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All muddy
After bathing in the surreal Mud Volcano This is Cartagena,
A place with a history of pirates, stunning Carribean beaches, Colonial architecture, hot days, humid nights, corner cocaine dealers, and parading prostitutes. This is a place that seems to barrage you with a culture that isn't found outside of Colombia, in a city that still houses forts, barracks, and cannons from ages found now only at the theatre.
This is Cartagena!
So what am I doing here?
I am travelling with my Scottish friend that I met on the 'Ciudad Perdida' trek. His name is Colin (great name). We thought we ought to come back to Cartagena, because last time I didn't really see as much as I should have, and he hasn't been here yet, so we are here now(or at least we were when I wrote that bit).
Our Cartagena adventure started as soon as we arrived at our hotel, and to discover (or rather not to discover) that there wasn't any room for us. So we rolled on out to the street to find another one, being propositioned by prostitutes and drug dealers as we went, which is normal around here (Nobody offered a deal that suited my taste in drugs or
Cannon balls
Just one of the thousands of cannons that used to guard Cartagena from invading pirates. prostitutes though)...
Then one guy came up to us and started telling us he could find us a room in a hotel for cheap. He was probably a cocaine dealer himself, so we tentatively asked him where it was and how much it costed.
20 minutes later he had taken us to visit 5 different hostels in the area, and had wound up finding us a really good place in a homestay for travelling students. He never offered us drugs, but suggested that we ought to buy him a beer for his troubles, which we more then happily agreed to do, given his top efforts.
Our homestay served us cheap meals, and had a room with two beds, a fan, and en-suite, so we were adequately catered for.
If you can recall my last travelblog then you will be aware that we had powered through a series of big nights in Santa Marta, that included copious quantities of the Carribean constant (Rum), so we hit the beds as soon as our friendly local coke dealer left us in peace for a power nap. The alarm had been set for ten, with our ambitious plan to check out the local seen
Cartagena
With me and Scotland obscuring the view a little later that night. I believed in Colin's skills with setting alarm clocks, given that the Scottish were technologically advanced enough to have invented the telephone (Well done Alexander).
We actually woke up at 8:30, the only catch being that it was daylight outside. It seemed Scotland hadn't switched the alarm to 'On'. But it was probably for the best, as we had been in need of sleep, as evidenced by the 12 and a half hours that we had just dissolved before us. So we shrugged off the missed oppurtunity and headed to the beach for the day.
Later that night...
We were on the prowl for a nice little corner to sit down and have a few drinks in, with our cat feautured friend that we had met along the way (he literally looked like a cat). Eventually we found an outdoor bar with very cheap drinks, and a happening sort of atmosphere, so we pulled up a seat. After 2 minutes sitting, and before our drinks had arrived, we had already been invited to join a group of students at their table. So we sat down with them.
3 hours... a bottle of rum... and a few
A little air
Deep in the network of tunnels inside the fort they had the occasional air duct. It was still really hot! confusing conversations later...
We finally stood up to make a move to a club somewhere.
Yeah it was a Sunday night, but for some reason Monday here was a public holiday, so everything was expected to be in full swing.
We happened upon a club that had a concert later that morning (because midnight had already rolled by), and payed the 10,000 peso (7$) cover charge to get in to check it out. Unfortunately we had accidentally left our student friends somewhere along the way, as they had paused to wait for someone.
Anyway we thought that buying a drink once we were inside was a good idea, but the price of the drinks disagreed, so we settled into our own little patch in the club, to wait for the band to kick-off their performance.
The lead singer was really the stereotypical latino singer, with an open button up shirt, a gold chain, and slicked back hair, but his heavily intoxicated accordian playing fellow band member appeared to be somewhat more original. He was an absolute genius on the accordian, and at the same time he was necking shot after shot of rum that was being offered to him
The Mines of Morrior
This is no mine, This is a tomb.
No actually this is a tunnel in the San Felipe Fort in Cartagena from the stage front crowd.
This is where it starts to get really funny...
After 5 or so songs, (that seemed to fit the salsa stereotype) I was well ready to leave, but just then a big guy (who had clearly been drinking a bit) came up to us and started talking to cat-face (our Finnish friend, whom I have generously decided to mention twice now, against my better judgement). After a few minutes the guy disappeared again, and cat face (his name is actually Marcos, and thats a third mention) told us he was the bars owner. Then the singer stopped mid song and pointed at me and Scotland there infront of the stage and gave a shout out to ´Mis Amigos de Nueva Zelanda y Escocia'...
We then appeared on the TV screens throughout the bar, and everybody turned to look at us applauding... The song continued, but people kept on shaking our hands, and winking from all corners of the bar, as if we had just been acknowledged as celebrities.
After a couple more songs the bar owner returned with a bottle of rum, and lined up shot after shot for us, so that once the show
Behind the wall
The old part of Cartagena is rich with magnificent colonial architecture, and a spectactle at night had finished, and we had met all the band members, our oppinions of Cartagena had taken a favourable turn.
That accordian playing guy was an absolute classic, and we are now invited to their shows in Bogota, and Medellin for free. Don't know if it is the sort of thing I could see twice tho!
Bathing in mud
We somehow got out of bed at 9am the next morning, and scrambled off to the bus station to catch a bus to the Mud Volcano. It was a two hour bus ride out of Cartagena next to a lake somewhere. Numerous people had given it glowing reviews , and insistently recommended that we visit to take a dip in the mud pool ourselves, which seemed a pretty original thing to do.
After 2 hours the guy in the seat infront tapped us to wake us up, and told us that this was probably our stop, so we stumbled off the bus, and into a small village at the turnoff to the mud volcano. Naturally it turned out that to walk the road to the mud volcano would take around 45 minutes, so after a few motorcycle taxis convinced us that
This is th way in
There was no mention of a way out! walking wasn't the best idea, we set off on the back of a motorbike each.
Wind in our hair, and a pair of shorts, jandals, and a t-shirt on for protection as we flew over the gravel road, we thought it was best to not concern ourselves with the risks, and enjoy the ride.
We pulled up to what can only be described as a mud volcano, that had a crater lake fulled with grey/brown thick mud.
Immersing ourselves in the mud was strange, and as we climbed down the ladder and deeper in we began to float. It seemed that this mud was the same density as we were, and no matter how hard we tried, we could not get our entire body under the mud at one time. Even trying to move around was really strange. We must have mucked around in the mud for nearly an hour before finally pulling ourselves out, and slipping down the staircase to the nearby lake to wash off.
As we walked down to the lake a couple of woman with buckets followed us down, and when we started to enter the water to wash they charged in with their buckets and
Water
and behind the fountain hides Simon Bolivar. Quite a popular guy in this part of the world insisted on hand bathing us. After a few moments insisting that we could manage ourselves, and them insisting on helping out, we gave in and let them have their fun. They did manage to get us back to near clean, and left with grins on their faces. I suspect that it is their hobby, to wait for guys to go to wash, and then take advantage of the chance to get their hands on them. I can't blame them, we did look rather fantastic all covered in mud.
Just as I had arrived in Medellin in the morning weeks ago, I again rolled into town in the back of a night bus, as the sun rose to continue my journey here in what has become one of my favourite places in the world (because I don't actually know that many places). So far Medellin has been great, and I am still torn as to what I do next, so I wait for a sign.
I need to have something happen that will either inspire me to float into Brazil, or peg down my tent for a while here in Colombia.... So I wait!
It doesn't count as a sign
Looking out
from atop the massive San Felipe fort, and out towards Boca Grande in Cartagena if you tell me what to do Mum!
Until I rack up a new batch of photos, and memorable moments I bid you a due,
Andrew
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THE MINES OF MIRROR
...NOW, GET OUT!!!! GET OUT!!! I LOVE THE LORD OF THE RINGS...!!!!!