The Last Country

It's rather a sad thought to think that Venezuela is my final country on this fourteen-month oddessey. It's number 39 if you don't include a few random plane changes in places as far ranging as Switzerland, Quatar and Equitorial Guinea, and also if you take the 'de facto' approach of not counting Tibet as a country in its own right. Anyway, it's been quite a journey.

And I'm not unhappy to make Venezuela the final stop. It's a vibrant, bustling country with bags of personality and a style that seems to mark it out from its Latin American neighbours. The leisured, slow lane life of colonial Cartagena, in Colombia, couldn't be more different to the lively atmosphere of the Andean city of Merida. This place has more extreme outdoor pursuits going down than you could do in a week, as well as the World's longest and highest cable car, taking you up to a nearby peak at 4,765m. It's a cool trip if a little relaxed in the safety department - the doors didn't quite shut in one of the cars and the maximum passenger load limit seemed to be more an aspiration than a regulation. It was freezing on the top with only about 10 metres visibility after the first snowfall of the year, but it was exhilarating to ride up into the clouds all the same. Mind you, I'm not sure the American tourist who went up in t-shirt and flip flops was quite so enthusiastic.

Venezuela has quite a few interesting quirks aside from its well known fondness for beauty contests - it's won more than any other nation, though I haven't encountered that many goddesses on my travels in the country so far. Perhaps that will change when I reach the beach! Taxis and many private cars here are enormous American gas-guzzlers, universally painted white it seems and normally looking like they've been on the road a good twenty to thirty years. I guess they can afford the fuel but not the new motors, though President Hugo Chavez's unilateral campaign against the USA, and all it stands for, doesn't exactly facilitate the flow of US imports. At night the local youths of the city like to hang out in these battered vehicles beside the main park with the car doors and trunks flung open as they blast latino music out at the world at large. It's all very friendly if a little difficult to sleep at times.

Holidaying in Colombia

Nobody much comes to Colombia which is something of a shame. It's a rich and diversely beautiful country which is home to some of the most engaging and welcoming people I've met in all the Americas. Perhaps it's their realisation that with 'the kidnap capital of the World' moniker sullying the country's tourism efforts, it's all the more important to make the right impression with those intrepid travellers who do still come.

Colombia certainly has some pretty major problems. Aside from a 40 year civil war being waged with more than one 'left-wing' guerilla group, there is the problem of other paramilitary forces run on a sort of vigilante basis to protect landed interests, and then the problem that all sides are more or less implicated in the illegal but lucrative cocaine business, which supplies more than 80% of the cocaine sold in the US. Unsurprisingly, the US are deeply involved in funding a drugs eradication programme here and back the tough anti-drugs stance of the President of Colombia, who's just been re-elected. President Uribe is popular for his no compromises approach to the country's problems and you can watch footage of coca fields being burned by government forces on the TV of an evening. Still, there doesn't seem to any great hope that all this conflict and violence is about to come to an end, so Colombia looks set to remain the unvisited country of South America a good while longer.

All of which seems a world away when you're actually in Colombia. There are plenty of no-go areas and even the locals choose to travel internally within the country by plane. However, the safer places seem as safe as anywhere I've been since Mexico. You don't get hassled much and people go out of their way to assist you with no hint of an expected reward for their efforts. It's the repetition of a scenario that I've observed all over the World. The more of us that come to visit a place the less respect we receive as tourists and the more difficulties and hassles we encounter. No doubt a great deal of this is the fault of the tourists, not the locals, when it comes to making a bad impression. The less visited countries are invariably the most pleasant to experience in terms of dealings with local people, even if there are sometimes sacrifices to be made in terms of hotel standards and general tourist infrastructure.

In the case of Colombia, there is no sense in which a derth of foreign visitors has inhibited the country's modern development however. Walking around the posher parts of Bogata you could feel yourself to be at the heart of an affluent European city, with smart restaurants, pavement cafes and delicatessans that would give Harrods' food hall a run for its money. Consumerism is booming in Colombia, and the people seem smart and articulate, well versed in their own problems but dealing with them with a wicked sense of humour - after all, we were greeted by our guide in Bogata with a cheery 'Thank you for being brave enough to visit us here in Colombia'!

The Mundial

The World Cup, or Mundial as they call it over here, is a pretty major event for South Americans. So it was that I found myself in the small Ecuadorian town of Latacunga surrounded by slow moving Toyota pick-up trucks honking their horns and spilling out hundreds of jubilant young people waving yellow flags. Ecuador had beaten Poland in their opening match and everyone was very very excited about it. What a contrast finding myself alone in a cafe the following morning watching England limp dismally to a win over fellow South Americans Paraguay.

We're holed up in a remote corner of the Andes for a few days, well away from the Mundial, enjoying invigorating walks at high altitude in spectacular mountain scenery. I haven't enjoyed the view from my bedroom window this much since I was in Nepal. We're staying at an American run eco-lodge equipped with every environmentally sustainable modernity you could require from 'dry toilets' through to a pet pig that eats the meagre leftovers that remain after sorting waste for recycling. There's also dogs and sheep to keep you company, and a llama that has a tendency to want to join you in the outside shower. Though occasionally you fear getting into trouble for eco-blundering, it's actually a wonderful place to stay and quite inspiring to see the way the owners have striven to put their profits back into supporting the needs of the local community, which is overwhelmingly indigenous and relatively poor even by Ecuadorian standards. I'm not looking forward to leaving this place to return to the big city lights of Quito.

Panama Hats

I've been getting a bit lax with my hat purchasing since Africa, but I did procure a rather natty Panama hat in Merida, Mexico, which has seen quite a bit of wear in Central America and has almost blown away a fair few times. Oddly, Panama hats don't come from Panama. Traditionally they were made in Ecuador, but they were first popularized by workers digging the Panama Canal. The Yucatan version from Mexico is a quality sub-species of a superior weave. I've had quite a few compliments on the hat from locals, which certainly ranks as a first on my travels. With most of my other hat purchases they've just tended to point a finger at me and roar with laughter.

The back end of Central America has been a touch less exciting than the front end, partly I suspect because we've actually missed some of the best places to visit. Still, Costa Rica and Panama have been undeniably beautiful despite the rigours of their sweaty climates. It seems the closer you get to the Equator the more you have to get cosy with biting bugs of one sort or another, and several folk have been wandering around looking like they've just caught a nasty bout of the plague. The occasional foray into the mountains provides welcome relief from the bugs as well as the opportunity to explore coffee plantations and bath in mountainous thermal springs beneath yet more smoking volcanos.

And at the end of it all you hit the great metropolis of Panama City. It's not my favourite capital city of the trip despite friendly enough people and a dramatic setting on a sweeping bay of the Pacific with mountains behind. Somehow it lacks enough of a character or charm of its own to imprint on the memory, though it does have very funkily painted buses. What does impress though is the Panama Canal. A mighty engineering feat in its construction, it remains quite breathtaking to see even today as you watch container ships the size of multi-storey buildings edge by the narrowest of margins into and out of giant locks. By comparison, the Suez Canal seems like chicken feed