Taganga, Good Bye Colombia, Manu Chao

After returning from the Ciudad Perdida trek, I just had one more night to spend at the cost before flying back to Bogota, I decided I will spend that last night in Taganga, at the Casa Blanca, I made it there in the afternoon, and luckily they had a room available, I wanted to be in room 2 that had a great private balcony with a hammock, but they put me in room 9 with some Israeli girl, but she apparently asked for a private room, so I was asked to leave the room, and move to room number 2, she was apologetic about this and offered to move herself instead, but I explained to her that she did me a favour, and that now I am getting the room I wanted in the first place. I took a shower then went went to one of the restaurants at the beach, had a fish meal, then headed back to the hotel balcony, just in time to see one last sun set in Taganga. I agreed to meet the others from the lost city group, at 8 o'clock at the pizza stand, everybody from the group showed up, we ordered some fresh baked pizzas, it was a very windy night though, and I did not stay long, as I was tired and I had to wake up early the next day to catch my flight to Bogota, anyway it was a dry night (selling and drinking not alcohol permitted), due to the elections taking place that day. I heard two unnerving stories that day, one that there was some shooting at the bus from Bogota to Santa Marta, during the night, apparently by gorillas trying to disrupt the elections, the other is a shooting at Taganga, though this appeared to be some kind of personal vendetta, in both cases people were injured.


In the morning I woke up early, and had one last Taganga style fruit salad, with 12 different fruits, before heading to the airport to get my flight to Bogota, when I landed I headed straight for the LAB counters to get my flight to Bolivia arranged, but there was no one there, so I decided to leave to the next day, I checked in at the hotel Platypus, after a few hours though, I started feeling not well, either because of the colder temperatures or the altitude sickness, probably the later, so I went to bed at 7 in the evening. That night a traveller staying at the hostel was mugged at knife point, one block away from the hostel, and apparently he was not the only traveller to be mugged at knife point lately in Bogota, all these news started to make feel uncomfortable, something I did not feel so much during my whole two month in Colombia. My Colombian visa was going to expire on Tuesday the 14th, so I had to arrange a quick flight out of Colombia, or go through the visa extension process again, my girlfriend informed that Manu Chao was going to be perform at Cochamba on the 15th, he is my favourite musician, this was another incentive to get a quick flight to Cochabamba. The next morning I found out that the LAB ticket office is not at the airport, and I found out where it is, I went there immediately and managed to get a early morning flight to Bolivia, a gratis flight, as I was promised, which also meant that I will be able to attend the Manu Chaoperformance, who is apparently on a tour in south America, and had just performed in Bogota a few days earlier, all went well with my flight to Cochabamba, except that I lost might Swiss army knife, for the second time, at the airport security, the problem is that at the point when they scan your hand luggage, it is already to late to check in anything, and you are forced to leave prohibited items there, it would not have been difficult for them to scan your hand luggage earlier along with the check in luggage, and just warn you about items you can't carry with you, but then they would not be getting all those nice and shiny swiss knifes, would they, at least this time for a change the LAB flight arrived on time, after checking into the hotel I immediately went and bought two tickets to the Manu Chao concert.