Cartagena Part I: Beach town and Old City

In honor of the first visit by friends or family and due to the lack of tourist activities in Medéllin, we all took off for the tourist capital of Colombia: Cartagena. Cartagena is located on the Caribbean coast and is one of the most important ports in South America.

At close to 8:00pm after the one hour and ten minute flight we disembarked the plan to 80 F temperatures and humidity giving us a warm welcome hug. Due to the dark we weren’t able to see much, so we quickly collected our bags and took the 5 minute taxi ride to our hotel beach resort Las Americas. After check in we ate a quick dinner and headed to bed and were lulled to sleep by the crashing waves outside our window.

The next morning we woke looking out past the hammock on our balcony to the blue waters of the Caribbean inviting us out to play. We quickly put on our swimsuits, ate a quick breakfast, and hit the beach. The water was not the color of the intense blue and greens you see in most of the Caribbean, but it was still just as inviting with temperatures warmer than our shower on most days. After jumping waves and floating around we lathered ourselves in sun-block and relaxed under thatched roof umbrellas and read for hours. After finishing the first books we brought, they were already started at home, we decided to get dressed and head into the city to start exploring. As we returned to our room we quickly realized that with the equatorial climate we needed to re-apply the Waterbabies a bit more frequently. As we read we turned quite red ourselves.

The four of us caught the 3:00 bus into the old city (about a 15 minute ride, including a short detour to the airport). We had read and heard about how beautiful the old city was but not much could prepare us for the wonders we were about to discover.

The old town was founded in 1533 by Spanish explorers however in 1552 a large fire flattened the town. It was then made law that all new structures needed to be made out of stone, brick, or tile; thus, leading to the well preserved and beautiful architecture of the old city. Large churches, monasteries, and brightly painted buildings with vine covered balconies rose up from narrow cobbled streets that pedestrians, taxis, motorcycles, and horse drawn carriages passed through.

We were instantly spotted as gringos and street venders peddling anything from t-shirts to bottled water began approaching us saying “Special promotion for you today!” or “Prices are going down!” Diving into the nearby shops wasn’t much of a reprieve because most shop owners had a learned that gringos spend money and began giving us prices in US dollars, not able to understand why we didn’t have any US money to spend.

One of the best places we found to avoid commercial capitalism at its best was to walk along the top of Las Muralles, or the thick wall that surrounded the old city to help protect it from attacking pirates. The infamous siege of Cartagena by Sir Frances Drake in 1586 inspired the building of the wall after the city was only spared by paying a 10 million peso ransom that was quickly shipped back to England. Well, rape and pillage only made Cartagena stronger. In response they began the 200 year project of building the wall and other defenses to protect the port and town.

We loved the walled city so much that we spent a part of each day and into the nights exploring all it had to offer. On our last evening in town we took a romantic horse and buggy ride around the town with a guide pointing out the historical features of the city. We would recommend the buggy ride to anyone going to Cartagena, but do it your first night there, not your last. After the ride the mysterious layout of the city with its unparallel streets finally started to make some sense.