Cartagena, Colombia

My first overall impression of Cartagena is that it is freaking beautiful. It has a Spanish colonial beach town Caribbean feel. The buildings are painted in bright colors with flowery balconies. The city is one of the oldest in the Americas founded in 1533 principally serving to export precious metals to Spain and import slaves from Africa. Today the city has 1M people and lives off tourism, fishing, and a huge state-owned oil refinery (Ecopetrol). Most of the tourists appear to be domestic Colombians as you don't see than many foreigners when you're walking around. According to our tour guide, you know if someone is a tourist if they are wearing shorts not pants. The locals all wear pants even when it's in the mid-80's. 

Colombia is a diverse country with roughly half the country identifying as Mestizo, or mixed, 30% as white, and 10% as African Colombian. Compare this to the US at 72% white, 16% Hispanic, 13% Black, and 5% Asian. Cartagena abolished slavery in 1851, which is on the later side compared to the rest of the world, but still 14 years before the United States (see below):

Colombia is also affordable. One USD is about 3,000 Colombian pesos ("COP"), but everyone doesn't say thousands because they know what you are talking about, so basically $1 USD = $3 COP. The purchasing power is more like $1 COP = $1 USD, so that means that things basically have prices you would see in the United States, but you know that it's really 1/3 of that price. A nice seafood dinner in the touristy area with drinks will cost $100 COP, which is really $33 USD. In the past I was a budget traveler staying in hostels and eating in restaurants with the locals. This is one of the first trips where I felt that I had the ability to eat at nice restaurants without feeling guilty.

Ceviche platter:

Cazulea de Marsicos (seafood pot) and grilled robalo (snook in English):

Seafood rice and fried mojarra (also called mojarra in English apparently). Almost all meals are accompanied with fried plantains (patacones), which are the circle things, as well as coconut rice which is rice cooked in coconut milk. It's sweet almost like a desert rice.  

Another mojarra, patacones, and coconut rice, this time ordered directly to our beach chairs. 

Near to Cartagena is a town called Palenque. Women from this town would come to Cartagena to sell fruit to locals wearing bright dresses and carrying baskets with fruit on their heads. The first cruise ship to Cartagena was sometime in the 70's. When the tourists saw the women, or "Palenqueras", they started taking pictures with the women and handing them pieces of paper they had never seen before. It didn't take long for the Palenqueras to realize they were receiving dollars and that they were making a lot more money taking pictures with tourists than they were selling fruit. So now the Palenqueras work full-time in the downtown area taking pictures with tourists. We asked how much it cost and they said "Una propina de corazon," or "a tip from the heart." So we figured our hearts had about 2,000 pesos, which is about 67 cents, but in Colombia has a purchasing power of about $2USD. Pretty good for a quick photo.

Sweets in the historic center

Cartagena had a rough history as the city was ransacked and burned to the ground on a few occasions. They city first built a wall to prevent the ransacking using slave labor and then built a series of fortresses with canons to protect the bay. One of these fortresses became the most powerful fort in all of South America, Castillo San Felipe, with 60+ canons. This fort became the "Alamo"-like place for a battle against the English, except that the Colombians won. Imagine how South America might look different if the English has taken a key port in Colombia. Maybe we'd have a Hong Kong in South America or all of South America would speak English.

Castillo San Felipe with Boca Grande in the background

Cartagena is definitely picturesque, or as they say today "Instagramable." Sandra has been making her Instagram follower super 'jelly' with photos like these. I've begrudgingly accepted my role as Instagram husband since I said in my wedding vows I would take as many pictures as she wants when on vacation. I must remind her of the "on vacation" clause when we are back in DC. It is not a carte blanche. 

Lightly photoshopped. See if you can tell

Hopefully none of her followers see dorky pictures like this

Sunset at Cafe del Mar with the Colombian flag. Venezuela and Ecuador also share the same flag colors except they add some stars and bling.

 Beach dogs doing their thing at Playa Blanca. 

Cartagena has a neighborhood called Getsemani. As little as 3 years ago the neighborhood was considered very dangerous and to be avoided. But Colombian hipsters moved in and declared the neighborhood safe by creating artsy cafes, restaurants, and street art. Today it is one of the hippest neighborhoods I have every seen and according to Wikipedia one of the hottest neighborhoods in South America. 

Nightlife in Getsemani at Iglesa de la Trinidad

Outside from the Historic Center, Cartagena has a Miami-like hotel strip called Boca Grande, which is where we are staying along with pretty much every other tourist because the historic center has limited infrastructure for tourists. 

Latin American countries love Christmas and go all out with lights and decorations. 

   

We were even treated to a live performance by Shakira. This video shows the Latino sense of humor. Just simple silliness. I'm pretty sure that my American friends would not find this video funny, but Sandra and I were dying of laughter when we watched. Shakira is from Colombia and is beyond famous. Cartagena had lots of street performers tapping into this Latino silliness. We also watched a mime for 20 minutes just copying people walking by and couldn't stop laughing. That was it, super simple but highly entertaining. In Mexico, they are really big on payasos, or clowns.

¡Viva Colombia y Feliz Navidad!