17/05/2019 – Travel day, Santa Marta to Medellin, Colombia

We awoke to an email from bookings.com asking why we had not turned up to our reservation, and had been marked down as a no show. Still a bit bleary eyed, I was confused as I was pretty sure we had just stayed the night in the reservation we had made? Josh had been shown a screenshot of our booking when we paid last night, plus it was the right address, and we had been taken up to the apartment after calling the provided phone number on our reservation. On further investigation/looking at the photos provided I quickly realised that we had in fact stayed in a different casa a few blocks down to that of which we had booked! We didn’t quite know how to approach this matter with our host so Josh timidly enquired and the host shrugged it off and said he was a friend of the host that we had originally booked, so they had liaised it between themselves (unbeknown to us!) It was fine, we had a clean and comfortable stay, but it was a bit odd and we stayed somewhere with less good reviews than expected! I sent a long email to bookings.com a bit later in the day to shine a light on the situation. How funny though, accidentally staying in the wrong casa! Last night when we enquired about breakfast our host had said they didn’t provide it, but then changed his mind ten minutes later. I don’t think he isn’t used to hosting - we ended up with cold coffee, whI think the a.c. had cooled it down quickly, and a broth and potato soup with arepas. Josh said he saw some polystyrene cups on the side so we think he probably got a takeaway and then sold it on to us. We managed to stomach enough to not seem rude and then poured the rest down the sink when he wasn’t looking! I spoke with mum dad and Connor (in Ireland for Amelias communion) briefly on Facetime before Josh and I got our stuff together, showered and got out the house to start the journey. We hailed a taxi and got taken about half an hour to the airport. It is an international airport but it is really small, and directly next to a white sand beach where people were swimming, such an odd contrast!

International airport oneside, Caribbean ocean on the other.

We got checked in and got rid of our luggage before grabbing a coffee with a sea view. We went through security where Josh got searched quite well! Then take off was via a very short runway that basically went into the sea! The flight was only about an hour long, just enough time to write up yesterday’s diary and for Josh to start the next section of his book.

Read book and secretly take photos of Jen.

Then we landed, grabbed our bags and waited in the long queue for the shuttle bus into the city. Eventually we got on the minibus, which made for a comfortable journey through the very scenic countryside, down the mountains into Medellin. It looks beautifully green and mountainous, apparently it has eternal spring like weather, which sounds very comfortable to me! We got off in the centre of Medellin and hailed a taxi to our hostel. The taxi driver was watching the t.v. via his phone whilst he navigated the crazy roads of Medellin, but there is big news in Colombia today as an ex rebel has been recaptured after his release from jail.

On arrival we got shown around and settled in, it is lovely, kind of similar in size and vibe to where we stayed in Bogota, small and friendly, sociable but not a party hostel. We have our own double room with a shared bathroom, and kitchen facilities, breakfast too! Josh and I were both really hungry so wandered not too far down the road to a restaurant called Lilli cafe. Next to it was a pharmacy where we bought some deodorant, disproportionately excited about this after having none in the tropics the last week! A supermarket was the other side of the restaurant where we got grapes, cookies and toothpaste, interesting (maybe not that interesting actually) combination. We walked back to our hostel and Josh got stuck into a photography competition application that I had spotted on the national geographic Instagram earlier in the day, fingers crossed! We sorted our stuff out a bit, showered, and now need to try and plan a little bit for the next couple of weeks…