Cartegena

Despite having an architectural gem of an historic old town that would rival nearly anything in Europe, the city was my least favorite place I visited in Colombia.

First of all I will outline the positives and there were many as it should be understood that being my least favorite place in Colombia does not mean that a place is not very nice indeed and well worth a visit. A very impressive outer wall encases street after street of time warp. Aesthetically pleasing colonial edificios dating from the 16th century onwards are on every side and everywhere. There are beautiful churches, government buildings, mansions, plazas and equally interesting colonial buildings from the poorer parts of the old town. To sit in a plaza at night, eat a beautiful steak and watch the people go by is really quite special. In the day it is a buzzing place with much to see. Wandering around the Castillo de San Felipe de Barajas (a huge fort just outside of the walls) and down into the tunnels was particularly impressive and enjoyable.

A very peculiar incident occurred while wandering into a posh Argentinian (more steak) restaurant with flip flops, wife-beater and not in the best of states, but they served us seemingly happily and there was sumptous amounts of hilarity.

Cartagena also gave us a few fun nights out. These highlighted the problem with the place. Unlike the rest of Colombia that is relatively untouched by tourism, Cartegena is overrun. There is nothing per se wrong with tourists – I am one – but when there are a lot of foreign dollars about people tend to treat you as a walking bill not a human being. Part of what has enchanted me with the rest of Colombia has been how locals have so welcomingly embraced our presence with barely any noticeable attempt at exploitation – it has been a delight. In Cartagena almost everyone wants to exploit, from beggars, clubs 90% full of prostitutes, to every vendor trying to charge absurd rates for everything. All in all pretty frustrating. Now I do not blame the locals for this, as it is almost inevitable when so many people come off cruise ships etc dripping in money. There is easy meat to extract money off, but it is still unpleasant. A good example are the little boys who threaten you with broken glass bottles or on one occasion the sharp end of one of those long fluorescent bulbs that frequent class room ceilings. I barely even noticed them asking for as little as 1000 pesos ( less than 30 pence) because they were so small. Sebastian’s answer to the problem was to do a little dance with the kid which worked pretty well - that guy has an enviable ability to confuse.

It was here that we said goodbye to the ever so slightly very crazy pair of Sebastian and Mark who sailed off towards Panama on a little yacht. A great idea that Dave and I seriously considered (alongside Venezuela), but my limited time coupled with the imposition of Colombia, let alone Pananma, being exceedingly far from my ultimate destination of Buenos Aires, acted as sufficient detterent. It had been a crazy and ridiculously enjoyable few weeks with Sebastian and 10 days or so with Mark that I will certainly not forget. I hope they are having fun and have not killed each other. (Authors note: Some time later I discovered that the captain of their ship had decided to force them to smuggle drugs at knife-point before the ship ran aground, they were forced to swim to shore and were then stranded on the Darian Gap for a week)

Anyhow, Categena it is a city worth seeing, but if you go there before the rest of Colombia do not take it as typical because it is far from it and to leave Colombia at that would be to miss the heart of the place.

Cheeky Luxury and Playa Blanca Reunion

The next morning we awoke with similar problems to before. Moving around in the area to the west of Cartegena is not generally a well trodden backpacker route, so things do not fall into place with any ease. As it happened (and indeeed often happens), this worked to our advantage as the only way to move towards Playa Blanca by boat was via a relaxing morning on a luxury island resort – damn. So four quite smelly backpackers arrived on an island that costs 250,000 pesos (about US$120) a night to stay on. We had some breakfast, saw my first toucan and quite cheekily went to lie in their hammocks overlooking the pristinely cared for beach, ordered a beer from the staff and had a bit of a swim – sweet!

After this we took a couple of lanchers to Playa Blanca. This is a beach that would not be embarrassed in the company of many others, with its bleach white sand, palms, and turquoise crystal-clear water lapping against the shore. After failing to recover my sandals from the boat (grrrgh, but at least I have Havanas to replace them) a very pleasant reunion occurred as we bumbed into what seemed like the majority of the Medillin crowd. Amongst others Crispin, Dub, Alessandro, Kye etc..etc and had a extraordinarily chilled out night before collapsing into hammocks. Seeing a whole herd of cows get led along the beach was a notably strange addition to the experience.

The next day was spent in much the same vein (I have not played with buckets on the beach for many years but it proved fun - notably on this occasion we had no spades). Rum coconuts aided the relaxed confusion of a lovely day on the beach. Even stepping on something that left some not unthreatening spines in my foot did not lessen the day as self-surgery was surprisingly successful.

On we all jumped for a final hour or so on a lancher towards Cartegena, the legendary Spanish port where the gold of the new world was send back to the Hispanic peninsular, if they were not rather impolitely intercepted by pirates (or as we like to call our own British ones – naval heroes – god bless Sir Francis). Approaching the extensively walled and defended old city was quite a sight – and the whole bunch of us were rearing for another big Saturday, notably as a send off to Alessandro.

Our Own Private Island

We woke up almost early and faffed around town purchasing significant supplies before jumping on a lancher (it may or not be spelt like that but is effectively a speed boat) out to some very interesting little islands. The first we arrived at was the very one on the wall in the Black Sheep. A crazy little shanty island barely 100m across. This is surrounded by some stunning tropical islands and, to my remembrance, three strange huts sitting out on the sea all by themselves.

We were heading out blind to be honest and after much slow negotiation (this is the Caribbean after all) we managed to commandeer one of these strange huts all to ourselves for a night for less then a tenner each (pounds of course). So after a very interesting trip to the shanty island (I really can not stress enough how odd it is to have a little piece of shanty in the middle of a holiday brochure type vista) where we bought further supplies and Cali shirts ("cali-cali-cali") we set down for the evening all on our lonesome (OK we had a meal delivered to us by boat).

The sunset that ensued over the sea will stay with me for the rest of my life. Truly, remarkably spectacular. It went through so many stages from the golden ball descending vividly below the horizon, a sky of starkly clashing colours of blues, reds, oranges, and yellows to name just some that splashed across the lightly clouded sky and, when the sun had disappeared, the unforgettable blood red sky that took my breath away. It left me with that inexplicable spiritual feeling of connection and light of understanding juxtaposed to feeling minute and too insignificant to truly contemplate what this life and being is.

That set up the scene for an incredibly chilled out evening of discussion, laughter and eventually a surprisingly good game of chess with Dave.

Mud Volcano and Oncoming Storm

Dave, Sebastian, Mark and myself arrived at an absurd hour to a completely different Colombia to that I had seen before. It was what I imagine to be typically Caribbean. The population is overwhelmingly more of African descent, the climate hot and humid, palm trees and tropical plants abundant, colour everywhere, and an undeniably chilled out atmosphere ever pervading.

A couple of clicks down a random road we found a little sign advertising the volcan de lodo (mud volcano) and up a muddy path there it was - a circa 10m by 15m puddle of mud. To the front spread out the azul Caribbean, to either side beautiful vistas and all in all we were quite satisfied in a smug sort of way. This satisfaction turned into downright hilarity as we entered the pit. Mark entered first and the best way I can describe his reaction is a comic shriek of confusion and enjoyment. Jumping in next, my reaction followed suit. The reason for the lady like noises was that in the brown sludge you are neutrally buoyant. You can lie on your back, shove all your limbs in the air and just lie there. Alternatively and most oddly you can shove your legs down and just stand there. This is a bit disconcerting as the vulcan is probably very deep, but however much you breath in or out you just hang there. We did many similar and more silly things that the mud allowed us before doing what it is best for - lounging back mostly submerged and slowly baking in the sun. For a bit of added excitement you can lie over the sizable bubbling blurges of warm sulphurous gas that pop up from deep in the earth to the centre of the pit. Great fun!!!

After washing the stuff off in the Caribbean the afternoon was spent lounging and collapsing on a veranda looking out over the sea and chilling down to Caribbean pace.

This was followed by a severely less chilled few hours jumping around in cramped taxis as increasingly torrential rain turned roads in to rivers and soaked all my stuff through - quite fun really. We did eventually arrive in the little port of Tolu in time for some needed food off the street, a beer and then an interesting few hours watching the storm build and approach from the sea. Dave, Sebastian and I sat back in our hotel room and in very chilled out fashion watched and listened to this monster of a storm. Bright lightning and thunder that shook the building and many of its contents to a disconcerting degree moved from 45 seconds away to about 10. We were awaiting the inevitable when at the last minute it changed direction and we were spared having to put into action our contingency plan involving mattresses and hiding beneath them. Probably a damn good thing one thinks!!