We changed hostels the following morning to a popular one called Media Luna which had a pool. It's so humid here, the pool kind of sold us. Kate and Adam (Melbourne) and Sam and Fred (England) were staying here too and we all had breakfast at a nice little cafe around the corner. The food was good! I had an arepa (fried potato) with cheese and guacamole on it. We decided to do a free city walking tour
at 3pm so just hung out in the pool and had a couple of beers beforehand. It was a pretty small pool with lots of people in it so only kept us slightly cooler than being out of the pool!
Adam, Kate, Matt and I met with the tour group and our guide, who looked like Denzel Washington told us about the history and culture of Cartagena and Colombia. It was quite interesting and I loved just walking around this city, it is extremely pretty with old coloured building and vines climbing the walls and flowers and bougainvilleas hanging from the windows and balconies. The buildings were older but well maintained, unlike other colonial towns with old coloured buildings we'd seen throughout Central America. You could tell Cartagena was a rich city. We were starving so tried some coconut sweets on the tour which were pretty good. Once the tour ended we sat at a Cervicheria (there were lots of nice restaurants, cafes, hotels, shops etc around) and had dinner. Matt had a mixed seafood Cerviche and my vegetarian salad was really good too. It was smoked eggplant baked with mozzarella and sesame seeds, tomatoes, bocconcini and toasted bread. I had a couple of glasses of wine (it seems to be more available in South America). We went back to our hostel which had a rooftop bar to meet up with the others and had a few drinks to continue the night.
The next day we had breakfast at the same cafe with Kate, Adam and the boys then all split off to just wander the city. They had some nice shops (some expensive) but good to look in some decent shops that weren't just market type shops so i decided to try some things on and bought a dress! An easy throw on beach dress that I've been looking for, even before I went away! I had to stop myself from buying more, even though I did like a couple of other things to not blow our budget haha. In the afternoon we showered and freshened up then went to the wall to watch the sunset. Cafe del Mar has a good spot to watch it but drinks are double the price so we just bought beers and sat on the wall next to it. Eve and I were wanting a glass of wine which cost $9 so were considering sharing one due to the expense. We ended up going to the bottle shop nearby by and buying a whole bottle for $12 and the guy gave us plastic cups with stems so we were sorted. We walked back through the streets, me with the rest of the bottle of wine in arm. Kate and Adam were meeting with a local artist to look at her paintings so Eve, Sid, Matt and I and we met Sophie too went for a drink at a hostel bar across the road from our hostel and then went to a local restaurant round the corner which served typical Colombian food (soup to start with the rice, beans, salad and a meat - egg for me - not much different from Central America!) it cost $3.50 for the whole plate and none of us could finish it! We called it a night. Most of the crew were going to Medellin. We were gonna head there after heading north to Santa Marta for a bit and seeing more of the coast up there.
