In short, we loved the boat trip and it was well worth the money. It had its problems - cramped conditions, sea sickness, general feeling of being a bit smelly (us, not the boat), being so close to strangers for five days etc etc. But that was easily outweighed by the experience. We did a lot of cool things we'll remember for a very, very long time. The food was fab, the snorkelling some of the best I've seen and even on the high sea we saw lots of wildlife - whales, flying fish, birds, turtles.
We're in Cartagena at the moment, which, from first impressions, seems a really cool city. Like Panama City, there's lots of nice architecture but there seems to be a lot going on here - there are always people on the streets, milling around, selling things or playing music. Everyone seems to be happy.
That may have something to do with the fact that a week long festival is about to start. We plan to hang around to catch a bit of it before heading up the coast to maybe do some diving and go to a national park.
So far, we like Colombia. We'll spend a few weeks here before heading over towards Ecuador, where we think we'll spend Christmas and New Year's Eve.
We have plenty to look forward to after Crimbo too. My Dad has booked a flight out to see us in January, so we're going to meet him in Peru and spend a fortnight doing the must-see archaeological sites. Then Stacey's folks are going to meet us in February and my Uncle will hopefully catch up with us in Buenos Aires in early spring! So we'll probably see more of our family than when we were back in Blighty.