We’re here! After a fairly stress-free day of travel, we’re settled in at our first home abroad, a lovely hotel in the Old City in Cartagena. We’re both getting into a Spanish-speaking mindset (Erika much more than I) and starting to explore the city.

We’d predicted we’d end up spending a lot of time at the pool here… and apparently the hotel wanted to meet our needs, as they put us in the room right next to the pool. Who’s already been out there three times in two days? Erika’s already managed to nap out there twice. Yeah, this trip around the world is getting off to a sleepy start.

Day One

We spent our first day here just wandering around the Old City. The Old City of Cartagena is surrounded by centuries old walls that were built to keep invading pirates and Europeans out.

We found a cute juice bar just down the street from our hotel as we headed out for our exploration. We asked for a couple jugos to take for our walk, but they told us the electricity had gone out. Womp.

After walking a few blocks, we excitedly realized that our hotel is in a much less touristy area–less English, lower food prices. We’re in the neighborhood of Getsemani, which has some great local food, as well as places for dancing, which we figure to explore once we’ve rested up.

That evening, we got dinner at a local restaurant our hotel recommended. It was good, if a little pricey. Though, they had a special for mojitos: 2 for 16,000 Colombian pesos, or about $6. I don’t have to tell you that’s awesome. But… then the electricity went out. Two in one day? This may be a thing… TBD. Fortunately, it was just the immediate block, so we figured we could make the run back to our hotel. However… we couldn’t pay. The bill was more than we’d brought in cash, and we planned to pay with credit card, but with no electricity that wasn’t going to happen. We’d finally prepared ourselves to ask for an IOU when the power came back on. Crisis averted!

Castillo San Felipe de Barajas

On our second day, and first full day here, we… well as I said we went to the pool a few times. Look, it’s been a busy couple of months, alright? But we also decided to take the short walk outside the city walls to the Castillo San Felipe de Barajas. It’s just a kilometer or so away from our hotel, though we have to cross some terrifying roads to get there. The fortress is on a hill overlooking the city, and was built starting in the 1500s as yet another way to defend the city from incessant invasion.

Before that, though, we tried our local juice bar again, who did have electricity today. Hurray! We had a delicious and cheap (I’m hoping and expecting this is a trend) lunch of arepas and jugos. Just what we needed to go climb a castle.

The castle is well preserved, including a large structure of tunnels which are dark and claustrophobic. Being up on a large hill, it also offers fantastic views of the stunning high rises in the Bocagrande neighborhood and the rest of Cartagena.

For the evening, we again took it pretty easy, slowly walking the streets of the walled city before settling down for a couple well-earned mojitos. We had dinner back near the hotel in Getsemani, which was delicious and cheap. Then it was off for an early bed so we can hopefully start to be more lively.

What’s Next?

There’s rain in the forecast, but we may try to make it over to Bocagrande to check out the beaches. We’ll also be investigating day trips by boat to Playa Blanca and the Islas del Rosario. Thanks for coming by and checking up on us!