One Adam arrives!

South America » Colombia » Cartagena
September 5th 2009

Published: September 8th 2009

One of the BEST things thus far about Cartagena is the sheer amount of fruit juice available. Everywhere you see signs for jugos naturales. So, after a much needed rest, Luke and I head out for a little breakfast of pan con queso and jugo naturales. Luke has a banana one but I opt for something a little more exotic, guanabana. In English guanabana is known as soursop and the flesh that the woman working the roadside stand prepared kind of looked like a calamari steak. She added a little ice to the blender, milk, a whole lot of sugar, and voila...a guanabana smoothie. All for the mere price of about $1US! Also, the woman must have been crushing ice with her billy club for quite some time cause she had a serious Popeye arm!

Afterwards, Luke and I head out for a walk among more unexplored parts of Cartagena. Just as we were beginning to watch a soccer match, it began to drizzle a little. The rain began to get a little harder so we hop into this roadside shack cafe. As soon as we do this, the skies open up and it begins to STORM. Now, as a Floridian, I've had my fair share of thunderstorms. THIS thunderstorm, however, was MAD! Lightning shot down all around us and we were sitting under a metal roof! Hesitantly, we decided to wait it out and eat some lunch. After an hour and a half of torrential downpour, Luke and I asked the cabbie also waiting out the storm if he could drive us back to the hostel. He refused because he was TOO SCARED! We finally found a taxi to take us back and, obviously, the power was out on our entire block. At that point, it was time for a nap until Adam Caplan arrived...

That night, I went out with a bunch of Irish men and women (effin love em!) but minus Caplan, as he was a bit lagged from the trip. We headed into the old city in search of a watering hole but instead found bars mainly filled with (cheap) Colombian prostitutes. Seeing as how none of us were interested in paying for sex or contracting diseases, we all bought a bunch of beers and headed to drink in a square. Now, plaza drinking is something I'm very fond of from my days as an 18 year old backpacker traveling around Western Europe. This became especially true when its too unbearably hot to be indoors (or if you aren´t into being accosted by a prostitute). After a while, Luke and I decided to have a walk around to see what other trouble we could get into. We eventually ended up outside Cafe Havana, drinking beers on the curb, and listening to the music from within. That place was just too damn expensive to imbibe inside but the music was great and could be heard from the street. After the music wound down, we headed down the block and bumped into a bunch of Colombians drinking in another square. As we got to talking, one of the guys informed me that he knew Tampa very well from his days selling smack on Nebraska Ave. I'm assuming he was being genuine because if I were into shooting heroin (and I'm not) then Nebraska Ave. would be the first place I would look in Tampa!

The next day was spent sightseeing around Cartagena. Caplan and I ended up meeting a couple of Americans and we all decide to head to Playa Blanca in the morning. In fact, it turns out that the girl, Ilana, is a UM alum, class of 2006! We all head to bed early, dreaming of what paradise awaits...

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