Cartagena - a tale of a colonial city

With Spike somewhat crippled, we carefully took a taxi to Taganga and then a  direct bus from Taganga to Cartagena, one of the most beautiful cities in Colombia (and as LP somewhat boastfully argues, maybe the worrrrrld). The bus driver effectively shoved us out in front of a large arch, but with Chris' amazing mapreading we stumbled slowly, laden with backpacks, straight to our hostel.

We settled into our dorm, euphoric at the site of real beds after three days of sleeping in hammocks (we're still not very good at it...) and then went out for a menu del dia at a neighbouring restaurant. It was passable, and the beer at a nearby bar was excellent - so excellent in fact that it made us incredibly sleepy and we gratefully snuggled into our beds.

The next morning we woke up and had coffee brought to us in bed by one of the ladies running the hostel. We went for a wander around town, going to the old colonial fort built by the Spaniards, which had a vast underground network of tunnels linking the hospital to the armoury and different parts of the fort.

Having had our fill of the fort, we wandered into the old town and had some empanadas and jugo naturales for breakfast. Immediately after we ordered our jugos for 1,000 pesos (approx 30p), the shop owner ran outside and changed the sign to be 2,000 pesos! The old town was beautiful, with pastel coloured buildings with balustrades and balconies and flowerpots.

Mostly to seek refuge from the sweaty Caribbean heat we went into the airconditioned Museo del Oro, which was essentially a smaller version of the gold museum in Bogota - more solid gold penis covers (yes, seriously) breastplates for very small breasted people (Chris and Spike think they're more ornamental than designed to actually contain breasts, which is a relief as otherwise they could seriously have learned from Wonderbra) and noserings (my limited Spanish vocabulary now contains 'nose-earring'). We had a cheap menu del dia and a mooch at the hostel (still a bit fascinated by the novelty of real beds) and then headed out to Cafe del Mar, a posh bar/restaurant/outdoor club located in the city walls, reputed to have an unbeatable sunset. We arrived early to get a table and ordered a bottle of wine (the cheapest way to get 3 drinks, but still quite a way from our usual travel drink price...) and sat down to chat. We then anxiously and humourously realised that firstly despite being essentially the first people at the bar, we had managed to sit at the one table where the DJ booth directly blocked the sunset, and secondly that there were so many clouds we could barely see the sun... We enjoyed our wine very much, but in terms of peso per sunset glimpse, it must have been one of the most expensive sunsets in the history of backpacking!!

After our sunset fail, we ate pizza, and had a relaxed night at the hostel, avoiding the club night as unfortunately Spike's toe is not yet up to salsa or being stepped on by drunken mojito drinkers... 

The girl sharing our dorm with us had other ideas though.. It was the last night of her trip, so she was going out... This meant that she and her friend popped in and out of our room every fifteen minutes between 10 and 1am. The water in our hostel was out, so the girls went to the toilet and then washed their hands in the rain from our balcony... they then drunk whispered/shouted 'let's rub our hands all over Ryan's face and pretend it's urine!!'... the next trip into our dorm involved make up, and one girl saying to the other 'do i look fuckable? i mean, i don't want to do make up, but do i look fuckable?'  Hilarious. 

The next day we went to the old dungeons, which have been converted into tourist shops, all mysteriously selling exactly the same things..

We spent the rest of the day organising ourselves, including a trip to the supermarket to ask about bus tickets,  which left us stranded in the supermarket lobby due to an incredibly torrential downpour. My personal highlight was Spike asking the supermarket's budget flight desk in a stream of incredibly fluent Spanish about flights to Bogota from Cartagena (it worked out cheaper than getting a bus to Medellin and then a bus to Bogota for some reason ?!!), and then falling at the last hurdle when talking about times and 'and could we fly apple?' (manzana = apple, manana = morning). We joined in the hostel's party, meeting a Belgian called 'Whim', who had a teddy bear who travels everywhere with him (I introduced him to Sid, the sloth I have taken with me and have been hiding, somewhat bashfully, under my pillow, for fear of being laughed at - Spike thinks it's brilliant but hilarious that I'm carting a soft toy all around South America, Sid is a significant proportion of Spike's pack weight). The party was lots of fun, and we socialised until everyone else left to go out clubbing, while we stayed in to get beauty sleep for our early flight and Spike's toe. 

PS Chris says please feel free to comment...