Lorenzo, which we envisaged to be a small town with a shop we could buy food and some friendly local who would let us hang the hammacks. No, 2 houses. And not a soul in sight.

We decided to trek further up the mountain thinking that there must be a town somewhere. After all our hand drawn map had depicted a few child like houses. Nothing. We reached the top of the mountain, 3100m up. Still wearing shorts and strappy top and still intent on slinging a hammack up and sleeping in nothing more than my silk liner. Sadly sadly ill prepared. The top was flanked by several telecommunications towers, some for mobile phones and one for the national TV channel Caracol (incidentally the same one Alex and I have starred on twice) We spotted a lone man and in my despair I shouted some random Spanish at him. Turns out he was an engineer living with his family underneath one of these towers and he invited us back. There he had a room in his garage, filled with page 3 newspaper cut outs and posters of naked women over every part of the wall, he bought us some much needed rugs and in return we taught him how to play rummy.

Woke in this Castle in the clouds, read telecommunications tower in the fog, after a blissfully cold nights sleep. The eldest son, who turned out to be a bit of a legend took us to this sacred mountaintop lagoon and told us he liked Blink182. We walked down, meeting a friendly tour group who showed us all the shortcuts. Reduced our journey time down to 5 hours. Plus we bumped into yet more ornithologists who were setting up bird nets to study the birds, and a crazy shop lady who made us try all her fruit wine. We escpaped with half a litre of orange wine in an aguadiente bottle that tasted like a cross between vinegar, orange and cider. Prooved useful when we were sat roadside waiting to hitch a lift.

Another night in Mirimar, crack den, offered more coke, offered more coke again. Ended up ordering a pinapple juice. Headed off to Bahia Concha the next day to meet up with our Colombian friends for what promised to be a 3 day Easter party with bbq's and booze.

Sadly it turned out we had intruded on a couples onlu holiday much to Alex's dismay. 5 Colombian couples, Alex, Fiona and I. But the beach was beautiful, again crystal clear sea and fantastic mountains in the background. It is the only place in the world where mountains meet the sea and it goes from 0m above sea level to 5300m in less than 3km. Fact. Went for an explore round the beach and stumbled upon what looked like a pop music video being made. There was not one ugly or fat person in a 15m area of yaughts and alcohol. It was a party from Bogota- gosh I felt a tad out of place with my diseased leg and brownie belly. swam round the coast. drank whiskey, read Jackie Collins 'Thrill' in my hammack. Sun, sea and sex. Semana Santa.