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.   

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.