Colombia - Las Playas de Cartagena

When I arrived at the bus terminal in Medellin, unaware of the bus schedules (they don't really exist in the public realm outside fo the actual terminal), I had learned of the bus company I should use - Rapido Ochoa - from a member of A Small World. So, I went straight to the window to find that I would be waiting for about 3 hours in the terminal until the 13 hour bus ride would commence. I found a little spot in the gigantic, loud, and borderline dirty waiting room, plopped down with all of my stuff, and took out my notebook and pen to take notes on what I had just done during the first 4-ish days in Colombia. My notes, paragraphs, and pages were written in both English and Spanish, as I tried to really embrace the whole 'Spanish' thing, but at times, I was lost without the ability to really express myself in my second tongue, so I would have to revert to English... With time, I got more comfortable, banged out a bunch of stuff, and got a little hungry, not knowing what to expect in terms of food for the overnite ride to Cartagena - what I found was a delicious hot dog, smothered in goodies like shoestring potato chips, special sauce (I didn't even ask), and corn, among other condiments. The hot dogs of Medellin were certainly highlights, as I've yet to have one since returning, fearing the one I try will not be as good as the ones I had.

There are experiences that one can have when traveling with people, be them friends and/or family that cannot be had when alone - now, remove your mind from the gutter for a moment - as the circumstances, freedom, and mindset are completely different. With this trip being the first one I've really taken by myself, I was no longer planning for other people, waiting on other people, or taking in to account what other people were interested in doing or not doing (it was all about me, and what I was in the mood for at any given moment - and I really enjoyed that, surprise surprise). When it comes to meeting people, I've typically been a relatively shy person in foreign situations (literally and figuratively, despite what friends may say), even now, but making the decision to make the trip to Colombia by myself was a great one! Getting on the bus, I was seated next to a young man (I can say that now, as both my mother and sister remind me that I am 'almost' 30) who was heading home for Semana Santa (Saint's Week - aka Easter) to be with his family. He, of all things, was a 22 year-old studying to be in the Seminary, apparently following in the footsteps of several generations of men in his family. So, it's him, and me, and we're surrounded by about a half-dozen, boppity young women, chatting it up - what a decision for me: chit chat about theology for 13 hours with a kid who is clearly dead set on religion, or, try my hand at Spanish with a handful of Colombian girls... The good thing is that I couldn't really go wrong, and always had the 'out' of just putting on headphones and going to sleep...

When I arrived in Cartagena, I had barely slept, and had befriended the girls (my row-mate got off a few hours earlier to make it home to his village, seriously), having spent the majority of the nite chit chatting and laughing about who knows what. However, one thing was for sure - my Spanish was already improving markedly; it had to, because none of them spoke more than three words of English. Could this really have happened to me? At one point, I did find myself looking in the mirror in the bathroom and washing up, saying this exact thing. I now had people to hang out with in Cartagena during the day, and party with at nite, and, six, pretty girls from Medellin, I mean, c'mon! Surely, this is not an experience I would have ever had if I was traveling with a friend, there's just no way...

So, I carried on to Cartagena (the ride from the bus terminal to the old city is about 35 minutes, and it winds right thru some of the poorest communities in Colombia - what a dichotomy!) with the girls, who dropped me off at my hostel before continuing to the house they rented for the week. It was time for me to explore, and get out. My first mistake, however, was reading the map wrong. Those who know me know that I am pretty astute when it comes to map reading, so I was pretty surprised when I walked the 3 blocks, and outside of the city walls (yes, Cartagena is one of the oldest fortified port towns in the New World, and a majority of it's charm lies within the walls of the old city - la ciudad vieja), to what I had presumed would be pristine, Caribbean beach... Well, the shading on the map was where the land met the water, but it was not in the form of crushed coral, rock, and bone (in the form of sand - 'arena' in Spanish), it was a rough, jaggedly rocky coastline. The beach, in Bocagrande, was about 2km away - awesome! I had selected the one hostel that is about as far from the beach as possible... So, I walked down the coast, snapping pictures of Bocagrande - it looks like a mini-Ocean Drive (South Beach, MiamI, USA), with modern sky-scrapers going up across the street from the beaches. One thing is for sure, the guide books were dead on when describing the 'scene' that you can expect when your foot hits the sand.

Los vendedores (vendors) are everywhere, offering mariscos (shellfish), massages, jewelry, coffee (tinto, as they call it in Colombia), cold beverages, fruit, you name it... And, as a 'fresh' face on the beach, I got 'gringoed' - big time! I guess the tan I had from my time in Punta del Este (Uruguay) had worn off, cuz I felt like a white kid, so within about 2 seconds, I was in a chair, eating fresh oysters (tiny as they may have been), getting my feet rubbed, and being offered hand-made jewelry by a guy wearing a River Plate jersey... At least there was something familiar, as I had on an Arsenal t-shirt... Unfortunately, they assumed I played for the team, or had something to do with them, so they continued shucking the oysters, and rubbing my body... When it was all said and done, they told me it would be about $120,000 pesos Colombianos (roughly USD $50) - it was now time to negotiate... I bartered my way down to about $60,000 (woo hoo!) and told them there was no way this 'team' was going to get me a second time for any of this stuff. I then walked up the beach some more, and plopped down to get a tan so I could blend in a bit more with the locals. After a bit, I found a dive shop so I could schedule some 'buceos' over the weekend - something I hadn't done since spring break my senior year in college - and get myself all situated to enjoy Caribbean nitelife, Colombian style...

If you make it to Cartagena, you MUST go to Mr. Babilla - a great bar/club that is filled with young, drunk, dancing, good looking people. Apparently, as I learned while venturing the bar, the Colombian liquor of choice is Aguardiente - a fiery, gasoline-esque, anise-flavored, licorice drink... Really, it's just the Colombian version of sambuca, ouzo, pastis, ojen, kasra, or anything else you can add to the list from around the world - I don't like any of the former, but figured I'd check that box in Colombia, why the hell not! Well, it does just the same thing as the rest - the result is that you end up crawling home, wasted, but you have a great time in the process (at least the pictures suggest I did, ha). This was basically what happened every nite, and I loved every minute of it, but it was the waking up in the morning for my dives that became a little tricky after the third nite...

Cartagena, while being on the Caribbean, has been exposed to 'port-related' activity for a handful of years now (like, hundreds), so despite the beauty of the protected Rosario Islands, the best scuba diving is really much further north off the coasts of the islands of Providencia, San Andrés, and Santa Catalina - a hotly contested archipelago with Nicaragua - but that's a 90-minute flight, and in the cards for a future trip to Colombia. Nonetheless, I went on the dives thru the shop called Buzos de Baru, a small, family-owned shop (two brothers, and a wife of one of them, all of whom are quite nice, speak English, and are master divers/instructors). I ended up making 4 dives, two 'acuarios' (reef dives), a deep water dive, and a shipwreck, the latter of which was the first one I had made. It was pretty interesting swimming thru a WWII era ship that sunk off the coast - we actually ran in to quite a large fish (no clue of the species, but gigantic) who had taken up residence below the decks in one of the aft cabins... In Rosario, we lunched after our two dives on the first day, being fed a mound of fish, fruit, and salad, all of which were pretty good when run together - the name of the island highlighting this little excursion: La Isla de la Pirata. Nuf said...

The city of Cartagena, the old part, is loaded with narrow streets, colorful buildings, cobblestone streets, vendors galore, and a romantic vibrance that I have never experienced before in my life. The closest things I can think of are the streets of Old San Juan (Puerto Rico, USA?), but that barely holds Cartagena's jock strap, to use a sports reference. The people, who are a total mixed bag of Caribbean, Spanish, African, and European was a refreshing, diversified population - certainly one WAY darker than here in Buenos Aires, so it was nice to finally see a little bit of diversity. I often wondered if racism, given the history of colonial rule, slavery, inter-racial 'relations' and years of mixed-breeding (that sounds like dogs), is still prevalent. It certainly didn't seem like that, as everyone just seemed happy to be providing services, even if their idea of providing service was badgering the hell out of tourists to buy stupid crap, or to get a tip for taking a picture (cueue the 'chiquita banana lady').

The city is one that should be seen, and shared with someone special, as it offers all the great qualities of a resort town (day excursions, beach-side lounging, cocktails with umbrellas) with all the benefits of a European village along the Mediterranean (culture, color, nitelife, and seafood - this could just be a function of not having great access to seafood in BA). So, get to Cartagena when it's warm, enjoy the experience, and hopefully you'll have some stories to tell and photos to share when you get home...