Cartagena Take Two

Things were a little bit calmer this morning, though the heat was already quite intense. We walked outside the city walls for the first time to an area of town called Getsemani. We were already having a few issues with people stopping abruptly on the narrow sidewalks. We knew very well, however, that things could be much worse. We walked toward the Castillo de San Felipe, but as we crossed a bridge to get there, I was a bit concerned about the heat and being completely exposed without shade for an extended period of time, so I snapped a picture from a distance and we turned around. We took a different route back to the old town, passing some graffiti as we walked by. We did a little bit of shopping, but didn’t end up buying anything. Stores essentially had the same stuff from one place to the next, but not the key items we needed like . . .a pin for Nicole’s camera bag, or an ornament for our tree. Even good magnets were hard to come by. If you wanted a Panama hat, however, you need not look far.   

 We had lunch across the street from our hotel at a pizza place. We had hoped to snag one of the seats in the plaza, but an older man who looked like Dr. Hammond from Jurassic Park stole the last one. Some nerve. We ended up being the first to be sat indoors, but there was a balcony upstairs which worked out nicely because it eliminated the hawkers trying to sell us cigarettes and panama hats. After our pizzas, we regrouped at the hotel to formulate our next plan. We still needed to get aforementioned pins and ornaments and such, so I did a bit of research. We ended up going to a stretch of stalls at the Mercado de las Bovedas, which was an old military storehouse. It’s now about 20 “different” shops selling mostly the same stuff. We ended up getting a keychain of one of the colorfully-dressed fruit vendors which I will convert to an ornament.  I also ended up getting a Colombian national team soccer jersey because the price was right. It ended up being about $10, so I didn’t feel right trying to get a lower price any lower than that. Later on we found a flag pin for Nicole, but it really took some hunting.    

 I had made a dinner reservation for 630pm (when most restaurants just start opening for the night). I thought perhaps a reservation was needed since outdoor space is often limited, but it turns out it was most definitely not required. We were the first people there, and watched them physically open the restaurant and put out the signs and menus. I had picked this place because I wanted to try a local dish called Posta Negra Cartogena. It’s basically steak cooked in a sauce made out of Worcestershire sauce and Coca Cola amongst other things, so it’s a kind of tangy/sweet flavor served with plantains, and coconut rice. Unfortunately, the restaurant I had reserved told us that they were out. It had been a frustrating evening of running into people and nearly getting hit by cars, so we were in a bad place when we heard this news. I basically said there’s no point in even staying, so we up and left. We hunted around briefly. Another restaurant I remembered from my research ended up having a guard posted outside, blocking the entry. I took this to be not a great sign, and we continued elsewhere. As we neared our hotel, we passed the restaurant next to the place where we ate pizza for lunch. They had one seat outside, though it was an unusual setup. Because a group of twenty girls had showed up and wanted to eat at ONE table like the Last Supper, our table ended up being off by itself as if we were eating at a completely different restaurant, or had perhaps brought our own table.   

 To make matters worse for Nicole, she was alerted that due to previously mentioned group of twenty girls (who had all decided to order pizza, even though there was a pizza place next door), the wait for Nicole’s margherita pizza would take at least 45 minutes at best. The waitress suggested various salads and fish dishes, but I think she could sense the fear in Nicole’s eyes. She then brought Nicole with her to order a pizza from the neighboring restaurant. As it turned out, I got my posta negra a while after Nicole received her pizza, but it was a delightful dish that was topped off with some kind of banana dessert. It was perhaps the closest thing we will have to any authentic in Cartagena.

    We went back to our hotel and sat on the rooftop, away from the chaos all around us as car horns and salsa music from different bars wafted into our ears to create a kind of dissonance that pretty accurately sums up lively and wild Cartagena.