FINAL TOUCHES TO COLOMBIA TRIP

There is always checking and double checking to be carried out when self planning trips, the hotel we had chosen for the second city of Colombia Medellin which has the new Translohr system rubber tyred trams had failed to respond to either confirm the reservation or to help with an airport pick up and was very noisy thus I used the availability of free cancellation and moved to one recommended by Lonely Planet. Then later I checked with Trip Advisor and found that my 'new' choice also had its problems but they confirmed not only reservations within minutes but also gave me the name of the taxi driver who would pick us up and that they had an easy access room aside for us. Thus whilst not 100% confident I do feel I've given it my best shot and even if there are faults it will be better than nothing. I suppose a world of Inter Continentals and Hiltons gives some reassurance but there are Hiltons I would never stay in again not everything lives up to expectations.  The weather today certainly did and it was sunshine and showers throughout. Tomorrow we have our yellow fever jabs and friend Sue had hers today and got final advise on the best malaria tablets.

With the inoculations half way through the day that leaves it all a bit up in the air for doing any filming so I'm keeping an eye on Thursday, Fri and Sat all of which are unsettled as we swing away from the damp mild air to a cooler chilly weather system. Be assured that at first opportunity I shall be out there filming more trucks and the bus side will just gallop along as usual. Masses of stuff on the horizon. I'm going to put some more work into the China trip through and then perhaps just a tease of a look at Ukraine for later in the year perhaps September. By then my young friends whom I've helped with their PhD work regarding film taken on an early trip shall have born fruit and I'll elicit some help and advice on locations which are safe. I'd like to hire a car there, always fancied doing that although bus is probably next choice, rail can be tedious except for outings from a given base without too much baggage to worry about.

The Youtube monetised returns are not doing as well as they should, please don't use any apps to remove adverts, they are the means of finance for suich sites, rather make a point of clicking on them when you visit, it costs you nothing perhaps they may bring benefits or just delete after opening. Statistics in other respects are grand as we approach our next million hits and the subs have shot past 8K. I'm working on the last 4 hours of Standard 8 cine which will be on EBay soon and joining the clips on Youtube, the hopes with these more seemingly random offerings are that they get embedded on various sites unconnected with the main business, sods law said the first to go genuinely viral was challenged by copyright claim and I deleted it.

Some of the Yorkshire trip from yesterday as posted on Youtube, the DVDs are already selling!