CARTEGENA - Beautiful Old Colonial Town by the North West Coast - 13th, 14th & 15th August

13th August - We had gotten so comfortable in Taganga with the beautiful ocean views and the beach that it was difficult to leave, even though Cartegena was certainly something we were looking forward to. We had our last morning swim, drank more wonderful juice at breakfast on the beach and by noon headed off to Santa Marta, in the heat, to get a bus to Cartegena.


We were very impressed with the bus system here is Colombia, especially the fact that each of these buses had a large digital display in the passenger section indicating the bus's current speed. There was also a sign besides the display letting passengers know what the maximum speed allowed was.

At Bus Stations, we also saw TV screens which besides displaying bus boarding times & gates, showed a small video educating passengers on what to ask for when buying a ticket. The video also had a small skit about a bus driver speeding and a passenger then showing him a photograph of the family he was going to meet and the driver immidiately slows down - all done very courtesly and with no chastising.

Having said that all that, the bus company we were relying on cancelled their Sunday bus to Cartegena (having only five pasengers) and we had to improvise making a quick dash for a bus to Barranquilla. Then at Barranquilla, dashing across the highway to flag down a bus going to Cartagena. The heat certainly had us drained when we got to Cartagena at 6pm.

Cartagena has been described as a fairy tale city with its maze of cobbled alleys, large houses with equally large balconies overhanging with plants & bouganvillas, leafy plazas with huge old churches, street cafes, horse drawn carriages, museums, all within fortified walls. It is right out of some Pirate tale, and this city has certainly seen its share of pirates. The most famous of these was Sir Francis Drake, who held the city to ransom in 1586, and then magnanamously spared it for a huge ransom, which ended up in Queen Lizzy's coffers. It was mainly English and French pirates that attacked Cartagena.

As it is said - "When you are in Cartagena you will fall in love, or if you are already in love, you will get married". The city reminded us of old Havana. Although in a far better condition as far as buildings went, it certainly did not rival Havana for sheer life. There was a lot more development outside the old city walls, with high rise apartments and hotels toward the harbour mouth (Bocagrande) but we saw no need to venture there at all.

Romance aside, we were all a bit snappy by the time we got a hotel room that hot and muggy evening - what with taxis not wanting to take us from the Bus stop, taking a crowded local bus with our backpacks, being dropped off far from the walled city and the hotels we wanted all being full. The people at one of the hotels (Centro Hotel) were very helpful and made a few calls to get us a room elsewhere but with no luck. They let us keep our bags with them whilst we hunted for a room.

It was by chance that we bumped into someone touting his local restaurant and we mentioned (snapped, rather) wanting a room first. Fortunately a hotel was being started in the house above his restaurant. They, still in the early stages of setting up, graciously let us have a large room (with 6 beds) with a balcony over the street, for a far lower price than we had budgeted for. In hind sight it was certainly a blessing, getting this central cheaper accomodation in a house, that had not quite yet turned into a less personal hotel.

We walked the streets in a far better mood after a bath and in clean clothes. We already knew and greeted quite a few of the local touts following our initial search for a room, many of them even greeting us by first name. We certainly decided to avoid the main Santo Domingo Plaza for dinner, with it's tourist restaurants. We instead found a local restaurant in the back streets and had a brilliant meal of Soup & Main Course. We had to reconfirm the prices though once we got the bill - it appeared that the lady was charging us only half the price. Got back to the hotel & slept well that night.

14th August - Cartagena, is a very charming city, although it did not facinate us as much as Barichara did (or Giron would have), perhaps because there are other cities similar to Cartagena that we have come across. It was founded by Pedro de Heredia in 1533 on a Carib Indian site. He used a local indian girl, Catalina as his interpreter when he went about building the city. Catalina was certainly very beautiful from the statues we saw of her, and perhaps had an unfair advantage over all the other male applicants for the position of interpreter.

We had breakfast in a small juice place and then began slowly discovering the city. There is a brilliant Palacio (museum) De La Inquisicion, right at Plaza Bolivar. Around 800 people were tried, tortured & killed in these chambers (none of them Indians) for various crimes associated with magic, witchcraft and blasphamy. Great displays of the proceedings and torture instruments. Also some very good models of Cartagena in the early days. This museum, apart from the torture instruments, thoroughly bored Letay. Went quickly into the Bolivar Park outside the museum and watched people - the intricate ballet of shoeshine boys, Tinto (espresso) vendors, hang-abouts, souvenirs sellers, tourists, office crowd, and all in between. The heat & humidity limited us wanting to do much apart from lying around like lizards.

Walked to the clock tower, where there is a statue of good ol' Pedro the city's founder. Right near this is an arched passage way where once slaves from Africa were sold on arrival. Now this passage way is occupied by vendors selling sweets made of all kinds of fruit. Letay and I wanted to see the bones of San Pedro Claver, a monk who began looking after the slaves, and who became South America's first saint. The church was apparently shut, however outside was a rather nice Botero "fat" sculpture of the Saint and a slave girl. Art seemed to fill the city everyway. We found two old great bookshops, both with cafe's, and one of them (The Forum) was even having a mini festival of Almodovar's movies in its tiny cafe upstairs.


The city has such a well maintained old world feel about it that a number of films were made here, including Romancing the Stone, and Quimada (with Marlon Brandon). We also saw the film crew who were in town planning the making of a film of a book (Love in the time of cholera) by Colombia's Nobel prize winner, Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

As always in Colombia, we find people so courteous and polite and always willing to help. Cartagena, with its slant towards tourists, was still no exception. Here too people always wished. This was the relatively quiet season. We dread to think what it would be like when the Cruise ships stop by.

Whilst Deepa went to get her hair cut, Letay and I sat in another bookshop, Abaco, with a small cafe as part of it and browsed through some books on Botero. Great atmosphere and very pleasant people.

We caved in and had dinner (beer, crepes & tapas) in the square in front of the Iglesia de Santo Domingo. The tables are all laid out in the square and although it feels a bit touristy, it is visited by many locals too. There were a lot of street performers around, including a group of kids who performed some super lively versions of the local dances. This square is quite a place to people watch.






One side of the square is bordered by the Santo Domingo church, with it's crooked bell tower - which the builders put down to being the devil's work. What's charming about this church and which is perhaps an indication of the Colombian acceptance of both tradition and change, is this Botero "fat" nude sculpture right in front of the it, its breasts polished with preferential attention.

The night was rather noisy as some building right outside our room was undergoing some renovation and night was the only time that large trucks could deliver stone & sand down the narrow streets. All this was dumped in the street and the builders spent a greater part of the early morning from 4am, moving this material into the building, off the street.

15th August - Rossini was up early and walked the deserted streets at 5:30am. He had a Tinto (espresso) with Marco, the Tinto on the street below. He also managed to get into the San Pedro Claver church, which opened only for early mass and then was shut for the rest of the day. Outside the church Rossini heard the sound of a huge flock of seagulls but with not a single one was in sight. Amazingly, four tiny green parrots perched high up outside the church were making all the sounds of a mass of seagulls - brilliant performance !!!

Had breakfast at a bistro run by a German. Nothing unique about it except that the juices were served in large German beer glasses and there were piles of german magazines around. Decided to wander out of the walled city toward the supposedly "less safe" neighbourhood of Getsemani. The poverty was obvious here but it was still lively and certainly friendly. The local market with its food stalls serving fish and crab, with beans & rice made us drool but we did not want to chance it. Then walked in contrast to the most expensive hotel in the old city, the Santa Clara. An ex-convent dating from 1621.
It is certainly tastefull and classy, with even the chapel still intact and turned into an auditorium. Brilliant, cool central courtyard garden with a Toucan flying free about it. Apparently Bill Clinton had lunch here in 2000. The bar-cafe is brilliantly designed to look like an old library.

Strangely, even though this Caribbean region has a typical sound of it's own, "the Vallenato" which always includes the accordian and the percussion instruments - Guacharaca & Caja, we did not hear too much of it here.......or rather not as much as we thought we would. We heard a lot of it in Bogota and Taganga. It was unlike Havana where the Rhumba and Salsa just dominate and permeate everything; streets, houses, radios, restaurants.

Carlos Vives has taken Vallenato to a wider (and younger) audience beyond Colombia by combining it with attractive pop rhythms. We heard a lot of his very catchy music at the Adres-Carne-De-Res Restaurant. There was one point where at least 50 of the waitresses danced to one of his songs all holding large sunfolwers.

After walking the streets a bit in Cartagena, we had a typical Colombian dinner at a small restaurant run by a young Chinese couple who migrated from Hong Kong 10 years ago. They were happy to be in Colombia but were not entirely happy with the state of their business. It was strange hearing them speak Spanish, with a strong chinese accent. Their 7 year old son only replied to them in spanish, although they spoke cantonese to him.

We head off tomorrow to the the Amazon basin or the 'Amazonia' region - to Leticia, a frontier jungle town on the border of Colombia, Brazil and Peru - at Colombia's southernmost tip. It will be our first experience of the great Amazon river and the Jungle ! Leticia is reached only by plane from Colombia. There are no roads to get there. It is connected by boat to Brazil and Peru. Though isolated, it is developed enough as a small town. We are looking forward to this but with mixed feelings, as this will mean we soon leave Colombia and move into Peru.

We WILL certainly miss Colombia and especially it's very charming, vivacious and polite people.