Colombia`s great. Don`t give a FARC what others tell you.

Ok, so you deserve more about Colombia than that last pitiful excuse.

Cartegena, on the Caribbean coast, is spectacular. A real gem. (fitting then, that the country`s second largest export are emeralds.)

This place has passion. Oodles of it. Sexy street dance, fiestas and lazy siestas.

Think Latin American Seville, where the beautiful and seriously stylish sip coffee and sashay around under quaint Spanish flower draped balconies. Image is everything - it`s top of the worldchampion league for plastic surgery - some of the breasts around here would give Pamela Anderson a run for her money.

The Miss Colombia pageant has been running while I`ve been here, so exquistely slender doe-eyed, dark haired girls are here in their hundreds which could make a gringo stand out in the crowd. For all the wrong reasons!

There`s lots of this country I regret missing out on but have only just made it up the coast to overwhelmingly hot, but chilled and beautiful Taganga and Tayrona National Park. Met some lovely travellers (as well as a few not-so-lovely Brits on the look out for cheap drugs, threesomes and fights. They get everywhere.) But I really didn`t want to leave!

And tomorrow, after a gruelling day on a lot of aeroplanes, I`m off to La Paz. A city different in every way imaginable. In preparation and true Colombian spirit, I`ve treated myself to a full manicure and pedicure, darling. The prettiest fingers and toes in backpackerdom.

Cartegena, Colombia

The lazy person`s guide....

Goodbye Ecuador...

I`ve done a few uncharacteristic things over the last few months, like; climbing muddy, very active volcanos, crawled on my stomach through small underground tunnels, hiked all day, waded through amazonian mud swamps (full of leaches), swam with electric eels, stingrays, anacondas and sharks, found tarantulas in my bedroom, cockroaches in my lunch, fished (caught my first one - a piranha!) visited a shaman, ate lots of soup containing popcorn and chips, molycoddled monkeys, fed lions, bears and jaguars and shouted `Goooooooool!' at the top of my voice when Ecuador score at the beautiful game...

Two and a half months in Ecuador may have changed me. Certainly some of the experiences I`ve had here have been some of the best so far. But the fact you never get what you pay for is driving me slightly insane. My friend told me that her friends had recently come to Ecuador to cash in on the opportunity for cheap plastic surgery. Fine, if you're happy to risk the fact you want wrinkle reduction but actually come out with smaller boobs. That`s how it is here. Get used to it.

I`ve just come back from 2 glorious weeks in the Galapagos (would`ve been a whole lot less stressful if the airline hadn`t cancelled both of my flights and I hadn`t had to be rescued at sea because both motors on the twin engine boat conked out!) But I already miss the fish market in Pelican Bay where sealions and pelicans beg for fish scraps like a pack of hungry dogs. I`m convinced Tortuga Bay on Santa Cruz is the most beautiful beach in the world, with huge marine iguanas and small white tip reef sharks basking in the shallow surf...

I`ve said enough. On to Colombia tomorrow....until next time....