Advertisement
Published: July 14th 2009
Edit Blog Post
It was nearly 6 am as we stepped off the air conditioned overnight bus into the hot, already muggy morning air. We were immediately awakened by people moving everywhere. Music, smoke, food, bustling vendors and street people hustling for money. We shoved our way into the crowds to get our bags then haggled with a band of taxi drivers for a 30km ride into town. We wouldn't need a cup of coffee this morning, as cars, motorcycles, horses, buggies, and buses jockeyed for position passing one another on the two lane city streets into oncoming traffic; honking their horns and swerving to avoid pedestrians and bicyclists that darted in and out of the flow. The streets were surrounded by ramshackle bamboo huts, fruit carts and banana trees. We were on the Caribbean Coast of Columbia on our way into the exotic fairy-tale city center of Cartagena de Indias!!!
We were dropped outside the historic district at a recommended hostel but found it was full, so we returned to the hot sidewalks with our heavier than ever backpacks on looking for a new home. Lucky for us we only walked a few blocks before we wandered into the archway of the
Skyline at night
City skyline from the roof of the hostel Media Luna Art Hostal. It was in an old building with an open, tiled courtyard shaded by palm trees with music, hammocks and a pool! We'll take it! We later made our way to the roof-top terrace, 4 stories up, which had one of the best views of the city. From the terrace we could see the skyline of the historic downtown, the domed rooftops of old churches, and the masts of sailboats sitting at the port just outside of the walled historic section of town.
It was a Friday night and after some drinks on the roof with new friends we followed the crowd at the hostel into the samba bar at the end of the street. There was live music and a great atmosphere and we enjoyed watching the locals show off their moves. 😊
We woke up the following morning and decided to join our friends from the night before for a journey to the Volcan de Lodo el Totumo, aka 'the mud volcano'. We arranged a van through the hostel and an hour later, found ourselves at the end of a muddy road, under a thatched roof hut, staring at a 50 foot mound
of mud in the pouring rain. 😊 Thanks to the weather we were the only people at the volcano that day and as we donned our bathing suits and sauntered out into the rain a local men from a nearby hut ran out and up the stairs just in front of us. When we made it to the top we found them waiting for us in a pit of boiling, bubbling mud! ha! They helped us in and then to our surprise promptly started giving us full body massages... hahaha! We spent about an hour in the mud and when we had covered every bit of our exposed skin we crawled out and slipped and slided back down the muddy stairs. At the bottom of the stairs we were greeted by the women from the village and they grabbed our hands and led us down to stagnant, lime green, marshland water. Once we were in knee deep they sat us down and gave us a good washing! w/out our bathing suites!! Hahah! The whole experience was a riot. Afterward, we all huddled up in a hut waiting for our van but as the minutes turned into hours we realized our
driver wasn't coming back. We walked about a mile down the muddy road until we came to a highway where we turned towards Cartagena and started looking for a ride. We walked for another hour or so until we flagged down a local mini bus to take us the 70km back into town just as it was getting dark! 😊
The next day we were up early and on our way to Playa Blanca, an island beach an hour by boat from the mainland. The trip there was speedy, yet uneventful and we arrived at a palm lined white sand beach with clear turquoise water. We spent the day in the water and had a fresh fish lunch served under a straw roof on the sand. We shared a pina colada in a real coconut carved up by a local man with a machete and had some good laughs while looking out over the Caribbean. We left our friends on the island where they rented hammocks for a couple dollars a night and we boarded our speedboat with storm clouds on the horizon. We didn't encounter a storm but the water was much rougher on the way back (3-4
feet waves)! There was an older lady sitting behind us and she quickly put on her granddaughter's snorkel mask to protect her eyes from the constant spray! So, thanks to our driver who used all of the twin 250cc motors! Haha... We were all soaking wet after a couple minutes!
We met a couple from Australia and London (Jasasha & David) that night in Cartagena's historic old walled city for dinner and drinks. We had a lot more laughs and a great meal in an old courtyard restaurant, which was followed up by a waffle desert!
We spent another day exploring the old town and were blown away by the immaculately restored architecture, the clean cobblestone streets, and the palm trees and lush tropical flowers that were everywhere! The old town has has an incredible history dating back to its Spanish founding in 1533. It became a major trading port on the Caribbean Sea and was used to stockpile the golds and treasures plundered by the conquistadors in the late 1500's and as such was a prime target for the likes of Sir Francis Drake, Captain Henry Morgan, and other notorious pirates. Over the course of 200 years,
a series of great walls were built around the city stretching over 11km in length with over 20 different stone fortresses. Chrissy and I walked on top of different sections of the wall and found it to be well over a 100 feet thick in places! Once the walls were completed in 1756 the city was unable to be sacked again and the homes, buildings, and city streets are in much the same pristine condition that they would have been when they were originally built.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.122s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 9; qc: 56; dbt: 0.079s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb