Last year Dangis and I took a day off work for my birthday.  We visited the museum of Contemporary Arts, had coffee at Skydeck Cafe in Hancock building, went skating in Millennium park and had fancy lunch.  I had a very special day.  This year every day is special.

We arrived at Barranquilla 1 day before my birthday and 3 days before the carnival.  The cheapest hotel we found was going to double the prices during the carnival.  So, the next morning we set out to find another hotel for a reasonable price.  We discovered one right there in the center for 60,000 pesos.  The room in hotel Alpes de Huez was clean.  It even had air conditioning and TV.  The porno channel was on the first time we turned the TV on.  Apparently, the rooms in this hotel could also be rented on hourly basis.  We stayed there for almost a week and felt very safe and comfortable.

Our hotel even offered free shots of coffee in the mornings.  Since that was not enough for us, we found a little place close by, there they served nice breakfast with coffee in slightly bigger cups than shot glasses.  One day they ran out of coffee at 9:30AM.  Searching for coffee was an adventure.  We discovered that the surrounding cafes, restaurants, bars, bakeries and stores do not serve coffee.  It seemed that beer was more popular with locals in the mornings, at least during the carnival.  Ironic that the best coffee in the world comes from Colombia, isn´t it?  Once before we asked for coffee with milk.  Instead we got milk with coffee.  From then on, we learned to drink black coffee.

Since our hotel did not have a kitchen, we had to eat out every day for that week.  The good thing that all restaurants in our neighbourhood served very inexpensive meals, which included soup and meat with rise and vegetables.  We spent more on hotel, but saved on food.  Our spending average per day stayed pretty similar until the first day of carnival.

We paid the security guy 100,000 pesos each to let us in.  The carnival  was scheduled to start at 11AM.  Once the carnival finally started at 2PM, it was very colorful- filled with beautiful and famous people, dressed in elaborate and creative costumes.  It was worth seeing it for the price we paid to get in.  But a lot of people did not want to pay, so the parties surrounded the carnival.  The music played all around.  People were cooking and dancing in the streets.  There were so many people leaving the carnival, that for the first time there were no taxis available.  Buses work for us just fine.

The last day before our flight to Medellin, we went to say goodbye to the Caribbean sea.  The next day we needed a taxi to take us to the airport.  The staff in our hotel told us that the taxi should cost about 10,000 pesos.  Ron told us that 20,000 pesos was a good price.  All taxi drivers requested 50,000, and a couple of them refused to take us for 10,000 pesos.  We finally agreed on 15,000 pesos with the third driver.

The price for one hour flight from Barranquilla to Medellin with Avianca was slightly higher than the price for the 16 hour bus ride.  We price included 3 bag allowance with 10 kg limit for each bag.  The seats were roomy, and we were served free coffee.  The flight was a pleasant experience.