Back to Bogota, or, If it ain't broke why fix it?!

And so... Teresita Rosita was back in Colombia. And what does one do when you're back where you started from in the first place? Why, go back to all the places you've already visited of course!
Sure, some of the places didn't really warrant a revisit. Pasto, for instance, was just as bad the first time around as it was the first. Unfortunately for Teresita Rosita and gang, the border crossing had, for some strange reason, taken a tad longer than planned and rather than rocking up at their actual destination at 3am they opted to stop off in the delightful city of Pasto, with its friendly atmosphere of "stop and you will be mugged, killed, or at least spat on".

At least Teresita Rosita and Chancho Dan were able to find a tasty espresso, which had become a daily mission for the group since they had banded up. And Colo Rùccula stumbled upon some Yucca bread (one of her favorite things in the world) that was not only good, it was the best she'd ever tried. But apart from these highlights, the group still didn't linger for long and it was onwards and upwards and back to Popayan.

There Teresita Rosita saw loads of things she'd seen before and a few things she hadn't. The group had found some locals to stay with through a group that involved something to do with couches and surfing and these "surfers" showed the travelers some typical sights, fed them typical food and took them to a "typical" salsa club. It was interesting... And then up, up and away once more.

A delightful bus ride involving open windows, hot tropical air and good music later and the motley crew found themselves in Cali, for an all-too-brief stopover. Sure, Cali had was a little dirty and felt a little on edge, but it also felt like they had just arrived on the coast even though they were in a valley at least 4 hours from the beach. In Cali, they ate guanabana ice cream, drank sugarcane juice, sweated on the local buses and managed to stop themselves from buying anything neon, which the locals seemed to favour just a bit.

And then, it was back to Salento and La Serrana where Teresita Rosita had organised to stay put for a while and help out all the old friends she'd made there. While Chancho Dan and Colo Rùccula were still there the group explored the countryside, crossing rivers, getting chased by three-legged-rabid dogs, getting drenched in the daily afternoon downpours, but more than anything drinking loads of coffee.

Coffeecoffeecoffeecoffeecoffeecoffeecoffeecoffeecoffee
Hmm, Teresita Rosita had a slight case of deja vu for some reason.

But then it was time for the others to leave - they had things to do, places to see and all that jazz and Teresita Rosita was left all along in the green mountains to chill out, hang out and enjoy the fresh country air. She ate good food, drank much more coffee, went walking, got lost among palm trees and made a few new friends (she couldn't help herself really, and that panda hat didn't help in her cute factor much).

But she was missing her traveling buddies. They'd done so much together, seen so many things and tended to get on pretty well as well. Colo Rùccula was up in Bogota, and while the prospect of being back in a cold, rainy big city wasn't the most appealing thing to Teresita Rosita, being back in cahoots with her monkey hatted best bud won the competition, so off she set again.

A nine hour/one book length bus trip later and the deadly duo were back in action. And Bogota would never be the same again! Especially not the precious livers of its inhabitants or the backpackers traveling through her scenic streets. Teresita Rosita and her panda were put in charge of the bar at her new hostel of residence, and while the little angel stuck to her fizzy apple juice and lemonade, she soon learned how to mix up a mean margarita and mojito and lovingly plied the guests with her creations.

She and Colo Rùccula had soooooooo many new friends. Friends they took out sightseeing, played games with and then said goodbye to. It was great and it was awful. It was fun and it was torture. But it's hard not to make friends when you have a smiling panda or monkey on your head and when it came down to it, what was travel and adventuring without meeting amazing new people. Unfortunately amongst all these amazing people that came and went, Chancho Dan (who had rejoined the girls in Bogota after his foray down south) decided it was time for him to go home too. Teresita Rosita and Colo Rùccula planned to meet him Panama in the new year, but we all know how the best made plans turn out, so they had one last fiesta and waved their Chancho hatted buddy adios.

And then there were two! And what adventures they were going to have together during the remainder of their time in Colombia? Stay tuned...

A slight change in plans, or how to overstay your visa in Ecuador...and get away with it!

The answer to our previous answers was, in general, a resounding NO! No, Teresita Rosita did not leave the country before her visa expired. No, she did not head south. No, she did not get to eat tasty Peruvian food.

She stuck with her fried chicken and rice, she stuck with Ecuador and stuck with working at The Secret Garden with her new bestie Colo Rùccula. Yes, she had spent so much in the Galapagos that she couldn't actually afford to go back home, but that really didn't factor too much in Teresita Rosita's decision making. She was enjoying herself too much in Quito to think about leaving...

 ... at least she was for a while.
Then things changed...

The rainy season started in Ecuador, and with the change of weather came a change in atmosphere in the hostel. The lovely happy times, changed into not very happy times. Sure, there were good changes in the form Teresita Rosita's new friend, Jungle Dan, with his Chancho hat, who had started working with the girls and their animal hats.

But there were bad changes as well, and to cut a long, incredibly interesting and dramatic story short, the friends decided it was time to move on and they left!

Now, Teresita Rosita had been adamant that she would continue south as she had always planned, this was, after all the South America trip she'd been planning for years and years. But the thought of parting ways with her new friends, who were both heading north, and the thought of missing out on the amazing food and equally fantastic weather of Central America swayed our little traveller. South America could wait a little bit longer - Teresita Rosita assumed it wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. North it was!!!

Though not before the band of misfits decided to go all the way south to Vilcabamba (yeah, it was pretty much in Peru!) and relax a bit after the hectic last days in Quito. They ate pizza and hung out with the crazy expat gringos that inhabited the place. They went walking through the country breathing in the fresh mountain air. They reminisced about the good times they'd had in Quito. They laughed about the bad.

And then they went all the way back north again. A brief stop in Cuenca to look at churches and street art, another pause in Quito to say a final adios to all the amigos that they'd made there, and then the border.

The dreaded border.

We all know that Teresita Rosita may have overstayed her visa by just a little while. And the prospect of crossing the border was a tad daunting. Maybe they were going to fine her, or arrest her, or - it didn't bear thinking about - DEPORT HER!!! Her palms sweated. Her heart fluttered. Her eyes flittered. They were onto her, she just knew it. This was never going to work. Why had she overstayed her visa? She was going to end up sharing an Ecuadorian prison cell with 20 other prisoners AND their families.

She waited her turn in the immigration queue. She sidled up to the window. She slide her passport under the glass. She tried to look nonchalant. Her panda tried to look innocent. The official typed some stuff into the computer. A warning message flashed on screen. With a big red cross on it!

Eep!
"Miss, you have overstayed your visa by 62 days".
"Oh, really? I didn't realise. What do I do sir?"
"You must DIE!!!!"

.....
Well, not quite.

Teresita Rosita didn't get arrested, she didn't end up in an overcrowded South American jail, she didn't pay a fine, and she definitely didn't die.

She had to go ALL the way around the corner, photocopy her passport THREE whole times, give the copies to the official and then she had to wait. And wait. And wait. And wait. And three and a half hours later, just when the friends had given up hope that they'd get out of the country before dark, the official called them over, found the forms that had, most likely, been sitting on the desk the entire three and a half hours, printed something on them, and gave the girls their exit stamps.

That was it.
They were free.

They skipped across the border back into Colombia. They got fresh stamps letting them in and then they were off again. Ecuador was behind them. Five months of volcanos, beaches, blue footed boobies, and sunsets over Quito were over. Colombia was ahead of them with a whole lot of places that Teresita Rosita had visited before, but also a whole lot that she hadn't. And she was determined to see as much of it as possible in the 90 days she had been kindly given. Definitely NO more!

How To Swim with Sharks and other adventures - Teresita Rosita visits the Galapagos Islands

OK Teresita Rosita never planned to go to the Galapagos. In fact she was determined NOT to go, seeing as she was going to be traveling for the unforeseeable future and that much money for that little time just wasn't an option in the whole scheme of things. Gee whiz... $2000 could last a savvy backpacker at least a couple of months in Bolivia if not more.

But...

See, the thing with working at a hostel is that you're always talking to people, and the thing with working at a hostel in Quito is that you're always talking to people who are either going to, or coming from the Galapagos. And the thing with hearing really awesome things about a place over, and over, and over, and over again, is that you start thinking that maybe you should just bite the bullet and go yourself.

And so one day, Teresita Rosita took a big chunk out of that bullet and bought herself a plane ticket out into the middle(ish) of the Pacific Ocean. And then she packed up her little green bag again and jumped on a plane.

And it was all damn exciting, until she touched down and saw everyone else who had booked their pre-organised boat tours, or hotel pickups, or personal guides, or whatever it is that people do when they're organised and have money and head off to a bunch of islands in the middle of nowhere.

You see, Teresita Rosita had not done this. She'd figured that seeing as she was now a veteran of Quito and generally all things Ecuador, she didn't really need to plan anything, that she could just rock up and talk to people and work things out as she went along.  But then, it wasn't at all like that when she arrived and she was scared and alone and didn't have Colo Rùccula to keep or company, and maybe her Spanish wasn't that good after all and she should have stayed in Quito where she knew stuff and stuff....and stuff.

But she wasn't in Quito anymore, she was in the middle of nowhere, on an island, by herself, and there was nothing else to do but buckle up and enjoy herself and go find herself some blue-footed boobies to make friends with. So she did!

Well, first she met a fellow Australian (surprisingly, they're not hard to pick when you run into them overseas) and they decided to hang out and explore the archipelago a bit together. They saw their first sea lion, jumped off some cliffs into crystal clear fish-filled water, ate lobster and generally decided that the Galapagos was the most amazing place on earth - ever!  But that was only just the beginning...

Teresita Rosita then decided that even though it had been over ten years ago (damn, she looked good for her age) that she'd last been diving, seeing as she was in the Galapagos it would just be silly not to don a scuba tank and try and spot some hammerheads. Good idea?

Well yes... and no.

Teresita Rosita had figured it'd be more or less like riding a bike, but the whole breathing under the water thing turned out to be a bit more complex than balancing on two wheels. She put her head beneath the waves and FREAKED OUT!

She gulped at the air that just didn't seem to be coming out of the regulator and came back up to the surface. Maybe she should have thought this over a bit more before she got on the boat...

No!

She tried again.

No dice....

Back at the surface she freaked out some more, then pulled herself together, took some more heaves of air and descended again.

And then there she was. She was under the water and she was BREATHING! Humans were not meant to do this crazy stuff but our little traveller was now a human fish and she was ready to seen what the Galapagos had on offer.

Sharks!

That's what there was.

Sharks, sharks and more sharks.

And you know what?

Teresita Rosita grew up in Australia and had the fear of sharks ingrained into the very blood that she was sure these supposedly "friendly" Galapagos sharks wanted to devour. Swimming next to a whole school of them really isn't conducive to conserving air either, nor is seeing hammerhead after hammerhead emerge from the gloom and glide gently back into it. Teresita Rosita gasped up her air, maybe not purposefully trying to use it all up as fast as possible in order to get away from those nasty sharks, but it certainly helped.

After that excitement, Teresita Rosita decided maybe she should take things a bit easier, so she decided to take a peaceful boat ride over to another of the Galapagos islands, San Cristobal.

Relaxing....

Not so much.

Turns out the Galapagos aren't exactly the tropical, tranquil paradise everyone thinks they are. Turns out there's a whole lot of open water in between each island. And turns out open water is pretty damn bumpy in a little speed boat that only holds 15 people. Teresita Rosita however,  made it unscathed, and without the aid of the seasickness pills she'd had the forethought to buy before leaving the mainland.

And it was worth the pain, because San Cristobal was a paradise within a paradise. Teresita had her first swim (of many) with frolicking sea lions and sea turtles. She wandered along deserted beaches and snorkeled in crystal clear bays. She ate amazing seafood and then decided to splash out and booked herself on a cruise for a 6 whole days! She was gonna do Galapagos the proper way.

And...


It was AMAZING!!

She felt like the biggest fraud fraud of all as she boarded the luxury yacht, and got shown to her own cabin with its own little balcony and bathroom with fluffy towels and a shower looking right out over the waves lapping at the edge of the boat. There was a lounge and a sundeck and a dining room and a bar and, and, and...

It was AMAZING!!!

When she was not up top watching the islands and the waves rush by, Teresita Rosita was snorkeling with more sea lions, disturbing the marine iguanas as they sun baked across the footpath, watching blue footed boobies do their wacky dances and generally doing the good things in life, like eating more seafood, watching sunsets and getting gently rocked to sleep by the waves each night. The only downside was getting off the boat and the whole world continuing with its gentle swaying back and forth for the following week, but hey, can't have everything can you?!

Teresita Rosita's final stop in the Galapagos was the biggest, yet least developed island of the archipelago, Isabela. Another 2 hour, spine jarring journey and our girl and her panda touched down upon the sandy shores of Isla Isabela. And there, they didn't do too much really. They met some lovely people with whom they rode bikes, climbed mountains, visited beaches and then danced the night away over the high tide that covered the vast beach each evening. They sun baked, hung with the iguanas and visited hundreds of baby giant tortoises. They snorkeled with more sharks and avoided crashing with swimming turtles.

And then it was time to go.

Two weeks in the Galapagos had flown by, and with a heavy heart and a much lighter bank balance, Teresita Rosita returned to the mainland with a new stamp in her passport and one day left on her visa.

But did she leave the country like she should have? Did she continue on her southern trajectory as she had planned? Did she finally make it to Peru to eat Causa and Lomo Saltado and Ceviche as she had planned?

You'll just have to stay tuned for the next episode of Teresita Rosita Travels to find out, won't you?!

Teresita Rosita makes a friend - Quito, a girl named Colo, and pineapple, delicious pineapple

Teresita Rosita is on the road again....finally. And heading north again. Of course this wasn't part of the original plan, but hey, what are plans for, if not only to change them? So what has led our little adventurer to head off into the blue again? Surely she was content in her new home in Quito? Hadn't she decided to stay there for the foreseeable future? Well, let's retrace her steps over the past few months and see what transpired in the little country known as Ecuador..

We left Teresita Rosita just as she had started working in a hostel in Quito, a city most people avoided but that she had fallen in love with and eagerly explored every chance she had. But how did she get there in the first place, because she had originally been one of those foolish souls who weren't even going to step foot in the place.

Well...

We all know Teresita Rosita had left Australia because the idea of work made her little panda covered head ache, but after being on the road for as long as she had she felt maybe it was time to stay put for a time. And it just so happened that in this lovely place called Cotopaxi there was about to be space to work as a volunteer. Ah, fresh mountain air, snow capped volcanoes, sparkling streams, green meadows, llamas and a jacuzzi, what more could a girl need? Well, Teresita Rosita was sold! She just had to make a quick visit to Quito to check it out and talk to the boss to get everything organised.

But, lo, upon entering the bustling city nestled in amongst the mountains, her changed once again. Within minutes of being there, Teresita Rosita found herself working at a hostel there instead! And it turned out she really liked it there. Not only that - she made some friends too! Teresita Rosita and her lucky panda hat now had company. Working at the hostel with the best view in town was Colo Rùccula and her smiling monkey hat, and before you could say "Hola, que tal? Me llamo Teresita Rosita" they were firm friends. And what adventures they had...

They went to the middle of the world and tried to balance eggs on nails and wobbled along the equator. Teresita Rosita also thought it would be a good idea to play on an elephant shaped slide. It was not such a good idea after all. Teresita Rosita found herself not sliding down the slide at all. She found herself in a very awkward situation instead. It looked a bit like this...

Teresita Rosita and Colo Rùculla visited the Virgin of Quito up on her little loaf of bread mountain and hugged the world at her feet. They ate coconut ice cream in plazas, they discovered zombified religious art in a monastery inhabited by midget tour guides, they listened to classical music in a church coated with gold, they visited their juice lady in the market for guanabana (amazing), mora (super amazing) and coco (absolutely incredible, especially when mixed with either of the other amazing options) juices and every Sunday they went to the central plaza to get their faces painted with the rest of the children.

And so passed the weeks, and then months. And then our intrepid duo went exploring together. Teresita Rosita had been in the mountains for much longer than she cared to think,  all that altitude was making her light-headed - it was time for the beach!

The animal hatted girls took an overnight bus that took 5 hours to drop them off in the middle of the night in a little town called Puerto Lopez. It wasn't the nicest place to be around at 5am so they kept on going until they reached Montañita. It was there Teresita Rosita and Colo Rùccula were introduced to drinking out of whole pineapples and half watermelons and with all the fruit juice they proceeded to imbibe, there was actually very little time to actually lay on the beach as they had originally planned. After three days they had had more than their fair share of juice as well so they thought maybe it was time to move on.

Back to Puerto Lopez they went, to give the town a second chance and actually do some sight seeing and beach lazing. They saw whales too lazy to leap out of the water and rode in nearly exploding tuk-tuks to a gorgeous nearby beach called Los Frailes, where Colo Rùccula finally had her first swim an actual ocean!

And then it was onwards and upwards, through the awesomely named,it not-so-awesome Jipijapa, to a quiet but not-so-quiet town called Canoa. It was Colo Rùccula's birthday (the actual reason why the girls were out of Quito) and so once again the beachy part of the trip was neglected for more fruit juice and dancing in a bar shaped like a boat until the early hours of the morning.

And so the beach holiday that didn't involve too much beaching was over and while Colo Rùccula went back to work like the slightly more responsible person she was, Teresita Rosita took off for....wait for it.... THE GALAPAGOS!!!!

Time flies when you're having fun

When Teresita Rosita's coffee high wore off she didn't know who she was, where she was or how much time had passed. She spent the next little while piecing her experiences together into a coherent sequence of events and this is what she came up with...

It was almost 6 weeks ago, maybe more, maybe less (Teresita Rosita has lost her ability to judge or keep track of time) when we left our adventurer in the coffee region of Colombia. And yes, she did drink a lot of coffee, but there comes a time when one must stop with the drinking and continue with the traveling. So that's what she did. She set off by herself again and kept on with the southern trajectory. Her first stop was Popayan. Popayan was a very white place. Not white like people white (she was in Colombia, and like Mexico most of the locals were not of the lightest skin tone) but lots of white buildings - white churches, white hotels, white houses, white government buildings, if Teresita Rosita had been wearing white she would have been perfectly disguised...

In Popayan, Teresita Rosita did the thing tourists do. She wandered around the white streets, took photos of the white buildings, got cured by a wacky Mexican man who spat on her hand, burnt some ash on her, gave her some religious cards and then asked for $10000 for payment. It was a blast.

From Popayan Teresita Rosita then took a 6 hour pothole ride to the ancient Mayan/Incan/Aztec site of San Agustin. Know how there are those infomercials for the fat jiggling machines, endorsed by d-grade actors around the world? Well you don't need one if you ever decide to take the bus to San Agustin. Where there should be road there was mud, gravel, the occasional log, and the even more occasional small lake. With her knees around her chin, a large Colombian lady wedging her into her sit, Teresita Rosita jumped and bumped herself to the crossroads that lead to San Agustin, hopped on the back of a motorbike and boom, was in town and horse riding herself around some ruins.

Ruins probably isn't the right term for San Agustin. Its better described as lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of statues. Teresita Rosita saw statues carved into mountains, painted statues, freestanding statues, monkey statues, scary statues, silly statues, big statues, small statues - yeah lots of statues.

And then she jumped and bumped her way back to Popayan, and then down down down to the 'dangerous-est' border in South America - Colombia and Ecuador. Here she got her passport checked by some 'scary'  Colombian officials, strolled across the border and then got her passport stamped by some more 'scary'  Ecuadorian officials. Hmmmm it was pretty scary...

Wooooo! New country!

Colombia had treated her well,  she had been to the beach, fed the mosquitoes, trekked the jungle, danced the night away in the cities, drank too much coffee everywhere and gorged herself on enough banana chips to keep a small nation alive for the next decade. What would Ecuador have in store for her?

Well.... Lots actually. She hung out in Cuenca and drank more coffee and ate bread and cheese and chocolate with Steph and her parents. She went to one of the largest craft markets in south America and had the sensation of drowning in the flood of rainbow ponchos, shawls, blankets, scarfs, Beanies, gloves, socks, table clothes, wall hangings, Jewellery, shoes, you name it, it was there and rainbow coloured She ate roast pig from the market - whole roast pig complete with head. It was tasty. She didn't eat guinea pig, not yet anyway. She went to thermal springs, climbed mountains and rode bicycles.

 She did so many things, so many things that need to be described in more detail, so we will leave Teresita Rosita where she is right now, on a terrace in Quito in the sun, where she is 'working' hard as a volunteer at a hostel, having a 'break' and taking it easy while she explores the beautiful city and avoids getting mugged on a daily basis... it's tres relaxing....

Coffeecoffeecoffeecoffeecoffeecoffeecoffeecoffeecoffeecoffeecoffee

Teresita Rosita has been drinking coffee. Lots and lots of coffee. She is in the coffee triangle in the south of Colombia and when in the coffee triangle what else does one do, but drink coffee. Did I mention lots and lots and lots of coffee?

And not the coffee that people normally drink in Colombia, which while they definitely have the quantity, they haven't quite got the quality bit down just yet. They may grow the majority of the worlds coffee, but all the good stuff gets sent away, leaving the Colombian population to make do with the leftovers.

Actually mentioning quantity... Teresita Rosita has been indulging in more coffee than her little body is normally used to since she arrived in Colombia. But it's not her fault at all! It's because there's people everywhere selling the stuff. She walks down the street and there is five different people with little carts selling "tinto" - very sweet, but not very strong black coffee in shot sized plastic cups. And if not in the streets, nearly every hostel Teresita Rosita has stayed in has had free, yes, free coffee 24 hours a day.

Sleep anyone!?

But saying that, it hasn't really been the most amazing coffee Teresita Rosita has had in her life. Until now that is...

In Salento, the sleepy town that Teresita Rosita has called home the past week, there is real coffee. Espresso. Latte. Well, yeah, those two, but it's still more variety there she has seen in a long time. And what espresso it is.... thick, dark and strong and sweetened with this delicious stuff called Panela, which is like sugar cane but less refined, sort of like chunky molasses. So Teresita Rosita has got herself a bit of an addiction. It involves about three coffees before breakfast, another couple to pass the day in various cafes around town, and then if she's feeling up for it maybe a couple before dinner.

 She has drunk coffee in art shops, cafes, pool halls, bars, farms, on streets, in buses, taxis, inside, al fresco, in the sun, in the rain...

Coffeecoffeecoffeecoffeecoffeecoffeecoffeecoffeecofffeecofffoeeoeoeoefnocheochecoehceeeeeeeer

Teresita Rosita even tried her hand at making it one day. No, not making it like putting a spoonful of Nescafe in a cup of tepid water! Sacrilege!!!!!

Teresita Rosita went to a coffee plantation, picked the beans herself, peeled them, roasted them, ground them, brewed them and drank them. And then drank some more. And then some more. And then her little heart started going patter patter patter patter, she starting talking really really really fast, and felt the urge to do much more activity than she had in a long time. Only the urge mind you...

Salento is such a relaxed, chilled out place that the doing of more activity than the casual daily stroll into town for more coffee is really a bit too much effort. Teresita Rosita may have all the energy in the world, but ain't nothing doing in this place.

So maybe she'll just have another coffee, read her book, and sit and watch the sun cross the sky above the brilliant green hills, grazing cows and flitting birds and beetles.

Lost cities, tropical beachs and soooooooooooo many mosquitoes - teresita rosita in Colombia

Teresita Rosita has been a very busy bunny these last few weeks. She escaped the cold and rain of Bogota and went north to Cartagena, a beautiful walled colonial city, full of bougainvillea, bright houses and HEAT!!!

In fact, it was so hot that Teresita Rosita and her new traveling companion, Steph bunkered down each day and just blissed out next to the hostel swimming pool.... it was all a bit hard really.

So hard that they decided to mix things up a bit and headed off to a (semi) deserted beach. Teresita Rosita and Steph joined a whole lot of other people in a little boat, and with a driver who couldn't actually see where he was going they bounced across the waves to Playa Blanca.

At Playa Blanca, Teresita Rosita lay on the beach, turned herself a lovely shade of crimson, ate lots of tasty tasty fish, slept in hammocks, and swam in the deliciously warm Caribbean sea.

3 days later Teresita Rosita was still laying on the beach, a slightly darker shade of crimson but incredibly relaxed and without any memory of the nasty cold she'd left behind in Bogota. Colombia was treating her very well so far.

Seeing as she was onto a good thing, Teresita Rosita decided she could probably handle a bit more of this beach lifestyle, so after returning to Cartagena for a decent shower and some slight recuperation from over exposure, the duo trooped off to Tayrona with a motley crew of Argentinians, Spaniards and various other nationalities.

Amazingly Tayrona was even more relaxed than Playa Blanca and Teresita Rosita got down and proper with her doing of nothingness.

She read a book (On The Road, by Jack Kerouac, just to get into the travel spirit of things a bit more), lay under the coconut palms (without becoming part of the statistic of those who die by coconut to the head), swam some more in the Caribbean, and generally chilled, and chilled and chilled some more.

There was guitar music at night, glow bugs, iguanas, fresh coconuts (the ones that didn't fall on her head), and more than frequent dips in the gentle waves. And this continued for a good 4 days, the only hiccup being a minor storm that decided to rip along the coast, making the once tranquil cabaña on the rocks a generally unpleasant place to be - complete with water logged clothes, howling frozen winds and swaying hammocks vaguely reminiscent of bumper cars.

Oh, and the mosquitoes... always with the mosquitoes! Teresita Rosita had always prided herself on the lack of tastiness in her blood, but it seemed Latin mosquitoes really savoured her foreign flavour, so much so that Teresita Rosita was once again resembling an overused human pincushion.

Maybe it was time to do something different? Maybe it was time to do something really, really different...

Teresita Rosita decided to go to The Lost City - a five day trek through the Colombian jungle, complete with guerrillas, cocaine plantations, wild animals and other hazardous Colombian stereotypes....

Well, not really... the trek part was real least anyway. And, it was a little bit hard on Teresita Rosita. Her little lungs were used to the tropical air of the beach, her little legs used to gliding through water not hiking up mountains, her little back used to soft sand not a hefty pack. Poor little Teresita Rosita!

Jokes!

Sure the walk was pretty tough at times, but no tears were shed, unlike other hikes Teresita had been taken on before, and really all Teresita Rosita had to carry was a few cloths and her water, while some horses kindly brought the rest of the supplies.

The majority of the time was actually spent swanning about in water holes, playing silly games with the lovely people who had tagged along for the hike as well, and the only dangerous situation Teresita Rosita found herself in was entirely self inflicted.

In one such afternoon spent frolicking in a cool fresh mountain stream, Teresita Rosita and her trekking associates decided it might be fun to ride a tree trunk down some rapids... sounds like a bit of a laugh I hear you say, and yes it was a bit of fun. They floated along peacefully through the calmly flowing water, feeling very Tom Sawyer-ish.

But then suddenly, the fun wasn't quite so fun, when the log riders found themselves heading towards a rapid a little bit too strong for their liking. Teresita Rosita leaped off the log in the nick of time, landing safely on a nearby rock and watched in dismay as her group of friends were sucked into the rapids or crushed by the log.

It was all over! What would she tell the parents of these newly made pals? It wasn't even the walk that had killed them. It was a crazy scheme thought up on an idyllic afternoon....

But all was not lost. Their heads emerged on the other side of the rapids, laughing and still alive! Phew! They would all live to climb to the Lost City the next day, up all 1200 steps -1200 steep, indigenous foot sized steps and all the way back down again.

They would all sweat like mad,  climb up and down hills, see various wild animals and eat a huge amount of food, including the carb-tastic and aptly named 'pasta-cracker', a combination of pasta on top of crackers and accompanied by nicely fried potatoes and bananas. Mmmm carbs....

Teresita Rosita arrived after her 5 days of hiking with a new group of awesome friends and a million more mosquito bites, but feeling highly accomplished and ready for more of what she does best - BEACH!!!

Rain, rain go away, this is Colombia it's supposed to be warm

Teresita Rosita has arrived in Colombia!
It's all a bit exciting - she's being a proper backpacker now, staying in a hostel, meeting travellers from all around the world, and exploring a new city with the fresh eyes of a tourist.

Teresita Rosita is in Bogotà, capital of Colombia and with an average temperature of 16°C, and unfortunately for Teresita Rosita she has arrived right on rainy season and it's been rainy!

Rainy and cold.

Teresita Rosita went walking her first day out in Bogota and after half an hour she was drenched to the bone, wishing she had some waterproof shoes (preferably of the gumboot variety), and that jeans weren't quite as absorbant as hers were proving to be. So she went back to her current home, got changed and tried again, and this time she had more luck. Well this time she jumped in a taxi instead, and went to see an Australian friend who just so happened to live in Bogota, what a happy coincidence...

Unfortunately he had to run away and work as the common people tend to, so Teresita Rosita stayed with his flatmates and enjoyed her first Colombian fiesta/rumba. It involved lots of aguadiente - the local drink enjoyed by the Colombian kids and lots of dancing... And at 3am when she went home Teresita Rosita felt like she had arrived in the right place.

And so her time in Bogota has unfolded, wandering the damp streets, perusing the street art that covers all the old area of town, going to the gold museum to look at lots and lots and lots and lots of gold, much of which supposedly hung from peoples noses and ears and lips.

At the Botero museum, Teresita Rosita saw lots of fat art, fat pears, fat violins, fat pigeons... What would Terisita Rosita look like if she was a Botero painting?

Big is beautiful as they say...maybe she should have stayed in Mexico a bit longer.

Then when night fell, Teresita Rosita set out with various groups of people - Danes, Germans, Belgians, Argentinians, Canadians, Colombians... They went drinking, they went dancing, they went exploring, they always tended to stay out a little too late as well, so Teresita Rosita was starting to get used to functioning with very little sleep.

And there was the rain. It rained and it rained and it rained some more. Pretty soon nothing Teresita Rosita owned was dry, but it didn't really matter because as soon as she left the hostel she was sopping wet. The roads became rivers, the potholes became lakes, and passing traffic became trecherous moving water falls.

So when on her last day in Bogota there was hints of blue in the sky, Teresita Rosita decided it was time to climb El Cerro de Monseratte, a 3000m mountain overlooking the city. Teresita Rosita joined the rest of the Sunday pligrams and started the steady, steep climb past all the food and trinket stands that the Latinos love to set up during these sorts of events. And it was pretty steep going. That, and the air was a bit thinner than she was used to back in Australia, so soon Teresita Rosita was huffing and puffing along with overweight Colombians, resting to take in the view whenever the clouds cleared slightly, until she made it to the top.

There she was met by the sounds of Sunday mass from the church atop the mountain as well as the next front of thunder, rain and lighting, this time a little to close for comfort. So she, waited and waited and waited, until she lost feeling in her fingers and toes and then she took the cable car down instead.

And so the rain continues, a lovely sound when you are safe and sound in a warm bed, but after 5 days of it, Teresita Rosita said enough was enough - she was going to the beach!

And now it's time to say goodbye

The time has come for Teresita Rosita to leave Mexico. So sad. So sad. Or as they say here "muy triste" ( it's probably time to start teaching you people the wonder of the Spanish language, as Teresita Rosita is gradually transforming herself into an almost competent speaker of two languages, well apart from that awkward phase she's passing through now where she can't actually speak either anymore).

So as we look back over the time Teresita Rosita has spent in this country of tacos, tequila and other things beginning with "T", there are a that have been omitted until now and now is as good a time as any to tell you about them.

First....

Early on in her trip, Teresita Rosita was taken to a futbol game - a true Latin American experience if there ever was one! And as everyone knows, a live sporting event is much more about the "atmosphere" than the game itself, which is a good thing in this case because the team Teresita Rosita was going for lost (again). So instead of paying too much attention to the abomination occurring onfield, she joined her companions in drinking quite a bit of fizzy apple juice, occasionally shouting out obscenities at the players and screaming along to the intelligible chant the crowd hollered whenever the puma shaped mascot came onto the field. So highlight numero uno ...

And then there was this one time, when Teresita Rosita thought it would be a good idea to go to a 3 day music festival in D.F. A music festival of punk, ska, rock and other such genres with more than 150 000 Mexican punk/hipsters to go along with it. And you know what... it was AWESOME!!! Teresita Rosita packed her backpack, consulted her highlighted timetable, and went crazy. She danced, and danced, and drank more fizzy apple juice.

She resisted the temptation to be thrown up in the air on bits of carpet ripped off the ground by groups of overly enthusiastic youth and to go into the insane moshpits of the same youths running around in circles and smashing into each other with great vigor. Instead she ran between the many stages, saw many of her favorite Latino bands and hung out with Mexican Mel until they were both ready to collapse from complete and utter exhaustion.

And then after all her travels back and forth between Xalapa and D.F. Mexican Mel granted Teresita Rosita the one wish she had made when she had arrived in Mexico - to go to Xochimilco.

Xochimilco (pronounced zo-chi-mil-co) is a series of canals left over from when Mexico City was constructed on top of a giant lake. It is now a wonderfully kitsch Mexican tourist outing, where you hire out a brightly painted boat and get pushed around the oil-like body of water, listening to passing boats of Mariarchis, choosing between every type of food you can imagine (also served from boats), and if you haven't brought you're own esky (as Mel and Teresita Rosita had done) there are, of course, a selection of beverages offered from more passing boats. And then there's so many keepsakes to buy - sombreos, ukelalaes, dolls, bonsai plants, bouquets, etc etc etc etc. And lots and lots and lots of mexicans in their own brightly boats, drinking and eating, and occasionally falling or getting pushed in the "water".

So Teresita Rosita and Mexican Mel wound their way through the waterways, past a freaky island of dolls, supposedly to protect the owner from bad spirits, but Teresita Rosita was pretty sure the dolls would have been harboring their fair share of bad spirits, scary things!

They heard the story of the Xochimilco manatees, where a pair of manatees were introduced into the canals to eat all the weeds and to reproduce, however the locals didn't quite know what to think of these giant friendly beasts, so they just ate them...

They made friends with people of passing boats, and they ate, and drank, and generally enjoyed the experience. Yet another highlight!


And last but not least, and who could ever forget.... THE FOOD!!!!!
Teresita Rosita ate tacos, quesadillas, enchiladas, tostadas, chilaquiles, empanadas, gorditas, barbacoa, tlacoyos, huevos a la Mexicana, platanos fritos, pozole, tortas, mojarra... the list goes on, but to get an idea of what it was most of the time - tortilla, meat and salsa, lots and lots of salsa.

Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, but mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, what a highlight!