Cartagena

Monday, February 14

We had about a 3.5 hour drive from Santa Marta to Cartagena, mostly along the desert-y coast. When we got to Cartagena we finally met up with…our friend Karen!!!
The last time we saw her was in India on a trip we did many years ago.

We all walked around the beautiful walled city and decided to get something to eat. We opted for a restaurant called San Valentin because it was Valentine’s Day!! Carl and I shared ceviche and a seafood stew to celebrate being near the coast and we ordered Karen a bunch of sides because she is vegetarian and that’s all they had without meat. We also got Maracuya (passion fruit) juice and it was sooo good. I don’t think I can go back to not having fresh fruit juice at every meal!

After lunch we walked around the old town a bit and then went to the wall to a popular restaurant on top the wall (Cafe del Mar) to watch the sunset over the ocean. This was the first time we had to show our vaccine cards to get in, which was ironic because the restaurant was entirely outdoors and the wind was SO strong that the waitresses could barely hold onto their trays. We ordered some fancy cocktails and watched as the sky turned lighter blue to different shades of light pink and orange.

Walking back to our hotel we decided to get one more small thing to eat. We popped into a random restaurant and they ended up having live music. It was a guy singing with his acoustic guitar and a lot of people in the restaurant were singing along. I got the best Mojito I’ve had in Colombia (Puerto Rico still wins) and we got some Patacones which are fried plantains (tostones) with stuff on top. Karen was exhausted from her 26 hour voyage from Europe and we were still tired from the hike so we decided to have an early night.

Tuesday, February 15

We started the day off with a free walking tour within the old, walled city. Our guide’s name was Edgar and he was very good at his job. He remembered everyone’s name in our tour group and would ask us trivia questions about our home country during the tour. From him we learned that the elaborate door knockers on some of the old doors are representative of who used to live there. For example, a lion represents military or government, fish represents a fisherman, mermaid represents commerce, and lizard represents royalty. I asked Edgar what would represent a medical profession but he didn’t know. We saw one door that looked like a lion dog demon and someone in the group said ‘lawyer’.

At the end of the tour Edgar advised us where to eat lunch. He recommended San Valentin (where we ate the day before!) and a cheaper place where the locals go, outside the walled city, called Coroncoro. One of the tour participants said that’s where he planned to go for lunch anyways so we joined him and went together in a little group. His name was Sean and he was from Florida. He was the only tourist used to the heat and able to wear pants like a local. We also made friends with a woman named La Donna who lives in Brooklyn and she joined us for lunch too. Sean lead the way because he had visited Cartagena before and had eaten outside the walled city previously. We went to the neighborhood Getsemaní which used to be riddled with crime but perhaps because of this was overlooked by ugly 1980s development and had retained the same old style buildings and streets. The first street we walked down had flags across the top but it seemed that every street after had some other decoration across the top like kites, butterflies, and flags.

Coroncoro was definitely a locals spot. The waitress pulled up chairs to a table where people were already eating and she barked at us to sit. Finally when we ordered she gave us less than 30 seconds to speak. I tried to tell her that Karen is vegetarian so she just wanted all the sides, but not a main. The waitress heard ‘Ella es vegetar-‘ and she replied “no!” and moved onto the next customer. Finally we were able to get food ordered for everyone and I got the biggest passion fruit juice I’ve had here for 7,000 pesos (less than $2) and loved every sip.

After lunch we walked around the neighborhood with our new friends. We admired the old buildings and all the street art. We spotted a craft beer bar and decided to take a peek. The bartender offered that we could sample beers before getting a whole pint. We asked to try number 6 (seis) and she gave us number 3 (tres). Then we asked for number 4 (cuatro) and she gave us 7 (siete). The first time I could understand the mix up but the second time was just funny. So we asked for 6 and 4 again, and 15. At this point she thought we wanted to try all of them and started giving us a look. I ended up going with #1, Happy Tucan, because Carl had it in Santa Marta and I knew it was good. Carl went with #6, an IPA from Lino brewery in Bogotá. There was a soccer game on the tv playing so we got some beers and watched the game, pretending to be invested in Real Madrid vs some Paris team.

By this time it was afternoon and so hot. Luckily our hotel had a pool on the roof that was the shape of a giant bath tub. We all got in and then watched the beginning of the sunset from the pool chairs on the roof.

For dinner that night, Carl and I met up with the German couple we had met while hiking La Ciudad Perdida, Susie and John. They are also vegetarian but they seemed to know where to look for a veggie friendly place to eat. They chose a tapas place in the Getsemaní neighborhood and we ended up ordering all the vegetarian tapas to share. It was a nice break from eating meat with absolutely every meal!

After dinner we walked around a bit. Even though it was only Tuesday there were a ton of people out in the streets and there were street performers in the main square. We watched the organized street performers and then a drunken? woman who was actually pretty good at dancing intervened in their routine- she was twerking and eventually did a flash dance move on top of a police car that was actually hilarious though I think the real dancers didn’t think it was so funny. We found ourselves near the same craft beer bar we had been at earlier so we thought – why not?! — and went back. Luckily the same bartender wasn’t there because she thought we were weird enough sampling 6 beers before and now we were back with two DIFFERENT English-speaking friends. We were worried they were going to think we were scamming couples somehow and shmoozing them over beers. Carl said, ‘either way we are bringing business to them!’

Wednesday, February 16

Woke up early and headed to the port to board a catamaran. Cartagena is in the Carribean and although the water around the city itself is not aquamarine and no beaches around the old part, the tropical paradise is a short boat ride away. As we left the mainland we were fascinated with all the beautiful high-rises with their wall to ceiling windows. We yelled ‘what’s the rent?!’ but no one responded. It seems like Cartagena has the benefit of Carribean climate without the risk of a direct hit from a hurricane, but they have been flooded by hurricane remnants before.

Out past Bocagrande we were in the open ocean. The boat swung down to the Rosario Islands and anchored offshore. We borrowed some snorkels and swam out to some rockier areas. Just when we found the good spot I pulled my head up and realized we were in a channel way. Boats blasting music were whizzing by us. The staff on our boat were motioning us to come back closer to the boat. Begrudgingly, we did, and tried to see more fish at deeper depths where the rock borders the grass. Despite this restriction we did see a bunch of little fish including a parrot fish which is one of my favorites. Swimming back to the boat we saw Karen had waded in and was taking pics with her go pro.

Then the boat drove to the next location, back on the mainland but still in the national natural park, south of the city. We had a yummy lunch of seafood rice and fruit. Bellies full, we jumped in the water again and this time were able to swim to the beach and further from the boat. There wasn’t as much reefs or reef life here, but still we saw some colorful fish and lots of beautiful dead coral that had washed up onto the shore. Finally we had to head back. The way back to the port was ridiculously choppy and the people sitting in the front on the boat hammocks got absolutely drenched. I had to sit in the back and stare at the distant shoreline to focus on not getting sick.

We got back to the hotel and showered and then walked out for dinner. We went back to Getsemaní because we saw street food we wanted to try. First we got some arepas. Karen got plain cheese and she loved it. Carl and I split the ‘Colombian’ which had some different meats and potato something in it. Then we meandered down to the main square to see what else was looking good. We saw a huge crowd around one vendor and had to watch for a while to see what they were making and how to order it. We ended up getting Patacones with everything. Patacones basically is the same as tostones (fried plantain) but in Colombian restaurants some places add different toppings. This street food was like Colombian Poutine- the fried plantains were on the bottom followed by layers of sauce, corn, shredded potatoes, chorizo, ham, bacon, and who knows what else. It was a heaping plate of food and it was so good. We stood in the square and ate it and tried our best to finish it all.