I finally made it over to South America! I was surprised how quick it was to get over to Cartagena-- just seven hours from Baltimore with a layover. I'm glad it felt short since I have to fly 17 hours in May to go to Africa. Just 10 more hours than Colombia, NBD. I had forgotten about meals being included with those short international flights so that was a pleasant surprise on the way over. This was also my first time flying with Delta and I'm glad it worked out since I plan on opening a credit card with them later this year. So I've been wanting to go to South America for awhile but didn't really have a preference which country to tackle first. Luckily my friend Allison asked me if I wanted to go during her spring break and the answer is always "yes" when anyone asks me if I wanna go anywhere. We decided on Cartagena because her friend had a good experience there recently and since it was Spring Break, we wanted it to be warm (and Cartagena was very hot and humid) Plus the old city looked gorgeous in photos. And we only had about 5 days so Bogota was out since i feel like you should probably stay in Bogota at least a week to do all of the day trips outside the city. We decided to thoroughly explore Cartagena, spending two days in the old city, two at a beach, and one in Bocagrande. In general, I was pleasantly surprised by how easy everything was. No one tried to rip us off on cab fare (we would do a little research to see how much we should be charged before catching cabs); no one made us feel uncomfortable or unsafe; and no one mugged us on the street or kidnap us. These things might sound silly, but these are things we were warned of that could happen by other people who had visited there recently and even our seatmate on the plane who was from Cartagena and had lived there for a large portion of her life. I will say, though, that Allison spoke Spanish really well, so things could have been a little different had that not been the case. English is definitely not as common in Cartagena as it is in many tourist cities. So here is a little recap of Cartagena: The Old City Probably the most visited spot in Cartagena is "the old city," also called "the walled city," as there is a gate to block it off from the rest of Cartagena and literally a wall all the way around where residents would shoot cannons at boats to protect the city from pirates. The walled city has vibrant colors, colonial architecture, monasteries, cascading flowers and plants and music at almost every corner.
We were lucky enough to find an amazing airbnb in the walled city with two bedrooms, three bathrooms, a hammock and a rooftop pool! What we found when researching places to stay was that there weren't a lot of hotel options in the walled city, none of which seemed to have two beds so that's why we went with an airbnb. We also had a small grocery store right next to our airbnb, which came in handy to pick up essentials like water and beer.
The main thing to do around the walled city is walk around and stare at all the beautiful buildings and hang out in various squares watching performers and musicians. There are museums to visit like a gold museum and history museum (many are free), but walking around was entertaining enough. The best part was watching the sunset sitting on top the wall. So many people had recommended making a reservation at Cafe Del Mar to watch the sunset, but I read drinks are expensive and then people just stand in front of you anyway when the sun is setting. But we grabbed some beers and plantains from the grocery store and sat on the wall and that was just perfect.
Food in the Old City So there is a lot of street food available on every corner, from fried corn meal (arepas) to fresh juices. Our first meal in Cartagena was at Santa Maria, and while they did have amazing ceviche and fish dishes, it literally took us three hours to get three plates of food and pay so I wouldn't necessarily recommend there unless you want to sit for several hours.
I kept hearing great things about Epoca for breakfast and coffee and was not disappointed! The restaurant has several different ways to make coffee and you can choose your own coffee making method. We chose the chemex way, which uses an infusion drip method and results in a richer cup of coffee. There was also a random guy playing violin while we were having breakfast so that was fun.
We also really loved the restaurant Crepes and Waffles. It's a chain, but our airbnb host highly recommended it and it was full of locals. You can choose from a whole menu of crepes and Waffles, sweet or savory and it has a nice atmosphere. We wanted to try having drinks at the rooftop bar Alquimico since that place is apparently a big deal, but the rooftop was closed when we tried to go, but I would recommend going there if you can.
Getsemani
Getsemani is a short walk over from the Walled City and is known for a lot of street art and vibrant homes. It felt like more locals were in Getsemani than in the Walled City. We happened to be there during a holiday weekend and locals were selling street food and having a little festival in the square. We felt perfectly safe walking around the streets by ourselves, even late at night.
We had dinner one night at Demente, which had a lot of yummy tapas and drinks. It’s a pretty chill atmosphere, but pretty touristy. It was interesting that I didn’t really notice any tourists walking around Getsemani, but only when we were at Demente and then when we went to Café Havana for music and salsa dancing. There were a bunch of thirsty Americans there trying to dance with us, but we weren’t feeling that. Café Havana is fun. It has a live band that performs every night I think and a Cuban vibe. I will say that I wouldn’t expect actual salsa dancing. Most people were kind of drunk dancing to the music, only a few couples were actually doing salsa.
Castillo San Felipe
You can get to Castillo San Felipe from anywhere in Cartagena, but it is within easy walking distance of Getsemani. Castillo San Felipe was a castle located up on a hill in Cartagena, so it has gorgeous views all around. It’s more of a fortress/ruins, but a lot of fun to explore. It does get hot, though. We were so happy to come back to our Airbnb private rooftop pool after we were finished there.
Islands
If you are going to Cartagena, you should definitely explore one of the islands. Most people say the Rosario Islands are most beautiful. But people often complain that Playa Blanca is very crowded and touristy. Allison and I decided to do two overnights at Blue Apple Beach House on the island of Tierra Bomba. While it offers day-passers access to its facilities, it only has 12 rooms for overnights, so once the day-trippers leave, overnight guests get the whole place to themselves. A boat picks guests up from the mainland of Cartagena and brings them over. If you are an overnight guest, you get chairs by the pool on reserve, or by the beach. They have snorkeling, kayaking, and paddle-boarding all included and really cheap massages. We did some kayaking and a friend of ours snorkeled. Buuuuut, the best part is the cute dogs that live there, especially Lissa. Its more of a relaxing atmosphere than a party one.
I will say this though—as I mentioned, in Cartagena, I did not have one incident of feeling uncomfortable, unsafe, ripped off. However, as we were sitting by the beach watching the sunset, I took off my very expensive sunglasses and placed them next to me on the hotel’s lounge chair, which has a cushioned pad. All of the sudden, mosquitos started coming out and biting us incessantly so we ran about 20 feet to the gate entrance of our hotel and walked up the steps to the pool. The employee was standing at the gate waiting for us to leave so that he could clean up the rest of the cushions. 10 minutes later after sitting at the pool, I realized I left my sunglasses on that mattress pad. I went back down, having to open the gate because the employee had closed it, and the mattress pad and my sunglasses were gone. A different worker came and used a flashlight to help us look around. The sunglasses were not there. The management on duty seemed to think I simply “misplaced” or “lost” my sunglasses, when I know I put them on the mattress pad and then the pad was gone. Management said they reviewed surveillance video which they promised to send me and still never did, which allegedly shows the employer going over to remove the pad on the chair as soon as we left but “did not see the employee stop to pick up anything else.” And the tapes “didn’t show anyone else around that area by the time [I] came back to look around for my sunglasses.” So yeah, you shouldn’t have to worry about employees stealing your things and management not backing you up so because of that, I would not recommend staying there.
Bocagrande
To end our extensive exploration of Cartagena, we spent our last night in Bocagrande. Bocagrande has all the high-rise hotels and because of that, is often described to be like “Miami.” Although I didn’t really get that vibe, it was nice to see another part of Cartagena. We stayed at the Cartagena Plaza Hotel. The people there were super nice and we had a cool rooftop pool to hang out at and watch the sunset, although the pool did close fairly early.
We had a really great lunch at Guatila, where we were the only customers and the prices were really great. Later after watching the sunset at our hotel and meeting up with our new friend from Tierra Bomba, we had dinner and drinks at Cilantro Cevicheria. So we brought beers to the beach and were drinking them on the pier but then the police came! Apparently people aren’t allowed to be on the beach when its dark since it can get dangerous. They searched our bags and I had a bag of big white lysine pills with me. We told them the pills were vitamins, but the pills did look pretty sketchy. Luckily the police were real chill and just told us to stay off the beach. So its good to known Colombian police aren’t sketchy (at least the ones we encountered).
Cost of the Trip
So I thought this was a pretty cheap trip overall. We weren’t actively trying to save as much money as possible, but we were being cautious of our budget.
Flight- We booked roundtrip airfare on Delta for $391.16 (baggage & meal included), which is less than a lot of domestic flights. We flew from BWI with a quick layover in Atlanta. Such a quick flight (6-7 hours) to go to another continent.
Accommodations- So I found a mistake Airbnb coupon that took $200 off any Airbnb rental, so we got our amazing Airbnb two-day rental for $28.48 per person. We had a 20% off coupon for our beach resort “splurge” accommodations at the Blue Apple Beach House and spent $140.75 each for two nights and breakfast included. Then we booked a final night in Bocagrande at the Cartagena Plaza Hotel through Orbitz (including a 15% off coupon) for $34.67. So total cost I spent for five nights in accommodations was $203.90. And our accommodations for all three places were really great! If you’re really trying to save, you could easily stay in hostels for probably less and $100 for five days
Everything Else (Food, Transportation, and Entertainment)- So adding up all cabs, food, alcohol, bottled water, admission to the castle, and cover for the salsa club ended up being around $ $294.99
So the total for the trip was about $890.05. Again, this is without us actively trying to do this on a budget. So point being, Cartagena is a really great place to go if you’re trying to save money and its not as expensive as a lot of people think to travel abroad. Simply having more people split the cost of a room or making most of your meals at an airbnb would probably put you at half as much as I spent.
Final Thoughts
If we had to recommend an itinerary to people wanting to go to Colombia, this is what we decided we would recommend: two nights in the walled city; one night at one of the islands; and then fly to Medellin for a couple nights since everyone kept saying how much they liked it there (and the flights were apparently pretty quick and cheap). As mentioned, Cartagena is really hot so having air-condition really makes a differenece
I definitely want to explore more of South America. It is probably important to be able to speak Spanish, though. I know for sure I will be going to Chile around end of 2019/2020 on my way to Antarctica but hopefully I will be able to go back before then.
I am currently planning my trip to South Africa in May so I might share some tips on planning that kind of trip!
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