Travel is like an intensified version of normal life. We take ourselves out of our comfort zone to situations where the ups are higher and the downs take us deeper than we have ever been. This is why we often return from travelling feeling like a new person: so much more experienced, wiser and even enlightened. After a year or so travelling through South America, I’d been confronted by many lows (and many more highs, thankfully). One thing that irritated me was how long things took. I’m pretty chilled out and enjoy taking my time, but on Latin American time things can be excruciatingly slow. The border crossing from Colombia to Panama is one example of this. The whole process of travelling by boat from port towns to port towns took days. I understand that authorities in this Darien Gap region are wise to watch their ports for drug smugglers, but anyone who has spoken to locals knows that the authorities are aware of the traffickers and allow certain offenders to slip through the cracks. On arriving to Panama, at the tiny village of Puerto Obaldia, the immigration officer sitting inside his sweltering hot cement block informed us […] Read More
Taganga is a fishing village, we recently visited, on the Caribbean Coast of Colombia. The sleepy town is centred around the beach front where cabanas and palm trees look over children playing in the tropical waters. Half of the beach is dominated by modest fishing boats, while the other half is (unfortunately) dominated by plastic bags and soft drink bottles. However, I seemed to be the only one who noticed the trash, everyone else swam through it with a big caribbean smile. I’m not sure what’s going on in Colombia, but we were surrounded by babies. Human, puppy, kitten, calf. This kitten reminded me of E.T. with it’s big eyes and bony body. This is my boyfriend, James, getting to know her. I think it’s super cute. Read More
