We arrived into Cartegena harbour at dusk. The city looks very developed, it´s a bit like Marbella coming into port with a hint of it´s history shown by the old fort and the wall surroundinmg the old town.
Unfortunatly we hadn´t got any accomodation book and it started to tip down with rain. We hadn´t eaten properly for 48hrs on the boat (trying to aviod bringing anything up again) and once off the boat unfortunalty it didn´t have the instant stability factor we were looking for, you still feel like you are swaying from side to side. That combined with the malaria tablets (dizzyness), and not having had a proper shower for 5 days we were both feeling desparate for a good meal and a comfortable room. We eneded up paying double what our usual budget is and splashed out on a room. I have posted the photo of what it was like. Very lux for us....
We found an italian and both had steak and chips, mmmmmm. Gradually the life flooded back in to our bodies.
Cartegena seams to be a beautiful city. Our favourite so far. The old town where we are staying is beautiful. They have kept the traditional spanish influenced buildings and the atmosphere is a mixture of S.American, Carrbean and Spanish. It has bags of personality, history and style. We have decided to stay here for a bit longer thean planned so we can get to know the city better.
The guys from the boat trip are doing the same. We all went out for a drink the other night which was good fun. We tried a little salsa dancing. The locals make it look very easy, although i´m sure part of it´s popularity is so that the old men can dance cheek to cheek with all of the young pretty girls.
In the night time the streets are filled with lots of stylish looking poeple, we think moist of them are Colombian people on their holidays. the mens where white linen trousers and shirts and the girls are all very glammed up. It remaind me a bit of Ibiza old town.
Had a drink at the lovely Hotel Santa Clara, a little bit out of our budget but gorgeous to spend time in.... http://www.sofitel.com/gb/hotel-1871-sofitel-cartagena-santa-clara/index.shtml
We have taken a boat trip to some local islands. It was slightly marred as we felt we had been ripped off by the tour people. All is promised at the dock and then once you are in the middle of the ocean ready to dive in and start snorkiling the want another 15GBP. It was good though, steven said it was the best he´d ever seen. We chilled out on the beach afterwards on Playa Blanca (see pic).
We are looking forward to going out for a Colomban meal this evening, there are lots of modern restaurants here serving lots of lovely food and we are starting to see more types of wine on offer not just chillian like in central america. We will try and get in as much research as possible and let you know our findings.
We have made a couple of little YuoTube videos of the city so you can see how beautiful it is. Unfortunatly we have to leave Colombia in 2 days time as we have booked our Matchu Pitchu trip. Colombia is certainly somewhere where we would like to come back to on holiday and if you are thinking where can we go on holiday that has good food, beaches, history, sports, countryside etc Colombia seems to have it all....
