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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...

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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!!!