Nos encanta Taganga.

While doing our PADI certificate we spent over a week staying in the small town of Taganga. This involved spending a lot of time in the pool, diving in the Carribean sea, partying hard and eating like kings every night at Casa de Filipe. It will definitely be rememebered as a highlight of our trip.

Certified.... Divers!

For the past week we have been diving in the Carribean Sea off the coast of Columbia in order to get our Open Water diving certificates. We have enjoyed it so much and seen so many fish and wildlife at the same time. We are now qualified PADI scuba divers and can't wait to do some more diving in Central America.

White water fun.

Today we went white water rafting down the Rio Suarez at San Gil. The rapids ranged from Grade 1 - 5, Grade 5 being the most difficult ... and the most fun. Luckily nobody fell out of our boat. There were even a couple of snakes that got into our boat that made things a bit more interesting! We loved ever minute of it.

San Gil.

We are now in San Gil and we spent the day hiking through caves and down the river. First we took a walk through a cave full of vampire and fruit bats. Then we had a mud bath and made our way down stream by absailing off waterfalls and jumping off a few too. It was awesome.

You for coffee?

Today we went on a tour of a Columbian coffee plantation. We walked around the crops and picked out our own beans to roast and then grind to make our own coffee. The difference in taste and quality was amazing. It was a really good tour but after four cups each I think we'd had enough.

The World Cup! (well, U20's).

We travelled north to the city of Manizales where Australia's Group were playing in the U20's World Cup. The last game was against Spain and they thrashed us 5-1. The game itself was pretty poor but the atmosphere was great and we had lots of fun in the crowd with all of the locals.

Mi casu su Picasso.

We left Equador and flew straight to the capital of Columbia, Bogota. On our first day there we decided to take in a bit of culture by visiting the Museum of Independence, the Gold Museum and the gallery of Modern Art where Zak got to see his first Picasso as well as some Degas, Monet, Matisse and of course Botero.

A holiday from the holiday?

For the next few days we heading out to the Equadorian countryside to a small town called Otavalo that sits at the bottom of a volcano. We stayed in our own little private cottage in the middle of nowhere and spent our time hiking in the hills, reading books, watching movies and not much else. It was really nice.

Final of the Copa America.

For the past month of our trip in South America we have been watching and following the Copa America. And we were in Quito, Equador when it was time for the final. It was Uraguay v Paraguay and we went to the pub like everyone else and had a great afternoon of watching and drinking.