Feliz año nuevo!

After a Christmas in New Jersey and a followup visit to Houston for the holidays, we elected to continue our adventures down to Colombia. From Houston, it’s a short five-ish hour flight to Bogotà. Unfortunately for us, there was a two hour delay on our New Year’s Eve flight due to some sort of runway restrictions down at El Dorado Airport. This would mean that we would arrive in 2020 as opposed to having a little buffer back in 2019 to get through customs and to our hotel for a chance to get some much needed rest. As it turned out, we touched down with about five minutes to spare and were pulling up to the gate when the flight attendants announced that it was now 2020. We were fortunate to have gotten business class seats, so we were off the plane in short order. As we walked the long length of the terminal toward customs, we saw fireworks erupting all along the horizon. A group of about twenty rampers were watching it as well and eventually turned and looked at me and waved. Welcome to 2020.  

 We breezed through customs and took an Uber down the empty roads to our hotel near the old town, about twenty minutes away. Some shady looking characters immediately ran up to the car when we got out hoping for some change, but Nicole and I are millennials and didn’t have any actual cash to give anyway. To heighten the tension, our hotel door was locked and nobody was there to let us in. After a minute, a security guard at the adjoining building was able to get a hold of the hotel to let us in. For having touched down around midnight, it was now about 1am, which wasn’t too shabby. We settled in for the night. 

We were awoken the following morning by heat consuming us. You see, while it was really only about 50 degrees outside, the altitude and the shade’s absorption of heat made it feel like 80 in the room. We had an early start to the day, just to get out. In spite of our phones telling us it was only 58, we didn’t need our jackets while walking outside. We explored a neighborhood known as La Candelaria. The streets were nearly deserted. We eventually reached Plaza Bolívar, where we encountered more people, but they were far outnumbered by pigeons. Virtually nothing was open at this hour, so there wasn’t a whole lot to see. We then caught an Uber to take us up the hill to where we thought we would catch a cable car or funicular to the top of Monserrate Hill. Apparently a lot of other people had the same idea, and it looked like a line for a ride at Disneyland so we simply walked down the hill back toward our hotel. Since we had pretty much exhausted our to-do list for Bogotà, we decided to take an earlier flight to Cartagena. A little while later, we found ourselves back at the airport, but this time in the domestic terminal.   

 Though we were able to depart earlier, it only saved us maybe 40 minutes in the end, as it was a very long taxi for departure. We will take what we can get. Our hotel in Cartagena is also in the old walled area of the city. It was very quickly apparent that this is very different than Bogotà. It is quite busy and there are a lot of tourists. After checking in, we walked around to explore. It was a bit overwhelming. It has similarities to Casco Viejo in Panama City, but it’s not as . . .nice. It’s perhaps a little too wild for our tastes, and very difficult to walk. Gaggles of tourists stop abruptly as they try to figure out where they’re going or pausing for a dramatic selfie. We would have to jump off the narrow sidewalks into the street to avoid them only to be almost run over by a taxi or horse-drawn carriage, which are surprisingly frequent. I didn’t even want to stop for pictures because everyone behind me would surely run me over.  

 It’s like a cross between Panama City, Ubud in Bali, and New Orleans — it’s a nice looking neighborhood with the colonial architecture, but it caters to a clientele and inauthenticity that is a bit of a turnoff. We had dinner at a place called, “Beer Lovers.” This was a nice chance to escape the crowds on the street and enjoy some local brews. Nicole had a red ale and I had a coffee stout, not standard Caribbean beers, or tropical beers, but delicioso nonetheless. We also got a couple beers and some snacks to go because they were so yummy and we were now just seeking ways to avoid the crowded streets. We figured we would enjoy the beers on the roof of our hotel. Perhaps I am being unfairly negative toward the poor walled city of Cartagena, but when you’re spoiled like we are, you have a lot to compare it to. It does appear that everyone else is enjoying themselves, so take that as you will. Tomorrow is a new day, and maybe things will be different when it’s not a holiday. Fingers crossed.