In which Layla and Roz spend Thanksgiving in New Orleans

ByLayla

As Roz and I prepare to leave after a four day New Orleans mini break over Thanksgiving, I can only say: what a revelation. A really fascinating experience.

We were a little horrified to find that our hotel Le Pavillion, while lovely, was smack bang in the middle of the commercial business district, as opposed to the famed French Quarter, where everyone tends to stay when in New Orleans. Indeed, apparently many tourists never stray beyond the French Quarter's charming-balconies-and-copious-alcohol confines at all. Luckily it was a mere 10 minute walk from our hotel, and upon arrival on Wednesday evening, we wrapped up as warmly as possibly in the unexpectedly freezing night, and headed straight to the heart of it all. Our destination: The Green Goddess, one of the very few restaurants in the city that welcomes vegetarians. It wasn't a very glamorous joint, but its rag tag clientele gave a forewarning of New Orleans style. Think steam punk. People wear top hats, other big hats, sticky out black skirts, big black coats... There is a serious, unique style and identity to New Orleans' inhabitants as a whole that is quite unlike anything we've experienced elsewhere in the US.

After dinner we walked across the famous Bourbon Street just as it was getting ready for its nightly drunken extravaganza of neon and strong cocktails - including 'cocktails to go' as the norm! We popped round to a quiet corner and drank some amazing cocktails (not to-go) at French 75. Then we went to another cocktail bar, the Swizzle Stick bar, and found even better craft cocktails. This was amazing: that New Orleans is famed for its cocktail finesse had somehow eluded us both. We got back to the hotel just in time for free hot chocolate, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches - and a very good first impression of New Orleans. 

Bright and early the next day, we headed to The Camellia Grill for a delicious if simple local Thanksgiving breakfast amidst the boisterous New Orleans regulars, before joining a free walking tour of the French Quarter. The streets feel like nowhere else we've been in America. All the buildings are brightly painted. There is wrought iron everywhere, beautiful balconies, uneven pavements - a bit like being in Spanish colonial cities in central and South America (think Cartagena). Sure enough, despite being called the French Quarter, the city was briefly given from France to Spain - during which time the city pretty much burnt down and was rebuilt by the Spanish. It was soon thereafter demanded back by Napoleon, who later sold it to the US (the famed Louisiana Purchase - though Louisiana in those days was a third of the size of the whole US).

The walking tour was excellent and gave us a real feel for how the city has evolved. Lots of fascinating detail around the slave trade - New Orleans originally treated their slaves comparatively ok, eg Sundays off to do what they wanted, unsupervised, the opportunity to choose to work more for pay, and the option to buy their own freedom. Hence the city was full of free black people, including some who owned slaves themselves. Everyone was fine with this. Then when the Jim Crow laws started to emerge, New Orleans, long before Rosa Parks, was scandalized, and protested by having a respected man who was 1/8 African get a ticket for the white carriage of the segregated train and after boarding, announce his racial origins, leading to a Supreme Court case that brought the segregation to general attention... But sadly had the opposite effect from that intended - it reinforced The laws. The New Orleans folk seem extremely proud of their heritage, and being Creole (being descendants of European settlers), with African blood. The city feels very racially diverse, and separate from the rest of the US. And a key thing that seems to unite them is feeling disparaging about everyone who isn't from New Orleans! 

After lunch in the pleasant, slightly stuffy Cafe Palace, we took our first streetcar. Apparently New Orleans once had loads of streetcars, including a streetcar named Desire! (Indeed, we visited the house where Tennessee Williams wrote that play. We also heard that the proper pronunciation was Desiree, after the daughter of a plantation owner...). we were on a mission: our walking tour guide had told us that the thing to do in New Orleans on Thanksgiving afternoon was to go to the racetrack. So off we trundled, by streetcar and then a walk, and there it was. Sure enough, everyone was out, and in their best steam punk style finery - including some very fine hats. This was clearly the cool local thing to do. we joined eclectic locals in viewing the horses, then we muscled in right down to the finish line and joined the cool-hatted-spectators in shouting for the horses. We failed to formally bet, but Roz was smug when 'her' horse won... At which point it was so cold we installed ourselves in the grandstand inside without chocolate, and cheered vigorously. What a cool Thanksgiving tradition - and an excellent first horse racing experience. 

Upon returning to town, we installed ourselves in Cafe du Monde, a New Orleans tradition, were we had the obligatory beignets - delicious churros/donut type items which were delicious, if not diet-friendly. We sat outside, right by the route of the Thanksgiving parade, and cheered along with everyone else as Marching Bands and like like put on a fine display of US-style parading. According to our tour guide from earlier, there are over 500 festivals in New Orleans and most of them involve alcohol and parades. So they're very good at it! After the parade we walked up to the Mississippi River for a riverside stroll before a pleasant dinner in a Spanish restaurant, looking out at the twinkly lights of the river. 

Next up we hopped in a taxi to Rock 'n' Bowl. This was absolutely brilliant. There was live music, and everyone was up dancing. And during the dancing, the waiters handed out hula hoops. Roz and I seized two, and we spent a happy time twirling - Roz for the first time! (The next day our waist muscles were agony!) Then we played bowling - which Roz won. Grrr. And ping pong. And finally we joined the dancing - what a fantastic night out! If that was nearer my home, I'd be there every week!

The next morning, despite it still being freezing, we started the day with a swim in the heated rooftop pool, to earn our delicious brunch at Ruby Slipper, one of the first new businesses since Hurricane Katrina, and immensely popular. Afterwards, we strolled down to the warehouse district for some gallery hopping along Julia Street, before taking the old and scenic St Charles streetcar out of the French/Creole part of town and up into the Garden District, the American part of town - in fact the streetcar tracks are historically considered 'neutral grounds' as when the 'Americans' tried to move in after the Louisiana Purchase, they found the Creoles did not welcome them. After a delightful potter in a local bookshop, we took a second free walking tour, around the local cemetery and beautiful huge old houses. I was intrigued to hear that Louisiana has the biggest revenue from the movie industry outside of Hollywood as it is so often used in film settings! In fact lots of celebrities also live in this area. We passed by John Goodman's house, and Sandra Bullock's house, and heard how post-Katrina, Brad Pitt set up a charity to build houses for families who had owned and lost theirs, leading to a campaign for Brad Pitt to be mayor of New Orleans. It was also interesting to hear about all the mad societies people from New Orleans belong to, and how being eccentric/insane is very much appreciated and nurtured and celebrated in the city. It really seems a culture like no other...

After the tour (and tomato soup...in an ice cream shop) we walked to our next destination: Freret. It was remarkable and disconcerting that 2 blocks from the amazing stately homes there was a big rundown housing estate. We walked rapidly and reassuringly got to Freret before nightfall. This is a small but funky area with some cool bars and coffee shops. We idled reading in a coffee shop, then had more superlative cocktails - and cheese to match - in a very cool bar which I think was called Core. Next some adequate Japanese food in Origami, and thence to the event of the evening: Comedysportz. This comedy/improv show happens every weekend and involves two comedy teams 'competing' in various improv games. It was a bit weird, not blessed with extravagant audience numbers, but cute and well meaning and surprisingly funny. We had a fun time. 

We'd planned to return to Core for another cocktail but in our absence it's loveliness had transformed into a very loud and packed party ambience, so we walked back to the streetcar stop and headed into the French Quarter to a bar called Carousel that was modeled on a carousel and hence sounded very cool. However, if we had been trying to flee party ambience, we'd done it wrong! The bar was just on the outskirts of the French Quarter but it was nuts. The streets were seething with partiers, each clutching a cocktail-to-go, in huge plastic, novelty-shaped receptacles, often with a special strap to tote it round their necks. Music blared. Neon flashed. Everyone was dressed like an Essex girl. There was no hope of getting a seat at the bar. We had a quick and disappointing cocktail before returning, feeling both relieved and old, to our quiet and grown up hotel. 

Amazingly, after two days of shivering in coats, gloves, and every layer of clothing we could manage, it was a lovely sunny warm day on Saturday, and we had booked a bike tour! A quick breakfast, onto our cruiser bikes, and we were off. We've never done so many tours, but New Orleans is so palpably about the history of the people who have lived there since the French times that it seemed somehow right - and really fascinating. The guide the day before had joked she had only been in New Orleans for most of her life and was thus not really qualified to run a tour; today's guide gave the impression that her concerns were justified. Apparently many people in New Orleans will never leave it in their lifetime - it's a flat city and they built a hill artificially so that children would know what a hill was. It's that sort of place. The bike tour took us to see yet another side of New Orleans - the Creole bit. We crossed Esplanade and suddenly the vibe was different- more bohemian, poorer, different architecture, lots of houses that had been submerged during Katrina still bearing the brands that indicate they were searched during the rescue operations, and whether any dead were found. We went through Faubourg Marigny, then Bywater, where we peeked into a path leading to a voodoo temple. Then up to City Park and along the Bayou water, and through Congo Square, the birthplace of jazz (the place where slaves once congregated on Sundays). It was an enlightening tour.

After a delicious and excessive Lebanese lunch, we headed back up to the beautiful City Park, the weather now glorious, wandered through a very cool sculpture garden, and played a round of mini golf - very fun! And then returned to Swizzle Stick Bar for more delicious cocktails. We spent that evening seeing The Book Thief at a cool cinema where the seats are huge leather almost-armchairs, there's a comprehensive snacky food menu, and you can summon a waitress by pressing a discrete button. And polished it all off at WINO, aka the Wine Institute of New Orleans where we fled the growing Saturday night chaos of the French Quarter (the streets surrounding it were lined with waiting police vans, which seemed a bad omen). WINO was very cool - we were issued with a wine card which we could insert into machines and pour ourselves variously sized measures of huge numbers of wines. Great fun. And I was pleased to end the night with hot chocolate in our hotel!

On our final day, after an early morning swim and another delicious brunch at Ruby Slipper, we took the streetcar up to City Park again for some paddle boarding. So bizarre: two days ago our teeth had been chattering with cold; today we stepped onto paddle boards with bare feet and t-shirts! It was a beautiful day, and the Bayou is perfect for paddle boarding. We had some thrills floating under low bridges on our stomachs, and enjoyed the cool scenery and general paddleboarding cheeriness, and afterwards retired to the New Orleans Museum of Art. We've been to better art museums, but there were some cool things to see, and a lovely cafe for lunch... A final stroll in the beautiful sculpture garden and then it was time to call a taxi. What a cool mini break. Miss you, New Orleans!

In which Roz and Layla paddleboard in a lagoon (and do not stand on their heads)

By Roz

After two happy hour mohitos in Casa Violetta, we decided it was more than time for dinner, and we headed back to Zebra, where we had been on our first night, to have their delicious pepper, potato and cheese dish. We wolfed this down as though we hadn't been fed for ages (the excitements of the day had clearly made us hungry) and then headed back to Casa Violetta for a nightcap and dessert. Only this time as we walked along the beach we began to notice that the ground was alive with crabs. I'm not sure how we had managed to miss this the first few times we'd been on the beach at night, but it certainly made this romantic wander home less romantic (and more focused on suppressing embarrassing shrieks). But all in all it was a very jolly evening. 

Next morning, we were up early. Again. Layla, you see, doesn't believe in lie-ins. Our alarm went off and I began with my usual tactic of suggesting she shower first. I have now perfected this to such a degree that I don't actually have to wake up to do it. Her second attempt to wake me (after she'd showered, at the late hour of 6.55) I had little option but to crawl out of bed. But I must admit it was for a good cause: our plan was to go paddleboarding and we'd been told that we needed to get there early. And so we had an early morning romantic march along the beach in time for a quick breakfast overlooking the sea before hopping in a car with a very nice Mexican guy (who'd lived in Brighton for a year and missed fish and chips!) who was to take us out paddleboarding for the morning. A not very long drive took us to a lovely lagoon - part of the national park that we'd been to on our first full day in Tulum - and then it was time to hop on to the boards for a very lovely, serene paddle round the lagoon. It was fun to have the place entirely to ourselves, and even better to find that - despite the small waves - we were still able to stay upright. We had a mini lesson half way through on how to handle boards in the sea - which ended up with Layla and I almost being able to do a small jump to change our foot position. Layla wussed out of doing a headstand on the board, despite my best efforts to goad her into doing one (blackmail and so forth) but otherwise it was really fun. The water was perfectly clear, there were tons of fish and we were entirely surrounded by jungle. After a while, we slipped into the water (me carefully keeping my hat on to protect the burn from the sun) and pottered around for a while looking at fish - and waiting for them to nibble at us (as we had been told they might) - and contemplating the 80ft hole in the middle of the lagoon, created by a meteorite and where some believe there is a spaceship. Fortunately, however, there was no sign of either of Martians, nor of the small crocodiles that we'd heard could also sometimes be seen. 

Out of the water and headed towards the car, we had the brainwave of persuading our guide to take us to a nearby-ish cenote. This turned out to be fab. Much bigger than we expected, there was a few different pools, all connected by caves and channels and it was fun to swim through and explore them. Layla had a snorkel mask which meant she was able to steer us both away from random rocks (whilst I used my burn as a good excuse not to have a snorkel - I am an idiot and don't really like having my face into the water). The temperature of the sun and the water was perfect, and though there were some other tourists kicking around, none of them spoke English which made them less objectionable! 

It was then time to return for drinks and then lunch, with lovely ocean breezes to keep us cool. I, however, was so transfixed by my book (Goldfinch, the new Donna Tartt) that I was barely able to look up from my book to eat (or look at the sea). Eventually Layla persuaded me that it was time to go in the sea. We'd hoped to take out paddleboards but our guy from the morning wasn't around any longer. But in searching for him, it emerged that the restaurant was willing to lend us boogie boards - which was almost better. We bounded down to the beach and into the sea...and then noticed we were pretty much alone. One look up at the sky told us why - it was almost black, with a storm clearly on its way. We agreed that we'd stay close to the shore but decided to press on anyway. (This turned out to be a perfectly sensible decision, since we were later joined by an over ambitious paddleboarder and some swimmers - and the rain never made it to shore.) We had a lot of fun trying to catch waves with our boogieboards, despite the fact that we usually failed, and were out until we were pretty much exhausted. We shared a beer and briefly returned to our books before heading home sandily for a shower. 

We headed out for the evening feeling virtuous, having just packed, and went back to Casa Violetta for one of their delicious mohitos and some guacamole. With delight I returned to my book and quite some time passed before we both realized that we were getting hungry - and felt completely shattered after our exertions during the day. We shamefacedly decided to stick where we were for dinner rather than being more adventurous. But we had a lovely meal and managed to keep ourselves entertained until 9 or so when we decided to give in and slowly make our way home. Not a very magnificent last night in lovely Tulum, but we enjoyed ourselves! 

I was asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow. But I was woken in the night by the loudest rain I have ever heard. The storm that had been threatening us whilst we were on the beach had finally arrived. This meant we woke up (6.30 alarm again!) to a very sodden town. We splashed our way along the road to the lovely place we had had breakfast on our anniversary morning and ate breakfast with a fairly cheerful air, congratulating ourselves at leaving Mexico at exactly the right moment. From there, we headed to the bus and I returned to my audiobook (which I am also transfixed by) and gazed at the rain as we passed through the countryside. And now: home.

Books read by Layla whilst on holiday: Pigs in Heaven (Barbara Kingsolver), Entries from a Hot Pink Notebook (Todd D Brown), Oryx and Crake (Margaret Atwood), A Cure for Dreams (Kaye Gibbons), and half of The Year of the Flood (Margaret Atwood). 

Books read by Roz whilst on holiday: Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden), Oryx and Crake (Margaret Atwood), The Room of lost Things (Stella Duffy), Tepper Isn't Going Out (Calvin Trillin), Mr Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore (Robin Sloan) and 3/4 of both Goldfinch (Donna Tartt) and The Year of the Flood (Margaret Atwood). 

In which Layla and Roz celebrate their wedding anniversary in a mangrove channel

By Layla

A two and a half hour bus ride through the dark countryside brought us to a very different-feeling Mexico: Tulum. Having done lots of research of Caribbean beaches in Mexico, I decided Tulum sounded the right mix of beautiful, bohemian, and non-18-30s-drunken tackiness a la Cancun reputation... And it proved to be so. I don't like arriving at beach places at night, because as our taxi drove us from Tulum town, several miles in complete blackness, I feared we'd found ourselves in some awful abandoned place. But after checking in (and realizing we'd left all our toiletries in the last hotel and dashing to a little shop to replenish and mourn the loss of Roz's hair product...) we headed down to the beach. We couldn't see the sea, but the sand was soft under our feet, the waves lapped at the shore, and the stars were amazing. We walked along the beach to a beachside restaurant called Zebra, drank mohitos, ate chilli poblado, which was delicious, and after sheltering from a sudden and short rainstorm, strolled home along the beach.

The next day was our 4-year wedding anniversary (indeed, also the 4-year anniversary of this blog!) and we had booked a tour Tripadvisor reviews had assured us would be romantic - a boat tour through a beautiful nature reserve dotted with birds, mangroves, and Mayan ruins, called Sia'an Kaan. Off we puttered in our little boat across the lagoon and into the mangrove channels, watching the water turn from blue to brown-ish to black to yellow-ish to clear... At which point we were told to hop out of the boat into the crystal water of the mangrove channel, and use our life jackets as floatation devices. For 20 minutes, we lazed on our life jackets as the current slowly but determinedly pulled us through the channel. Roz and I were at the front so all we could see was the water, the greenery, blue skies, and an occasional heron. It was both idyllic and bizarrely delightful - we were very sad when it eventually ended, we reluctantly clambered aboard the boat, and were conveyed back to dry land for lunch overlooking the Caribbean. 

We spent the afternoon swinging in hammocks, reading, and drinking the anniversary bottle of wine given to us by the hotel. When it got dark we headed over the road to Om bar for less-good-than-last-night mohitos, before taking a cab to Restaurare, a well-reviewed vegan restaurant, of all things. It was in a beautiful jungly/twinkly candles location, and other than their food being so spicy I could hardly eat it, had a very nice time. We returned to Om - for beers this time - and ended the evening lying on a beach lounger, listening to the waves, and gazing up at the stars - with me yet again impressing Roz by identifying Orion's Belt... 

A comparative long lie this morning, in honour of a day without a strict schedule - and then a tedious hour trying to make Paypal work for a course I was trying to sign up for - and eventually we set off for a beachwalk and ruins day of fun. It was lovely and gloriously picturesque walking several kilometers along the beach, our feet in the lapping waves. We stopped off at a nice beach restaurant for breakfast, then later as the heat started to crush us, a cool beach club for guacamole, beers, a book, a breeze, and lots of water. We gazed out at the sea (and someone doing a hula hoop dance) before hopping in a cab for the final leg of our journey. At last we arrived: the Tulum ruins!

These ruins are apparently the second most visited in Mexico but we arrived sufficiently late that most of the bikini-clad tourists from Cancun and Playa del Carmen had got back on their coaches, and it was fairly relaxing to stroll around these ruins which, while less impressive in scale than Uxmal and Chichen Itza, were interesting, had some cool structures, and gave a nice impression of a real little Mayan town in a beautiful seaside location. We paused by the viewpoint, enjoying watching a woman on a paddleboard on the waves trying to do a headstand and feeling nervous about the paddleboard adventure we're planning for tomorrow (no headstands in our plan though...). 

On the way back from the ruins we stopped off at a beach club where we hopped into the sea and spent the rest of the afternoon jumping in the quite substantial waves, before strolling home along the beach, watching the sunset. We are now de-sanded and installed in another beachside bar where we are enjoying basil mohitos and the sound of the waves. All quite delightful.

In which Roz and Layla swim in a cave, visit some pyramids, and emulate Tarzan

By Roz

Having forced Layla to swim in the dark in the pool by the side of our room - again claiming I couldn't due to my facial burns, we headed out to dinner and found ourselves with the usual conundrum of a Monday night - everywhere we really fancied either didn't have anything vegetarian on the menu or were completely deserted. Meridians, it seems, do not go out to dinner on a Monday. (Later on, doing some research, it seemed that in fact they were all saving themselves for Thursday - the day of the dead.) and so we ended up in the very pleasant restaurant, Amado, where we had guacamole and chips and then a very pleasant meal of fajitas and so forth. And it wasn't deserted which was just as well given that there was a guitar player and I can think of few things more depressing than being that guitar player and just playing to me and Layla.  Not that we didn't enjoy the ambience, but our attention was, perhaps, less than might have been wanted. We then went round the main square and saw a random day of the dead mime performance. It was good, if creepy (presumably the point), and solved the  mystery of where all the Meridians were that night. We wandered home via a quick glance in the bookshop (we both approve of bookshops that are open late in the evenings), having had a very pleasant evening. 

Next morning we were up early for another delicious breakfast (avocado omelette) before getting a bus to a hacienda (basically a rope-making plantation from colonial times). This turned out to be a really fun day. The bus took us through a bit of the city which we hadn't seem before with the odd department store or two which seemed very random. Then I listened to my audiobook The Year of the Flood (which I am completely transfixed by) as we drove through the Yucutan countryside. We arrived at a big house which rather reminded me of the houses that the British built in India during the time of the Raj. We wandered through, listening to a really good guide tell us about the operation of the hacienda when it first opened (unsurprisingly though depressingly, slaves - from South Korea - turned out to feature heavily in the tale) and the export of "green gold" - ropes. From there we saw how the ropes were actually made - and indeed are still being made on this plantation, in small quantity - including a bewildering variety of machines (one of which made Layla scream when it was turned on unexpectedly which was obviously hilarious for me, less so for her). We then got this mad train which was on a railway line, but pulled by a somewhat ambivalent mule. We rattled over the plantation towards and stopped off by an old cottage which housed an elderly man who had worked on the plantation years before and who only spoke Mayan. He showed us around his cottage and then talked us through what his job used to entail, including a demonstration of how to chop off the bit of the plant used to make ropes, This was somewhat peculiar or quite cheery depending on your spin. It was then back on to the train and over to a cenote. This is an underground cave with water in it, which Mexico has in bountiful supply. This one was particularly lovely since there were very few of us (I imagine cenotes are usually overrun by tourists) and it was cool exploring the murky recesses.  Out of the water, we were back on the train and back to the plantation centre, where we had a delightful lunch - probably our best meal so far in Mexico - with all sorts of local delicacies. 

We then got the bus back to Merida and then had a bit of a phaff working out how to get to a famous Mayan archaeological ruin called Chichen Itza, which is some distance away. Our very obliging hotel owner eventually drove us to the second class bus station and we hopped on a very chilly bus that stopped everywhere but was otherwise quite cheery and which took us to 3km from where we wanted to go (much better than the first class option which would have overshot the mark by 45km, and only slightly more alarming). We were eventually deposited in the dark in Piste, a somewhat grim looking town, and quickly decided that - regardless of our enthusiasm for eating in non-touristy venues - this was not the moment to stick to our principles and so got a cab to our hotel, a rather nice one right inside the Chichen Itza grounds. Dinner proved perfectly pleasant and we retired to bed by way of a jacuzzi (steam being good for my burns). 

Next morning we were up slightly earlier than usual to have an early breakfast to ensure that we were at the Chichen Itza ruins first, so we could enjoy the experience before the day tripper crowds descended. Fortunately the ruin management are clearly sleepy types since the gates don't open till 8 (and so it was a far cry from these early starts Layla has occasionally made me have on holiday to see a sunrise at various ruins). We were standing to attention at 7.55 at the gates (conveniently located in the back of the hotel gardens) and were bemused to find only one other person there. We speculated as to whether we had come to the wrong entrance - after all it is one of the 7 wonders of the modern world... It turned out not. Delightfully visitors to Chichen Itza are not early risers and so we had the whole complex to ourselves for pretty much an hour, wandering through jungle clearances to see beautiful structures emerging from the greenery. It was fun to see the giant pyramid in the centre of the ruins, to see the ancient observatory and to wander through the largest ancient ball park in mesoamerica. The latter was particularly curious because apparently the game entailed hitting a 12lb ball through a very inconveniently placed hoop - and could last hours. The winning team - or sometimes the losing team - would be killed at the end of a match which seemed an unfortunate reward for playing a ball game in very humid weather... The first people to join us in the complex were not tourists, but instead people planning to sell tat to tourists. But they were very pleasant at that time of the day, not bothering to try and sell us anything. And it was fun to critique their stalls as they did the set up. From there we stopped off for a small read, where I concluded book number 90 of the year (Tepper Isn't Going Out, set in New York and recommended by Thomas). We then nipped out to buy bus tickets to take us to our next stopping place (where we will remain for the rest of the holiday) and then made our way back to the hotel.

There we checked out and Layla went for a swim (more accurately I checked us out whilst Layla went for a swim) before lunch. After lunch it was horse-riding time! Layla and I occasionally think this is a good idea whilst on holiday (and usually conclude that we should learn to ride properly when we get home) and only remember our incompetence when it comes to the moment of getting on the horse. As it happened, I remembered this time as we travelled in a golf cart over to the horses (I needed something to distract me from the shame of getting in a vehicle I have previously assumed was the preserve of the 90 year old). Nevertheless, we pressed on through the hotel's leafy grounds and soon we were at a road - and at the other side of the road in some bushes were three horses ready (I hoped) for a gentle hack. And so it more or less turned out to be. Sadly I had a somewhat clumsy horse who had an enthusiasm for stumbling - to be fair I share this characteristic. Amusingly Layla had a horse with an enthusiasm for standing still and eating. So one might says we got horses perfectly suited to us. The jungle was fun to ride through - though bizarrely almost English at times despite being very clearly not. We ended up at a clearing after about 40 minutes and the guide told us to get off to see a cenote. Sceptical at first, it was really fun to clamber down into a half cave which then opened up on to a very pretty pool of water, overgrown with jungle greenery (I'm no botanist!). Our guide told us there was an anaconda snake - unclear if he was joking... Our guide enthusiastically then pointed out we could "be" Tarzan and swing through the trees on a vine hanging overhead. He demonstrated perfectly, landing neatly back on his rock. I knew this would be beyond me (partly because I tore a tendon in my shoulder which hasn't really healed, but mainly because I am a wuss). I'm ashamed to say that I persuaded / coerced Layla into doing it. I was impressed by the outcome - she did indeed swing - albeit it wasn't absolutely Tarzan-like. Especially when she fell off. But she wasn't hurt (too much, I hope) and I got a excellent photo which is obviously the main thing. We then headed back to the hotel and I contemplated how we should really learn how to ride properly when we get back to DC...

We then had a quick drink in the hotel, whilst I wrote some of this, and then it was time to get the bus. Pleasingly we managed to avoid anyone stopping us from our plan to retrace our steps through the ruins, and past the pyramid, with our bags in tow, to the bus stop which is just at the front of the main entrance at the other side of the ruins. I very much enjoyed seeing how different the place felt from the morning serenity (I fear the ambience was not enhanced by us with our bags) and am now looking forward to settling down on the first class bus to Tulum with The Year of the Flood: audiobooks really are the way to make me enjoy extended bus travel...

In which Layla and Roz visit Mayan cities and feel very relieved to have clothes

By Layla 

Our holiday to Mexico kicked off with an inauspicious start. Up at an ungodly hour, our plane from Washington to Philadelphia was delayed because the crew's bags got stuck behind a door - a bizarre tale that meant we left an hour later with an alternate crew, touched down with minutes to spare, sprinted through the terminals, hopped on a little airport buggy, and reached a very silent, empty gate after it had closed. Luckily for us, a toilet malfunction delayed departure and we were able to plead, beg and cajole ourselves onto the plane! Our suitcases, alas, were not so lucky. As the final bag made its way sadly round the carousel in Cancun, we resigned ourselves to the lost luggage desk - and while filling out the requisite forms, missing the bus we'd planned to get to transfer to Merida, our first destination. 

Bags duly registered, and an unlikely-sounding promise from US Airways to deliver them to our B&B 4 hours away when they arrived, we set about getting ourselves to Merida. Since Roz had managed to sustain second degree burns to her face courtesy of some boiling soup and a faulty blender, we had changed our Mexico route at the last minute to not put her face in the sea - and this meant starting our holiday on a bus. So we duly acquired a bus ticket for the next bus, whiled away an hour and a half in an airport restaurant (and an airport shop buying toothpaste) and then sans luggage, we hopped upon the four hour bus to the city of Merida. 

By the time we arrived at our little B&B, we were ravenous. So we checked in and headed out to Amado, a pretty courtyard restaurant where we ate enchiladas and drank mohitos while enjoying an atmospheric band playing on a little stage in front of us. A Mayan cultural festival is currently taking place in Merida, so our walk both to and from the restaurant was punctuated with visits to different pretty little squares with Mayan music performances - all very cheery. Merida is a pretty and charming little colonial-style city with lots of arty things going on. 

The next day we were up long before the crack of dawn, thanks to the somewhat unexpected but much appreciated appearance of our luggage from Cancun Airport at 5am! Hooray! Once it was light and we hoovered up an excellent breakfast, we took a taxi to Bici-ruta, the Merida Sunday close-down-the-streets-for-bicycles extravaganza. Having foolishly failed to bring ID, we couldn't rent bikes, but we strolled down the length of it, along a street known as America's answer to the Champs Élysées... Not as busy as the Colombia equivalents we enjoyed earlier this year, but still fun. We popped into a nice little restaurant for beers and fruit, then after further pottering around the Sunday market in the main square, sat down to lunch at an Italian restaurant in a very pretty little square just as a very jolly little outdoor tea dance with live music. Large numbers of older locals clustered to watch and the whole area was full of couples dancing. An excellent and delightful accompaniment to our lunch, though we didn't dare get up and dance ourselves! 

After lunch, we realized it was approaching 3pm, the time when it was apparently going to rain, according to the woman in our hotel. Sure enough, as we walked along the road the drops started and we dashed inside the modern art museum just as the deluge commenced! To the sound of rain battering off the roof of the cool modern art building (MACAY), we enjoyed some cool and some fairly uninspiring local modern art - interesting and enjoyable - particularly when peeking outside to the torrential rain! After it stopped, we walked home and I braved the swimming pool while Roz watched and laughed at me, under the guise of protecting her face. Later we went out for dinner - salads and wine in one place, then down to the busy main square area for beer. I chuckled and photographed the result of Roz's request for a large beer - in fact a giant glass that I believe is known as a yard of beer. We strolled home, inexplicably exhausted but having really enjoyed Merida. 

Today we were excited not to get up while it was still dark. At a civilized hour after another excellent breakfast we boarded a little tour van bound for a charming little market town featuring a church with bunting and a pharmacy where we bought a weird bottle of antihistamine medicine for a Roz, and then to Uzmal and Kabah. Both of these are impressive Mayan ruins about an hour and a half from Merida. In a confusing weather situation that veered from rain to blistering sun, we strolled around these old cities, the guide pointing out salient features. We admired bird motifs and watching iguanas, and climbed one of the pyramids for a very cool view over the jungle, while Roz kept her hat at a perky angle to shield her face. Both ruins were very cool, though we had a particular soft spot for Kabah which was still being excavated whilst we were there. We were amused to see the various stones that fell off the buildings over the years have been retrieved, lined up on the grass, labelled, and were being painstakingly put back in their original places by a team of restorers. Amused - and glad that wasn't our job. We were the only visitors, which felt like an added bonus.

After an unexciting late lunch in a hotel, we drove back to Merida amidst a giant rainstorm. We are now huddled in our hotel room with beer, eyeing up the murky, darkening sky and wondering if I dare brave the swimming pool for a preprandial swim... I suspect Roz will force me.

In which Roz and Layla soar above the mountains and play in a maze

By Roz

Next morning I woke up late (at 9). Layla alas had been awake since 6.30, which seems to be her favourite time for waking up on this holiday. But it meant we had a slow start to the morning and were only on our way downtown mid-morning. We were heading to a place called Park Arvi to do some hiking. But the journey itself felt like an adventure in its own right, since the Medellin metro system is integrated with two cable-cars. This delightful innovation was a mechanism to connect the poorer bits of the city - in the hills - with the downtown. The first cable car was pretty full (just like any metro) but the second was much more empty which meant Layla and I had a cable car carriage to ourselves. I'd anticipated the ride being fairly brief, but it turned out to be the longest cable car ride I have been on - covering about 5k we later learned. There were really lovely views - of the city and of forests and mountains, and we felt amazed at how unexpectedly lovely it had turned out to be.

Arriving at the end of the cable car line, we found ourselves at an information center in the middle of a forest with delightful paths leading off in various directions. A brief discussion with a guide established that there would be a three hour free hike setting off at two and a vegetarian restaurant nearby. So feeling very cheerful we headed to the restaurant which turned out to be a somewhat random shack but which provided a very nice lunch for not very much money. After lunch, with about 45 minutes before the hike, Layla had an enthusiasm to take advantage of the free bikes for hire. This proved to be a fairly brief enthusiasm after she found how hilly the park actually was. Shamefacedly we returned the bikes and went to read our books until 2.

Our fellow hikers were all Colombians, and we got chatting with a very nice young couple from Bogota who'd come to Medellin for a happiness conference. We compared notes on Medellin (it was their first visit too) and I was immensely amused that the only thing they didn't like was the heat - in contrast I have loved the weather in Medellin which is a consistently nice temperature without humidity. They would not enjoy a Washington summer... It proved to be quite a slow walk (with the occasional complicated explanation of something in a Spanish that was too complicated for me) but very pretty. It seemed hard to believe that Medellin was so close.

After the walk we got the first cable car and then hopped out before the second one for a short meander round the area and to see the much praised library (which brought regeneration to the area). It was quite fun to see another area, even if it did feel a bit sketchy. We then got our second cable car and the metro back to Poblano and contemplated our dinner choices. I was lobbying hard for a return to Carmen, the amazing restaurant we had been to the night before last. Layla pointed out that there was a huge number of other options we should try but eventually my greed won through. Our booking wasn't till 8.30 so we headed to the chocolate shop opposite our hotel for some chocolate and a read. Layla went for the maximum option, going for a cold chocolate drink in addition to a couple of handmade chocolates (whilst I looked smug with one chocolate and some sparkling water - though I am afraid that this is less about my virtue and more about the fact that I don't really like chocolate). We then decided to move to a nearby nice bar for me to finish off my book. The nice bar proved even nicer when they gave us popcorn to go along with our drinks... Layla was looking decidedly full by the time we got to Carmen, but I was made of sterner stuff. We had a lovely meal - just as good as the first time - and I was only disappointed that Layla couldn't be persuaded into dessert. We headed to La Bicicletta for a nightcap drink and some people-watching and congratulated ourselves on having decided to stay in Medellin instead of returning to the riots of Bogota. 

Next day, I persuaded Layla that we should try out Medellin's Ciclovia (where a main road is closed to traffic). It's possible to get onto the Ciclovia road relatively close to our hotel, and it wasn't long before we had hired bikes and were heading away from town. Like the Bogota Ciclovia, it proved to be a very jolly and communal experience involving pretty much half the city so far as we could see.  People were out on bikes, skateboards, skates. There were runners (including some people who had just done the colour run) and walkers. And there was the odd aerobics class taking place on the street. It was really fun - despite the odd hill - and I was disappointed when we found ourselves at its end after about 40 minutes of cycling. Even the square (at PablomEscobar's old home) where the Ciclovia route ended was jolly with a festival atmosphere and small children learning to ride bikes. We were enjoying the cycle back so much that we overshot the place we rented bikes, and were only alerted to it when we heard the bike owner calling after us...

We then walked down to the metro and headed over to the Botanic Gardens. We found a beautiful place for a late lunch in the middle of the gardens overlooking water and had really delicious soup (one served in a squash). The gardens themselves were unexpectedly good, with a quasi-rainforest area, a labyrinth, a butterfly house and so forth. They were just the right amount of busy - it is clearly a place where loads of locals go on a Sunday - but there didn't seem to be any other tourists kicking around. After this, I had an urge to go to the "barefoot park" where you a encouraged to walk barefoot through seven different areas to experience a variety of textures. Alas this aspiration was foiled after a fairly long walk in the centre of town by a huge concert taking place in the area and so we headed back to Poblano and to the chocolate shop. Not deterred by her experience the day before, Layla bought a chocolate cake... Conscious that a number of restaurants would be closed on a Sunday and also that Layla needed to pack, I sent her back to the hotel after her cake whilst I went on a recce to scope out our options. We ended up in a Mexican place which wasn't the best of food but was quite jolly. From there we went for dessert (yes, Layla's second of the evening!) in a nice nearby place (which focuses on seafood), drank wine and tried to cheer ourselves up despite our impending departure. 

And that's it! Next morning we got up at an ungodly hour for a plane to Bogota, and I am typing this from our plane from Bogota to the US. It wasn't absolutely the holiday I expected with all the riots and so forth...but it is currently my favourite place that we have visited in the Americas. 

Books read whilst on holiday:

Layla: Maggie and Me(Damien Barr), Reality Reality (Jackie Kay), Almost English (Charlotte Mendelson), The Last Runaway (Tracy Chevalier), The Marrying of Chani Kaufman (Eve Harris), A Tale for the Time Being (Ruth Ozeki), Instructions for a Heatwave (Maggie O'Farrell) and midway through Glasshopper (Isabel Ashdown).

Roz: Bertie's Guide to Life and Mothers (Alexander McCall Smith), Almost English (Charlotte Mendelson), Transatlantic (Colum McCann), Five Star Billionaire (Tash Aw), The Marrying of Chani Kaufman (Eve Harris), Let the Great World Spin (Colum McCann), The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood), Reality Reality (Jackie Kay), Flesh and Blood (Michael Cunningham), and midway through Americanah by Chimamanda Adichie.

In which Layla and and Roz lose a finger and a wallet but keep their heads in a riot

By Layla

Our arrival to Medellin started off with less glamour than we had hoped, at a slightly hostelly hotel... But soon we were out in the streets and initial scariness rearranged itself into a very cool and stylish area abounding with hip bars and restaurants. We chose one called La Bicicletta (The Bicycle), and had a very pleasing late-ish dinner that involved lots of halloumi... We strolled home via a friendly Italian restaurant where we had a final glass of wine before bed. Cheery and pleased with having such a nice first night in Medellin, I popped into the bathroom, while I vaguely heard Roz saying something about opening the patio door. Five seconds later I heard a terrible, blood curdling shriek and dashed out to find Roz rocking on the bed, wailing in a way very uncharacteristic for a girl who hurts herself rather more than one might hope. I rushed to her in a panic, trying to find out what had happened. In fact, there had been two patio doors, and as one had swooshed past the other, it had cut off the tip of her finger. We looked down, the bed was a pool of blood, and we shrieked in a manner not befitting a doctor and a first aid veteran... 

Luckily the hotel was very helpful and nice, and the amount of finger lost was not very much, so before long she was disinfected, drugged up with extra strong Ibuprofen and the half bottle of wine from the minibar, and eventually we managed to get to sleep. An inauspicious start for our stay in Medellin... 

The next day was to be no better. Up bright and early, and guidebooks in hand, we walked down to the Poblado metro to head downtown. (Our hotel is in the posh, extra-safe, extra-nice bit where the cool young things of Medellin hang out). It was disappointing to find our hotel a half hour trek from the metro, but when we got there, all was well and we zoomed into the centre of town.

When we got there, it was all a bit hot and chaotic and confusing. We went to a plaza with big wax tree sculptures but we didn't really know what they meant. We walked down a pedestrian street that was a bit like Peckham. Then we got to Plaza Botero, a really cool square full of sculptures by Botero, one of Medellin's (and indeed Colombia's) most famous artists. His work is characteristic for being of 'fat' people though he apparently conceives them as being sensuous and mis proportioned to represent different things. The sculptures were great, but just as we whipped out a camera to take a photo of one, someone came up to us and said something in Spanish, which Roz figured out: "The rioters are coming! Take cover in the museum!"

The Museo de Antioquia (the region) was right there so, alarmed, we dashed in. It was full of Botero sculptures and pictures and was really quite interesting, and a cool building. But just as we advanced to the international artists room, the museum staff approached us. The riot risk was too great and they were closing the museum! Two minutes later we were unceremoniously dumped back into the square, with the loudspeakers from the approaching protestors ringing in our ears! We decided that we'd better abandon our sightseeing plans and rapidly found the metro and leapt upon it and found ourselves back in Poblado.

With the half hour walk up a hill awaiting us, we realized everyone else was boarding little green minibuses so we joined them, I paid, and were soon pleasingly being taken up the hill. I opened my bag to find something. I closed it, I think. Then someone came on the bus and started singing about peace in Colombia. I vaguely listened. Then we got off the bus, had sandwiches in a random sandwich shop, went to pay, and found that my wallet had been stolen! Cue much angst as while I'd spent the entire holiday only taking one card out with me and locking the rest in the safe, I'd managed to bring both debit cards and both credit cards - plus a wad of cash. And my lovely wallet. This was initially grounds for hysteria as we have a joint account and thus imminent zero access to a cash source! Luckily Roz remembered one of her cards wasn't linked to mine, and after canceling all mine, we dashed to a cash machine to get money out urgently. Only to have the card rejected. By three different machines! Things were feeling a bit hairy as we ran up and down the hill, seeking banks and glowering at the green buses... But after finding wifi and getting the bank to unfreeze the card they'd mistakenly decided had been stolen, and finding the one machine that accepted it, we were back in action! Then of course there was the small matter of the riots... We suspected that all things considered we should probably get out of Medellin - or indeed Colombia! Roz started researching options - Quito? Caracas? Florida? New York? We gave up, I stopped hyperventilating and hating myself, and we retired to a very cool New York-ish coffee shop on a really fab street with our books and our un-angsty life resumed!

That day had been pretty much a washout, but we could still recover the evening! And so we did - we made a reservation at Carmen, one of the fanciest restaurants in town, and had a spectacular meal (one of our best ever) and fab cocktails in a lovely setting and paid with our one remaining card, and all was right with the world. We looked at each other and grinned - maybe we didn't want to leave Medellin after all!

The next day we turned over a new leaf and suddenly Medellin was fantastic again. We walked down to the metro and met up with the Real City Tours guide, a delightful guy called Pablo who united us with the only other Caucasian people in evidence in Medellin. And so we set off on a really excellent four hour walking tour of downtown. Pablo had grown up in Medellin when it was the most dangerous city in the world. His narrative gave us a real vision of pre-war Medellin, what had happened to the town, what the politics were about, how much everyone hates the drugs trade, how the benefits of drug money to the city are pretty much all a lie, and the transformation from living in fear to living in what was named this year as the world's most innovative city. What was delightful was that his stories were so engaging that by the end of it, we were in love with Medellin, joyfully rooting for its ongoing success. Some of the transformation came through investment in infrastructure - building big, beautiful libraries in the most dangerous central squares and in the slums, building a fabulous metro system, linking the slums to the city with cheap, efficient cable cars, situating the Ministry of Education in a previous notorious drug den. We heard how people reclaimed the city and were wonderfully proud of it. We heard how Colombian people manage to be happy (which indeed we have found them to be - generally cheery and friendly and smiley). Essentially they seek to ignore all their many memories of violence, terror and sorrow, and overemphasize any good memories they have, taking delight in the smallest things, and being determinedly optimistic. The metro system is a symbol of this hope and delight. And how could I do anything but love a city whose citizens are filled with joy and pride by the existence of their public transport system! The tour took us past City Hall, and various plazas and churches (with prostitutes - or 'loving providers' - plying their wares outside), lovely statues and public art. I particularly liked seeing a Botero sculpture of a bird that had been bombed (several people died) - alongside a brand new identical statue Botero installed next to it as a symbol of hope for the city. I spent lots of the tour trying not to cry, with sorrow and also with how far the city has come. We had lunch in a delicious vegetarian Indian restaurant called Govinda. We chuckled at a building which was half beautiful, intricate European architecture...with one side plain stone with no decor at all - we heard the Belgian architect had left halfway through due to an argument and the Medellin architect who replaced him took one look at the blueprint, pronounced it far too complicated, and slapped up a plain wall to close the building. We also heard the Medellin philosophy of Papaya - if you get pick pocketed it's essentially your fault for enabling it through inappropriate levels of vigilance over your possessions - if you make something available, someone will take advantage of the opportunity. Apparently their 11th Commandment is 'Do not give papaya" and their twelfth is "If you give papaya, people will take it". It made me feel more philosophical about the loss of my wallet.

After the walking tour, we took the metro home with more open eyes, and after braving the green minibus with extra vigilance, we changed our flights and extended our hotel stay so that instead of returning to the potentially risky Bogota (all the news reports said that the downtown area of Bogota was a no go area) for our last 2 nights, we would stay in Medellin. After which we installed ourselves in our lovely coffee shop for a couple of hours of reading and drinking, had dinner in an excellent Arabic restaurant on a cool restauranty street, strolled down to La Bicicletta for a glass of wine amidst the Friday night hip party crowd, got excited about the cool things we still wanted to do, and felt very cheery about being in Medellin. 

In which Roz and Layla eat a lot of ice cream - and visit some mangroves

By Roz

After we were sufficiently sated with ice cream it was, of course time for dinner. Food in Colombia is not instinctively vegetarian-friendly which has meant that we are having a curious time of it including dining on cuisines from around the world (though rarely Colombian, alas). After mooching round several restaurants, we settled on a sushi place called Teriyaki which is on one of the prettiest squares in Cartagena, San Diego Plaza. On any other holiday, such a place would be stuffed full of European or English-speaking tourists and we would have been disdainful. Fortunately, not the case this time as we settled down to some nice, if slightly odd, vegetarian sushi. From there we headed to a bar in a former convent called Santa Clara. We whiled away a very lovely evening drinking wine and musing on Layla's dream career path, and having met some of our fellow Villa de Leyva tourists who had only got out today, under army escort - felt very glad we'd got out when we could (though jealous of the people who allegedly got out by army helicopter!). 

Next morning we hopped in a cab after breakfast (I was feeling lazy and unenthusiastic about hunting down a bus) to an small semi-shanty town called La Boquilla. Our ambition was to go in a canoe through mangrove swamps. This seemed a most unlikely proposition when we were deposited by the cab driver on the beach. We could see Caribbean sea (albeit slightly murky since the day was slightly grey) and fisherman but not a great deal else. But before we could take two steps we were approached by some local teenagers. They made clear through a combination of gestures and our bad Spanish) that we were in the right place for a mangrove experience and that they would make it happen. With no other obvious options we decided to follow them on what turned out to be quite a long walk along the beach. So long that when the boys saw a bus coming along the beach (yes, indeed, who knew buses went on beaches!) they signaled for it to stop and we all hopped on. We got off at another bit of beach reasonably similar to the first and then proceeded to negotiate a price for a mangrove tour (something of a pretense on our side, since we both felt of we could hardly desert our escorts). After we had agreed a price, it began to rain. Unfortunate. We suggested to the boys that it might be as well to wait until the rain had gone off, but they very persuasively told us that this was silly, and that the trip took us into a tunnel (the "roof" being overgrown mangrove trees). We decided to go with it, and gingerly hopped into the canoe which was in what appeared to be nothing more than a medium-sized pool of water. Our teenage boys hopped in after us (other than one who ran off at some speed to satisfy our enthusiasm for water to take with us) and we set off to the other side of the pool of water, which turned out to be linked to the swamps. We picked up the boy who had gone in search of water bottles and went into the swamp (with the boys only needing to get out once to force the canoe on due to shallow water!). We felt somewhat mad, sat in a canoe with rain falling on us. But very cheery. And it wasn't long before we were in the proper mangrove swamps (which on occasion did form a tunnel, but on other occasions did not!). It was really fun to pass the swamps, gazing at terrifying crabs (probably just terrifying to me), fishermen, jumping fish and the odd bird (I think the rest were deterred by the rain). We were somewhat surprised at how extensive the swamps turned out to be - every now and then we would find ourselves suddenly in what felt like a lake, which seemed most unlikely. Eventually we were through, and the boys suggested we hop out and have a drink / lunch. We ended up settled for beer and plantain fritters which were very pleasant if not absolutely lunch. The rain had gone off entirely by this time, so we passed a very pleasant hour or so reading (with Layla in a hammock, until it broke and unceremoniously deposited her on the ground, which I am afraid I found very funny). We then walked back along the beach (with only a bit of wading through water required), enjoying seeing children walking home from school. We saw a bus on the beach and were very pleased to catch it. 

The bus turned out to be very slow, stopping every two minutes to pick up locals. But it was fun to see a different slice of life, and this more or less made up for the unfortunateness of missing our stop. The walk back wasn't too long and - despite the fact that it was 4pm we were both very clear that a second lunch was called for after we'd had a quick shower at the hotel. Hoping for a reprise of our tomato soup lunch from a few days ago, we headed to a place we'd been to before to find out that tomato soup was no more and they only had chicken soup. So we shared a polenta gnocchi dish and read a little more before heading to our favourite ice cream shop (for coffee and, um, ice cream). We whiled away a little more time with our books and watching people. It may not cast us in a good light if I say that after that we headed to dinner! This time, we went to an Indian restaurant called Ganesha which gets very good reviews on tripadvisor but which was sadly lacking in other diners. The food was good and after that we headed to a bar to drink mohitos whilst looking down from a balcony at passing people (including some really excellent break-dancers who bizarrely didn't seem to be collecting money).

Next morning we packed after breakfast, and then headed out. We were surprised to find it felt like the heat had been turned up - almost Washington-esque - and swiftly decided to focus our day on coffee and museums. First stop, coffee. We then went in to the Cartagena History Museum. This proved to be small, and not that brilliant but in a jolly sort of way. It was fun meandering round, occasionally seeing a sign we could understand and looking at old maps and so forth. And pondering why so many of the portraits in the museum had the subject looking as though he was winking... We dodged the bits of the museum about Cartagena's torture practices in the past (being wusses) but otherwise had a very pleasant time and felt we had learned a little more about Cartagena. 

From there, we headed to lunch. We went to a nice place called Mulata which had a good mix of locals and tourists, and sort of enjoyed the vegetarian pasta dish they produced. And definitely enjoyed the brownie and ice cream dessert. After lunch we headed to the Gold Museum via a couple of shops. The Gold Museum fell into the same category as the History museum - a bit crap, but in a jolly way. And many of the pieces were really amazing (so naturally enjoyed deciding which ones we would have if we had the chance. And after that, it was a quick stop at the hotel and then a taxi to the airport. Next stop, Medellin!

In which Layla and Roz visit the devil's mud-bath and eat lots of ice cream

By Layla

Landing in Cartagena was like landing in a totally different country - the heat and humidity hit us like a wave, and we threw off our Bogota cardigans in shock. We definitely weren't in the mountains any more - and given that our last experience of mountains had been fleeing rioters, we weren't at all sorry.

After checking in at our charming hotel and donning our summer clothes, we went out on the town. We are staying in a pretty, colonial area called San Diego with a crumbling aesthetic, all narrow streets, plazas bustling with cafes, little bars, restaurants, boutique shops, surrounded by old city walls that you can stroll along the top of, with the walled city on one side, the Caribbean Sea on the other, and the skyscrapers of the Bocagrande district in the distance. It feels very old Spain, and this feeling is enhanced by the almost complete lack of European or English-speaking tourists. We stopped in at a delightful local bookshop which also doubled as a bar. My strawberry daiquiri was excellent; Roz's mango less so... There was also cake. After a stroll around town, encountering a concert in one of the plazas, we returned to a nice wine bar near the bookshop and treated ourselves to a pre-prandial glass of wine. Dinner was mostly hummus-based (no bad thing), at a nice restaurant overlooking a raucous Plaza San Diego, and there was a sneaky mohito before bed - a successful first evening, and hooray for not being trapped in Villa de Leyva. 

The next day was started with a walking tour around town from our Michelin guide (Lonely Planet is rubbish on this trip!). We viewed all the main churches and city gates and the like, paid a visit to the small but nice modern art museum, and covetously eyed a theatre that hosts the Hay Literary Festival annually in January. we then took refuge from the sudden rain with drinks in yet another plaza, followed by tomato soup for lunch in a hip little restaurant. 

After trying to spot the house of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, we decided that our location on the Caribbean demanded a swim. We took a taxi to Bocagrande which had a Benidorm-style ambience... But it was very jolly to join the locals on the beach. The water was somewhat murky, the sand was grey and the waves were vigorous - so while it wasn't the quintessential Caribbean beach experience it was rather fun. We jumped in the waves for over an hour til I was frankly exhausted and in need of ice cream, thankfully duly delivered. 

Back in the old town, we headed out for a drink at a cool outdoor bar on top of the wall. We read our books while sipping Club Colombia beer and gazing out over the sunset, til it was too dark to see the words if our books (well, for Roz - I have a Kindle Paperwhite which Roz eyed enviously) and we headed to dinner, at one of Cartagena's best reviewed restaurants. Which was a... strange experience. Despite being a wine bar, with wine lining the walls, they couldn't seem to offer us any wines by the glass except for horrible ones. The previous bustling restaurant essentially emptied on our arrival. But we persevered and had an adequate veggie paella before fleeing to a more pleasant bar on another plaza where we had a very cheery time chatting and drinking much nicer wine. As we strolled home after ten o'clock, ladies and gentlemen, we congratulated ourselves on managing such a late night! 

The next morning we wolfed down our breakfast and were ready at the honk of a horn for a bizarre-sounding tour we had arranged: a trip to bathe in a mud volcano. The story goes that a devil lived in volcano Totomo but then a priest prayed to turn it to mud and drown the devil, and thus it was so. After an hour's drive, along with our fellow tour-goers, we eyed the ladders ascending to what is often described in appearance as a large termite mound. Tentatively we donned our swimming costumes and ascended. 

At the top, we peered down into a big hole. At the bottom was a weird scene of mud-caked people cavorting in a big weird grey mud bath, including being rubbed with mud by the locals. After a while getting sunburnt as we waited our turn, finally we were instructed to descend. The slippery ladder gave way to the mud, and as I let go, I found myself in one of the strangest sensations I've ever experienced. There is no bottom that you can stand on. Instead, the mud weirdly suspends you. It's a bit like what I imagine space is like! A local immediately grabbed me and started rubbing the mud all over me. I lay there in the mud like I was lying on a table. But nothing but gloopy mud below me. A glance to the side found Roz having the same experience. After, we cavorted in the mud, trying to push each other down to find the bottom, to no avail, and moving ourselves around this bizarre pit. Afterwards, we ascended a very slippery ladder to the top of the volcano, then down to the ground, where we stumbled about 100 meters to a lake where women poured water all over us til the mud was all off. Completely mad but definitely jolly. 

Afterwards they drove us to a beachside restaurant which might have been nice if (a) we weren't vegetarians in a fish-focused restaurant, and (b) it wasn't raining vigorously! But we did enjoy watching some people kite surfing before we eventually returned to our hotel - amusingly we both fell sound asleep and had to be awoken by the other mud-bathers when we arrived. 

That night, we ventured to a delightful ice cream parlor called Gelateria Paradiso - apt! We ate a lot of ice cream. And then wandered down to the area just outside the walls called Gethsemane, home to hostels, nightlife, and such, before returning to a nice outdoor cafe for beers and ambience. We ate at a deserted but pleasant restaurant, Torreluna, which had the novelty of a vegetarian menu, and polished off the evening with drinks at an outdoor cafe in a nearby plaza. 

Today was a snorkeling day. People keep saying the Rosario Islands can be a delightful Caribbean island experience, or a tacky tourist trap, so we increased our chance of the former by going with a posh-ish company called Dive Planet. An hour long pleasant boat ride found us on charming Managua Island, blue sea lapping at the shores, hammocks aplenty... Alas we'd signed up to snorkel, so it was back in the boat for two snorkeling sessions. Lots of fun, though not much coral or fish... Poor Roz, as usual, (1) remembered she doesn't like snorkeling, and (2) sustained a snorkeling injury (coral cuts this time), but after ditching her snorkeling kit for a pleasant swim, was rewarded with a quick lunch and a delightful laze in a hammock before it was time to take the boat home. One of our loveliest days so far on this holiday!

And now I write this from the Gelateria Paradiso again. Life is excellent...

In which Roz learns a sartorial horse riding lesson and we flee a siege

The next morning, after a quick breakfast, we were introduced to a cowboy-esque man called Raoul and led through the town square to where three big brown horses were tethered. Oh yes, it was time for a horse riding extravaganza in the countryside around Villa de Leyva. Despite both of us being incompetent on a horse, we are repeatedly drawn to this... Our incompetence was immediately apparent in the form of Roz's choice to wear three quarter-length trousers. While I trotted (walked) along, gazing at the beautiful hills and villages and weird desert-ish this-was-once-the-ocean-bed, Roz was having all the skin rubbed off her inner calves. Twenty minutes into the ride, I heard a bravely concealed whimper. But at our first stop, a bright turquoise pond (sights around Villa de Leyva are a tad quirky), it was clear something had to be done. Inspiration struck in the form of both of our shirts. One per leg, we stuck her calves through the armholes, tied them up, and created a fetching image of a wounded war hero staggering from the battlefield with makeshift bandages over her wounds. Our hitherto Spanish speaking guide felt moved to break into English for a sardonic "sexy!" comment. But Roz's pain was sorted, we learned a key lesson about riding garb, and it was on to the next 'sight'. 

This one was rather good - being the sea bed millions of years ago, the area is home to large numbers of fossils... Including two cool large aquatic dinosaurs! We may have been the only visitors at the dinosaur museum but I feel I was sufficiently nerdy to be gratifying to the many people manning the door. Onward to an astronomical, Stonehenge-ish site from the time of the indigenous Musica tribe, a field full of stone calendars and penises. Again, odd but cheery...

We trotted cheerfully back into town in the sunshine, having had what we did not yet know were our last few minutes of ignorant bliss. Indeed, we went to Van Gogh's cafe for arepas, sandwiches and juices, and cheerily read our books, til we returned to the hotel to ask their advice for how to get to Bogota airport the day after tomorrow. There was but one answer: you can't! 

When we took the bus to Villa de Leyva, the bus station people had confusingly told us there might not be any buses, but there turned out to be one. Then when it was late, the word 'blocados' was used, which was not in my Spanish lexicon. It now transpired that we had taken one of the last buses to Villa de Leyva before all the roads were closed by blockades created by farmers and others protesting free trade agreements with EU and US (and various other things). Indeed, while we'd been sipping beers and playing with horses, the country was experiencing one of its biggest protests, with the roads blocked since Monday! We went down to the bus station to check and were advised that all buses were cancelled - indefinitely. But we were treated to a TV news programme depicting the protestors, blockades, fires, police in hardcore riot gear and alarmingness. We decided to hope for the best and maybe it would clear.

It didn't, and we soon became panicky that we might be trapped in Villa de Leyva for the rest of our holiday! And even worse, the closed roads had led to the closure of most restaurants, namely the fancy ones we'd specifically planned to enjoy while in the town. So we flew our kite, and retired to Antika for a drink and to recover ourselves. We debated what to do. Then we realised we had more urgent needs: dinner! With all the cool restaurants closed, we searched for something that didn't involve molten cheese and managed a vegetables and noodles dish which was, well, satisfactory. Followed by an early night as everything else was closed. 

We were up early the next day - or I was, walking down to the bus terminal for news. There was no news and definitely no buses, so we both laced up our hiking boots and set off on the second trip we'd booked: hiking to waterfalls and the angel steps. This was quite a delightful trip with a very pleasant guide. We drove into the countryside and to a waterfall. Or rather to the entrance to a long, jungly walk / climb down to a waterfall, with our ecologist guide trying to teach us the names of plants. It was beautifully picturesque, and of course we were the only ones there. After climbing down to the waterfall, our guide had clearly only just begun. What commenced was an extravaganza of rock climbing / canyoning that took us into the big cave behind the waterfall, a sacred place to the area's indigenous people. Great fun! 

After we got ourselves back up to the road, narrowly missing headbutting a wasps' nest, our next stop was the angel steps, a long, narrow, elevated path between two deep canyons. Good fun and great views - the countryside is lovely here. Then en route back we diverted down into one of the canyons for more rock climbing / canyoning fun as we followed the almost dried-up river along for a good while, reveling in having the place to ourselves. We were sorry to return to town, but with a flight to Cartagena booked for the following day, clearly something had to be done about our current besieged state! 

Our afternoon was spent in a whirl of stressful attempts to arrange to leave Villa de Leyva, a dream that seemed perplexingly impossible. The protestors (for whom everyone seemed to have sympathy) had blocked every road, and while apparently they were making a point rather than trying to harm anyone, there was a rough element and there were various clashes with police, and all the roads had been closed. Literally trapped! Without gourmet food too! At first our driver from our tour suggested he might drive us for a hefty fee. With buses discontinued indefinitely this seemed a good idea, but then he lost his nerve and started procrastinating, saying he'd drive us at 3pm, then 5pm, then the following morning. Time was running out. Everyone said we were doomed to miss our flight and should just accept staying in Villa de Leyva which was starting to lose its charm... We briefly considered chipping in for a helicopter being organized by the hotel manager for various rich people who wanted to get back to Bogota (the blockade has no clear end), but this seemed a bit extreme (ie expensive and mad!). With an agreement that our tour driver would call at 5am the following day to confirm he was coming at 5:30, Roz and I settled down to some games of pool (she won all but one and was very smug indeed) and a quest for dinner. Shock horror, our old staple Antika was closed! So, of course, were all the gourmet restaurants. The place was becoming a bit of a ghost town. But then, hooray, a pizza place we'd previously discounted for looking grim was open, warm, and welcoming. We ordered beers and spaghetti with pesto and passed a short but pleasant dinner planning a book blog I'm going to start writing! Before a final couple of games of pool (which Roz would like to point out that she won), and off to bed with our alarm set to 5am.

Sadly I awoke at 4am, and while Roz slumbered sweetly, I embarked on a depressing effort to get us to Bogota Airport in time for our flight. Yesterday's driver proved elusive; upon eventually contacting him, it transpired he had lost his nerve and would not drive us, and so I had to be my most sweet and charming to the hotel's night watchman to get him to call every driver he could think of until, hooray, one finally said yes!

By this time it was 6.15am so I woke up Roz, we threw on our clothes, and dashed to the car before our new driver could change his mind. As we drove along, the remnants of the protests were obvious, though it was early enough that the protestors themselves were still in bed. In many places the road was blocked by purposefully fallen trees. Undeterred, our driver went off-road and got round them all. After an hour, we swapped to a different driver, who was lovely, spoke English, and considered getting us to our plane on time a delightful personal challenge. (Everyone in Colombia seems mortified that this has happened - apparently highly unusual). We drove on, past embers and cleared blockades. We stopped to ask locals about the situation and took detours to avoid any blocked roads, fire, or jaggy things that punctured tires. We were making good progress til a flaming tire in the road and some protestors (who were very pleasant other than not wanting us to carry on down the road) forced us up onto little mountain paths, past little homesteads and farms that likely rarely see a town car. We popped back onto the road, passed quite a number of police in riot gear awaiting a protest that had not yet got out of bed, and delightfully, the rest of the road had been cleared. We made it to Bogota Airport with time to spare, and much delight. And I write this while waiting for our plane to board. Goodbye besieged mountain town, hello UNESCO Caribbean city!