Journey:

Again, it was a pretty straightforward journey. We took a minibus to the bus station. (Where we had a slight panic as although we insisted our hostel had booked our bus, we didn’t have tickets and they didn’t really understand what we were saying) but in the end we were allowed to get onto another minibus (air conditioned) which took us straight to the centre of Cartagena. This cost us 24,000 COP each (but another 30,000 this time for the surfboard – seriously the bane of my life.)

Accommodation:

Mystic House Hostel. Basically every single hostel is located down this street – Calle Media Luna. It’s a great position in Getsemani, just 5 minute walk from the Old Town. The room was huge, had its own balcony (with hammock, anything with hammocks is a huge bomus) and also had air con. The hostel had a free breakfast too (albeit quite a small breakfast) and use of the kitchen. Also, staff were very helpful. We have yet to come across a bad hostel so when we do it will be a massive shock.

Sights:

Castillo de San Felipe

This is a huge fortress overlooking the walled old town which was built to try and protect the city from pirates, like that of Francis Drake, from pillaging the port. The fortress costs 25,000 COP each, and for that price the experience would be better if there was a brief overview of the history of the fortress (for history geeks like me) but there wasn’t so much as a plaque, even in Spanish. Although, you could pay an extra 17,000 COP for an audio guide, but we had already overspent hugely that day so we decided against this. Later I looked up a little on the history of Cartagena (thanks google for filling me in) and found it to have quite an interesting story. (See below.)

Old Town

I think our favourite thing to do in Cartagena was simply wander around the Old Town (and Getsemani area.) The houses lining the streets are painted beautifully bright colours, filled with equally bright flowers, and as well as houses there are many lovely cathedrals, historic buildings and green squares. It’s so picturesque and although everything in the Old Town is pretty expensive (think normal western prices), just walking around and browsing is enough.

Palacio de la Inquisición

This museum sits in the heart of the Old Town right behind the Bolivar Plaza (each city so far we’ve found has a plaza named after Simon Bolivar – he’s a very big deal.) This museum aimed to show the torture methods and general gruesome facts/artefacts of the inquisition of Cartagena. The house of the inquisition itself is definitely worth a visit, however, the museum exhibits were a little limited (especially for having paid 19,000 COP pp) and again the English was a bit lacking. But overall, I would still recommend going here for a couple of hours.

Playa Blanca

This was our first big mistake of the trip. We had heard good things about this beach (and if you google it the pictures show beautiful white sands and blue sea) so, like the gringos we are, we decided to make the trip here. We were adamant that we didn’t want a tour we simply wanted transport to/from the ‘island’ (it’s hardly an island – you can get a bus there over a bridge.) We booked a bus leaving at 8am and that would bring us back at 3pm, and were told this included lunch. For 50,000 COP pp this was definitely a very expensive bus, but we agreed as there wasn’t really another way to get there.

The bus left from just outside the gates of the Old Town. They spoke a lot in Spanish but we got the gist that lunch was at 11:30 – 12:30 and we would be leaving at 2:45. We arrived at the beach and immediately realised this was quite a different version from the images we had seen of the beach beforehand. Instead, there were lines and lines of chairs and umbrellas (there was basically no sand left.) There were also hundreds of tourists on the beach, and we followed our group to our allocated seating area. At this point we wanted to turn around and go back to Cartagena.

We walked to the far end of the beach where there were rocks, and therefore no chairs, and found a little bay for swimming. The water was very clear and calm (much to Thomas’ disappointment – no waves means it is the most boring place on earth, which to be fair is sometimes quite accurate.) The rest of the day was spent feeling pretty bored and disappointed, so I plaited Thomas’ hair and gave him some pigtails. The highlight was lunch which was actually pretty good. But other than that I would never go back here again.

History of Cartagena (a very brief one): 

The city was founded in 1533, by the Spanish Commander Pedro de Heredia. The first Spanish settlers were sailors who had arrived from Cartagena, Spain and thus they named the town Cartagena de Indias after its Spanish counterpart.

Treasures were discovered in the tombs of the Sinus Amerindian tribe (the original inhabitants of the city) who buried their dead with their riches, and this led to the city prospering and establishing a reputation as a wealthy port. For this reason, the city was invaded many times by pirates like that of Francis Drake searching for treasure and riches.

In the 16th century the Spanish spent a huge amount of money on defending the city from attack, and so creating the fortress Castillo de San Felipe. At this time the port was the largest in the Americas, held lots of raw materials and also became of major importance in trading slaves, adding further to the wealth of the city.

Food:

The food here was hugely expensive. We went into a restaurant without looking at the menu and promptly decided that all we could afford there was a pudding each as a main course was the same price as it would be in a western country. After that we stuck to either eating at our hostel or the street food.

Our favourite Colombian food was empanadas and you could get these for about 2000 COP (at the maximum), they weren’t very big though so Thomas would normally have at least 5. There were also lots of street vendors selling things like chicken kebabs, burgers, and even paella too. This was definitely the cheapest way to eat.

However, on one occasion we decided to splurge a little and try ceviche (which is basically raw fish) at La Pezcetarian. It was really good (except Thomas thought the lemonade was too lemony and so that didn’t get his approval.)

Also worth a mention is there are lots of places in the Old Town selling Italian icecream. One of these sold vegan icecream which was actually really good. I got the banana flavour and it was amazing, it really tasted like genuine bananas.

Drinks:

We went out for drinks at Bazurto Social Club which was just outside the Old Town in Getsemani (basically every club/bar is in this area.) They charged us 10,000 COP for entry which wasn’t too bad. The most famous club in the area – Cafe Havana – is 25,000 COP. It was fun here and not too serious so you didn’t feel too out of place if you didn’t know how to do salsa. Like going for a meal in Cartagena, drinks too will be more expensive than in other areas of Colombia.

Summary:

This was our favourite place so far. The Old Town is absolutely beautiful and there’s plenty to see and do. Be prepared for higher prices and a lot of tourists and avoid Playa Blanca, no matter what the photos look like it doesn’t even vaguely resemble this in real life (unfortunately.)