Cartagena – a walled city to keep the Brits out!
by Richard
From Bogota we flew north over Colombia’s mountains and river valleys to get some warmth and relaxation in a beautiful coastal colonial city, Colombia’s No.1 tourist destination…. Cartagena founded in 1533 and now 2.2million inhabitants.
We were not expecting the wall of heat and stifling humidity which hit us as we walked through the tropically themed airport corridors with it’s wooden trellised walls.
Whilst checking our hostel bookings in a cafe with Wi-Fi, we witnessed an angry middle aged lady entering with two uniformed police officers whom she led up to a middle aged man reading a newspaper at the cafe bar. She accusingly pointed at him and jabbered away in Spanish, pointing at where she had sat, and imitating him taking photos of her on his mobile phone. I had just been reading about the prolific sex tourism industry in Cartagena, and obviously this lady thought she was a victim of a peeping Tom (or Pedro). The police made him show the contents of his mobile phone, then, since it revealed no incriminating photos (wishful thinking on the part of the frumpy woman perhaps), they escorted her out of the café leaving the man shaking his head embarrassedly at his coffee.
Just as our taxi was passing through the worst slums of the city, it unexpectedly stopped. Here was our hostel! The room was dank and musty, no bathroom door (which is a disadvantage in a continent where you are not allowed to flush toilet paper down the toilet but must instead place it into the paper basket) and the humidity was running down the walls. We walked passed the sullen faced owner and down the streets avoiding bumping into staggering drug addicts and prostitutes. The little Hotel Villa Colonial was a beautiful face in the midst of a quagmire of dirt and smelly streets. We gladly paid the extra $10 dollars per night to have air conditioning in our room (60,000 Colombian Pesos or $30) and welcomed the very friendly and helpful staff.
Cartagena seems to have three main areas. The slums where we were staying in Getsmani; the Boca Grande peninsular, stretching out to sea, long, thin and full of beach fronted high rise modern hotels;
and the historic city centre, with beautiful old colonial streets and plazas surrounded by an old wall which was part of the fortifications built in an attempt to stop the marauding raids of British pirates such as Sir Frances Drake in 1574.
For dinner we finally allowed ourselves to be coerced to a balcony high above the main square where we could look down upon street dancers and unfortunately the miserable horse drawn carriages which throng the old streets (See Kate’s article which is published in the Bogota City Paper).
Kate’s article on Horses in Cartagena
A tour in one of the city’s old open sided buses was amusing and took in the fort and a convent, which many years ago housed the first escaped slave refugees, high on the hill with great views overlooking Cartagena.
Since we have rarely found any organic meat in South America, and since there has not been much vegetarian choice for Kate in restaurants, we were happy to leave local cuisine alone for a couple of nights, and enjoy the experience of patronising the good old Hard Rock Café with classic and veggie burgers washed down with Murphy’s red and accompanied to the tunes of Kiss, Queen, Bryan Adams and others.
The city beaches are not so nice, so we decided to escape for a few days to the legendary white beaches of Playa Blanca. The trip was certainly interesting.
First a local bus with a million stops, each of which a salesman got on and made each of us hold his product (sweets, pencils, mp3-radios) whilst he gave his sales pitch. He then collected them all in again unless you decided to keep&pay. One begging “musician” stood right next to me and rhythmically scratched a metal fork up and down a cheese grater until I was deaf and begging him to move on! 
The second mode of transport was a car ferry costing 1000 pesos (50 cents). Luckily we had ignored the young man who had followed us from the bus stop and insisting that we go in his canoe across the river for 40000 pesos because the ferry didn’t take foot passengers. Rubbish! Finally was a 40 minute journey on the back of two motor scooter taxis. The young guys were, however, pretty careful over the bumpy unmade roads and we finally arrived on the sacred beach.
The afro-Caribbean mix in Cartagena is very provident compared to central Colombia, and we were soon followed along the beach by masseurs touting excellent massages and offering free samples. The massages were very good actually, but you shouldn’t pay more than 15-20000 pesos for a full one. They’ll try to start at 40000. ($13)
We settled on a place called Mama Ruth’s and found that in her burly way she was a good host and gave us some good meals and drinks. Our two hammocks looked inviting though I can’t say I found it all that comfortable over night especially with the Caribbean heat.
It was a new but nice experience to wake up and walk a few meters down to the warm sea for a morning bath and breakfast next to the lapping shore.
Mama Ruth
and it’s a dog’s life…..
Finally a word of caution. The collectivo ferry shuttles back to Cartagena are fast and if you are seated at the rear they are also very wet!
Tags: Boca Grande, Cartagena, Colombia, Getsmaini, horse drawn carriages, Mama Ruth, pirates, Playa Blanca, Sir Frances Drake, Villa Colonial