Cartagena, Colombia 🇨🇴

The weather is back to hot and sunny today as we head off on our last day in Cartagena. We follow the walls along to Getsemani and then over the bridge to the district of Manga. Another tip from the laundry lady, and it feels less touristy. There are a couple of colonial buildings and a large marina that looks across to the high rises of Bocagrande. Fuerte Pastelillo is a small fort sat on the edge of what would have been a key canal and perhaps a critical defence post.  

It was a lovely area to walk around but it’s hot and our search for a iced coffee led us back to the main tourist area of old town. We found a trendy bar that did a jar of iced coffee and chocolate that was deliciously refreshing. Our walking took us through the town and back up to the convent, so we could go down into that famous crypt. We then headed back towards the hostel, stopping for lunch at La Mulatas, where Polly had had a meal on the first night. The shrimp and rice was excellent and a great final meal before we said goodbye to our friendly hostel team and piled our luggage into a taxi again.

My flight to Bogotá is with Avianca and as they have a pilot’s strike on at the moment I was pleased to see my flight wasn’t one of the cancelled ones, I had also been upgraded to business which is a pleasant surprise. Polly left at 5pm for Amsterdam and I finally strolled through security about 7pm. My flight was then delayed a couple of hours so I finally landed past midnight into Bogotá. My deluxe hotel has failed to arrange a shuttle so I am forced to get a taxi in the rain. I am pretty miserable by the time I check in and finally get to bed.