If you ask people living in Cartagena, they will tell you they are more Caribean than Colombian. And walking in the beautiful streets of the historic city, I do feel the same: Palm Trees, Caribbean music, colorful houses… But Cartagena is so much more. It’s a big party city, young people everywhere, going out every day. It’s good food, it’s primarily good weather, but it’s also pretty touristic, which results in a lot of vendors asking you if you need sunglasses (even if you wear your own) or if you need drugs or a hooker for tonight.
I stayed in the historic city of Cartagena. Already, while driving there with Uber, I fell in love with the beauty of this area. It looks so pretty at night.
But I also realized something else this night: they party all night. In the historic city, the clubs are open minimum until 3 a.m.; they don’t put the music down after midnight, and sometimes they party on the streets. So if you decide to sleep in the historic city, you should get a hotel room with a window to the backyard. Ok, I didn’t know. So I decided to party as well 🙂
On my first day, I did a city tour. As the central part of the city (historic center and Getsemani) is small, a 3-hour city tour is enough to get to the main spots. In addition, the guide told us about the history of the city. Very interesting and worth doing.
In the area of Getsemani, a lot of Grafitis are painted. In the past, two competitions took place, where it was allowed to paint this graffiti. The outcome is impressive:
One word about one graffiti:
It shows red banana leaves. It should remind us of the Banana Massacre. It was a massacre of United Fruit Company workers that occurred between December 5 and 6, 1928, in the town of Ciénaga near Santa Marta. A strike began on the 12th of November 1928, when the workers tried to get dignified working conditions. After several weeks with no deal, in which the United Fruit Company refused to negotiate with the workers, the conservative government sent the Colombian Army in against the strikers, resulting in the massacre of up to 2,000 people.
During the city tour, we passed a little park with three unnormal creatures: A giant Iguana, a slot, and a monkey.
For whatever reason, 60 Iguanas (a giant lizard) live in this park. I cannot imagine that we only saw one.
In addition, they have 12 monkeys. A family having them for fun was caught once by the police, and they put a mum and a dad into this park. The result was that mum and dad got ten sons… If I remember my biology class in school correctly, this population has an end date…
I did not picture it because the ankle was terrible, but I also saw a sloth hanging in the trees.
The other day, I left a little bit of the historic center and explored an area called “Little Miami” by the locals. You probably get why…
And last but not least, some nice views from the distance
Due to bad weather, I could not visit the islands around Cartagena (Isla Grande). So “unfortunately”, I have to come back 🙂
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