Stressful Cartagena

If you want a hip and different destination for your next vacation take a look at Cartagena. It’s a major port city on the Caribbean coast in the north of Colombia packed with history and hipsters and boutique hotels and hipsters and all sorts of restaurants. Including pet friendly street side fish restaurants.

This little place, Sierpe, was recommended by our Canadian overlanding friends who preceded us across the Darien Gap in their Land Rover. 

Right now the city sucks wind as a major water break deep underground in crumbly soil has shut down water to most of the city. Sounds like a joke, right? Not a bit of it!

They think they’ve fixed the last problem and they say water service should be restored everywhere quite soon. Our apartment was affected by this drama but when Layne called the owner she said casually”Oh there’s no water in the city at the moment….” Without ever thinking to warn us. You can imagine how great that felt with our clothes sipping with sweat and the water shelves in the supermarket close to empty…

If you do decide to fly to Cartagena for a vacation you might want to leave your expectations at home! It’s a busy city with a zillion motorbikes and wild traffic. Uber is cheap and you can even get pet friendly Ubers here. The poor ride moto- taxis which frighten the shit out of me: 

There are so many motorcycles beggars pick up a few coins from polishing motorcycles stopped at lights. Me, in my air conditioned Uber…wondering what the empty future holds for this street kid. Travel makes me squirm some days. 

I had an accident in our rental car and only because I was stupid; I backed out of an awkward corner without asking Layne to spot for me. It was my fault looking for pedestrians and missing the big white car behind me! 

I gave the other guy $25 for his ding and he was delighted and after that I was on the hunt for an auto body shop. We extended the rental policy for a day after Omar said he could fix it the same day for $78. Try doing that in the States! We just wanted to avoid the bureaucracy of reporting the problem and our total cost was likely less than the deductible. 

Sure enough Omar had it done and I gave him an unsolicited $12:50 for his trouble and he lit up…then I drove it to the airport to return it. All done from 8:30am till 4pm, no appointment and big smiles all round. Try that at home, I couldn’t get into a grumpy Stock Island body shop for an estimate sooner than a month.

Dealing with all this crap, going to get GANNET2 out of the container first; then timing my appearances at the port, at Customs, at the body shop, at the car rental company and…Then moving apartments temporarily to the upscale Getsemaní neighborhood that has water, all of it made for a long day and many Uber rides. 

Hugh and Sue recommended Sierpe to Layne and like them we enjoyed the crab dip and Layne the retired teacher enjoyed helping the waiter to expand his meager grasp of English. The language of travelers is not very spoken in Colombia so some Spanish is helpful. Shrimp croquettes, equally good:

We walked home through massive weeknight crowds and Rusty to his credit did great navigating the legs and the murderous cars themselves navigating streets with no patience for pedestrians. 

Wednesday is GANNET2  day after our shipping agent screwed up my insurance and made it valid for a day late start date. One more failure to pay attention to details in her part. Oh well. One of the French guys just lost his passport so neither of the cars in the other container can leave the port until he gets a replacement. 

Time for a photo dump I suppose.  First the Castillo de San Felipe, similar in all respects to the forts in San Juan and Saint Augustine: 

It stank as bad as it looked and the dogs of course make me wish I could take them all home. 

Fashionable Getsemaní by night. 

Buying artwork for GANNET2 from Jason: 

Too crowded for me:

Morning: 

Coffee in Colombia is sold on the streets from thermos flasks, black and very sweet in small plastic cups. 

Old and new: