Cartagena de Indias - the beauty, the walled city, the colonial heart of Colombia. The streets are lined with flowers trailing down from wooden balconies. The facades painted in bright colours. And the famous palenqueras, the fruit sellers in richly yellow, red or orange dresses, are the icing on the cake of this picture-book Colombia.
Cartagena is also, though: street vendors selling water, street vendors selling lemonade, street vendors selling hats, sunglasses, bracelets, bags, jewellery, street vendors selling fruit, street vendors selling cigars and tours - and when you simply do not want to buy any of it, the last attempt is to push marijuana on you. And I am sure that if you showed interest, other drugs as well.
Cartagena is 90 per cent humidity. That thin film of sweat you wear on your skin day and night.
And it is also bitter poverty that you cannot overlook, even if the streets of the old town are free of cars and rubbish and make you believe that Cartagena is simply Colombia’s most beautiful city.
You can hear it: I am torn. No, honestly: I do not like Cartagena. It is too touristy for me, too inauthentic, and attracts far too much of the irritating stuff that crowds of tourists inevitably bring with them.
Highly motivated, we visited the old fortress of San Felipe de Barajas. But the number 1 activity on TripAdvisor turned out in the end to be a fortress like any other fortification. In Carcassonne the old castle is definitely a must. In Cartagena, though, it is not!
We toured the walled old town on a free walking tour. But here too what stayed with us above all was the feeling of having seen it all before in one form or another.
Looking at the pictures, you can probably barely understand why we do not like the city.
We had actually planned to make a trip or two to the islands off Cartagena. Stunning Caribbean beaches, promise blog reports and tour operators. Mass tourism Colombian style, snorkelling in a dead coral reef, only breathing is still free, dreadful, Playa Basura (rubbish beach), curse the reviews on TripAdvisor. We did not feel inspired to go and see for ourselves…
We would have liked to leave again straight away. But our flight to Medellín inland would not go for another two days…
Is our aversion to Cartagena really down to the city itself? We do not seem to be doing everything we could to convince ourselves of the opposite. Have we reached a point where we have had our fill of travelling? Where everything simply repeats itself? A point where every beach is just sand and water? Every city a sign of civilisation? Every jungle a collection of trees? Every sunrise and sunset looks the same?
Tired of always being a gringo? Or an amigo? Do we really look like people who would buy fake emeralds? Need a second pair of sunglasses? Take drugs? Want to go out to eat somewhere twenty times a day?
We spent the remaining time planning the rest of our journey, either in our (for once) air-conditioned hostel room or in one of the city’s cafés. A little further in advance than we usually do.
The good thing is: the travel lethargy seems to have been only a temporary state. We are looking forward to everything to come and are optimistic that some really cool things are among them! We will be changing continents once more, among other things. ✈️ No more will be revealed yet!
Medellín - we are coming with a packed to-do list! And we are looking forward to the first hot shower in two weeks!
