Cartagena - Colombia in the Caribbean

Tom wisely booked the hotel for one day late, so we had to find a place to stay for the first night. But we had already looked on the internet during the drive, so we found a hostel right around the corner from the actual accommodation.

In the Parque Centenario around the corner from our accommodation, we found, apart from this sloth mom, squirrels and monkeys :)

Cartagena is certainly one of the most beautiful cities in Colombia, which is certainly also due to its location in the Caribbean ;)

The well-maintained alleys and houses are colorful and decorated with flowers, many cafes and restaurants, but also many residential houses, which gives the whole thing a touch of normalcy and not just a tourist place.

On our first day of discovery, we strolled through the alleys and found a restaurant called Buenos Aires, which we already liked from the outside.

On the second day we took part in our first Free Walking Tour, which was really good. The guide Edgar was super funny and had a great memory too.. the capital cities of the countries of his participants were no problem, and he even knew the capital cities of the states in the USA and Australia. That was pretty impressive. He could also remember the names of most of the participants, really remarkable.

With funny and educational anecdotes about the history of Cartagena, he led us through the historic center and informed us about the independence, the unofficial name (Heroica - Hero City: after gaining independence, Spain wanted to take back the city, so the city barricaded itself. After over 100 days, the residents had to give in, many had already died - especially children - and the others were emaciated. When asked why they didn't surrender earlier, they answered that they would rather die than see their children as slaves.)

In the evening we watched the sunset over the city wall at Café del Mar.

The bar itself didn't have any free seats, so we stood next to it. But it's probably quite expensive and seemed like a place for 'seeing and being seen'. So in the end, we sat down with some people from the Walking Tour in a bar and let the evening fade away.

The Café Havana where we were the next evening was also very funny, already getting us in the mood for our next stop ;D

Here there was live music for salsa dancing, which was quite funny. Unfortunately, it was quite crowded, so you constantly had to step aside while dancing to let someone through. :/

Tom enjoyed one or two Mojitos and had a hard time getting out of bed the next morning.. until at 11 a 'ruling' was spoken ;D

The day was spent with eating and in the pool to recover from the previous evening :p

In the Cuban restaurant ;D

The last highlight of our stay in Cartagena was Isla Baru, actually just a peninsula. Here we had the super turquoise water as you would imagine it from the Caribbean.

After a 30-minute boat ride we arrived. Even when the boat was sailing towards the beach, the first sellers swam up to the ship and tried to sell us their sun loungers.. a bit shocking.

We walked along the beach for a while, as recommended, because at the end of the island where we landed, there were just too many people. After just 5 minutes of walking it became noticeably freer, where we finally found a place.

Here we mostly had a clear view and few people, at least in the beginning. Eventually, the jet skis started driving around us constantly and the banana boats put their passengers in the water, which was a bit annoying. This created a somewhat penetrating smell of gasoline. In addition, there were lots of vendors on the beach, walking up and down and passing by every 10 minutes - in between, another 20 people asked if you wanted something to drink, eat, jewelry, ice cream, massage, etc.

This somewhat spoiled the experience; however, since the beach was the best so far in South America and the water so clear, it was still a great day at the beach.

Our lunch.. We were a bit surprised by the whole fish.. 😱

And now we're finally going to Cuba, which means that there are only 2 weeks left, then 10 months are already over.

Next stop: Havana, Cuba