Cartaheezeeee...What it do???
Still ridin' the Carribean Coast here in Cartagena, Colombia. We are diggin' the scene....
This is where most Colombians take their vacation, especially now in the summer. The city is basically made up of two main parts: The Old Town and Bocagrande.
The Old Town
This walled colonial city is filled with fancy restaurants, street vendors, clubs and hotels. It gets flooded at night with people walking around this old time setting historical fortress. The main entrance is the Clock Tower Building. The weather is perfect at night.
And when they stop playing music up in da club, you can walk out outside and find these Vallaneta Bands playing some jamz to keep the party flowing and the streets dancing.
One of our favorite street vendors, especially for that quick late night grub, was this hotdog/hamburger stand.
Bocagrande (Big Mouth)
This is the main beach area and the most modern part of the city. It is loaded with towering hotels, shops, street vendors, casinos and restaurants a plenty. We stayed at the North Star hostel which was a short 2 blocks walk to the beach.
The water and sand was not as clean as I thought it would be on this part of the coast. And there is non-stop action from these persistent beach vendors trying to sell you to death:
sunglasses, necklaces, cold beers, oysters, plastic chairs to sit on, you name it. And they always make sure that you know their name to look for them later in case you change your mind.
The Morena massage ladies work the beaches all day long and to say that they are hardcore is an understatement. They use the ultimate FORCE tactics as they approach you and start pressing around your body telling you that you have "mucho tension." The standard "No Gracias." response means absolutely nothing to them. They just continue massaging and telling you that "it's for a good price." But when you ask them "how much?" they just go on with the massage lathering up your skin with some special soothing liquid that they carry around in a plastic pail and say "it's muy barato (very cheap)." This is a very good battle going on here. Next, we try to tell them that we have no money. But they just insist and continue by saying that "no problem, this is just a demostration." Yeah right. And all the while, looking out at the ocean, feeling the gentle breeze, and a with a cold beer in my hand, suddenly I found myself negotiating for a price for this leg massage I was receiving. MAN, I can't believe I got sold. But it did feel nice especially after all the trekking we did in Parque Tayrona. These Morenas are major deal withs, but I gotta give them their props. Persistence paid off at the end.
"Dejame en paz" - Leave me alone
North Star Hostel - the family that runs this hostel are super chévere: Dueño Pedro (the boss who lives in the tiny attic upstairs), Tio Louise, prima Mari, and crazy silly cleaning lady who's always laughing and kisses me on my head. They are all so fun and chilled-out and made us feel right at home. This is the family room where we watched F.R.I.E.N.D.S, MTV hits, "The Heartbreak Kid" , the AFC Championship game, and OBAMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!
Hamaka nerdo
Apple bottom bunk
Grocery shopping
La Playa Blanca - Baru Island
We heard this beach was one of the nicest in Cartagena and it's one of those hard to reach places. In order to get there, we had to take a taxi to the "Mercado Bazurto" which is a big busy marketplace. From here small cargo boats leave for the island but there are no exact departure times and they say to be there before 9am. We went with Ziggy, Birgitte, and Trine from the hostel and boarded a small cargo boat and waited for about half an hour as the locals were shopping in the market for food and such to bring back to their island. As we sat there, some vendors would come up to us and try to sell a variety of items including old school watches with the calculator built in, dvds, fruits, and back scratchers made of strong wood. On the way to the island, we got a great view of the the Bocagrande skyline.
It was a 40 minute choppy but fun ride, and we were welcomed to the clear blue Caribbean Sea with a MAJOR surprise splash landing. I had to empty my pockets and transfer my stuff into my backpack because we were getting off the boat into water waist high. Where are those Boracay piggy back guys when you need them? At least the sand was nice and soft.
The beach was quiet, and windy and we just chilled out and relaxed with a couple of beers. We borrowed some playing cards from our Danish friends and surprisingly Ziggy from Austria knew how to play Pasoy dos. Spades high is always popular for some reason, but I'm O.G. diamonds high fo' life.
Normally, boats come back to pick you up from the island to take you back to the market, but this day was too windy making it too dangerous to travel by sea. So no boats came for us. Luckily there was another option...
We hopped on these motorcycles and did it "we're there" Dumb and Dumber style. It was 3 on a bike buddy status steez and we were off for a 25 minute rough, bumpy, and dusty ride through the island dirt back-roads until we reached the Ferry station. Ziggy's driver looked like he was 13 years old. SAFE.
That's me in the rearview mirror.
Weird sores the next day for sure.
So this is us boarding the 'ferry' for a casual 3 minute ride to the other side.
After paddling us from the back of the boat for the first 2 and a half minutes, this guys jumps off into the waist high water and walks up to the front of the boat to pull us in for the final 30 seconds of the ride. That was awesome. In this small town we caught a bus that brought us back to the city in 45 minutes.
Back in Bocagrande, I was dead tired but the party scene was awaiting.
This is the local drive in liquor store right next to our hostel and it was always crackin' with beauty filled cars pulling over to pick up some cheap drinks. Drinks are super expensive in the clubs here. A popular choice for the North Star hostel crew was Ron Meddelín.
-Pre-partying in the hostel
This is a crazy Manuel, a 'Navy Men' from Baranquilla, warming up with some salsa. He also had mad hookups and could get us all (like 10 +) in for free, to one of the Biggest clubs here, Mister Babilla.
Getting it started right in the front patio area
Rolling 3 taxis deep from the hostel to the Calle de Arsenal which is a street full of bars/clubs.
Live Music at Havanas
Getting Loco in Mister Babilla. Same Colombian theme here: Salsa Machines.
This is Pedro who runs the hostel and. It's pretty cool that he comes out to show us around and party with the rest of us. Even he who is from here can't get used to seeing all the beauty that surrounds....
I ended this particular night with a casual afterparty freestyle battle with Manual back and forth for like 1.5 hours just flowin' in front of the Clock Tower without any topic. I can't remember much of the content of the rhymes or the lack of, but I do remember seeing Muzz laughing his mind away.
"Microphono comprobar uno dos ¿qué es esto?
Cartagena es en la casa y la casa es lleno.
Fue una noche loca y no voy a olvidar
como las chicas bailaba y decia 'agitar agitar agitar!'"
- Paz. Estoy fuerra de aquí...
Cartagena es en la Casa!
Parque Tayrona
¡WOW! This National Park which sits on the northern coast of Colombia has some of the most spectacular views I've ever seen in my life (not counting Beauties). I became a major ROCK fan and I'm not talking about the music.
We shared a taxi with this Argentine couple and took a one hour drive to the main entrance. The first thing security did was run a major backpack search. We only brought our daypacks which were totally stuffed because of the massive hammocks inside. After a casual barf-bag session, they found no drugs (not that I was trying to smuggle any in) and we were ready to go. They say Security is just looking to bust people to make cash moneys in a BIG way. Chi-Ching! Crooked Cops. Guaranteed if we were dreadlock rastas, they would have done a more thourough search.
Let the journey begin. We hiked for an hour before reaching the first campsite of Arrecifes. I was pretty much facing down the whole way and not just to work on my neck tan but to dodge the perfect blend of mule, donkey, and horse terd that seemed to be all over the trail. It didn't smell too great either.
The view was refreshing with the ocean in sight and it was nice to be off the trail for a bit before making our next move. I kept looking back to take in the amazing scenery. It reminded me of an episode of LOST looking at jungle mountains and wild rocks surrounding the beach. Btw, Muzz doesn't watch LOST but he pictures 'The Others' to be scary people with red-glowing eyes. We walked along the beach and sea edge for another 25 minutes to reach the lagoon area called La Piscina where a reef in front of the coast forms a natural swimming pool.
Arrecifes
walking the trail...
looking back
arriving at La Piscina
We had about 20 more minutes to go before reaching our final destination, El Cabo. Not the 'zippy zippy' version but I'll try to think of another chant later. I couldn't be more thrilled as my shoulders were killing me and I started to think, 'how did I ever hike that Inca trail?' As we continued up the trail we walked through some jungle areas and we climbed our way around some rocks. When we arrived at camp, we were welcomed by a sea of tents.
We rented out space for our hammocks and we set up right next to the restaurant. My hammock was hung right at the edge which apparently means it's an open invitation for anyone to walk by and take a seat. I caught about 4 different random people sitting on my hammock which I was to sleep in for two nights.
Those are my shoes and she is a stranger. It's all love though.
All that hiking drained a lot of energy out of us so we needed to refuel with a classic meal.
We heard food was expensive so we packed the essentials in our backpacks. Tuna, bread, guava marmalade, and water.
TAYRONAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!
One morning we chillaxed at La Playa Nudista. We didn't join the nude party but there were some nice participants but some inconsiderate ones as well. The beach patrol officers seemed to be working hard that morning when all they would do was make conversation with the topless chicas. Guilt.
My Havaianas flip flops. I lost my original flip flops so I had to pick these badboys up in the Galapagos. Whenever we stay at a hostel, about 75%-80% of the flip flops being worn are Havaianas...all types, all colors.
We headed back to camp where two Colombian dudes challenged us to a game of 2 on 2 American Football right on the beach. One of the dudes dragged his heel against the sand to mark the 2 end zones that were literally about 7 yards apart. And the best part was that we actually would snap the ball on each down. Here's a summary of each and every play that both teams ran: After the center snaps the ball to the quarterback, he goes for a BOMB. Good game.
Casual fútbol at the campsite. They play sudden death here so you pretty much have no idea if a game is getting close to being finish as you wait your turn for the next game. Teams of five sit on the bench (palm tree) to watch as they wait. We sat on the bench to watch as well hoping that no one got injured and that we'd have to sub in. That would've been an embarassing sight to witness. These guys were ballers, especially the dudes with the Brazillian shorts. 
"Rocky Rocky Cabo. Rocky Rocky Cabo" - there's the chant.
I told you I was a fan of rocks.
The professional:
The rookie:
It was tough to leave this H.O.E. status, and it was tiring just thinking about the hike that was ahead of us. We put on our shoes because we knew how rough the trail would be. Along the way we had to stop for some fresh juice to power up.
As we stopped for a popsicle break, we saw this kid using this machete to slice up some coconut.
As we were walking along Arrecifes beach, we played a game of Man vs. Nature. Nature decided that she would send strong waves through the sand forming a mini sand canyon with water about calf high that blocked our path. We were lazy to deal with taking off our shoes and socks and dealing with wet feet so we had other plans. Using branches and coconut shells that we searched for along the beach, we attempted to build a bridge over the water.
Watch and learn: Man 1, Nature 0.
And with that...we were out of there in no time ready to return to another city on the coast.
CARTAGENA, where you at???
