Back to the Tropics 2 - Steamy Cartagena

Perhaps the most touristed city of Colombia, Cartagena reminded us of San Juan, Puerto Rico, with the old Spanish fortress walls, which protected against various enemies, defining the Old City. It also harkens to Panama City, with many new skyscrapers towering over old, one- and two-story neighborhoods. 

We stayed in an adjacent old neighborhood called Getsemani (this IS a very Catholic country), in a rather unique AirBnb:

This is just the bathroom!  How many places have a tree growing in the bathroom or a shower almost the size of old dorm rooms??

It was a very quirky place, designed and built by the father of young man who ran the place.  His father is part artist, part architect, and part incessant collector of junk.

Where does he find all this stuff??

View of a newer part of Cartagena from the roof our AirBnb

Although our lodging was “interesting” and in a great location for restaurants, and we made some new friends with a couple from Oxford who also stayed there, we suffered from a lack of air conditioning.  Cartagena was HOT, hot and very muggy, and although we had two fans blowing on us at night, sleep was fleeting.  The heat drained us so much that one day we nearly couldn’t get ourselves to move at all!

But we did have some fun.  We had an interesting bike tour of the old city - a bit hairy on narrow streets on which cars, bikes, and motorcycles competed for the little space to be had - which had us riding on the old fort walls.  Among the stops was an old performance hall next to a museum and bookstore where Gabriel Garcia Marquez studied and where his remains lie. 

The old performance hall on the right, the Gabriel Garcia Marquez  museum on the left (appropriately!)

We also had a fun cooking class during which we prepared ceviche, guacamole with tostones (fried bananas), coconut rice, passion fruit custard, a salad, and a delicious baked fish.  We started with a visit to the market - not a touristy place but the market where locals go to by fresh and prepared food. It was noisy, smelly, and authentic, reminding me of the market in Chicago where my grandfather went at 3am every morning to buy the fruits and vegetables he then delivered to restaurants around the city.

A funny story about the cooking class.  On our way to the market, our guide Neiber kept on telling us about the “three tomato” salad we were to make.  When we asked what the three types of tomato were, he looked sort of puzzled.  “No, no,” he said, “tree tomatoes” … “tomato de arbol!  Turned out it looks on the outside sort of like a persimmon, but not inside, and it igrows on trees.  Of course!

The Cartagena market

Wood-fired cooking made the market even hotter to walk through

Cutting and chopping for the ceviche and guacamole

After eating our creations!  Our guide, Neiber, on the far right, our chef-teacher next to him and the chef’s helper in the back.

As I said, Cartagena is a touristy place but also colorful and picturesque, with lots of street murals, street performances, and an interesting (though not air conditioned!) art museum.

Street scene in the Old City

Shaded street in Getsemani, the old neighborhood we stayed in

In the Cartagena Museo de Arte Modern, a triptych of the city by one of the country’s most famous artists, Enrique Grau

One evening we went to the old fortress wall to watch the sunset along with hundreds of locals and tourists. The photogenic scene was popular especially among young women, who posed for, what, pre-wedding photos? Fashion shots?  Family albums?

Our last adventure in Cartagena was a short trip to a small fishing village of Boquilla,  It’s a relatively poor hamlet on a beautiful stretch of beach north of the city.  As one could imaging, real estate investors would love to get their hands on this spot to build hotels and condos, but otherwise the big city mostly ignores it, leaving it wanting of decent roads, water, and other infrastructure.

The main attraction for us was dense and extensive mangroves that line the river’s mouth for quite a ways inland. Mangroves are a critical resources, supporting diverse animal and plant life and protecting shorelines from erosion from storms and rising seas.  A local elder poled us in a small wooden canoe through the mangrove labyrinth; when asked how he knew the route, he just said he’d been doing it all his life.  We saw lots of water and shore birds as well as a couple of raccoons, which seem to be treated like community pets.

Our boatman and mangrove guide

A wading Willet

Cute raccoon, eh?

Enjoying the cool shadows of a mangrove “tunnel”

We - or I should say “I” - got a chance to try the local’s traditional net fishing technique.  It was, well, a bit of a challenge…

Here’s how it’s supposed to look:

And here was my shot:

Nice form!

Lest you think I was a total failure, here was the catch of the day!

The big question was how I was going to get it stuffed and shipped back to the states