Cartagena

When we arrived to Cartagena, stepping out of the plane was like entering a sauna, especially coming from Bogotá, also called the fridge of Colombia. It is super humid here, so all your clothes instantly stick to your body. After getting to our hostel, we went to look something for dinner. We found a little restaurant with a lot of locals, and had fried fish with cooking bananas. After dinner we walked around the old town, on the city walls and in the more artsy quarter, Getsemaní.

The city is full of colonial buildings and churches, it looks cleaner than Bogotá, there are many more tourists and also some fancy shops. It definitely looks richer than Bogotá, and we had no concerns walking around at night. Next to the main square old buses transformed to party buses were waiting for tourists to take them for a sightseeing tour.
On the next day we did a free walking tour to learn about the history of Cartagena and the Getsemaní quarter, where local residents put chairs and tables on the street or in the entrance of their home and offer drinks. A highlight of the tour was a park where we saw sloths, iguanas and monkeys.
Then we visited the San Felipe de Barajas Fort, an impressive fortress from the middle ages with a crazy tunnel system and nice views on the city.

After that, we wanted to go to the beach, but it started raining, so chilled at the hostel and went to the city walls to drink a beer once the rain stopped.Read more