JJ's Travelogue

After a few days here I’ve gained a better understanding of Cartagena. When I wrote the last post I hadn’t really seen most of the old town – only the neighborhood my hotel is in. This neighborhood (Getsemani) is the “bad” area of town, which actually feels safer than the “good” areas of Managua or other Central American cities. Because it’s a bit run down and working-class, you can get a full meal for $2 and decent hotel for $10. But it turns out the rest of the city is not that cheap. Still inexpensive compared to the States, but not by much.

It took me a few tries to actually find the rest of the old town. The winding streets end up confounding my sense of direction, leading me away from the center. In this way the city is like Venice or Amsterdam. I remember visiting Amsterdam for the first time.. I was staying at a hostel that had a midnight curfew, and although I knew where it was, it took me much longer than I thought to reach it due to all the curvy canals. I ended up running as fast as I could for 10 minutes, just making it back before they locked the doors for the night.

Anyway.. the rest of old town is stunningly preserved grand colonial houses, former slave markets, plazas and churches. While not Disneyfied, it’s certainly fairy-tale. Boutique hotels and gourmet restaurants. I think it feels European because of the modern shops retrofitted into old architecture. This mixture gives a cultural richness that’s palpable just walking down the street. The entire city is a photographer’s dream. The pedestrian-friendliness of the layout also gives it the relaxed vibe. Built before automobiles were invented, Cartagena has the same inviting feel as all those small cities in France, Italy, etc. It’s wonderful wandering the streets, day or night. And it feels incredibly safe – well-lit, clean streets, lots of cops around. Occasional touts and hookers, but never any feeling of danger.
I’ve never missed my rollerblades more than here. The city is just made for skating – wide boulevards, open plazas, restricted traffic. Instead I did a bit of parkour on and around the fortification walls.

One evening I sat in one of the open-air plazas and watched locals (or perhaps they were tourists from elsewhere in Colombia) engage with the hawkers. It was neat – my first response is always to brush them off, politely decline, I don’t want to buy anything. But these locals bantered with them, laughing, everyone having a good time. The musicians ended up serenading them, the portrait sketchers did their thing (whilst taking sips of their hosts’ drinks, I noticed), the magicians and mimes (yes, mimes.. doesn’t it make you happy that mimes still exist in the world?) performed. I wonder how much the locals ended up paying in the end. I’m sure it wasn’t much, and it was wonderfully entertaining.

One type of vendor very popular here that I haven’t seen much of in other countries is the coffee/cigarettes/candy guy. There are tons of them roaming the streets day and night. They carry a rack of cigs, candy, mints, sundries slung around their necks like baseball peanut salesmen, and in their hands carry a rack of coffee, cups, and accoutrements. Lovely to have that stuff come to you rather than searching it out. The place where they all refill their thermoses is around the corner from my hotel. Enormous coffee machines the size of industrial refrigerator brewing day and night, but none for sale – it’s only for the vendors.

continue reading the rest of this post (and view the photos)…

Oh wow, what a world of difference from Panama City. Our first clue we were not in Kansas anymore was the airport: clean, modern, efficient. And empty. Immigrations & customs was a snap. Then walking out the doors into.. nothing. No swarms of touts hasseling, no cabbies yelling and honking, just a gentle breeze. Easy cab ride into town, and amazed to find that not only is Cartagena on the Carribean, it’s also fantastically rich in colonial architecture. It’s been preserved, but not in the Disneyesque way of some places I’ve seen.. this is a real, living city.

The city was founded in 1533, and in the 17th century work was begun on massive fortress walls that took 208 years to build, are an average of 12m x 17m thick, and are 11km long. These surround the old town, and look like a great place for morning runs (think China’s Great Wall, but shorter). And they didn’t ruin the beauty of it by putting up gads of safety barriers. You can walk right off the edge if you like and they won’t give a damn if you do, because they believe in personal responsibility – Josh’s reason #43 for leaving the U.S.

Every corner you turn is another glorious sight, whether it be the pastel colors, the grand balconies, or the interesting vendors in the street. There are a lot of vendors selling talk time on cell phones. They sit at tables on streetcorners or in doorways surrounded by a half-dozen cell phones. You tell them which one of the four mobile companies you want to use and you make your call. Not sure why this is better than pay phones or what the point of selecting the company is, since the prices seem to be about the same.

Away from the old city, on a peninsula reminiscent of Miami Beach, lies the modern city. It is predictably sterile and boring, with row upon row of condos and skyscraper hotels fronting the beach. Unfortunately the beach here is not much to write home about – a bit dirty and such – but apparently there are nice ones an hour out of town. I really don’t see why anyone would want to stay in the modern city when the old town is so much more beautiful, culturally interesting, and cheaper.

In the 24 hours I’ve been here, I already like the people – they’re not grumpy like the Panamanians and don’t stare as much as I’ve gotten elsewhere. They’re just regular folks going about their business.. but with a liveliness and energy that’s catchy (they say four Colombians in a room automatically becomes a party). There seems to be a middle class here, and the poor don’t appear to be as destitute as in Central America. The city buses are modern, clean and efficient (with A/C!) and appear to be city-run, which proves my point that municipal services do better when not left to the market forces. Oh, and there are street signs here, so you can actually use a map and find your way around! Central America could take a clue. continue reading the rest of this post (and view the photos)…