Cartagena

After the long 14 hour journey to Cartagena having to put up with arctic conditions on the bus, we arrived in Cartagena at around midday going from the extremes of the freezing bus to the scorchingly hot climes of the caribbean coast. Already I was pouring with sweat having just got off the bus. I was standing next to the bus thinking it was the heat of the engine blowing on me but moving away from the bus, I realised it was just the air in general! Having been on the bus with another guy from casa kiwi, a nice very funny German guy from Koln called Thorsten, we all decided to share a cab and head to one of the 2 recommended hostels hostel casa vienna or hostel media luna. We decided on media luna since it had a swimming pool and seemed pretty nice with it's own restaurant, bar and roof terrace so we dropped off our bags and headed off to explore the place.

On walking round, I was pretty awe struck by the beauty of the architecture of the place. A combination of super old colonial buildings, churches, cathedrals, clock towers and some beautifully coloured houses with terraces and balconies, it was indeed a joy and wonderful sight for my eyes!

I just couldn't stop taking photos of everything I saw. It seemed very much to me even though I haven't been there to be very much how I'd imagine Cuba with the colourful buildings and picturesque balcons alongside important colonial edifices.

After walking through the main square of the old town, walking through the bell tower arch inside the sea wall fortification, we continued on through the windy cobbled old streets towards the coast to go and get a glimpse of the caribbean sea. We headed towards the picturesque old sea wall built by the spaniards to protect themselves from others coming to claim the land for themselves still equipped with canons and keeps.

The caribbean was a little disappointing, it was not the clear blue water and sandy beaches that people often conjure up in their minds when they think of the Caribbean or what I had known from my time on the Yucutan peninsula in Mexico which really was the clearest and most beautiful water I'd ever been in but Cartagena wasn't famous for it's beaches, it was a UNESCO world heritage site for the history of the place.

After a good long walk getting through a good few litres of water each and pouring with sweat, we decided that we'd earned a beer and went to find somewhere within the sea walls. After finidng somewhere suitable with extremely loud salsa pumping out and a nice seating area with lovely views of the cathedral and the bell tower, we sat down for a beer and within moments a man approached saying English or American. When we told him we were English, he lit up saying so am I and sat with us proceeding to tell us proudly that he was the chief engineer on a huge yacht in the bay which was previously owned by the Kennedys and the Fords and then continued to pretty much tell us his life story and bought us a beer and introduced us to his fellow crew members he was with, a couple of Venezuelans from Caracas.  Shortly afterwards, some nice girls turned up so we all got chatting and had a generally nice and chilled out evening. We asked what was good to do in the evenings and a couple of places were mentioned, Candela, a place just oppoiste where we sitting and cafe del mar, a little further away on the sea front, a place we had passed earlier in the day.

We decided to go and get Thorsten who had been jogging (crazy man in this heat) and we got ready and headed to cafe del mar. It was very pricey and unfortunately Thorsten couldn't get in with a vest top on so candela it was. On entry to Candela, it was clear that it wasn't going to be terribly busy with it being tuesday night and we had heard rumours that the place was full of hookers trying to pick up tourists and an 'old' club. This was old in the sense not of the age of the club but the age of the clientelle which also was true. I actually felt quite sleazy being in there to be honest watching all these sleazy gringos trying miserably to chat up and dance with these scantily clad latinas. Needless to say after drinking our free drink paid for by the cover, we promptly left although we did briefly discuss the possibilty of getting one between the 3 of us which was quickly laughed off as a bad joke. On returning to the hostel, Will went to bed but Thorsten and I decided to head up to the roof top terrace and have a beer after he had won the battle with a can of tuna since there was no tin opener which was comical when he said I'm going to win this fight. This was a good experience to get to know each other a bit better and it turned out that he was a really nice guy and pretty much had the same time left travelling as me so we'd be on the same route for a little while until I head further west to Venezuela at least which was nice as Will had made the decision to head back down south and who knows exactly what Fabian is doing, I don;t even think he knows sometimes! Speaking of Fabs, he will be arriving at some point tomorrow so it will be good to see him again. So off we went to bed with with more exploration to be done tomorrow. In our room was myself, Will, Thorsten and a nice French guy who worked for Greenpeace and had cycled the entirety of central america, from the north of Mexico all the way down which was impressive!

I woke up late and everyone had left the room, it looked like Thorsten had actually left properly and then I realised that he had indeed told me that he was leaving to go to an island off the coast called bahia Blanca or something. Shame because I would actually quite like to have gone along. Oh well, I had a city here to explore more of. Will was still around and he and I had lunch together in the hostel restaurant which did a good pasta carbonara for just 10,000 pesos (around £3) which was pretty good. I then went on my own to have a walk around while Will sat by the pool to do a little sunbathing. On entry to the city, we had passed an impressive castle equipped with barracks, fortified walls, keeps and more canons so I headed there.

Paying 15 to enter, I walked in marvelling at this impressive piece of workmanship built by the Spaniards a few hundred years back. I had no idea that it consisted of a series of underground tunnels and enclaves, some of which were pitch black and not lit up so I had to walk through using my camera light to guide me through. It was amazing how cool it was down there in every sense of the word and then scorchingly hot when you'd finally find a way out of these long dar and eerie labrinths. It was quite amusing to walk along them and see where abouts in the castle you'd come out at.

After quite an extensive exploration of the place taking many nice photos and surprisngly hardly seeing another soul, I decided I'd seen enough and just as I was leaving about 3 coaches turned up, one full of excitable, energetic school kids and the other 2 full of the Colombian navy all looking very smart in their shining white attire and hats. I was half tempted to go back in and get a photo right in the middle of them all but just didn't have the guts in the end.

Back at the hostel, the two English girls had turned up from casa kiwi as had Fabian and we planned to go to find a few bars that evening. A nice English couple from Liverpool joined us. Unfortunately, Will had made the decision to leave that day so we said our goodbyes.

We had a fairly fun evening starting at the same place as we had the previous two evenings. There again I met the Venezuelan deckhand of the yacht who very kindly told me that I could come on board with them on saturday and sail somewhere so he gave me his number although unfortunately, the plan was to leave on saturday so it wasn't going to be possible. After a couple of beers and seeing some extremely bright flashes of ligtening but strangely not hearing thunder or seeing any rain, it started. To begin with it was a few drops and within moments it was a downpour. I think I can hoenstly say that I've never seen so much rain in such as short space of time. It really was torrential!

Within minutes the entire square where we had been sitting was flooded. Clearly they had no drainage system and it was actually beginning to reach up to peoples knees. Everyone who was sitting in the area we had been rushed to the covered terrace and at the same moment, due to there also being a private concert also there in the square for the navy so they all flocked there too. Now there were hundreds of people standing under the covered walkway, stranded in front of this bar booming out extremely loud and fantastic sounding salsa that just made you want to shake your hips. Since we were stranded there outside the bar, the solution was get in there and have a drink but the air conditioning was freezing so it was simply a case of getting the waiter to come over and bring beers to us in the warm and dry. It was hilarious watching all these smartly dressed naval officers standing there just waiting for the rain to subside.

The bars and club candela along this stretch along with the hookers mustve loved all this extra busniess although it would've been hard to take a hooker anywhere with this rain! Some of the naval officers began to dance salsa in the rain up to their knees which was entertaining for everyone. Everyone was just so happy and smiley and I was just glad to be there sharing this moment with all these people. Finally the rain eased a little and we made a dash for it. It really was like wading through a river and on finally getting 2 taxis, it may well have been better to have taken boats as the roads were now rivers! It was as if Cartagena had now turned into Venice! After heading to a place a little way away that we had been recommended and was rahter rubbish so we left immediately, we headed pretty much back to where we had been originally (so it was a completely wasted journey) to a bar called carbonera which was conveniently near to our hostel and played a good selection of western and latin music. Here I met some great people who were so friendly, all they wanted to do was chat and get to know you even know mostly they didn't speak a word of English. I met a nice Venezuelan guy in the navy who didn't speak any English but was also very friendly. One guy came over offering cigars and had a box connected to two wires to hold and take an electric current. He offered it to me and I just laughed thinking to myself why would I want to pay to get electrocuted but within a flash Fabian had them in his hands and the guy was turning the handle which with every revolution sent a stronger current through your hands.

After 27 revolutions Fabian looked like he was in agony and was screaming and dropped them. Now it was my turn, I was intrigued more than anything to see how it felt and at first it was just a little buzz but after 28, it was agony! I couldn't dro them, they were actually stuck buzzing to my hands, I couldn't open my hands All in all it was an enjoyable and memorable evening. 

The next day, we were up early (well 8am) to go to a mud volcano that we had planned and booked the day before. This was a somewhat interesting affair. After about half an hours drive, we arrived at a small pyramidal shaped volcano (as most are) which had in it's crater a deep, bubbling, thick mud pit.

Climbing in felt extremely odd due to the consistency and thickness of the stuff.

After a brief massage and alot of rolling about completely submerging myself in the stuff and attempting to swim a little, we got out and went to the sea to get clean where there were already waiting 4 ladies keen to get you naked and give you a thorough scrubbing. They were actually ripping off girls bikinis without any warning which was nice for the guys! Then they'd come after our shorts to scrub them clean which was all good fun! After the mad mud craziness we drove in the bus to a nearby Caribbean beach to take some lunch and have a swim, play some frisbee and just chill on the beach. All in all it turned out to be a fun experience with some good people and we all decided we'd go out that night together. SInce it was going to be my last night in Cartagena, I wanted to make it a special one and so we decided first to go to Calle Arsenal (boo) and then on to a club. The first bar we went to at calle arsenal was pretty cool with an open terrace bar looking out to the castle across the water and they were playing some good salsa and selling beer towers. Along with us were mainly Brits including a nice couple from Liverpool we had been out with the previous evening, a nice Welsh guy and a cool Irish chap also called Adam. It was nice having the English, Irish and Welsh combiniation but we just needed a Scotsman to complete the set. After a while we decided to head to the club called Fragma but noone got in due to people wearing vests etc apart from me and Thorsten so we had a pretty good night in the end even if it was just the two of us.

The next day, the girls had booked us a minibus for 11am and since Fabs and I had both got in pretty much when it was light, it was a real struggle to get up. Mel came in at 10.45 saying are you guys coming?? SO we both jumped up out of bed, threw clothes on, packed and off we went! Five hours and 2 buses later, we were in Taganga, a nice little fishing and beach resort on the Caribbean. Should be fun :)