Colombia: football and grafitti nation // Cartagena and Santa Marta, 26-30 June

Beers on the seawall, deserted beach hostels and an unbelievable discovery…

The sun feels closer here on the coast in Colombia. It is sizzzzzzzling hot. A couple hours of walking around already got me a watch-tan.

After the iphone debacle in the morning and a nice lunch of ceviche tostada to tame my mind and cool my body, I venture out in the afternoon-day sun for a 4pm walking tour. A free walking tour is my must-do whenever I visit a new place (usually a city), without fail, and is almost always the very first thing I google and then go and do when I arrive. It’s the most effective way to get to know a place, the people, and meet fellow travellers.

Camilo from Free Tour Cartagena was excellent - his story-telling of the history of Cartagena was informative and entertaining, gave us pop-quizzes, was really patient with us, and gave us lots of great recommendations for food, bars and salsa clubs. Charlie, one of the guys in my tour ended up going to one of those recommended restaurants 3 days in a row for lunch!

Cartagena

Cartagena 

Cartagena 

Someone was yelling "HOLA!" down an alleyway and when I went to investigate it turned out to be this guy

Cartagena

Cartagena

Cartagena

The tour ended on the seaside, and a few of us stayed behind, got beers from street vendors, climbed up the seawall and socialised while we lingered about watching the sunset. We were quite the international group - two Portuguese guys, a Canadian guy, an English guy, an American girl and myself. We carried on socialising over dinner at La Cevicheria (recommended by both Camilo and Anthony Bourdain - again another valuable source of info for my travels) where I had the most amazing paella and my first bebida de tipico de Colombia - Limonada de Coco (coconut lemonade), which tasted like I had died and gone to heaven and died again with each mouthful of crushed ice tangy sweetness of coconut milk and lemonade that gushed through the straw. And then we carried on to a KGB-themed bar (very very weird) and then a reggaeton-pumping rooftop bar overlooking the plaza. The Portuguese guys and the English guy Charlie were also heading east in their travels, so we exchanged instagrams/whatsapps to see if we’d cross paths again.

While researching Cartagena I came across several blogs recommending visiting the Rosario islands on a day tour, but I also came across one article that suggested avoiding those tours and staying a night in one of the hostels with private beaches in Isla Baru, if one was averse to organised tours in big groups (yup) (but walking tours don’t count because they HAVE to make it interesting because they’re tips-based AND one has the freedom to walk away anytime). The next day, over the 1 hour taxi ride and 5 min boat ride, and then 2 days on this tiny ‘resort’ hostel where there was very very little to do, I quickly bonded with Uli and Jana from Germany, a friendly, funny, loving, chain-smoking couple who were travelling in Colombia for a month. We actually travelled together for a bit after Cartagena too.

On the first night on this island hostel, there were maybe 4 other groups/couples at dinner time. I invited a solo traveller Juan from Argentina to join us, and joked about how we had very different expectations for this hostel, where pictures showed people dancing salsa, playing volleyball, sharing big meals on long tables…instead, none of that was going on, so Juan played guitar for us, we watched German standup comedy on Youtube, and all went to bed early.

The next day, back in Cartagena, I met up with Charlie - one of the guys from the Cartagena tour, and we went out to watch the Colombia vs Chile Copa America game, on the street across the wall where someone had set up a projector on a stool to show the game, with beers in plastic cups from the tienda (local corner store), together with many other beer-bearing Colombians, while cars passed between us and the projector (and cars or taxis would actually be stopped whenever a free kick or a penalty was about to happen). We chatted to other street-squatting travellers who were also loving this experience even though none of us are normally madly excited about football. Unfortunately Colombia lost to Chile in the penalties, so much of the mood was gone. But there were still a lot of people on the streets eating and drinking afterwards, and we passed the night eating street food and drinking beers on the sidewalk, watching locals and travellers pass by, being asked many times by street vendors if we wanted drinks and/or cocaine or weed, and being entertained by street performers who would literally stop traffic to finish their dance routine.

Where many Colombians watch football

The next day, after an absolutely amazing lunch at Las Indias (recommended by Camilo, and is supposedly in the Michelin guide, and only for USD6-7 the 'menu del dia' consisted of soup, main course with fish, dessert and a drink. What. A. Bargain.) Charlie and I headed to Santa Marta.

Amazing food in Cartagena - Las Indias Boutique Gourmet

Amazing food in Cartagena - Las Indias Boutique Gourmet

Santa Marta was simply a one-night pit stop to Minca, but here I made a mind-blowing discovery.

Hungry and desperate to stretch our legs after 4 hours being crammed in a minibus from Cartagena, we hopped off our ride when we got close enough to Santa Marta, and when we saw an outdoor foodcourt just across where we had stopped. As two gringos with massive backpacks, we stuck out like sore thumbs, but still we didn’t get harassed and stared at much (I feel like people here are a bit more chill and less hassle-y compared to some other countries I’ve visited. Something that really made me appreciate this country a lot during my time here.)

Most stalls sold massive dishes of super-sized salchipapas - fries, sliced sausages, cheese, crispy fries, ketchup. Charlie just about managed to finish his without dying of a heart attack, while I got a similar dish but with sweet corn instead of papas. Among all the papas and fried foods and sodas, there was one unique dessert stall, and not just any dessert, but - lo and behold - GAI DAN JAI aka EGG WAFFLES (or eggettes or egg bubble waffles etc), something I have never seen outside of Hong Kong, and would never in a million years imagine I’d see in Colombia, let alone anywhere outside Asia. So for dessert (because we have separate stomachs, duh) and after much deliberating on what toppings to get, we shared an egg waffle with strawberries, chocolate sauce and passion fruit ice cream. It absolutely made my day. My week. My month. Phone troubles? Ahh whatever. Nothing else matters.

!!!!!!!!!

Next post - how I planned to stay 2 nights in Minca but ended up staying 6, supposedly a quiet mountain village labelled by blogs as a ’hidden gem’ or ’off-the-beaten-backpacker-track’ when in fact almost all of the backpackers I’ve met were heading there or have been.

And secret waterfalls to world’s largest hammock and best beer spot for sunset…

And, lunch time = menu del dia, it is always the right choice.