It feels like our little raft of tied together backpacks with the two passangers finally reached the calm waters of traveling. We are in Lima, in my dear dear friend's, Amabel's house, sleeping in a real bed, under a real duvet, eating healthy food and sleeping normal hours.

After we collected some minimal motivation to get off our butts, we went to see the Christmas lights in Medellin, and for the first time this year the sight of the colourful fountains and numerous Santa Clauses, the sound of Jingle Bells pouring from the loudspeakers and the smell of Christmas sweets gave me the tingles of The Spirit. This lasted for about a quarter of hour, and as the crowd was shoving us from side to side, we felt it was time to get out. On our walk home we decided that we are still capable of mustering up some minimal social skills and mingle with some of the hostel crowd, so we purchased the smallest bottle of rum and some energy drinks we could find. Smallest it was, because we promised ourselves that we would only have a few drinks, some delightful small talk and then go to rest.

As we stumbled home around 7 in the morning, and decided it would be the best of ideas to have the last beer on the terrace of the hostel, it was rather clear our planned had failed miserably. We met some wonderful people on the way and ended up in a rather dodgy part of town, in a club that, from the outside, looked like somebody's house. The inside was partially open, and had a clear underground feel to it, with the local characters, the graffiti on the wall and the classical oldies that was occassionally and randomly disturbed by some songs by Kylie Minogue and that Lemon Tree song.

We got ourselves together by 1 o'clock and rallied ourselves up for some sightseeing. Went to see Pablo Escobar's grave in the Cemeterio Montesacro. As a cemetery it was one of the oddest I have seen, with no tombstones, but plaques laid down on the ground, so you are literally walking on people's grave. Pablo's resting place was nothing breath-taking, he is buried alongside of some family members. Visiting him, to me, was somehow the end of a long journey, which started with buying a random shirt in Italy from Puta Madre that said 'Pablo Escobar - Cocaine' on it, and I decided to do some reading up on what I was exactly wearing. I read my first book in Spanish about him and the situation in the early 90s in Colombia, Noticia de un secuestro by Márquez. So it was only natural to come and pay my respects.

Next, we wondered into the center of town to check out the sculptures of Botero, with the guidance of El Doctor, a 50 some year old GP, one of the most wonderful characters I encountered on this trip. After admiring the curves of all sorts of creatures, we took the cable car up to Santo Domingo, which is a normal form of transportation for the locals of that area, which admittedly looked very much like slums. Cam, due to her fear of hights, was completely terrified, but of course this could not prevent her from partaking in any sort of activity involving swaying little boxes 50 or so meter above the ground. On the way down I found some rum in my bag from last night so she took a swing from that, to calm herself down.

The sunset from Santo Domingo was beautiful, admiring the second biggest city in Colombia light up its normal and Christmas lights underneath our feet. As this place did not seem like a very common tourist destination, naturally we attracted quite some attention from the locals, which culiminated in noticing that a little boy, standing behind Cam, was pealing off her sunburnt skin with the greatest of attention.

Our bus was scheduled for half 10 that night, so we wondered home, made some wonderful egg-cheese-tomato-olive sandwiches and while we were devouring them on the terrace we spotted Sam, whom we knew from Panama City. He was with the lovely Danish couple, whom we took much liking to as well, yet seemed to be constantly missing them since we got on the boat from Panama. So impulsively we decided to stay for one more night and finally catch up with these great people. The night turned out to be a bloody debauchery, needless to say, but here I will not dwell on its details, it was a shameful step one step too close to the edge.

We arrived to the bus station at 3 in the next afternoon, without having slept a second. I have left Camden, half dead, guarding our numerous bags at the entrance, while I staggered to the appropriate box to try to reschedule our ticket. It went a lot more smoothly than expected, and before we knew it, at half 4, we set out onto our 10 hour journey towards Bogotá. Cam was out soundly, while I kept waking up, because it seemed like we were constantly stopping in the middle of nowhere, picking up and dropping off people, it was just odd that the best quality road between the two main cities was of dirt. Took the taxi straight to the airport, where we attempted to sort out our financial situation while waiting for the flight at half 6. It wasn't the most productive idea ever.

Arriving to Lima, was like a breath of fresh air. Although still not sure, what the time was and where exactly we were, we stumbled into the arms of Sergio, who took us home to finally clean up and try to put on a human appearance again. We just hung out and rested for most of the afternoon, then met up with Ama, and went to see a short exhibition of an artist, whose name I now forgot, but he was a mix of Peruvian political satire and Roy Lichtenstein. Grabbed some bar food and some Maracuya Pisco Sours and dived into a few hours of catching up, that was later joined by Sergio. We were supposed to go to a house party after, but Cam and I were still beyond exhausted, so by midnight we were safely and soundly in bed. As we discussed in the morning, both of us had the weirdest, most random and rapid dreaming ever, as our brains were probably trying to catalogue all our experiences in one night, where we were finally having a normal rest. Because who knows what will happen tomorrow.

The last time I was visiting the Escardos, I brought some pálinka and some paprika. They still have some of the sweet paprika left, so tonight I am whipping up some gulash for 6-7 people. Woooooo Gulyás Leves night!!!