Cartagena

Despite being 4 hours longer, the bus ride from Medellin to Cartagena was more pleasant in every way than was the night I spent arriving from Bogota with someone’s back on my knees and head on my lap. First off, I had an aisle seat which meant only one leg went dead for 12 hours. But it wasn’t just any aisle seat; it was an aisle seat with a long, lean Paisa beauty in its window counterpart. A trade up from being stuck between a cold window and a fat smoker on the way to Medellin. My seat mate’s attractiveness did not help the time go any faster as after an initial conversational spark and my optimistic fantasies of an 11 hour flirty conversation and make out session, she promptly passed out like a drugged baby and never spoke to me again. 11 minute flirty conversation, no make out sesh; I’ll take it. The movie they played was an unimpressive improvement from the previous trip’s Brazilian jungle movie that was dubbed into Spanish by exactly one voice reading for every part. The idiocy in the decision of playing a horribly dubbed movie in which the same monotone male voice reads for men, women and children alike, or even a well dubbed movie, is that no one can hear a word because of the low volume, extreme air conditioning, and the bus driver’s seeming necessity to continuously blare Salsa music from the front cabin in order not to drive into a ditch. I understand that subtitles may be annoying and admittedly see very few foreign films for that reason, but given the choice of being able to maybe understand the English, and definitely read the translation, or have an incomprehensible dubbed mumble, I think most would agree that it is worth a couple of Pesos for the bus company to buy one of the thousands of pirated, subtitled videos for the ride.

Cartagena is a beautiful city…..for exactly 2 hours a day. When the sun gets low in the sky and sets over the ocean, the historic buildings and monuments glow in the evening light, the streets and restaurants are filled with dining tourists mixed with happy, homebound Colombians, and the constant dripping of sweat finally subsides, Cartagena is one of the most beautiful and romantic cities I have ever been to. If Cartagena had the eternal sunsets of a late Norwegian summer, Colombia would no longer need to cultivate cocaine because the tourist money flowing into Cartagena would dwarf the late Pablo Escobar’s drug fortune. But unfortunately sunset only last 2 hours at best, and coke sells for $50 a gram. Walking the streets in the heat of the day, from about 8am till 5pm, provides little pleasure except for the occasional passing of an air conditioned shop where you feel the artificially cooled air lick deliciously at your uncovered knees and toes. I despise shopping, but frequently found myself pretending to be interested in anything from an overpriced piece of art to a training bra, as a means to submerse myself in the cool store air. Post sunset, it is pleasantly warm enough that clothes are worn only for social conformity, not for any personal comfort. Unfortunately, in the later, cooler hours, the streets once filled with happy tourists and Colombians on their way home, are now relinquished to drug dealers, prostitutes and indigents. Cartagena is the perfect sociological reaction of what happens when you mix 2 parts -impoverished local population, with one part -rich tourist. The result- Drugs and Hookers. What unskilled poor people have to offer and what uncultured tourists seem to want. Being one that actively seeks to disassociate myself from tourists, most drug dealers, and nearly all prostitutes, Cartagena is not for me. But it is a popular, safe and growing tourist destination. It amazes me that this city that is so different from the rest of Colombia, is the one place that many Americans and Europeans will fearlessly travel. For me the beauty of Colombia lies in the genuine people that treat you as a person not a tourist, the exquisite natural beauty still undisturbed by high rise hotels and guide-railed moving walkways, the laid back life of the small towns, and the feeling of being somewhere special that few that aren’t from there experience. Cartagena is none of those things, but is solid proof that tourists are sheep and go where their Shepard guidebook leads them.

This may be a harsh description of Cartagena from an admittedly spoiled traveler. For one with limited time or previous experiences in Latin America, Cartagena provides some very important vacation ingredients. First, there is the undeniable exoticism that Colombia provides. Check. You have beaches for lounging and options for boat tours to nearby islands. Check. And you have a safe and beautiful colonial city for affordable shopping, dining, and lodging needs. Like Lebron James when his jump shot is falling, it is a true triple threat. But, with full acknowledgement of its vacation diversity, for me it lacks a specific draw. If you want beach there are thousands better in Colombia alone, and millions if you include the rest of Latin America. If you want a historic, clean, and architecturally interesting city, there is this little place some you might have heard of…….called Europe. If the exotification that the Colombia name provides, allows you to get your vacation-time kicks by sipping daiquiris by a pool while still feeling adventurous, then maybe we have different definitions of “exotic” and “adventure”. But Cartagena is a great first entry into Colombia, and guarantees an excellent romantic weekend in a historically beautiful city. The common tourist blunder is to limit one’s entire vacation to Cartagena, when there is one of the most impressive national parks in the western hemisphere a few hour bus ride away. This park, Parque Tayrona, will be the focus of my next entry and should not be missed by any nature, beach or jungle lover with half an ounce of adventure in their blood. The perfect 10-day Colombian vacation would be to fly into Cartagena for a relaxing couple of days of sight seeing and city enjoyment, followed by 4 or 5 days of remote beaches and jungle hikes in Tayrona, then the last few weekend nights in the beach front, ritzy Rodadero. Maybe go out with a bang of a last night of coke and hookers in Cartagena, unless if you can afford to skip the bus ride back and get a flight out of the Tayrona-jump-off city of Santa Marta (they have coke and hookers too). Unfortunately, the common 10-day Colombian vacation is to fly into Bogota, immediately wonder why, then fly to Cartagena for the same aforementioned enjoyable weekend, but instead of the beautiful beaches of Tayrona and Santa Marta, people now bored by the old city and heat, stay in the new Miami-esque neighborhood of Boca Grande, and bask by the pool of their generic high rise hotels or the unimpressive city beaches of Cartagena. Still fun, maybe exotic, but a shame to miss out on some of the less traveled and prettier roads that Colombia has to offer.