Cartagena de Indias

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Hi everyone!

We've switched climates and gone to extreme hot on the Carribean coast of Colombia, a city named Cartegena. I (Laura) had anticipated that this would be one of my favourite cities and I was right, it was a very unique and interesting city! Being on the coast, the city is surrounded by large stone walls used to protect the city from attacking pirates (in the past). The beach area (Bocagrande) and historical areas all have a Carribean, Spanish, African vibe to them. We stayed just outside of the historic centre in an area called Getsmani, where the cheap hostels were because believe us when we say that staying in the historic centre costs a fortune (we looked at one place just for the fun of it, call LM hotel boutique....I was intrigued and thought it was a sign because it was my initials obviously....and it was between 350-700$ a night!). But the neighbourhood we were in served its purpose, we found a really great bakery just down the street (Colombia is famous for its bread and rightly so, its delicious!) and also had some great low cost restaurants. I'll explain our Cartegena adventure in headings,

Historic Centre:
The historic centre is the walled in area of the city where the government has put alot of money into restorings its old colonial buildings which are all painted bright tropical colours to match the surroundings. The narrow cobbled streets, beautiful bright flowers in the trees, old buildings, ladies with fruit carried on their heads and antique door knockers on almost every door make roaming around this area never a bore! In fact this is what we did, day after day. Roam around street after street admiring its beauty and trying to capture it on film...not sure you can really appreciate the experience from our photos but we tried! The centre has a few plazas, such as Santo Domingo plaza which is filled with outdoor tables and numerous waitresses from the various cafes competing for your business as well as Plaza Bovedas, an old prison that has been reinvented as a vendors market in the old dungeons. We had a number of really really great meals in the historic centre as well...in other words we broke the bank a few times to indulge! One night we spent in a dungeon like wine cellar where we had splurged on a nice bottle of cabernet sauvignon to go with a gourmet meal (we couldn't resist, the waiter was very persistent and the hotel/restaurant was a paradise!). After that meal, we went on a horse drawn carriage ride through the cobbled streets (a common thing to do in the centre), and then went on drinking with our Dutch friends we met in Manizales who happened to spot us! You would think this night was incredibly romantic...but we mostly laughed about it! We also celebrated Greg's acceptance at U of T at another wine bar where we shared a bottle of a chardonnay to go with dinner. So although this area was not kind to our budgets it was great for the eyes and tastebuds!

Volcan del Totumo
This was hands down the weirdest and most unique experience either of us has had on this trip, I'll start off saying that! We got a tour from Cartegena a few hours away to the mud volcano. The crater stands 20 m high and the warm mud lake that sits on the top is 10 m across (and is jammed with maybe 20-25 people). The volcano is reputedly 500 m deep as well! After changing into your bathing suits, you climb a ladder to the top where you hand your camera over to a local boy holding everyone cameras and another local helps you down the ladder into the pool of mud. You cannot move well on your own (the mud is quite thick as you can imagine) and so the local men in the bath lay you in the mud, push your feet from one side of the bath to the other where another man gives you a mud massage (he doesn't really ask, its just implied that you'd like one! and he handles you like a piece of meat on a conveyor belt! After that, you're free to enjoy this truely weird experience for about 45 minutes. You can position yourself to stand straight up and just float, you can sit, lye, lye sideways or however the mud turns you! Its so dense in there that you need someone else to push you farther down into the mud. Everyone is laughing at eachother and at themselves and at the situation and after 45 minutes or so they kick you out and go down to the lake to wash the mud out of your ears, mouth, hair, bath suit ....everywhere! And the excitement doesn't stop with the mud bath. The locals have this attraction down to a fine art and they make money out of every aspect of the experience (good on them!). Colombian women are waiting in the lake with buckets and they take you by the hand and lead into the shallow waters where they sit you down, strip you naked and thoroughly scrub you from head to toe. It starts out partially mortifying and partially unreal and ends up being hilarious and in a weird way brings you back to your childhood, getting scrubbed down in the tub! You get home with mud still in your ears and I even found mud in my ears almost a week later! This experience is recommended to absolutely anyone! If you think reading it is funny, wait till you do it!

The Hilton:
This was the week leading up to Greg hearing from U of T and we were anxiously awaiting (thats an understatement) for the acceptance/rejection. So we (once again) splurged on a relaxing afternoon poolside at the Hilton hotel to relieve some tension (I am a sucker for for these kinds of things, to my detriment sometimes, meaning when theres a price tag attached!). None the less, we spent the day doing nothing but sun bathing, reading, swimming and sleeping. There were I think 4 pools to choose from and the most moving we did was going from one to the next!

Isla del Rosario:
We did another day trip to Isla del Rosario and Playa Blanca, both islands 2 hours by boat from Cartegena. The waters are crystal clear, turquoise and royal blue and the sand pure white. We spent the morning snorkelling with exotic tropical fish and the afternoon relaxing on the beach and swimming (and being consistently hounded by local vendors for massages, jewelry, clams, ceviche and everything in between). Greg was a sucker for the vendors twice in a row, they are very persistent and a polite no gracias means little to them unless you show you really mean it! A woman offered Greg a massage and after 4 or 5 half hearted no gracias's he was half way through a back massage and of course she had no change for our 20 000 pesos so I got one as well! Then, as my back was turned, a man pounced on vulnerable Greg again making him eat oysters without much consent. We were not as polite with our no gracias after that! All and all a wonderful beautiful day at the beach!

Thats it! Stay tuned for Taganga and the BEAUTIFUL Tayrona National Park!

Thanks again for reading!
Laura and Greg

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Photos

Botero statue
Botero is a famous painter/sculpture in Colombia