Cartagena, Colombia 🇨🇴
It was so nice to sleep in a comfy, dry bed and have a warm shower this morning. Minca was lovely but because of the wet atmosphere all material felt damp after a few days and I feel like all my clothes need a wash. This morning we are up and out for our trip to the Rosario Islands, it is raining but we hope it clears for a beautiful beach day. We arrive at the port on time but the rain doesn’t seem to be easing. Eventually they tell us that all island trips are cancelled for safety reasons, as we can’t go tomorrow we get a refund but it’s a shame.
We go back to the hostel to shower off the sun cream and dry off before making plans for the day. I do need laundry doing so we go to the quirky beer & laundry place to deliver my damp clothes. The roads are all flooded with the rain so it is slow going in slidey plastic flip flops. The lady at the laundry is so helpful and gives us a few ideas for more interesting places to visit.
The gold museum is first on the list, it is a small version of the one in Bogotá but is nice and also free. It has a section about the Zenù tribe, who from 200BC created waterways in the area to control water onto crops and avoid flooding. Sometimes these channels were dug 4km long, really incredible to see a map of this time. They have lots of similar gold artefacts to those I have seen before but also clay women that were part of the burial process in the area.
We walked round the old town, doing a bit of window and souvenir shopping as we go and we manage to walk a fair chunk of the old walls. We peak into the centennial park looking for sloths but don’t spot any. The laundry is done by 2pm so we collect it and enjoy a Hawaiian pizza with a dash of hot sauce. I definitely need a nap today and enjoy a wee siesta before we head out for dinner.
We both go for fish this evening which is delicious and we then walk along to the Sofitel Santa Clara. This is a recommendation from the laundry lady, and we can wander around the converted convent, covertly under the guise of a bathroom visit. The bar here does a mean mojito and also has a interesting history. As part of the hotel construction they excavated the crypts and the writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez was inspired to write one of his famous novels “Of Love and Other Demons” after apparently visiting when workers were removing the remains. Here they found the body of a young girl with 10m long red hair and he references this in the book claiming that when the stone had been shattered by the pickaxe, ‘hair the intense colour of the copper spilled out of the crypt’…whatever the stories it is a decedent place to have a drink on our last night.
