France is part of me and the last week or so sometimes felt like a travelling déja vu. My ‘holidays’ were in fact a manic race from the south of France to the north. En route we scooped up Provençal sun and rain as well as endlessly twisting roads to a lost monastery, now a convent (where I opened a little wooden shutter to pick up a phone & ring the Abbess but chickened out - that would mean the end of my globetrotting life).

Sometimes a blog is not really on the cards. Since returning from Colombia 10 days ago, my overworked mind has been otherwise engaged - mentally scooting round the globe from Spain to Muscat to Mexico plus a few other places that I’ll keep under my hat for the moment. Some had a slot in the ongoing work on my desk, while others remain hazy projects, still in abstract email form. So, just occasionally, it all gets rather disorientating and the last thing I’m capable of is writing a blog. This wing represents my rather unilateral mind.

I did get to that Playa Blanca - and very blanca it was. Classic powdery white sand fronted by cliched turquoise waters and the silhouettes of coconut palms: all quite beautiful if there’d been a few hundred less people. From the ferry jetty at the canal, I’d hired a motor-bike taxi to bump me 15 km or so along a rough track the length of Isla de Baru to reach the beach. The rough ride wrought havoc on my spine, though my valiant driver seemed none the worse. A couple of times I had to dismount in places where the road was completely flooded as well as rutted to the point of resembling mountain ranges. So when I finally staggered down to the beach to be confronted by this Latino playground - family groups lunching, kids playing, a flotilla of speedboats and an army of pushy roaming vendors - it was like a slap in the face. Reality = Sunday = time off. Remember?

I´ve been here nearly a week, and am still seduced. It´s not surprising, as Cartagena seems to respond to every hazy dream of a life less frantic. Tropical heat with a gentle breeze (that only picked up a few days ago), stunning Spanish colonial architecture (half Merida in Mexico, half Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic and probably a touch of Havana, though I’ve never been there), lush vegetation, the walk-shuffle of people accustomed to the heat and humidity who never speed up, fabulous hideouts from hotels to bars and restaurants, people who sit in the street late into the night singing along to a TV in a cafe, big black mammas with even bigger grins, the highs & the lows of Latin American countries…it´s all here.