Last couple of days in South America (Colombia photos)

After several days of walking through Bogotá slums in the afternoon twighlight looking like lost tourists (because we usually were) the passport finally got sorted, with not a great deal of assistance from the Australian Government. The final solution came from the British embassy who made a much greater effort to get an entry stamp into my British passport. Not the fault of the Aussie Consulate, but rather the penny pinching antics of the current Government closing down the Venezuela embassy (the link to the Colombian one) and attaching Colombia and Venezuela (now unpaid overworked honorary consuls) to the Brazillian embassy, which has no direct links with either country, by land or language.

Anyway, a woman from the British embassy rang the immigration officials, and said 'stamp the bleeding passport or I'll come down there and cause a right scene' or so I imagined anyway. So after another long walk back to the immigration office and a mess around with more people not knowing anything, I finally got a little stamp in my British passport. So I am now officially travelling as a Brit and will be doing so until who knows when.

The few days of thorough annoyance and desperation resulted in us booking ourselves onto the next flight to Cuba, where we plan to stay for just over three weeks, before heading back into capitalist country via Cancun. It would have been a shame to leave the South American continent on such a sour note as Peru and even more so Colombia have a serious chip on their shoulder when it comes to the United States, and as we look like your average US tourist we certainly get less than the red carpet and are expected to be rolling in cash. I had actually drafted most of this post while still in the grip of anxiety and anger from the passport situation and have since had a couple of fairly relaxing and enjoyable days wandering around the streets of Bogotá with no real purpose other than to soak in the atmosphere and look at some museums.

Although Colombia was a little bit of a downer, it didn't take the sheen off places like Rio, Buenos Aires, Torres del Paine, Pucon and all of Bolivia, countries that I have to go back to again at some stage.

One question though: Am I due for a haircut? Am starting to develop a definite Grug-like appearance. So I'll use a web-poll for an issue rivalling any that Channel 7's Sunrise manages to offer, although probably my voters would have an IQ trebling that of your regular Sunrise viewer.

Vote: Stay with the Grug hair
Vote: Get a haircut and a get a real job you travel victim hippy

As usual, have been doing plenty of thinking during the walks through the streets and my mind wanders across a variety of topics that I want to pen/type on this post. Such as why are you doing what you are doing? Is it part of a long term plan designed to maximise your and your future family's happiness? Do you love what you are doing? If not, why are you doing it? If you are a young person with no dependents then why waste your life doing something that doesn't make you want to leap out of bed every morning tingling with excitement? Such a cliche but money really does mean nothing in the long run, financial security is a fear drilled into us like the fear of going to hell. Although maybe safety is what makes you happy, fear of the unknown seems to be a basic human instinct, so who am I to question what you are doing? It's only because I've spent the last seven years hating myself for my choice of career path, finance and money mean nothing, its an accumulation and distribution of riches, it is a passionless and selfish industry that I only chose to be a part of because I thought it was important to be success. In other words I wasn't doing it for myself but to make others proud of what I had achieved and finance is a field where quantitative success is easy, all you need to sacrifice is your compassion and passion for life. Which brings me back to the first question, why are you doing what you are doing?

I'll save any final thoughts on the South American continent until another time. Have heard mixed reports about the availability of internet on the island of Cuba so this may be the last contact for 3-4 weeks.

I'll just finish by saying that we are shaking with excitement about the upcoming three and a half weeks in Cuba, have been reading about the history of Cuba and Fidel Castro and Cuba in general and we can't wait to see some of the historical monuments and have a Cuban cigar while sitting back with a Havana Club rum listening to the live salsa, plus there are beaches!