Sometimes it`s fun to be spontaneous and not plan and prepare too much in advance, but sometimes you pay for the lack of advance prep.
I woke up really early in the morning and headed to the bus termial. When I went to buy my bus ticket to Cartagena I only found 2 companies that went there and they didn`t have buses till the evening. I was surprised at the lack of options since my current and upcoming cities are both popular. So, there I was at the terminal at about 6am with heavy bags, wondering why I didn`t check the schedule first.
A moment sitting in pensive solitude on a bench can be a good thing, though. I spotted a banner for another company which had smaller buses that advertised a service to Cartagena. It turned out that Cartagena wasn`t on the company`s agenda today, but they did go as far as Montería, and I had less than 20 minutes to wait for the departure, so I leapt at the opportunity.
One of the passengers had a tray of cake slices in silver wrappers and kept trying to sell them to everyone on our small bus and anyone he could find when the bus stopped for breaks. "Try it, if you don`t like it, no problem." "And they won`t make you fat!"
When I arrived in the absolutely hot and humid Montería I searched for another bus to Cartagena, and found another small bus, but this one was a contendor for smelliest bus with worst air flow.
On the bus I chatted with a few of the passengers. One of them, Manuel from Cali but who now lives closer to Cartagena, was friendly, and like many Colombians, gave me his contact info in case I should need help. At one point I saw him chuckling to himself quietly. He confessed that he`d been looking at my feet and noticed that they were actually clean! I must have taken a shower that very same day! Apparently he`s seen far too many foreign hippies traveling Colombia.
I was definitely happy to get to Cartagena the same day, though it was dark by the time I arrived.
I saw something on TV about Colombian cyclist Nairo Quintana on a tour somewhere. Just the other day on our coffee tour we were driving on the same roads with huge hills in which he trained on. If you saw the hills, you`d understand why he`s a champ. It was cool too as we saw young boys and teenagers training on the same roads.
My hostel in Cartagena has an open roof top space with an open air kitchen. It`s nice to have air flowing all around you as you cook eggs in the morning. You also pay the price though, as you share the space with tiny ants and the occasional cockroach.
Kitchen soap looks like this here:
Cartagena by the sea is famous for its colonial charm. Being a significant port town, it suffered from a multitude of sieges. The Spanish eventually put up walls around the city which greatly helped preserve the contents of the city we see today.
It`s hot and very humid here. If hostels have air-con, they usually only have it on at night for a set period of time. That means there`s little escape from the humidity most of the day.
I like this place. I feel like every time I go to a new place in Colombia I try to find the nearest Juan Valdez coffee shop. Starting up my coffee addiction once again...
Even men have beauty standards which society presses upon them. I really can`t imagine wearing this garment in this kind of weather where you`d still feel hot in a bikini.
Another place where I could spend too much time and money at is Crepes and Waffles. I looked around me and everybody was eating soup, salad, or a sandwich, but all I had in front of me was a strawberry crepe.
Plaza de los Coches was a former slave market.
Everything here only 5 million!
This guy invited me to join their dance for a song :)
I love how happy this woman is singing.
The guy in the back is selling random products out of the back of his vehicle.
There`s a mom and 2 kittens living on the roof of my hostel. The kittens are really shy and the mom is a pest to anyone cooking meat in the kitchen. Some guests literally throw her away, but she just bounces back the first few times.
I`ve been spending a long time here by backpacker standards. This is partly because it`s nice to be lazy and get some rest, but the main reason is that I`m trying to arrange a trip to Venezuela with my friend who lives there, but communication is a bit challenging.
I`ve been having lots of girl chats with a few other solo female travelers here who are also staying put for a time. It`s been nice as I miss meeting my friends regularly as I did in VanCity.
Stylin` bus decor, on my way to the Playa Blanca.
I took a bus and shared a car to get there. It`s more time-consuming and less comfortable than a tour, but more "adventure" style. Two women I shared the car with were going to the beach to work giving massages were being friendly, but when we arrived and I declined a massage the friendliness disappeared as did they. The beach is famous for being beautiful, a bit of trouble to get to, and for having annoying, pushy vendors.
For my trip back to the city I heard a guy asking me if I was looking for a `caballo`which means horse. My brain was telling me that it wasn`t literal, but it took me a minute to realize that he was referring to a motorcycle. I hopped on the back and felt the breeze whip through my hair on the way back to the nearest city where I then caught a bus back to Cartagena.
Making plans to get to Venezuela has been stressful, but I`ve finally bought my bus ticket to Caracas.
