Susan (the Canadian) had an underwater camera that she let me use on the dive. The visibility wasn’t great but we did see a lot of different sea life.

After diving we met up with some people who were also on our boat from Panama. While we were playing cards at a restaurant with them the German guy popped into a taxi to buy marijuana. We heard later that he had been stopped and searched by the Colombian police who were going to fine him 800,000 pesos (400US). He went back to his hostel to get his money and only had 320,000 on him so they took that and when he asked for his marijuana back they gave it to him.

I am meeting an Irish (Sharon) and Canadian (Susan) girl that I met on the boat to Colombia in, Taganga, a fishing village four hours away from Cartagena.

It took me less than two hours to miss my bike using public transportation. Somehow the journey that cost everyone else 20,400 cost me 72,000 as I started out of town and kept on getting dropped off at strange places where I had to take minibuses. But I did get to see a less salubrious side of Cartagena.

I have decided to leave my bike in Cartagena for a few weeks and do the Colombian coast and Venezuela by public transport rather than take the bike across the border into Venezuela and back into Colombia. Plus as most of the people I meet traveling are going by buses I want to see what they experience.

Cartagena has a beautiful historical center which has been walled since it was sacked by Sir Frances Bacon. (Sir Henry Morgan sacked Old Panama – here they called them pirates while in the UK they are Sirs). I spent several hours walking around and then another one looking for the Sushi place I passed (I had Sushi at least once a week in London and had a real craving for it).

Then it was back to the bike shop. My bike cost 385,000 pesos to fix ($180US) and I will still need to get the pannier re-enforced in Medellin.

My first day in Cartagena was spent registering my bike with Customs. I think they are worried about swine flu as they wouldn’t let me into the building so I sat under a tree for a few hours and various people came out to me with forms to sign. Beats waiting in a queue.

Then it was off to spend the rest of the day at the Suzuki Super Store to get my bike fixed. I hope my trip doesn’t turn into ‘Annette’s Amazing Tour of Latin American Bike Shops’.

Thanks to Andy and Mayra, who are riding a Triumph and Sidecar through South America, for their map drawing skills and instructions about registering the bike and where the bike shops are.

When we reached Cartagena we weren’t allowed to leave the ship for most of the day apparently due to swine flu. So lots of time to play cards and figure out what I was going to do now that I had reached South America.

Colombia produces 80% of the worlds cocaine so on our third day on board the US Coast guard haled us. Apparently they have boarded the boat at night with no warning pointing guns at everyone. Unfortunately we didn’t get boarded.

It wasn’t all fixing the bike on board. We also had a bbq on one of the islands, walked around the Kuna inhabited islands, I got to test my camera underwater, eat freshly caught tuna and learn a couple new card games.

One of the crew on the Stahlratte was a fellow biker who spent half of the first day helping me straighten out the handlebars and half of the third day straighting out the pannier. They both will need to be fixed in Colombia but at least I can ride the bike when I get there and I had a good view while we were working on it.

Turns out I was right to be worried. The road was very slippery. After a few skids I finally came off the bike, bent the handlebar 90 degrees, broke open the pannier and cracked the windscreen in half. On the bright side the truck who I persuaded to put the bike in the back took me across the 3 foot deep river I didn’t know I had to cross.