Cartagena, Colombia

Cartagena we have arrived!!! We got into this beautiful city on the northern coast of Colombia in the afternoon, so we found our place, threw down our packs and headed out to eat and explore.  Obviously I can't complain after the winter we had, but boy was it hot.  The humidity is really what we weren't used to, but as soon as we started walking around, we understood why everyone loves this city so much, its beautiful, people are friendly and its very clean.

top of the castle

steak

The Old City, which is where we stayed in Barrio San Diego is walled in, and surrounding the wall is the sea and an outer neighborhood called Getsamani.  So, after we arrived and had a steak, rice, plantain, salad lunch (all for about $4 USD), we walked along the wall overlooking the sea and watched the sunset.  We strolled around some more up and down the streets enjoying the amazing colors, trying some of the local food and chatting it up with some tourists and locals along the way.  Not many locals here speak English so we were excited to start practicing our Spanish.

The next few days we went to El Castillo (the castle), we ate Colombian arepas, empandas, steak, fish, watched a few sunsets, walked through the streets of Getsamani enjoying the vibrant graffiti, went to the artisanal market at Plaza de Los Bovedas and did lots of salsa dancing with locals!  We loved the salsa dancing here.  We learned that different parts of Colombia do different styles of salsa, so I'd say we have Cartagena salsa down pretty well!!

Best street food ever!

arepas

fish

Beach

streets

Our favorite salsa club was Donde Fidel.  It is in the plaza right beside the clock tower, great salsa music, and pretty much only locals go there.  The second we walked in the locals were asking us to dance.  There was no sitting down here, it was so much fun and quite the workout.  We also heard that Havana Club in Getsamani was a good salsa place.  We went on Friday night, it was so so.  Great live music, but it was too crowded, so we went to a local bar/club down the street with less people, not so many tourists and a DJ who played salsa, hip hop and reggaeton... our favorite.

local mans stand

One of the best foods that we've had so far was this family recipe that this man was selling out of a cart on the street called patagon relleno.  Adrienne swears its the greatest thing she's had... EVER! It's a fried plantain cut down the center (almost like a hot dog roll), stuffed with pulled pork, beef, many different cheeses, french fried sticks, and salsa, it was delicious and only about $1.75 USD each!!

Another day we walked about 20-25 minutes to Boca Grande also known as “Little Miami,” (many high rises along the coast)  We stayed there for 4-5 hours on the beach and had a nice relaxing day.  The beach here isn't that beautiful, its a regular looking beach, but its nice to get away from the heat for a few hours and be able to get in the refreshing Caribbean to cool down a bit.

salsa dancing