Colombia Part 2: Cartagena and Taganga

We had rocked into Cartagena around midnight. The timing was not great. No time for a kicker on the only weekend day we thought we would have in the city. The hostel was not our first choice and we had several hawkers trying to charge us money for showing us places that we already knew. Waste of space. We tried to sort out rooms, while one local stretched his arms through the bars of the hostel to profer us information for cash. Initially they showed us one room, then another which Tom took and a final one which Dom took. The ironies of fate on room selection for who you meet is always significant. I went down to take the original room, but now suddenly it was not avaialble and I was whisked off to another place. Here was my new bed, complete with a pair of shoes, bag and stuff. "Its occupied no?" "No" "There are shoes under the bed" "Oh yeah". So they brought me back to the original place. It was occupied by two Dutch girls and two guys from England. One of the English guys was a kite surfer and had his equipment under my bed. Twas no problem. One of the Dutch girls started chatting with me and asking if we were coming out that night. We had just rocked in from Tayrona and were in serious need of a shower. Somehow we got chatting on drugs, possibly due to the large number of dealers in the streets. Though its nowhere near as bad as Havana. She asked if I would take cocaine and I said no probably not. She told me that they have a Dutch saying that you need to sniff the culture, but I always figured I am too wired for that confidence drug anyway. Apparently that would make me one of only a few people in Colombia who did not take cocaine. From further appearances that would seem to hold true. Everyone seems to be on some sort of cocktail. Its kind of like London really, only more people here are a little more fucked up. The others headed out and I got changed and joined Dom at a reggae bar nearby. Drinks in bars and clubs in Cartagena are expensive and we had arrived way to late to start off with a kicker. So we headed to the club and creamed through some money on beer. The bands were goodish and I got dancing with a local girl who was not impressed by my salsa. It would not be the first and it certainly won't be the last time. She stated "its easy, just like this" and proceeded to hammer through about 10 movements a second. So easy. I tried and failed. She said just dance it how you like. I figured that was a sensible suggestion and got to it. The night was kind of counterproductive, but we were worried it would be the only chance to sample some of the Cartagena nightlife. When I got back the other slowly trickled in and the conversation flowed spasmodically until everyone turfed in. Ah yeah there was one interesting story from Simon (kite surfer) about him and a Yankee who had been to hot dog vender, got quoted different prices, refused to pay, the vendor swung and the Yankee knocked him clean out. They ended up with a 100,000 peso fine from the police in the middle of the park. Cartagena also reminds me of a mini Havana, with a lot less hassle and maybe a fraction less charm.

I have written this next sentence down verbatim. "Sorted stuff out with my bank eventually, although not without pain." This sentence has since been proven to be optimistic and false. I do not now believe it is possible to fix things with my bank. For over 3 months I have been asking them to change the correspondence address for my credit card bills. Finally I got apoplectic and slaughtered them over the lack of service. They assured me that the address would now be changed within the week. Problem solved. Then a letter appears at the new address (which is where my normal card is registered) saying they can't send mail to that address without authorisation from me that its a correct address (which they have had at least twice). How can they send a fucking letter to an address saying that they can't send anything to that address because its not registered. Its mind boggling. They just sent correspondence there. They send all my other correspondence there. It exists on their system. My god the level of retardedness is unrivalled in the history of anything. Accomodation in Mompos was sold out. Could be a problem for Semana Santa. On the plus side there was a reggae fest that weekend in Taganga up on the coast. Might be worth checking out. I decided to walk the town. Firstly I went all the way round the outside of the old town walls and then climbed them and walked all the way back round, but this time from a position of vantage. Its very pretty. It kind of looks like Campeche, but with a bit more too it. Though the city does not really have loads to do in the day. They have loads of multicoloured colonial buildings and the old wall turrets are dotted with bars here and there. You can see why they say its a very romantic city. I managed to grab myself a haircut on the way back and found out that Yoana's hostel was booked up. That evening I got back and caught up with the other guys. It seemed that Tom was still determined to move on at some point and the others had been out doing their various things. I got back to my room and only one of the Dutch girls was left. Jopke was her name. We got chatting about people we had hooked up with on the trip and had decent chemistry. Then the others brought in some beers and Jopke got some rum as she was off into the middle of the north east wilderness the next day. The four of us got drinking in the room and decided to head out even though Jopke had a bus at 5am the next morning. Somehow we lost the two guys and after heading to the castle walls we decided to go for drinks on the beach. There was some random hobo there with his dog, but we ignored him and settled for a log near the waterfront. We chatted for a fair bit and then hooked up on the beach. At some point we lost the bottle of rum and thought the cup we had borrowed from the long suffering doorman had been swept out to sea. Eventually we abandoned the beach and headed back to the hostel. Luckily for us we had the room to ourselves, so after we woke up the long suffering doorman, we headed back in and had some more fun, although she was quite clear there would be no one night stands. Ah well it was still an enjoyable, random night and we did not sleep much before we had to grab a taxi for her in the morning. I woke up the doorman again and got him to call a cab. Jopke ended up taking one from the street anyway and the doorman was left to explain why there was noone for the taxi. Meanwhile the cat had got stuck up on the roof somehow and had to be rescued. The cat was clearly a moron, because it would then go and do identically the same thing the very next day. Idiot cat.

The next day we got up and the first thing I have written is 'huge iguanas'. Interesting start to the day. We had decieded to head out around town again and had gone to Castillo San Felipe. This place had huge iguanas swarming all over the walls. The entrance fee was more than we wanted to pay so we skirted the perimeter and the others decided we would scale the side of the castle with freehand climbing. Fuck me. Not a great idea for my vertigo. I got halfway and came down because I felt uncomfortable. Then Tom and Dom both scaled it. Tom said he believed we were in the castle. Hmm so it was only one wall. I tried it again. I worked low down with some footholds and got about halfway. The wall must have been 50 feet high maybe. High enough to do some damage. Then two thirds of the way up I lost footholds. Dammit. I would have to use just my upper body strength and after nine months of no weight work or swimming I did not fancy my chances. I went for it, slipped, looked like a fool and then just about scrambled up. I did not want to have to do that again. Ah I was up. Thank god. And then we realised we were only in a turret area. Crap. We could scale the internal wall easily but there were guards posted at the top. We would have to go back down. Arse. This was worse than going up. I wanted to go second as I did not want to be left up there. Having to hold my weight while I slid blind for footholds is not something I want to repeat again. It was awkward and took serious concentration. Still your strenght is rapidly increased from the iron will of fear. We resolved we might take this on again at night if there were no guards and completed our circumnavigation. We snuck into the museum, which put us beyond the guard lines, but not beyond the ticket booth sadly. We went back to the old town to walk around. As we skirted the walls we came across a cracked up local woman stretching naked on the castle walls as you do. Tom and I decided to walk all through the old town, which is a very worthwhile walk. Dom set off back for the hostel. We grabbed some food, got eyed up by some random cute local girls. I was feeling a little sick from lack of sleep and headed to bed for a bit. Then we woke up and headed for the old town. Dom was in the mood for a big night as they had done nothing the day before, but I was too creamed. We would dovetail like that throughout Cartagena. When one was in the mood, the others were not. We headed back to the hostel and Tom and I ended up drinking pointlessly in the hostel while listening to a stupid drinking game that revolved around 'English is a Roman language' (which is a fargin lie anyway). My arsecrack it is, is how I succintly put it in the diary. We were all turfed in from the courtyard and the Danish guy went out for drinks. He was a prick. I don't dislike many people, but this waste of space just drank all night, slept all day and acted like a dick. They seem to be the chief three aims of his life. Ah you have got to be kidding. The Irish guy was here again. Now this Irish man had an amazingly good looking Colombian girlfriend and can't speak a word of Spanish. He looks like a crackhead from the streets of Soho. And he seems braindead. And he just wanders around in a daze. Man these Colombians really do like the Estranjeros. He was in my Santa Marta hostel, he was in Parque Tayrona and now he was here. He was stalking me to torture me with his fucked upness and the random luck he seems to divulge from this. I mean a few days later he did not even remember where his hotel room was. Talk about taking your luck for granted. One last thing from this night. The Colombians must be a little sensitive to foreign sensibilities. Everything on the menu for dinner was translated except for one dish. Caballo. Ah they think we would not like to horse on a menu maybe. Ah us westerners eh. Too sensitive. This place would food poision Tom.

Hmm I have called this Yoana day, because she arrived in town from Bogota and we would catch up for the first time since Monterrey. The three of us set off for the mud volcano near Cartagena in the morning. You can tell i paused there to go out drinking and the difference in quality may now be quite noticeable, but I need to catch my damn tail and I am still about 3 weeks behind. If I can at least get Perdida up there it will be good. That and I am now thinking of pushing Brazil back beyond Argentina on this trip and coming back to Colombia in August time to work and live for a couple of months. This country is really getting its hooks into me. Speaking of hooks, it appeared that some stomach bug had got its hooks into Tom and he was sick all over the pavement on the way to the marketplace that Lonely Planet reckons is the hangout for the buses going to the volcano. Lonely Planet reckons a lot of things that are plainly plucked from some void of inspiration, where intelligence is just not welcome. Anyway we got to this market and were foisted from person to person in the vain hope of finding someone with some sense of directional skills. Hmm I am buzzing at the moment. We somehow lost Tom in the chaos (he would end up going back and booking his flights out of Colombia, which killed off the three way tango we had been following and cost him the chance for Ciudad Perdida). We also found out buses went from the terminal. What a waste of time. Was this to be Panama City all over again. Nope was the answer, but we would have to sit in a bus for 55 minutes while we waited for it to decide the road conditions were suitably treacherous enough for our intrepid voyage. Here I wrote "shittier driving than Guatemala", which still surprises me. Can't wait to see just how bad that driving in Bolivia is if people reckon its worse than here. The bus plonked us down by some random petrol station and we would have to walk for 45 minutes. Or would we. Ah motoconcho riders. Flashbacks to Dominican Republic. I still hate these motorcycle wankers and I was still keen to walk. So off we set down the road for the premier tourist attraction of Cartagena. Round a hill we walked and lo and behold a toy volcano we did see.

Hmm. So small. Weird. Dom said it was the biggest disappointment of his life and it is kind of small and insignificant. It certainly does not look that natural with the sandbags piled up the sides, but apparently it is natural. We had only taken 4 hours to get here. Its actually closer to Barranquilla but the Bible failed to mention that. I told Dom the story of Big Chicken and our great disappointment (for the unitiated or those who only read bits of the blog, you can head back to the South Part 1 to find out what I am talking about). We paid a little more to get in and overall we saved $4 for this round the houses trip and it may be one occassion when a tour is worth it. Except that on the tour they massage you, take photos and insist upon bathing you for substantial amounts of money. The volcano was like a muddy yoghurt. It felt like swimming in yoghurt, was lukewarm and quite fun. Moving was an incredible effort and you really need to grab the sides to push yourself down or along. I got mud in my non squinty eye while I was trying to smother myself, which made sight a little bit of a problem. Some little kids made us fill up small plastic bottles with mud in return for them taking photos. Ironically after complaining that no Southerners travel (which is a shame for the Yankee reputation) and talking about Big Chicken, we should bump into a girl from Atlanta who was getting married down here in Santa Marta next year. I love southerners and she did not disappoint. Afterwards we muddily strolled down to the Rio Magdalena. Here we could clean ourselves. We ran the gauntlet past all the cleaner women and got all of the mud off. Except of course for that small bit that always seems to hang around inside your ears. The food here in the site is extortionate. We walked back to the petrol station and got the same food for one third of the price, before we ended up taking two buses back to Cartagena.

That morning for breakfast I had clocked a cute girl in the other cafe and had thought nothing of it, but while we headed for cash, I managed to randomly strike up a conversation with her when she came out of a hostel. She was half English/half Colombian and agreed to join us for drinks that night. So we got back, sorted ourselves out and Tom and I went out and joined the English girl and Yoana for drinks. Was good to catch up. We drank a bit, had the usual problem with the bill when many people were drinking. Again as normal the nicer people end up paying more than their fair share to cover for the people who can't remember what they are doing. Then we set off for a park for some drinks and eventually we set off for Mister Barbilla. A famed club in Cartagena. Tom and Dom stayed to chat as now Tom was leaving they wanted some quality time together. Yoana managed to talk the bouncers into waving the charge for men and we were in. My salsa still sucks. The English girl and I gave a demonstration of the bump and grind English dancing style to reggaeton. The barmaids were dressed in angel costumes and were up on the bar dancing to every other song. Cool place if a little expensive. Locals were far too good dancers for me. I told the others to wait while I walked Francesca back and that was the last I saw of her. First and only person I have met on this trip from my home county of Hertfordshire. When I got back the others had gone, because they had not realised I was coming back. God knows what they thought my chivalry had been intended for. I bumped into Tom and Dom on the way back and we headed back to the hostel. I did find out that Kelvin was on his way. That was random, but the Irishman would be very, very good company.

In the morning I caught up with Yoana online and agreed to meet her for lunch. Failed to sort out meeting Francesca or sorting out accomodation for Mompos. By this point it was obvious we were going to miss Semana Santa there and that we would stay for Tom's leaving do. I met Yoana by the clock tower and we had a very expensive but good lunch. Then we headed down to Bocagrande to her hostel and watched Barcelona maul Bayern Munich while we waited for some of the Colombian couchsurfers from the night before to catch up with us. We headed to the beach with the Colombians. I must be developing my latin looks. One guy the day before had thought I was from Chile and now after a bit of Spanish chatting a guy from Barranquilla thought I was latin and not English. He said we were all blonde no? I answered him in Spanish that most blondes came straight out of a bottle. Bocagrande beach was swarming with Colombians up on the coast for Semana Santa. The beach itself was ok, but overcrowded. The water was shallow but also strong. Like a dwarf riptide intent on taking you out by kneecapping me. Only Yoana joined me in the water and we hung out there before a flying umbrells (it was quite windy) tried to decapitate someone. I left earlier than the others as wanted to get some food and then agreed to meet Yoana later for drinks. Danish guy was still a dick. Grabbed a random bunch of Irish girls for some drinks and went out with them before meeting Yoana. For 4 hours that night we chatted in Spanish only (although I had to ask for about 50 words, which is not bad going). She reckons my improvement was significant and that I would need another 8-9 months to be a good speaker of the language. Thats acceptable as it would put me in Buenos Aires. We went to Havana but it was dead, so headed to a cool bar on the walls of the city called Cafe Del Mar. This bar had a phenomenal vista and is definitely worth a drink, even if my Kir Royal love (developed in St Petersburg) cost me a fair whack of money. Afterwards we randomly bumped into Dom and Tom. There was a beer guy who sold beers on the street. He became sort of a friend of ours for his humour and mainly due to his cheap beer. Well we headed to the third floor of some club, which was shite and then Yoana left. She would head over to Santa Marta and Tayrona. We came out and drank with the beer guy, while some mental prostitute circled Dom. Beer man told us of this great club and we went with him to store his wagon before heading down there. It was seemingly a very posh affair, but most of the women we later discovered were high class prostitutes. It took ages to get past the door nazis and I abandoned the cause as lost. One of my new roomates was an Aussie/Canadian. He had just fled Taganga after an interesting incident. He had been heading home when he was cut off by a motorcycle carrying a guy wielding a knife. He ran for it. The motorcycle cut him off. The driver produced a gun and pointed it at his head. The other guy tackled him and held the knife to his throat. This is your first introduction to the infamous Taganga police force. They marched him to the police station and incarcerated him while they worked out how much he would pay them. He ended up paying $40 and having to hide out in an American guys apartment while the police continued to circle outside.

I woke up the late the next morning and seemingly had a completely uneventful day. I bought a Colombian sim card for my phone so I could use it here and did some writing. that must be the last updates I did. I had a siesta. Wow I was an exciting individual this day. We had easily overstayed the need to be in this city, but were here for Tom's leaving do now. I caught up with Lucciana online, apparently I had some quiet drinks and then turfed in. Dom and Tom went out drinking with Eric (The Canadian guy who would end up coming to Ciudad Perdida with us). The Aussie/Canadian was called Sam. They went drinking for a while. I just caught up on sleep. What a waste of a day that looks like on paper. And yet that complete nothingness apparently needed 7 lines of bullet points.

I went to the beach with Dom in the morning and bought some new jeans (I still to this day have not stitched up my clothes even though I really need to). They do have some dodgy inconsistent sizes here. I lost them in San Gil when I left them on a washing line. What a pointless purchase. Still I got a good 7 days out of them. They may still be in my back as well. I just don't think they are. A guy named Juan (from Santa Fe in Argentina) had joined our merry group. So the 5 guys headed out for drinks. We were then joined by some friends of Erics (Steph and Laura who would also join us on the hike). We also randomly walked into a couchsurfing meeting that I had forgot was taking place on that night and met a Yankee and a local (there was also a girl from Sweden and I have marked us down as a group of eleven). I can only assume that the last person was so uninteresting that I can't even remember who they were. We did not enter the reggae bar in the end and the night was quite fragmented as we bounced from bar to bar, haemmorghaging people as we go. Bugger that word is hard to spell. Not sure how close I got and too lazy to check it. We eventually went to the reggae bar. Most people thought Tom would hook up with the Swede but it did not happen. There was a Catalan guy whose Colombian girlfriend insisted upon dancing /groping me and Dom. The rest of us headed backj around 3am, but Dom went on some random odyssey around the clubs of Cartagena with the remainders of that group. In the morning everyone was ropey, but we had a posse to head off with. Juan, Dom, me, Eric, Laura and Steph were going to head to Taganga, while Sam and Tom would head for Bogota.

I tried twice to no avail to raise Dom into the living in the morning. I had to send Tom up in the end as three times is pushing it. We said goodbye to Tom and got a bus to Santa Marta. I got to watch Shoot Em Up on the bus while feeling sick. I may have to conlcude that Monica Bellucci is the best looking woman in the world, because in this film she has that god awful fringe that some women have and always looks shit, but she is still incredibly sexy with it. I learnt from a chocolate bar that Jaguar in Latin is Tigre Mariposo (Butterfly Tiger. How cool is that. This linguistic stuff can be quite good fun). We got into Taganga and checked into some shit hotel. The other guys were ok with the price, but then I was the one who had to have the stupid fold out couch thing. What an awful nights sleep. We decided to sort out the tour for Ciudad Perdida. Dom wanted to head to the beach and not meet the others. He wanted to meet the woman from last week. The others wanted to book the tour immediately. Juan failed to pass the message on to Dom and we were left in a limbo state and I was getting tired of having toi mediate stuff. Its not my natural disposition. Usually I am on one end of the conflict or the other. This trip was definitely mellowing me. We managed to haggle for 380,000 pesos, which to everyones knowledge is still the lowest price paid. Everyone was knackered and I was suffering from mild food poisoning so I ended up skipping the reggae fest in Taganga. Dom stayed in because he was knackered and Juan went out with the other three. I felt sorry for him because he had come all the way for the festival and then noone went because we were off to hike in the morning. Wow we spend a long time in Cartagena accomplishing nothing, but we still had a good time there. Seven says is too long though, even though I am about to spend eight here in Bogota seemingly.