Cartagena is a beautiful example of Spanish colonial architecture, along the lines of Antigua, Guatemala and Granada, Nicaragua. Streets are narrow so they are mostly one way for cars, yet people usually fill them as they casually stroll in the pleasant shade. This is Latin America, so no one is in a hurry and everyone greets their friends with an enthusiastic hug and kiss on the street.
In particular, I'm a big fan of the wall surrounding the old city. It still blows my mind that something as simple as a wall could protect a city, its resources, and inhabitants. Called Las Murallas, construction lasted from the 15th to 18th centuries. According to my Lonely Planet, building was stalled along the way due to pirate attacks(!) and storms. The wall is in remarkably good shape today and is popular with tourists and locals alike. You can walk along the broad wall, which is probably 15 feet tall and varies in width (in many spots it's significantly wider than the streets!). The wall itself is rough and jagged with sharp pieces poking out. There's a bar located on the wall but I would bet that doesn't date back past the 20th century! There are numerous cannons and little lookouts along the way, both of which are popular with young couples (I wish someone had warned me sooner!). It's become my routine to head to the wall every evening and catch sunset.
Cartagena seems to love statues. There are statues to the usual suspects like Christopher Columbus, Simon Bolivar, and Pedro de Heredia (the city's founder) and enormous, rustic looking statues depicting moments from everyday life along side modern sculptures by Greek artist Sophia Vari.
Thanks to its location on the Caribbean coast, Cartagena has its fair share of sandy beaches. Happily, they are quite clean and the water is just cool enough to bring relief from the sun but still warm enough that you can splish splash the afternoon away. Touts walk the beach, selling unnecessarily floppy hats, sunglasses, flip flops, inflatable beach toys, sarongs, T shirts, seafood, sweets, and every beverage known to man. Women offer massages and braiding and will even rinse your feet with fresh water for a nominal fee. One man had a little boom box and would stop in front of people's chairs to freestyle rap! It was way too fast for me to understand, but it was impressive nonetheless and it made the locals crack up.
As backpackers, Mini Bear and I consider it our duty to travel on the cheap as much as possible. This means staying in hostels (best way to meet people on the road), taking 18 hour bus rides instead of flying (who wants to deal with airlines anyway?), and preparing our own food (good thing we like sandwiches). The local grocery store chain is called Exito (Success). It is a sprawling mega store stocking all of your grocery and pharmaceutical needs in addition to clothes, small electronics, home appliances, and I'm not even sure what else because I haven't ventured upstairs yet! They have clearly been inspired by Starbucks as there are two Exitos just around the corner from each other. I translated the name for another traveler, which got me thinking about how many grocery stores have unobvious names. Safeway still sounds like somewhere you should get your oil changed and Loblaws seems like a clue in the Sunday word jumble. Exito is no better. I like to imagine someone complaining about Exito:
"Man, I hate success. I will go out of my way to avoid success at all costs. Success has never brought anything positive to my life. Success is so overrated."
It's just as well the store is only two blocks from the hostel otherwise I'd have continued to crack myself up with these jokes. Mini Bear's sense of humor apparently depends less on word play than mine does.
This tomato came from Exito. It seems to have a nose. This is the kind of standards they have at Exito apparently.
For those of you keeping track at home, Colombia is country number 63.
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