Every bit as hot as the jungle and almost as humid, the city of Cartagena still managed to capture my heart. The history is rich, largely preserved, and accessible in the old town, while Boca Grande offers new architecture with stunning skyscraper apartments on the beach, and the Getsanami district has a great mix of local culture, abundant hostels, and is within walking distance of nearly everything. And I feel like Dickens, starting off with a huge run-on sentence.Aimee decided our day in the jungle was now going to be called “Best day ever” but the day that followed wasn’t so bad either. We woke up after sleeping on mattresses that would have been softer if they had been made of plywood, walked out and headed toward the old city following its walls towards the beach. We soon found ourselves on Boca Grande, a large peninsula of affluence and high rise apartments, where we were immediately greeted by Kelly who really wanted to give us massages. She offered a demonstration and since my shirt was already off began giving me a massage despite all the “No gracias” in the world. Now that I was in one spot a second beach vendor came over to offer oyster shooters with lime juice. I’ve never done an oyster shooter, and I really had no intention of doing one, but I could think of no better place to do one than on the Caribbean beach in Colombia while I got a massage demonstrated to me. I wasn’t a fan of the texture on the first one, or the second or the third for that matter, but I had little choice in the matter as the man continued to pop the shells and thrust them in front of my face.
Now a third woman came over and attempted to give Aimee a massage. Feeling that things were getting a little out of control I stopped the oyster shoots at number 7, told Kelly thank you and tipped both of them before making a run for it. Nothing was stolen, they didn’t try to follow us, and although she didn’t eat random uncooked seafood from strangers ironically it was Aimee that got food poisoning the next day, not me.
Later that day we were walking though a small city park when a kid in his late teens started pointing at something. Following his finger we saw a monstrous iguana meandering around freely. Then he pointed into a tree where another one was snoozing lazily. I couldn’t believe we had walked almost ¾ of the way though the park and not seen this. Then he blew my mind pointing into the high reaches of another tree where a sloth was dangling from a branch. A sloth! Wild, in a city park! Next up was a couple monkeys teaching their skittish baby how to climb and jump around but we were completely let down by the grand finale, fish swimming around in a really dirt pool. I told him we had fish in the States and I wanted to see another sloth. He shrugged not knowing where another one was, but then looked up and found one literally in the tree above us. We gave him some money for his “sick daughter” but really I would have been happy to pay him just for showing us all that. I tried to climb the tree to get a better look at the sloth but my progress was halted by a bazillion ants and thinning tree limbs. Either way I got a pretty good picture and this time, unlike when me and Aimee met, I didn’t almost get arrested for climbing trees in a city park.
Our final day in Cartagena was spent climbing around on an ancient castel. Pictures below.
Tunnels through the castle.
Hahah!! I was thinking as I started to read this that it sounded like you were trying to write a pretentious travel column or something -- I appreciate the self-awareness.
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