The More You Know...

parque tayrona: the "hammocks with a view" are in that open hut on the hill

1. You can be freezing cold on a beach in the summertime, if you happen to be sleeping on the beach in Parque Tayrona and you pay extra for the hammock with a view at Cabo San Juan. I only spent one night there and while the view was glorious, the wind wasn't. I ended up wearing all my clothes and a sleeping sheath while wrapped up in the hammock like a cigar - and still, I only managed to sleep about half an hour all night thanks to the gusting wind. By all means go to Parque Tayrona (it's gorgeous) and rent a hammock, but bring a sleeping bag or thermal gear with you.
2. Travelling from Venezuela to Colombia by bus, you may need to pay a bribe. At least I did. There were several Venezuelan women on my bus who, between them, had something like 60 huge bags full of god knows what. As we were leaving the station in Caracas, one of them came down the aisle and asked everyone for 50 Bolivares each to pay off the soldiers at the road-side checkpoints so they wouldn't insist on rifling through our bags. I only had 20 Bolivares, which bribe-lady grudgingly accepted. We weren't stopped along the way, so maybe it actually worked.
3. Colombia has the most amazing fresh fruit, and there are fruit stalls and juice stalls on every corner. As well as all the standbys like oranges, passionfruit, pineapples and guava, there are delicious fruits like Lulo and Guayaba and Zapote that I'd never heard of before arriving in Colombia. There are even some fruits, like the mouth-watering Nispero, that you can only find on Colombia's Atlantic Coast. I highly recommend trying as many as you can, but heads up to the lactose-intolerant: for some reason, Colombians like to add milk to their fresh fruit juices.
4. A fake wedding ring doesn't always work to prevent unwanted advances. I thought that wearing a band on my left ring finger would automatically stop men from hitting on me, and mostly, it seems to have worked. Except for Oscar in Ciudad Bolivar who asked me why I couldn't have a Venezuelan boyfriend (ie. him) on the side, and Nelson in Santa Marta who kept asking when he could see me again, and the guy who claimed to be from Ireland (not a chance) who attempted to grab a snog in Ushuaia. But the one thing such men DID seem to care about? Was whether I had kids. So next time I travel to South America, I'm going to have to rent some.

at least a sleepless night meant i saw the sun rise over parque tayrona!