Cartagena

We started exploring Cartagena on Sunday the 9th of September, after deciding that we would not have enough time to go to Tairona National Park or Taganga- bad planning on our part, but so you learn.

It turned out that it was the Colombian National Heritage Day, which meant all the museums were free! It was also quite warm, but not stiflingly hot - the best day we had in Cartagena for walking around.

We started at the Inquisition museum (Palacia de la Inquisition), where we got a guide who spoke english, Tony. Tony was very animated while talking about the torture techniques, we think he might have been gay, what with all the make-up he was wearing. He taught us a lot of the history of Cartagena, invasions and pirates, plenty reasons to build the great big fortifications around the city.

Tony then took us to an Emerald ´factory´, which turned out to be an emerald shop, one of many in the city, and they proceeded to try to sell Tara and I some emerald jewellery. We used the excuse that we needec our money for a roof over our heads and food in our tummíes and made our way out of there.

We walked around the city going in and out of churches and walking along the outer wall. It is an incredibly beautiful city that throngs with history. There are also very few tourists walking around, which makes it seem all the more authentic and real.

We managed to find a room in a hostel that day, and would move into it the following morning. Back at our hotel, we went to the 18th floor swimming pool and took in the view of the old and the new city, Boca Grande.

The next day, after moving into out hostel room, we went exploring again, but it was so hot. So very, very hot. There was a sign on the beach saying that it was 37 Celcius at 10 in the morning!

We managed to walk around to some parts of the city that we didn´t see the previous day, and then walked all the way to the Castillo de San Felipe de Barajas. We were dripping by that stage, so instead of going up the long slope to the Castle, we looked at it from the comfort of two chairs at an outside bar.

That evening we met up with Christina, a 19 year old Colombian who was working at the last hotel we stayed in. She took us to the Cafe del Mar, on the wall of the city overlooking the sea, and then to a friend of her late father who owns a restaurant in the old city. We had a great time, but ended up paying for her. She agreed to meet us the next day and said she would pay us back.

We met Christina the next day near the hotel where she works. She didn´t end up paying us back, but that´s a lesson learned for us. We decided it was, once again, too damn hot to do any exploring, so we spent the rest of the afternoon at the beach.

That evening we had a lovely dinner on a balcony above the Plaza de Santo Domingo, safely watching the locals entertain, and try to sell things to, the tourists.

Cartagena is great, but you have to learn quickly how to just ignore all the street, and beach, hawkers.
Oh, and ... go in winter!