Cartagena, Colombia

To everyone's delight we discovered in Medellin that domestic flights in Colombia are the same price as taking a bus! This meant that we could kiss goodbye to another long bus journey and fly to Cartagena. At 38 degrees and 90% humidity we were melting the instant we stepped off the plane. It was by far the most uncomfortable heat we have experienced on the whole trip. It's certainly a heat that hinders productivity! Every time we made an enthusiastic attempt to explore the city, we would require a refreshing beer break after about half an hour. On numerous occasions we had to pop back to the hostel for a cold shower. We were all averaging about 5 a day!

Cartagena is a beautiful city packed full of history and colour. The walled colonial old town is absolutely stunning with most of the buildings dating back to the 1500's. Famed for once being home to the pirates of the Caribbean, Cartagena's history is packed full of invasions and stolen treasure. Sir Francis Drake and his fleet even conquered it at one stage as part of the traditional British murdering and plundering. So you can understand why the Spanish spent so much money on fortifying everything! By day we slowly dragged our melting bodies around the walled city, investigating the many tiny cobbled streets and interesting squares.

Our hostel was located outside the walled city in 'Getsemani'...the red light district! This made for some interesting walks home at night. Naturally the prostitutes took great interest in us attractive gringos. Getsemani was actually a really cool place with loads of late night bars. The nightlife was fantastic with a mix of South American and Caribbean music blaring out from every direction. There were also some really nice chill out bars, 'Cafe del Mar' and 'Cafe Del Cerveza', located on top of the City Wall. They both had a real Ibiza feel about them.

The food has been fantastic in Colombia so far and Cartagena was more of the same , the only difference being the typically relaxed Caribbean service. In one cafe we had to wait 40 minutes before we even got our drinks. Joe has since got in the habit of ordering two beers at once.

On one of the days, Colombia were playing a world cup qualifier against Argentina. The place went mental! Every person in Cartagena was wearing the yellow Colombian national kit and there were horns going off all over the place (and that was about 6 hours before kick off!) People literally watched the game wherever there was enough space to see a screen. We walked past a corner shop and there were about 20 people squashed in, watching a tiny 1980's TV set. We headed into the old town to soak up the atmosphere. We found a place with aircon and enjoyed watching the passionate sparks fly. The women were crazier than the men and it's fair to say that the Colombians don't think much of the Argie's.

Cartagena does have its fair share of dodgy areas though. We walked to get a close up of the 'San Felipe de Barajas Castle' and ventured through some pretty gritty places. Not far from the castle we saw a junky passed out on the floor with a needle in his arm. Shortly after that Joe was offered a bag of crack by a delightful toothless gentlemen (he naturally bought it of course Mum). In fact, the area was so dodgy that we managed to convince Nicola that a guy floating in the river was a dead body. Absolutely horrified, she wanted to inform the Policia. She calmed down when he finally moved and swam off!

On our last day we headed to 'Boca Grande', the main beach in Cartegena. The best way to sum it up would be a very poor mans Copacabana. We had been told before hand that the beach in Cartegena wasn't the best, so we got what we expected. You couldn't get more than 10 seconds of peace before a tout would try selling you something (not exactly relaxing). The stuff they were selling was so bad, they would've had more luck selling me a bag of sand! Joe is currently searching for a t-shirt that says 'NO GRACIAS!!' on it. We have since moved up the coast to Santa Marta in search of some of South America's most beautiful beaches.

Harry & Nicola

Copa Del Sh*thead Scoreboard: NH 141 - 156 HF