We decided to fly to Cartagena as it worked out the same price as a bus but should only take an hour instead of the 8 hours the bus takes, all well in theory until our flight was delayed for 5 hours! (On the plus side I discovered I have a hidden talent for napping in places you wouldn’t think comfortable to sleep in). But we got here in one piece, one very sweaty piece, Cartagena is by the coast and very warm and humid. We often sit in our hostel feeling too hot and uncomfortable only to leave and realise we were sat in air-conditioning and outside was 10x worse.
Lucky Cartagena is beautiful so this makes it somewhat worth the unpleasant humidity, it was the place the Spanish stored their treasure from all over central and south America ready to be shipped back to Spain. After several pirate attacks the city built a huge wall that incases the city, and everything within the wall is part of a world heritage sight so retains its original exterior, making the city beautiful and interesting to walk around.
On Tuesday we went for a walking tour around the town and learnt a bit about the history of the place and also about the culture of the people still living here, many of whom are descendents of slaves brought to Cartagena to build the city’s wall, there is a different and much more colorful vibe to Cartagena and we enjoyed just walking about and sitting on the wall people watching. In the evening we bought some beers, sat on the wall and watched the sunset over the sea.
On Wednesday we visited a museum about the Spanish inquisition in their old headquarters here, it was really interesting although very sad, over 800 people were put to death there, as the Spanish tried to root out the various non Catholic beliefs that entered the port along with the travelers from far off destinations. We also got to practice our Spanish, as only the main information was in English, we learnt some new words, although I’m not sure when vocabulary about torture is going to be useful! Although a lot of the displays on the torture had been removed before the pope’s visit to Cartagena in 2015…
On Thursday the heat got too much for us and we decided if we were this hot and humid we would rather be by the sea than enclosed in the city’s walls, so we splashed out and headed to Isla Baru, which is actually a peninsula, its about 45 minutes away by boat. We’re staying in a hostel with its own private secluded beach, it’s so quiet here! We’re traveling with two girls we met via the Spanish school and managed to get a 4 bed door so it even feels as if we have our own private rooms, I slept so soundly! Although the facilities are very basic, the shower involves pulling a bit of rope and our cabana is open to the elements, which is nice and cool but unfortunately means a lot of flying bugs that are so big I’m sure they’re on steroids. One of the girls tried to kill one in the night and it took about 10 rounds of hitting it with increasingly heavy objects, not a nice way to go out! But honestly it was so big I’m surprised it didn’t punch her back! The food here is also awful, every day we get the same options for every meal: pork that several people have gotten food poisoning from, undercooked stinky fish or spaghetti with what they claim is a cheese sauce but tastes of nothing and has lumps of butter in. Lucky we brought snacks to the island so have been living off nibbles of meals and lots of snacks! But on the plus side I did see fireflies for the first time ever here and heard the sound geckos make which is quite cool.
We haven’t really got up to much while on the island, mostly relaxing, or trying to if you’re me! I haven’t had much luck, on the way here I fell asleep on the boat and got sunburned and then on the walk from the boat the the shore I got coral in my foot and then at dinner I got stung by a wasp! But apart from that it’s been very relaxing… I also tried my hand at volleyball, it took a bit of working out what was going on as both my teammates and opponents only spoke Spanish but I eventually got quite good and everyone was cheering me on….well on cheering ‘Alex’ as I have become in South America as noone can pronounce Alice, much to the amusement of Grace and the other girls.
Tomorrow we head back to Cartagena for one more night and then we’re going to move on to Santa Marta a bit further along the coast.
Keep you updated as always.
Lots of love,
Alice x