So far my preception of the places I have been has been very different to the reality, and Cartagena, Colombia was no different. I expected a tiny, old fashioned fishing village but instead, as we sailed into the bay, I was greeted by a high rise, modern city. I will admit I was a little dissapointed. However over the next few days of my stay there Cartagena redeemed itself.
We arrived at sunset on Thursday (7/7). I had managed to hold it together and not get sea sick so I was pretty happy with myself. As we arrived late we were not in time to get our passports stamped that day so we had to stay one more night on the boat. However Tony said he would take us all over to the main land for dinner. So technically we illegally set off for dinner! I unfortunatly wasnt able to eat much. I had gotten so used to the boat that when I sat down at the table to eat everything was still swaying and moving about and the weird tiredness that had taken over our bodies on the trip was still there. We were all glad to get back to the boat and to bed!
(8/7)
Our passports were taken over to the immigration office early in the morning and by 12 noon we had them back and stamped with no hassle and no fuss which was great. And so it was time to say goodbye to all my fellow boat crew and make my own way once again.
After hopping into a taxi I quickly found my hostel which was loacted in the 'old town'. I was only in the door of the hostel when I met Lauren, a spanish teacher from Kentucky who became my buddy and spanish teacher for the next few days. Afer grabing a quick bit of lunch (pizza slice and a beer all for $3) we headed off to explore the city. The Old Town can only be described as beautiful. High stone walls, old colonial buildings, many cobbled squares and streets lined with artists and traders selling their goods. After a walk around the heat started to get unbearable, it can easily reach 37c here between 12 and 2, a heat that no Irish person would be able to handle! Luckly Cartagena has many museums with air con that we could take refuge in. So we headed to the Museum of Modern Art which was a nice walk around for an hour.
 |
| My hostel |
Dinner was the next duty of the day, and so after an amazing cold shower and a quick change we headed off for some grub. There are vast amounts of restraunts in the old town, we choose to be real tourists and sit outside in one of the main squares facing the town church. After dinner, well dancing of course and what better dance to do than the Colombian salsa! I didnt know how tricky salsa was but I think I got the hang of it. Fidels is the local salsa club and it was the very early hours of the morning before we got home!
9/7
A nice lie in today after last nights antics and then up to do more sightseeing! Today we hit The Inquisition Museum, again the lure of air con was what drew me here. After that it was Musseo del Ori Zenu, a gold museum, showing artifacts from as far back as 300BC. And finally we went to San Felipe de Barajas, an old fort. Pretty cool, full of underground tunnels to play in.
Here we bumped into Lynda, a crazy lady from Vancouver and arranged to meet here for some more salsa later that night. One place everyone said we had to go to was Cafe Del Mar. This is a bar set on the wall of the old town facing the ocean and is thee place to go to watch the sunset. So we spent the evening sipping cocktails, watching the sunset while Lauren gave me Spanish lessons. Perfect. We met Lynda later that night and it was another late one. I was introduced to the local drink called Aguadient (agua-dent-a), a slightly toned down version of Sambuca... so another late one to say the least!
10/7
Tourist day again today but this time we were going to the beach!! Playa Blanca is a 50 min boat ride from the old town. On the way there we passed the Rosario Islands which is the playground to the rich and famous of Colombia. The president has a house here and we wre also shown Pablo Escobars former summer house. I was very dissapointed by Playa Blanca. After being to San Blas my expectations of beaches have gone up a notch or two and I can only describe Playa Banca as the Donabate beach of Colombia!! There were hundreds of people on the beach, mostly Colombian holiday makers, it was noisy, crowded, and people were walking up and down selling you EVERYING under the sun. Maybe Im a slight hypocrite as I did buy a Mojito and a massage ha! The boat ride back from Playa Banca was a bit of craic, we got caught in a storm, got soaked and just about escaped with our lives.
Lauren left today and as I had been on the go for the past nine days I though it was a good day to do NOTHING. I took my book found shade under a tree in one of the squares and read for the day. Headed bake up to Cafe Del Mar again that eve for some more yummy cocktails with a few other from the hostel but I had an early night as I was up early the following morning to head off to my next destination.
No comments:
Post a Comment