Back in the States

Well, Colombia was absolutely amazing. I wish I could have posted more after the second day, but I just didn't really have the opportunity to. A lot of the time I was too wiped out by our busy days or I just forgot to or didn't get to an internet cafe. I guess to start I should talk about Wednesday night.

We went to a bar down the street called Cafe Havana (it was Cuban-themed) where they had a live band. It was awesome! They were really quite good and we enjoyed that for a bit. The drinks were really expensive (7000 pesos/$3.50 for aguila beer) Here are some pictures of that (I still have to figure out how to get videos uploaded):


Anyhow, on Thursday, I had to spend the first half of the day by myself while Marta was out working on getting her cédula. I went next door to a little restaurant that was run by two young girls who I later found out were 17 and 19, which was pretty crazy. I ordered arepa con queso, una porcion de piña and café con leche. There was an adorable little family sitting next to me. They were British and had a son who was probably 4. The whole family speaks spanish, in addition to english, and the little boy cried out, "pero quiero miel" when the girls forgot to give him honey with his cereal and yogurt and fruit bowl. It was adorable because he was so little and it was so very unexpected. I met an older gentleman (now retired, probably about 60) who was from Germany and we carried on a conversation in Spanish over our breakfasts. It was very interesting being able to communicate with him all in Spanish. Neither he nor I were perfect, but we communicated quite effectively and I got to meet someone totally new and unexpectedly. Then I headed off to look around the city a bit by myself.

I was a little nervous about walking around by myself mostly because of how everyone stared at me and hooted and hollered regularly at my blonde hair, fair skin, long legs, and unusual height. I was nervous I'd be harassed by someone begging or something. You certainly can't deny that the street vendors target me as a tourist who they could sell their wares to. As such, I decided to stay relatively close to wear the hostel was. I took a big loop around some of the streets, pretty much. I walked down to a little plaza type place that Marta had told me about that had this big bright yellow church on one side with statues of three people walking in front. I sat there and read for a bit, just enjoying the open air and freedom. A donkey-drawn cart strolled by and I people watched a bit. Then I headed further west out to where the water is, and walked along the street where the water was. It was mostly boating waters and there wasn't much beach, but it was still nice walking. I didn't really know where I was, but I ended up walking up to where the Convention Center is and took some pictures of that and an old theater, the Tetro Cartagena, which was very pretty. Then I headed back down the street our hostel was on. I hung out there for a little bit, expecting Marta to be back soon for lunch.
It took longer than expected and I was getting really hungry so I decided to walk down to the corner store and try to get some bread or snack type things to hold me over till lunchtime. Right after I walked out, there was a guy in front of me walking who was staying at our hostel and he introduced himself. His name was Guillaume and he was from Quebec but had been in Colombia for a month studying geology for his master's degree, which is interesting, I suppose. He was looking for someplace to eat and wanted to go to Cafe del Mar, which Marta and I had seen earlier. I told him roughly where it was. We started talking and I ended up walking all the way there with him. Cafe del Mar is on the top of the wall that surrounds the historic part of the city (la ciudad murallada) and has a beautiful view of the city and of the water and surrounding area. Marta and I had hung out up there earlier. It turned out that Cafe del Mar was closed and we walked to la Plaza de Santo Domingo, which is a plaza with lots of restaurants, a sort of much smaller verison of the plaza mayor in madrid. It was touristy and significantly more expensive than anything else in Cartagena (20-30 thousand pesos, or 10-15 bucks)

I didn't eat anything because I knew I would be meeting up with Marta for lunch a little bit later. We walked back to the hostel and found Marta there. We went to Kokoriko for lunch/dinner/lunner/dinch/whatever you want to call it. Kokoriko is a fast-food chicken type place. It looks just like a fast food place when you walk in, but you sit down and someone comes and takes your order. But everything is surved in plastic throw away cups and with plastic forks and knives. It was weird. I had fried chicken, salad with corn carrots and peas and french fries. It was delicious.

Then we hung out a bit at our hostel and whatnot. We went to a panaderia and had bread for dinner. Guave and arequipe filled breads and cheese bread and we had postobon soda, which is a fruit soda that is super common in Colombia.

That evening we had one of our only other nights out of the entire trip. We went to a bar across the street above a hostel. We got mixed drinks at half price because the bartended had to make extras for a photographer to take pictures of for the bar's website. Since he had to make them and they weren't specifically for anyone, we got to get them for half price. We went to the bar with about a half dozen people from the hostel we were staying with. Most of them were Irish, but there were a couple Americans, and Australian or two, and a French girl in the mix. On the roof of the bar there was a sitting area that had beautiful views of the city and of Castillo de San Felipe, which was all lit up and looked really pretty. After that, we headed to the apartment of one of the american guys (Shawn). He was renting the apartment and it was right in the middle of la ciuded murallada, which was cool. We hung out there for a little bit, listening to lots of Michael Jackson (RIP) and then we headed home pretty early because marta had another early morning ahead of her the next day.

El Castillo de San Felipe

Coming up: the journey to Santa Marta, Rodadero, y Bello Horizonte, and the 7th annual Beach Ultimate Tournament in Santa Marta, Colombia.

xoxo,
A