Cartegena, Colombia
Woohooohooo...what a bus ride! I was surprised we made it alive and this time it wasn't because of the bus driver. So, there were 4 older men at the back of the bus getting super wasted on Colombian rum. They were all taking shots and being super loud. I thought it was kind of funny till the one guy got out of hand. First, he started screaming at one of the guys trying to sell snacks on the bus. Ok, he's a little drunk no big deal. Then he stumbles to the front of the bus and starts talking to the bus driver and the bus driver's assistant. Then he decides to announce something to the rest of the bus in his drunken Spanish. So the bus driver finally stops so he can take a piss outside even though there's a bathroom in the bus. So he finally sits down and stay quiet for maybe ten minutes. Then he gets up and again and makes his way through the hallway hitting everyone on the way and actually falling on someone's lap. He starts getting belligerent with the bus driver but the bus driver is having no part of it and ignores him. The drunk guy gets super pissed and yanks the bus drivers arm while he's driving! The bus swerves to left into incoming traffic in the middle of the highway. The bus driver gets the bus back on course and a whole bunch of guys tackled him down till we got to the next checkpoint where he was taken to the cops. The dumb drunk guy even got some boots to the head. Anyways, luckily we didn't get into an accident that night.
So we made it to Cartegena safe and sound and decided to take a cab to our Couchsurfer hosts' place. Cartegena is notorious for being a two-faced city. There is the old town where everything is very poor and colonial and there is the new city where everything is modern and quite nice. The bus station is in the old city so when we first saw the place we thought Cartegena was ghetto central. Thing was we were staying in the new city which is right off the beach so in other words...we weren't to choked we left the old city. With that said the old city is cool to explore and tour.
We met our couchsurfing host, Erv, and her childhood friend Jackie. We got there late Friday night so of course we were ready to drink. So we all had some drinks and shared some stories. The two girls had an early dive the next day so they weren't able to go out. That wasn't stopping us though. We headed straight to the party area and found ourselves in a very weird bar where there were very many single good looking girls that were very aggressive with all the guys. Right away it seemed a bit strange but we couldn't put our fingers on it. Haha, then we walked to the next room and it all hit us pretty quick. We were in a puta bar! Hmmmm that's strange, after we say, "No tengo dinero," the girls tend to lose interest right away. I wonder why?
Sooo, we didn't spend much time there and tried to find a normal bar. We found this one place called Mr. Babilla which we became well acquainted with during our stay. It was pretty dead that night but we met some cool people. But the most important part was it wasn't a puta bar.
The next day we decided to check out the old city. The old city within the walls is a nice colonial town with some beautiful buildings and churches. It has a nice Bohemiam feel there. I don't know what it is about Cartegena and puta bar but we couldn't seem to avoid them even though it was 1 in the afternoon. This guy came up to us and said, "Come on guys, the party is starting in 20 minutes." We wondering what the hell he was talking about considering it was the middle of the day. Then we saw a girl in her bra looking at the laptop of some old guy's laptop. There are two things wrong here. First off, she is obviously a prostitute. Secondly and most importantly, who the hell brings their laptop to a bar? Weird...
The plan that night was to do the infamous chiva bus with our Couchsurfing friends. The chiva bus is a big colourful bus that has a bunch of people playing Colombian music, drinking, dancing and slapping their asses. It is tons of fun! If you go to Cartegena, this is a must. We bussed all around Cartegena made a pit stop at the walls and met tons of people and then partied some more on the bus. They were even nice enough to drop us off at the bars with an arepa in hand (Delicious Colombian food). We seemed to have lost our Couchsurfing friends so we decided to head to our favourite place in Cartegena...Mr. Babilla! Oh man, and it was rocking that night! It seemed like it was everyone's birthday! We met tons of Colombians that night. I made really good friend's with the cooler guy outside of the bar that sold beers for super cheap. I was his best customer. Mr. Babilla was good to us that night!
The next day was a bit of a later start because of the epicness of the last night. We decided to check out the fort that is situated in the middle of Cartegena. It was considered the Spanish's strongest fort in all of South America. It was quite large and had an amazing amount of cells inside of the fortress. The cells could be found via the tunnels that winded through the innards of the fortress. The fortress also had a great view of both sides of the city. You could look one way and see the new city and then do a 180 and look at a city that looks completely different. It was like looking at heaven and hell.
The next day was a holiday so we decided to meet up with our good friend Mr. Babilla one more time. Pourque no? But first, we decided to watch everybody's favourite Kazakstany, Borat. That'll get you in the right mindset. Mr. Babilla didn't have so many people over but it was still pretty fun. I met this one Colombian guy who was in love with his country. We had a pretty hilarious conversation.
Unfortunately, we didn't have the luxury of a late start this time. It was time to hit the boat early enroute for Playa Blanca. Playa Blanca is Cartegena's most famous beach. It is one of those infamous white sand and pearly blue see throughwater beaches. It really was amazing despite how touristy it was. We got my favourite corriente luncches for lunch with some delicious trout. We then pretty much enjoyed the water till the boat was ready to go. We wanted to stay the night in a hammock but this wasn't possible because we needed to be in Cartegena to check for flights into San Andreas early.
Our efforts to find early and cheaps flights were unrewarded so we decided to scratch San Andreas and stay and extra night in Cartegena so we could do the mud volcanoe. The mud volcanoe is a small mountain that has mud in the middle instead of lava and is heated naturally from below. The mud isn't too hot or too cool. It is incredibly comfortable though. You pretty much dip in and the guys that work there slot you into a spot and massage your body. If I'm ever going to do a spa that would be my version of one. It was awesome, no of us wanted to get out even though we were in for over an hour. We then rinsed out in the lagoon and went for lunch in front of an incredible view of the Carribean Sea.
That was definitely worth the extra day! Next stop Medellin. Watch out Pablo Escobar, here we come...
So we made it to Cartegena safe and sound and decided to take a cab to our Couchsurfer hosts' place. Cartegena is notorious for being a two-faced city. There is the old town where everything is very poor and colonial and there is the new city where everything is modern and quite nice. The bus station is in the old city so when we first saw the place we thought Cartegena was ghetto central. Thing was we were staying in the new city which is right off the beach so in other words...we weren't to choked we left the old city. With that said the old city is cool to explore and tour.
We met our couchsurfing host, Erv, and her childhood friend Jackie. We got there late Friday night so of course we were ready to drink. So we all had some drinks and shared some stories. The two girls had an early dive the next day so they weren't able to go out. That wasn't stopping us though. We headed straight to the party area and found ourselves in a very weird bar where there were very many single good looking girls that were very aggressive with all the guys. Right away it seemed a bit strange but we couldn't put our fingers on it. Haha, then we walked to the next room and it all hit us pretty quick. We were in a puta bar! Hmmmm that's strange, after we say, "No tengo dinero," the girls tend to lose interest right away. I wonder why?
Sooo, we didn't spend much time there and tried to find a normal bar. We found this one place called Mr. Babilla which we became well acquainted with during our stay. It was pretty dead that night but we met some cool people. But the most important part was it wasn't a puta bar.
The next day we decided to check out the old city. The old city within the walls is a nice colonial town with some beautiful buildings and churches. It has a nice Bohemiam feel there. I don't know what it is about Cartegena and puta bar but we couldn't seem to avoid them even though it was 1 in the afternoon. This guy came up to us and said, "Come on guys, the party is starting in 20 minutes." We wondering what the hell he was talking about considering it was the middle of the day. Then we saw a girl in her bra looking at the laptop of some old guy's laptop. There are two things wrong here. First off, she is obviously a prostitute. Secondly and most importantly, who the hell brings their laptop to a bar? Weird...
The plan that night was to do the infamous chiva bus with our Couchsurfing friends. The chiva bus is a big colourful bus that has a bunch of people playing Colombian music, drinking, dancing and slapping their asses. It is tons of fun! If you go to Cartegena, this is a must. We bussed all around Cartegena made a pit stop at the walls and met tons of people and then partied some more on the bus. They were even nice enough to drop us off at the bars with an arepa in hand (Delicious Colombian food). We seemed to have lost our Couchsurfing friends so we decided to head to our favourite place in Cartegena...Mr. Babilla! Oh man, and it was rocking that night! It seemed like it was everyone's birthday! We met tons of Colombians that night. I made really good friend's with the cooler guy outside of the bar that sold beers for super cheap. I was his best customer. Mr. Babilla was good to us that night!
The next day was a bit of a later start because of the epicness of the last night. We decided to check out the fort that is situated in the middle of Cartegena. It was considered the Spanish's strongest fort in all of South America. It was quite large and had an amazing amount of cells inside of the fortress. The cells could be found via the tunnels that winded through the innards of the fortress. The fortress also had a great view of both sides of the city. You could look one way and see the new city and then do a 180 and look at a city that looks completely different. It was like looking at heaven and hell.
The next day was a holiday so we decided to meet up with our good friend Mr. Babilla one more time. Pourque no? But first, we decided to watch everybody's favourite Kazakstany, Borat. That'll get you in the right mindset. Mr. Babilla didn't have so many people over but it was still pretty fun. I met this one Colombian guy who was in love with his country. We had a pretty hilarious conversation.
Unfortunately, we didn't have the luxury of a late start this time. It was time to hit the boat early enroute for Playa Blanca. Playa Blanca is Cartegena's most famous beach. It is one of those infamous white sand and pearly blue see throughwater beaches. It really was amazing despite how touristy it was. We got my favourite corriente luncches for lunch with some delicious trout. We then pretty much enjoyed the water till the boat was ready to go. We wanted to stay the night in a hammock but this wasn't possible because we needed to be in Cartegena to check for flights into San Andreas early.
Our efforts to find early and cheaps flights were unrewarded so we decided to scratch San Andreas and stay and extra night in Cartegena so we could do the mud volcanoe. The mud volcanoe is a small mountain that has mud in the middle instead of lava and is heated naturally from below. The mud isn't too hot or too cool. It is incredibly comfortable though. You pretty much dip in and the guys that work there slot you into a spot and massage your body. If I'm ever going to do a spa that would be my version of one. It was awesome, no of us wanted to get out even though we were in for over an hour. We then rinsed out in the lagoon and went for lunch in front of an incredible view of the Carribean Sea.
That was definitely worth the extra day! Next stop Medellin. Watch out Pablo Escobar, here we come...
posted by Kean @ 10:34 PM
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