Episode VI: Lunch in Paraguay, Rio robbery and The End

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This is it.

Oceans have been swallowed, bunk beds conquered, table football lost in shin pads. But as Nelly Furtado famously sung, all good things must come to an end.

Three months have passed since returning to Brexit Means Brexit territory. Observations have ranged from the hilarious ‘where’s your tan?’ to the sadly genuine ‘I didn’t notice you were gone, to be honest’. And my parents? They’ve invented ‘Bullshit Bingo’ – a game to determine whether any of my tales are actually true.

Anyway, Episode VI. Over the next few paragraphs, we take in Iguazu Falls, Paraguay (for lunch) before a not-particularly-grand finale in Rio de Janeiro. Enjoy.

ROUTE

Iguazu – Ciudad del Este – Rio de Janeiro – Lisbon – London

ONE SENTENCE SUMMARY

The rumours are true: you will get mugged in Rio.

ROBBERY II

“It’s definitely this way”, I declared to my new pal.

Two minutes later, a scrawny and deranged couple were making off with her colourful bag. Naturally, I chased after them, performed a series of NSFW attacks and returned a hero with the stolen possessions…

…OR, perhaps more believably, I stood around awkwardly, secretly hoping they would rob me too (a £400 mugging windfall was on offer from my insurance). The absolute horrors didn’t even bother to check my pockets.

Still, Rio wasn’t a complete disaster. There was the bloke in the top picture (aka Big Jesus)…

…and the below tale, worthy of its own sheet on Mama and Papa Snow’s ‘Bullshit Bingo’.

ACCIDENTAL DATE

‘Play it cool, Snowball.’

I woke up from a nap on my penultimate night in Rio to see a lady searching through her bag. Being a right charmer, I said hello and pulled a clumsy face. ‘No Ingles, solo Español’, she replied. Straight from the first page of the Rejection Manual.

I muttered something about going to get dinner in my finest Spanish and departed. Oddly, she followed and joined me in the lift. Then onto the street. And then around the corner. This was it: I was going to be killed.  

Fists clenched, preparing to die valiantly, I calmly asked what she was doing in my best Spanish. ‘Blah, blah, blah… comer… blah, blah, blah’, she replied. Phew, she was just hungry. Recognising my gormless expression, she slowed and said ‘comida con usted’ (food with you).

Whoops, turns out I had accidentally asked this poor lass out for food and, even worse, had almost exhausted my 40 words of Spanish. ‘Are you sure you don’t understand anything?’ Silence. ‘No English?’ A smile.

Flash forward two hours and we had become best mates – despite an ill-advised Falklands comment after finding out she was Argentinean. Conversation highlights included:

‘When’s your birthday?’
‘Oh, it’s in January’

‘Do you like the colour red?’
‘I prefer the colour green’

‘Do you have any brothers or sisters?’
‘Yes, I love avocado’

The only conclusions that can be reached are either: a) Spanish-speaking men are boring, or b) I’m incredibly handsome.

IGUAZU = WET

Took 400 tragic selfies. Only prepared to share one.

LUNCH IN PARAGUAY

Note to travellers: check a country is open before popping in.

Turns out the day I reserved for present shopping in Paraguay was the same day border town Ciudad del Este had decided to overthrow their corrupt mayor. After dodging water cannons and aggressive noises, I walked an hour to find an open shop, bought a selection of local spirits and fled via a motorbike in Brazil. The ultimate waste* of a passport page.

(*just kidding, the stamp is quality)

ACTIVITIES COMPLETED

  • Iguazu Falls. Water fun
  • Supermarket visit, Paraguay.
  • Rio all-in-one tour. Big Jesus, Escadaria Selaron, Catedral Metropolitana, Sugarloaf Mountain, Police Station
  • Maracana Stadium Tour. The home of Brazilian football and surprisingly naff

SOUTH AMERICA POWER RANKINGS

‘Which country was your favourite?’ GREAT question, fictional audience. With apologies to Venezuela, Guyana and Suriname who remain unvisited, here’s the official rankings of South America:

  1. Ecuador
  2. Colombia
  3. Bolivia
  4. Argentina
  5. Chile
  6. Peru
  7. Brazil
  8. Uruguay
  9. Paraguay

‘But everyone avoids Ecuador.’ They do… and they’re wrong to.

Ever since my first hostel backed onto a cinema – meaning I experienced the thrills of Bohemian Rhapsody as a blind man – it was meant to be. Nearly drowning in the Galapagos? Check. Altitude sickness from a bunk bed? Check. Doing a press-up in both hemispheres? Sadly, also check.

The wooden spoon is trickier to dish out. Peru stole an early lead after theft-gate, but it couldn’t compete with the accidental sponsored silence in Uruguay. But the winner? Congratulations, Paraguay – a truly disappointing 90 minutes.

RANDOM PHOTOS THAT NEED A HOME

Ultimate cringe
Sinking our homemade raft with my bum
To my right: the world’s grumpiest guide (whose lunch I ate)
Preparing for reincarnation
Driving without windscreen wipers in Ecuador
The poor souls who had to put up with ‘Tottenham are amazing’ chat for two weeks
#DatingAppPotential

THE COMPLETE LIST: LOST/STOLEN/FELL IN TOILET ITEMS

New entries to the charts in bold. 

  • Hiking boots
  • Towel
  • Travel pillow
  • Sunhat 
  • Sunglasses
  • Sunhat II
  • Sunglasses II
  • Headphones
  • Phone
  • Wallet 
  • Shorts, Christmas t-shirt and ‘first date’ jumper
  • Headphones II
  • Phone charger
  • Headphones III

FINAL WISDOM

No life lessons here, just a simple message: GO TRAVELLING. It’s sensational.

Also, BIG THANKS to everyone (excluding large groups of Americans) who I met over the four months. There’s an unloved sofa waiting for y’all in London.

NEXT UP…

Scraping the pennies together and plotting Ben’s BIG Adventure: The Untitled Sequel.

Episode V: Chile, Uruguay, Argentina

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The haters will say that squeezing three countries into one blog shows a lack of enthusiasm. And they’re probably right.

But with Chile and Uruguay short-term destinations due to their bank balance abuse, it wasn’t until Argentina where the majority of questionable tales emerged.

And it was in the land of ‘what do you think about the Falklands, mate’ that I was blessed with the presence of Owen – a long-suffering friend from home best known for using mascara to conceal a hole in his beard. Every. Single. Day.

On with the show!

LEGAL DRINK DRIVING

Well, cycling.

Argentina is famed for its red wine – and Mendoza, land of the Malbec, did not disappoint. Days consist of hiring a bike and darting between wineries, feigning interest in their history while they get you sloshed.

Applicants welcome for our as-yet-untitled wine club in London.

PATAGONIA

(aka squeezing a three-week trip into eight days)

El Chalten, Argentina

  • Best activity: Dreamy hike
  • Never again… Hearing footsteps in the gravel behind us, a momentary pause, and then a voice. “I’ve been taking photos of you.” Great. Hope he fancied Owen
Sad for two reasons:
1. My inability to keep my shirt tucked in
2. The ‘Thirty Next Year’ hat, hilariously purchased last year for Owen, is now mine

El Calafate, Argentina

  • Best activity: Glugging whisky on a giant glacier
  • Never again… Pick someone with a lurking, jealous boyfriend to take a photo. Her heart wasn’t in it

Punta Arenas, Chile

  • Best activity: WALKING WITH PENGUINS!
  • Never again… Pretending to be a B&B owner, playing along for 30 seconds, only to discover the couple trying to check in didn’t speak English and probably still think I own the place

Puerto Natales, Chile

  • Best activity: Dreamy hike II
  • Never again… Realising we only had £2.40 between us to get into the Torres del Paine national park. Required money: £50.
Customary teddy bear snap

DUSTBIN = £70 RICHER

The ultimate objective for this jaunt was to dismiss, once and for all, the (sadly popular) myth that I can’t look after myself.

Admittedly, an avoidable theft in Peru suggested the naysayers had a point – an argument that will only gather momentum after the latest howler.

To anyone I’ve sassed off previously about booking the wrong flight, consider this an apology. Turns out if you want to get from Buenos Aires to Iguazu, you can’t buy a ticket from Iguazu to Buenos Aires. Just knowing seat 21B had full access to my window-accompanying real estate is enough to make anyone feel queasy.

But don’t despair. The calamity did have two major upsides – reuniting with every Irish person in South America, and the opportunity to get amongst it at La Bombonera, home of Boca Juniors.

GOOD: STARGAZING

Not a bad way to turn 29.

BAD: URUGUAY

Accidentally took part in a one-man sponsored silence in Montevideo and Colonia for 48 hours as no one spoke English. Donations are still being accepted.

Of course, it would have been fine if there was actually something to do… Sorry, Luis Suarez and Co.

[insert good thing about Uruguay to avoid killing their tourism industry]

ACTIVITES COMPLETED

  • Stargazing, San Pedro.
  • Mountain biking, Atacama Desert. Spent birthday being cooked by the sun
  • Dreambeach Festival, Vina del Mar. Made best friends with Martin Garrix
  • Sponsored silence, Uruguay.
  • Patagonia.
  • Mendoza. Middle-class paradise
  • La Bombanera tour/match.
With Team Antipodean-Ireland prior to Dreambeach

ITEMS LOST/STOLEN/FELL IN TOILET

*NO NEW ENTRIES!*

NEXT UP…

Waterfalls, Paraguay and Brazil.

Episode IV: Peru, Bolivia and The Theft

Next time you find yourself on a beach at 2am, stripping down to your underwear, consider one simple question:

‘Is this really a good idea?’

Unfortunately, we chorused ‘yes it is’. So as my fellow sandy revellers and I headed for a moonlit splash, a criminal headed for the pile of goodies stacked on the Peruvian shore.

Now, you’re probably thinking: ‘what an idiot’. And you would be 100% correct. But my punishment was served when I walked back to the hostel in smiley face boxers, so we’ll skip the self-loathing and get on with Episode IV…

Adios, EU. Love Ben (at the Salt Flats)

ROUTE

Mancora – Huaraz – Lima – La Paz – Rurrenabaque – La Paz, the sequel – Sucre – Uyuni – Salt Flats

ONE-SENTENCE SUMMARY

Bolivian ladies give great hugs.

NEVER, EVER OPEN WHATSAPP VIDEOS IN PUBLIC

N.B. The below tale treads the line of ‘family friendly’ material

Imagine a hushed police station, crammed with stern-looking officers. A shaken Brit is at the counter, regaling his woes (via Google Translate), when a mobile notification sound fills the room. What could it be?

The policeman on foreigner-got-robbed duty stops taking notes and reaches into his pocket. It’s a WhatsApp message… a video… and it’s very quiet… better crank up the volu… uh oh.

Suddenly, the moans of a woman experiencing extreme pleasure bellow around the station walls. The policeman looks horrified; his fellow officers look horrified; the Brit concedes the theft was worth it to witness this.

DON’T GIVE YOUR KIDS MIDDLE NAMES

After filing the most redundant police report of all time, it was time to hit the bank to collect an emergency money transfer.

BEN: “Hi, I’m here to collect cash I sent to myself.”
CASHIER: “Don’t think so, pal. It says here a Benjamin T**mas Snowball has sent money to a Benjamin Snowball. You can’t be both people.”

BEN: “Genuinely, I can.”
CASHIER SATAN: “Nope. How do we know you’re not trying to defraud the real Benjamin Snowball? There’s nothing I can do.”

There were two plausible reactions:

  • pick up the nearby Christmas Tree and throw it at the sneering cashier
  • have a mini-breakdown

Despite the lure of pine needles impaling Satan, I reluctantly settled on the latter approach and slumped on a bench of plastic seats to mope.

Awkwardly, my plight caught the attention of a Bolivian lady – in keeping with the Biblical theme, we’ll call her Jesus(anna) – who immediately flung her marshmallow arms around me and thrust money in my face.

Note to the Colombian lady who failed to seduce me in Episode I: that’s how you do it.

*Middle name partially asterixed to protect against identity fraud.

DON’T EAT YOUR GUIDE’S LUNCH

“Is everything alright?”

My satisfied belly insisted it was; his silence said otherwise. It was only a slither of steak, but it was the final straw as a totalitarian regime was installed for the remainder of our Salt Flats Tour by the famished guide (aka Captain Penis).

So it was of great relief that the Dream Team (two Irish, a Kiwi, an American and an Italian) still managed to produce the goods in social media heaven despite the low morale:

ALTITUDE: THE SEQUEL

Huayna Potosi: 6,088m conquered.

Being honest, it failed to capture the drama of Cotopaxi (save for a near-vertical 80° ice wall randomly plonked by God near the summit), so I’ll just serve up the obligatory photo with my travel bear and move on.

DEATH ROAD

Probably the best thing ever.

SPANISH FAIL II

Important language lesson: ‘foosball’ is not the Spanish word for ‘football’.

Football: “A game involving kicking in which two opposing teams of 11 players defend goals at opposite ends of a field.”

Foosball: “A tabletop version of football in which players turn rods fixed on top of a playing box and attached to miniature figures of players.”

So if you turn up in full kit for a foosball event, you are going to look properly stupid. Whoops.

ACTIVITIES COMPLETED

  • Laguna Paron & Laguna 69, Huaraz. Fit lakes at altitude
  • Rock climbing. Labelled the worst beginner by the instructor in his 12 years in the job
  • Amazon Jungle Tour. Three-day retreat in a LOTR set dodging spiders, sinking self-built rafts and pretending to be excited by pawprints
  • Death Road.
  • Christmas Dinner, La Paz. A reminder to never again be away from Mama and Papa Snowball in December
  • Huayna Potosi.
  • NYE, Sucre. The night 30 Next Year became a sobering reality
  • Salt Flats Tour.

ITEMS LOST/STOLEN/FELL IN TOILET

New entries to the charts in bold. 

  • Hiking boots
  • Towel
  • Travel pillow
  • Lock (reappeared)
  • Sunhat 
  • Sunglasses
  • Sunhat II
  • Sunglasses II
  • Headphones
  • Phone
  • Wallet 
  • Shorts, Christmas t-shirt and ‘first date’ jumper

NEXT UP…

Say hello to Chile, Uruguay and Argentina.

Episode III: Ecuador, Galapagos and altitude woes

Dear Reader,

Those familiar with my literature may recall the Pulitzer-nominated ‘Someone stole all my stuff at Euro 2016′. Well, there’s a sequel. 

BUT that’s not where this tale begins. Oh no. Consider yourself click-baited for Episode IV. 

Instead, we must return to a time when I had a functioning smartphone, a wallet and my Christmas t-shirt (yep, they really took that too) for the third installment. And given the above theft, it’s a belated two-in-one job: Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands. Let’s get to it…

Editor’s note: Even though the photographic evidence disagrees, I did make friends in Ecuador. Promise.

ROUTE

Otavalo – Quito – Latacunga – Cotopaxi – Baños – Guayaquil – Galapagos – Montanita 

ONE-SENTENCE SUMMARY

Well, two.

Galapagos: ‘Dear God, please let me swim with a hammerhead shark’

Mainland Ecuador: ‘If we’re not dying, we continue to climb’

CLIMATE CHANGE = SOLVED

Scrap the Paris Agreement. Fear not about the Katowice stand-off. 

Turns out rising sea levels can be solved by sending me out to snorkel in the ocean without a life jacket, with one third of the Pacific now swilling around my belly.

Netherlands, you’re welcome. 

GALAPO-GOON

How do you impress a beautiful couple (we’re talking two legit 9/10s) on a boat tour? Of course, you could simply start a conversation…

…or you could try and win their affection by casually scooping your flip flop into your hand with your flipper. I opted for option (b).

On reflection, it was a poor decision. Haven’t been this embarrassed since ‘Ben was pushed over by a Year 7’ became a hit on the school corridors.

PRAYER WORKS, KIDS

The message was clear: you won’t see a hammerhead shark while snorkelling unless you’re REALLY lucky. 

Concerned, I dived under my duvet and prayed to all the major religions. And God(s) did not disappoint. Just look at the final clip in the below trailer for Blue Planet III.

HOW TO SPEND ALL YOUR MONEY

Oh, Montgomery Brewster. Life would have been a whole lot easier if you had just ventured to the Galapagos.

‘You want to board your plane, Sir?’ – $20
‘Ah, you actually want to enter the islands?’ – $100
‘Don’t worry, it’s a bargain from the airport to town’ – $5
‘Just kidding. This bus only goes 40 metres to a river taxi’ – $1
‘What? You want to walk the rest of the way? Didn’t think so’ – $5

Note to major investors: given I’m now sensationally poor, don’t be shy about offering to advertise on this site

OH YEAH, MAINLAND ECUADOR

Before I became best mates with turtles and hammerheads, I had another mission: climb the world’s (second) highest active volcano.

Here’s how the ascent of Cotopaxi – two metres higher than Kilimanjaro at 5,897m – went down.

  • Pre-trip. Meet German girl in equally dire financial situation. Agree to share guide. Sign ‘no turning around unless death is imminent’ pact
  • 4pm. Arrive at base camp, 4800m above sea level. Already feel iffy
  • 5pm. Told only 60% of people make it to the summit. Reveal acclimatisation strategy: ‘I did a few ParkRuns back in the UK’. Enroll in the 40%
  • 7pm. Sent to bed. Alarm set for 11pm
  • 7:01pm. Become first person in history to get altitude sickness from a bunk bed. Never underestimate the climb from 4800m to 4801m
  • 7:02pm-11pm. Spend four hours staring at ceiling, contemplating who should get what in my will
  • Midnight. Feel sick, begin trekking under Full Moon
  • 1am. Start munching on coca leaves. Make mental note to turn down pro-athlete contracts until they’re out of my system #runclean
  • 2am. German girl throws up. Encouragingly, I block her path down the mountain
  • 3am-5am. Complete blur. Brain fuzzy. Can’t remember girl or guide’s name
  • 5:30am. ‘Is it normal to cough uncontrollably? Why are people giving me funny glances? Is that what death feels like?’
  • 6am. Mission accomplished. WHAT. A. VIE… oh.
Shout out to my flat-mates, who delightfully provided a teddy bear in my ‘South American Survival Kit’

ACTIVITIES COMPLETED 

  • Otavalo Market. Basically a locally-run competition to see who can shift the biggest pile of tat to unsuspecting foreigners 
  • Equator visit. Briefly shamed myself by doing a press-up in both hemispheres 
  • Pichincha Volcano, Quito. Life lesson #3987: don’t go the wrong way up a mountain
  • Downhill mountain biking, Cotopaxi Volcano. Just thinking about it is banned in the UK
  • Quilotoa Lake. Accidentally adopted a dog on a beautiful four-hour circuit
  • Cotopaxi summit. 
  • Swing at the End of the World, Baños. Labelled MUST-DO on most online bucket lists. Actually just a swing
  • Wrong side of the road debut, Baños. Hired jeep with two Dutch lads (obviously) for two hours, 90 minutes of which were spend trying to locate the windscreen wipers
  • Galapagos explore.

LOST/STOLEN/FELL IN TOILET ITEMS

New entries in the charts in bold

  • Hiking boots
  • Towel
  • Travel pillow
  • Lock
  • Sunhat 
  • Sunglasses (sadly they weren’t quite valuable enough to justify fishing them out)

NEXT UP…

Robbery in Peru.

Episode II: Colombian north coast… and beyond

It’s back. And this time it’s BIGGER* than ever.

Before we dive into Episode II, a small plea. If you like what you read (studies suggest most intelligent people do), then please share. I’m locked in an SEO battle with ‘Snowball’s Great Adventure’, an admittedly more commendable site concerning brain disease in children.

(*well, it’s definitely longer)

ROUTE

Santa Marta – Lost City – Palomino – Minca – Cartagena – Pasto – Ipiales

ONE-SENTENCE SUMMARY

Don’t drink Colombian tap water.

THE LOST CITY

Spoiler alert: it’s been found.

But given it was billed as South America’s best trek, albeit by a tour company, I crashed the plans of three Dutch girls for a four-day hike to the mysterious Ciudad Perdida.

You’re probably familiar with how walking works, so let’s just skip to the highlights.

DAY ONE

  • Drank tap water
  • Slept in terraced bunk beds complete with mosquito nets, which had the exceptional quality of keeping out everything except mosquitos

IMG-20181107-WA0025

DAY TWO

  • Regretted drinking tap water
  • Danced on a table to Shakira anthem ‘Waka Waka’. Video evidence. More regret
  • Found someone else who knew every lyric to Eminem’s ‘Mockingbird’. Serenaded entire camp from our beds after dark. No encore requested

DAY THREE

  • Made it to the Lost City – a stunning archaeological site with sexy surroundings
  • Spent two hours wondering: a) how upset the indigenous community would be if I used their home as a toilet, and b) where a helicopter could land to evacuate me if my tummy exploded
  • Wandered past armed guards watching the Champions League. Tried to get them to switch channel to Tottenham v PSV. Failed

IMG-20181112-WA0016

DAY FOUR

  • Captive monkey stole my flip-flop
  • Ticked off a square on Gringo Bingo by jumping off a rock into water

Serious conclusion: a brilliant trek with a strong bunch of people. Sack off your job and do it.

IMG-20181112-WA0032

BUS FAILS

     1. The hunt for the lost Milky Way

There’s nothing more awkward than crawling along the floor of a packed bus, peaking under seats, in a desperate attempt to find your Milky Way bar…

     2. The near-miss with amputation 

…except getting your hand stuck down the side of a bus after accidentally dropping your phone through a crack. Two very uncomfortable minutes.

POLICE ENCOUNTER II

You’ve got to admire the commitment of the Colombian police – they’re convinced I’m the next Escobar and won’t rest until I’m stopped.

Unfortunately, a scrunched cereal bar wrapper fell out my pocket when I pulled out my wallet for inspection. Sadly for the authorities, Nature Valley isn’t yet a brand of cocaine and I was set free.

ACTIVITIES COMPLETED 

  • Lost City trek, four days.
  • World’s biggest hammock, Minca… aka world’s biggest fraud. Just a smelly fishing net in the jungle
  • Tubing, Palomino. More therapeutic than a massage to Enya’s greatest hits
  • Cartagena Independence Festival. Or as it’s known locally, ‘How close can we release fireworks next to tourists?’
  • Las Lajas Sanctuary, Ipiales. A glorious church/modelling spot on the border with Ecuador

ITEMS LOST/STOLEN

  • Hiking boots
  • Towel
  • Travel pillow
  • Flip-flop (later retrieved from monkey)

NEXT UP…

Adjusting to zero oxygen in Ecuador.

Episode I: Medellin, Colombia

Hola!

Welcome to Ben Snowball’s BIG adventure – a four-month epic across South America featuring zero photos of food and ‘finding myself’ guff.

Straight in with episode one: Medellin, Colombia. The former home of Colombian Voldermort, Pablo Escobar.

ROUTE

Bratislava – London – Bogota – Medellin

ONE-SENTENCE SUMMARY

Flew to Colombia immediately after a three-day Stag (aka karaoke retreat) in Slovakia, which it transpires is a terrible idea, to learn the entire Spanish language in two weeks.

sdr

AWKWARD ENCOUNTER

How do you find common ground with a non-English speaker when you can’t sleep on a long-haul flight? Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, obviously.

My new companion – a retired Colombian lady who spoke approximately 20 words of English – and I raced to £500,000 on my touch screen (after 100 retries) before she blew the lot with a rogue guess. Fuming, I terminated our conversation and tried to nap… with some success.

Three hours later, I woke to an empty seat next to me. Where was my new pal? Minutes passed, then an hour, before she returned. “I’ve done drinking,” she beamed. “Scotch.”

In a clear contender for the Didn’t Happen of the Year Awards, she proceeded to confess her love for me – “I love you, you understand?” – before clasping my hands and kissing them. Obviously, being British, I just let it happen with minimal resistance. Now an official member of the #metoo movement.

BAD ROMANCE

Well, another one.

Turned up to my Salsa debut dreaming of wiggling my hips opposite Shakira – but ended up dancing with the world’s campest instructor, complete with sweaty hands, as there were too many blokes. Ideal.

MEETING THE LOCALS

Got friendly with two police officers as they searched me at 2am on the streets of Medellin, while I was dressed as a pumpkin (obviously).

Note for concerned family members: it was a random search and I walked free.

mde

SPANISH FAIL

Strutted into Spanish school claiming I was an ‘advanced beginner’, meaning I was sent for an interview to determine my level.

It lasted five seconds. Some chap barked a weird question (I presume in Spanish), didn’t find “si, amigo” a fitting response and departed.

Fortunately, a Shakira tribute act was in charge of the beginners, before I was promoted into the almost-bottom set for week two, where the sensational Gabriela ignored the fact I had orange facepaint smeared across me after late-night Halloween shenanigans.

fbt

ACTIVITIES COMPLETED

  • Spanish school, two weeks.
  • Guatape. Four-hour roundtrip for a massive rock with a sexy view
  • Walking tour. Learning about the naughtiest Colombian in history, Mr Escobar
  • Comuna 13 tour. Once dubbed the world’s most dangerous place, now open to tourists
  • Parque Explora. Basically the Science Museum on steroids
  • Football match. In with the ultras for Independiente Medellin v Atletico Bucaramanga in the Colombian top-flight. Quality horrendous; fans amazing

IMG-20181029-WA0000

OVERHEARD IN… MEDELLIN

Disclaimer: the man in this story is not me.

A girl I met, we’ll call her Mary, was innocently changing her trousers in her dorm when she was greeted by a voice from the bunk above. “You have nice underwear.” Needless to say, his remarks were shared widely.

NEXT UP…

A short flight to the north of Colombia, for the Lost City Trek (guessing it’s already been found) before exploring the Caribbean coast.

“If you can believe in Santa Claus for eight years, you can believe in yourself for five seconds” — Ben Snowball