Another thing that sometimes happens when you get bargain last minute flight deals is you end up going via unexpected places. We flew from Bogota to Panama City, and then from there to Quito in Ecuador. Both flights were about 2 hours, the flight from Bogota to Quito directly takes under an hour.
Our next main destination being Ecuador and being both fairly tired of the river we decided to take a plane instead, which as it turned out probably cost about the same in the end. In the small Colombian airport were these large reward posters for members of FARC, the largest and most infamous of Colombia´s Guerilla organisations. Those with crosses through are already captured or killed but the 5 billion Peso (about 1.4m pounds) remains on the rest. Unfortunately we were leaving Colombia or else we might have captured one and extended our trip a bit.
Leticia Airport.
We flew from Leticia to Bogota, Colombia´s capital city. Unfortunately having landed at 4pm we had until 7am to wait for our next flight. We spent an uncomfortable, although not as bad as expected, night on this wooden bench. Oh well, this is what happens when you get bargain flight deals.
Having spent over 6 solid days on a boat eating only plain rice and spaghetti Adam decided to celebrate being on dry land by almost immediatly becoming very sick for 3 days. Whether it was the food ( Liz didn´t eat the rice) or the fact that we were showering in the same river water that the toilet flushed into who knows. Anyway once he had mostly recovered we explored the Colombian riverside town of Leticia where we were staying, it didn´t take long. The small town has very little to see although it does have a very pleasant central square.
Every central square has at least one church although this is probably the most modern we have seen. It looked to us like a rocket. Maybe that is the idea - it´s ready to blast the faithful up to heaven, or is that Scientology??
The town is situated on what is known as the Triple Frontier between Colombia, Brazil and Peru. Split only by an invisible line are the towns of Leticia (Colombia) and Tabatinga (Brazil) with the Peruvian village of Santa Rosa on the other side of the Amazon.
While we were there Leticia was celebrating the anniversary of it´s foundation, seemingly quite a big event on their calendar. As part of the festivities the local children held a colourful parade through the streets. They dressed up and decorated cars and lorries.
Leticaia is one of the safest towns in Colombia, maybe this is why!
There were lots of very pretty children who had all made a lot of effort in getting dressed up and their faces painted.
A lot of effort had also gone into decorating the vehicles in the parade as much as possible.
This one has a papier-mache model of the iconic Amazonian Pink river dolphin.
As usual Liz managed to find the best ice cream shop in town.
We bought some bananas and fresh Brazil nuts from the riverside market.
It was time again for a haircut but fortunately this time Adam managed to get accross that he wanted a little bit of hair left on his head.
Arepas- thick maize pancakes served with cheese, by far our favourite street snack.
Due to the location of the town and it accessibility only by boat everything is expensive to import. As a result almost everyone has given up on expensive cars and instead there are literally hundreds of mopeds zipping around, most of which seem to very rarely look where they are going.
Our last sunrise on the boat.
Benjamin Constant our final stop before reaching Tabatinga.
The morning sun lit up the multi coloured river houses.
These oil drums added to the vibrant colours of the port.
The captain of the boat took a special shine to Liz, this may have been because she was the only girl on board that wasn´t pregnant and didn´t have a baby.
Our final stretch of the Amazon - just 25km from Benjamin Constant to Tabatinga.
After six solid days and 1100km we finally arrived at Tabatinga and the triple frontier between Brazil, Peru and Colombia. We went from here to stay the night in the Colombian town of Leticia.
The boat was full of mothers and babies. Alot of the babies slept peacefully in the hammocks, infact we only heard a baby crying a couple of times and there must have been at least 15 of them on board.
We have never seen anything like the dense Amazon jungle on this part of the river.
There were plants growing on other plants that were growing on other plants.
Liz earning her keep. The boat has never been so close to the bank!
Adam had to have a beer after surviving Liz driving the boat.
Dusk turned the clouds golden.
There was not much of a sunset but then this fantastic pink streak appeared accross the sky.
We were woken up by what sounded like metal crashing near our heads. As it turned out this is exactly what it was. At 2.30am we had a bang on our door and this group of mechanics invaded our cabin. It turned out that the cable attatching the steering wheel to the rudder had snapped and the only access point for them to fix it was behind our bed. Two hours later all was fixed and we were on the move again.
The early morning started with rain but this did make this lovely double rainbow.
The smooth refelctive surface of the river made the rainbow doubly impressive.
Our first major stop, most of these people had just come for the show. 
Alot of cargo was unloaded some of the crew worked incredibly hard, they must have moved more than 100 of these 50kg bags of flour.
Waiting with the locals for the boat to set off again.
One of the things that made the trip for Liz was seeing these Pink River Dolphins. We spotted this one while we were still docked.
There were some interesting characters on the docks, this one reminds Adam of his Grandad.
We were waiting for this little girl shoot someone with her catapult but she was very well behaved like all the children we came accross on the Amazon.
The banana boat.
This large bag of oranges seemed a bit too heavy for this little girl.
Dawn.
The jungle at this point was incredibly dense, there are an amazing variety of different plants and trees.
The local fishermen with their nets.
Some of the houses were partially hidden by the jungle.
Almost every settlement that we passed had a small church like this one. Most of those who live along the river are indigenous people who were converted by missionaries, the unconverted tend to stay hidden away from the river.
This person must be proud of their garden full of tulips.
There were only a couple of other tourists on the boat, everyone else was Brazilian, mostly indigenous origin. Liz snapped this family sitting down for lunch.
To utilise our suddenly large amounts of free time we decided to do a bit of planning for Peru and Ecuador. This little local boy was very interested in what we were doing, especially the map of South America. Adam was trying to show him where we were on the map (even though he didn´t exactly know himself!).
After the high rainfall many homes were only accessible by boat.
The weather changes amazingly quickly on the Amazon. Within the space of half an hour it went from sunshine to this.
And then within another hour back to this.
Enjoying the boat trip - Adam even more than expected, Liz considerably more than expected.
We said that we weren´t going to put too many sunsets on but there was such a variation of spectacualr skies we couldn´t choose between them.
One side of the sky was brilliant yellows, the other reds.
A combination of the two.