Cartagena

Our arrival in Cartagena was delayed by a little traffic problem, the normal route through the narrow oneway streets was closed due to construction. And getting back around was challenging. Pat ended up using Google Maps to direct the driver and we finally arrived at the Casa Cochera del Gobernador, a small boutique hotel in the center of the walled city.

In colonial times the buildings were designed to house carriages and horses on first floor, thus the large doors of our hotel. Now opening the left side doors leads you through an iron gate to the lobby and the white door opens to reveal the bar.

After settling into our room we took a quick tour of the immediate area, the Santo Domingo neighborhood, an area with lovely shops and homes, some reminiscent of New Orleans.

We returned to our hotel to meet with Paola, who had arranged our touring here in Caribbean Colombia. She recommended Demente Restaurant in Getsemani when we mentioned that we would like to have tapas. She even walked us over to the restaurant giving us a brief tour along the way. We shared Aji Dulce Frito (fried sweet chillies & flower salt), Criollas Bravas (roast potato with a tomato / pimiento sauce), and Albondigas Caseras (meatballs in tomato sauce). For wine, we chose Montes Twins (Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah, Carmenére and Tempranillo). All very tasty and Bill thought the Abondingas were among the best he has had.

The next morning we toured through and around the walled city with Roberto exploring each of the 3 main districts, starting in our neighborhood, Santo Domingo (Centro / upper class), continuing on to Getsemaní (originally home to slaves but today it’s the happening place) and then on to the more subdued San Diego (home to the professionals and the university). 

Around Centro are a number of landmark buildings. We started with Templo San Pedro Claver. The church and monastery of San Pedro Claver, were built in the early 17th century by the Jesuit community. The name is a tribute to San Pedro Claver, a missionary who lived and died in the massive monastery next to the church and fought for the rights of the slaves. He was called the “The Black Man’s Apostle.” The lovely cupola (in lower photo below) was built by a French architect. 

La India Catalina was a native from the Atlantic Coast noted for helping the Spanish by translating native languages. There is a monument to her just outside the walls, beyond Getsemani, nearer the mainland. The photo below shows a replica located by the theater where an International Film Festival awards “Indias” in place of the Oscar statue. 

We continued on exploring the narrow streets appreciating the many balconies, some decorated with potted plants and flowering vines, mostly bougainvillea

Many doors are decorated with creative knockers.

The floor of the Santa Domingo church, the oldest church in Cartagena, is paved with plaques in memory of loved ones buried in the church or nearby. We aren’t experts in Catholic art but the colonial Virgin Maria caught our eye because it seemed more colorful than others we have seen.

Palenqueras, criollo women from Palenque, dress in bright colors and carry large fruit bowls balanced on their heads. They provide a colorful addition to the streets and make a little money by posing with tourists.

We moved on to Parque Bi-centenario as as we headed to Getsemani. The park commemorates Colombian independence. The 11 member council voted on their Declaration of Independence at 11 am on November 11, 1811 (so they say). For us, the highlight of the park is the animals all free to come and go. We were amazed that we saw more exotic wildlife in this city park than on our many countryside tours. We were delighted to see a sloth in a kapok tree, part of the sloth family that lives in the park.  FYI, a kapok tree produces pods of silk cotton, hair-like fibers that make a fine stuffing for furniture. We had seen smaller one when visiting the indigenous villages but mistakenly thought they were variety of overgrown cotton plants.

If you look closely you can see the sloth's white forehead and back nose.

There are also monkeys, iguanas and parrots.

We also noticed a tree with fruit that made us think of the local giant avocados. It is a Totumo tree. The inside of the fruit was used for medicinal purposes (not eaten), the hard shell is used to make bowls and utensils.

From there we went into the heart of Getsamani where we visited local highlights including several street vendors where we sampled fruits, empanadas, fruit drinks, and ice cream.

We started with at “Fruity Salad” where we had a mixed fruit cup with mango, papaya, strawberries, banana and melon with condensed milk. Refreshing and tasty.

Historically Getsemani was home to slaves and the lower class of Cartagena. Now it is the artistic heart of Cartagena and home to shops, restaurants and hotels. The most striking (and public) of the artworks are the bright Getsemani Graffiti murals, showcasing culturally significant images.

We moved on to the empanada vendor. He rattled off the list. Ham. Chorizo. Ham with chorizo. Ham with cheese. Ham with cheese and pineapple. Potato and egg (a whole boiled egg inside). Chicken with egg. Beef. ... And Guava which made for a fine dessert following our Potato & egg empanada.  Most of the fillings of the empanadas come from vendors in nearby Plaza Trinidad.

Next up, a fruit drink. We chose a combination of lulo (that orange looking fruit, with the green center) and grenadilla fruit (similar to passionfruit but sweeter). 

Exploring the neighborhood further, we first came to Calle Ancha (wide street...which was not all that “wide”) and then Calle Angosta (narrow street...which really was narrow, just wide enough to have a colorful series 3 umbrellas providing shade for the pedestrians below.  

We returned back inside the walls to checkout San Diego. The main  plaza features a statue of a famous musician, Adolfo Meija sitting in front of a former church, now a music school.

From there we headed to Las Bóvedas embedded in the northern section of the wall. Formerly a prison, Las Bóvedas now houses shops selling all kinds of Columbian crafts and souvenirs.

We walked back along a section of the wall and watched the fishermen in their sailing canoes.

Our final stop was at the renowned Gelateria Paradiso.

We returned to the hotel and pondered lunch options. We discovered the promising Nueva Enoteca where we found a good selection of Italian wine and cuisine. We chose pizza topped with mushrooms and gorgonzola. Excellent. The perfect blend of cheeses and mushrooms on a crusty base. A bottle of Il Pumo Negroamaro completed the repast We deemed Nueva Enoteca worthy of a return trip.    

The restaurant was cooled by some impressive fans that look more like a character from Star Wars. 

We wandered around Centro for the remainder of the day evaluating our shopping and dining options. Many of the shops focus on swimwear or flamboyant clothes, some of which are fine beach cover-ups and many which were gorgeous but we couldn’t think of when or where they would be the perfect garment.

One of the favorite pastimes in Cartagena is watching the sun go down. So we were off to join a lot of people on the wall, many of them at Cafe Del Mar. 

The weather was quite comfortable compared to middle of the day, the lighting was  nice, with the red orange sun over the water highlighting both modern and colonial Cartagena.

That evening, not being very hungry, we searched out another tapas place. Restaurant 923 Tapas y Vinos serves tapas with a Colombian twist. We enjoyed the the Chef's special Jamon Serrano with parmigiano & tomato; the Chorizo a la Criolla, sliced chorizo cooked in a special hogao sauce (tomato /onion sauce with capers, olives and cilantro); and Aguacate Asado (an avocado quarter marinated with salt & paprika and refrigerated for 1 day, then brushed with olive oil and roasted, served with a peanut & onion sauce). All were excellent but the roasted avocado was wonderful and quite unique. Well worth trying to recreate. The wine was San Jose de Apalta Assemblage Reserva, a blend of Cabernet, Merlot & Syrah from Rapel Valley in Chile.  

The next morning we shopped a bit, trying to be systematic so we would know where to pick up on our next shopping expedition. We noted some interesting crafts but didn’t buy much. For lunch we stopped at Zaitun, an excellent and friendly Lebanese restaurant. We had excellent stuffed grape leaves and an unbelievably tasty quinoa salad with eggplant, smoked peppers, green and yellow tomatoes, raisins, and almonds accompanied by a bottle of Escondida Shiraz from Argentina. All went very well together. Another spot worthy of a return visit.

In the afternoon we met with Roberto to visit the island fortress at Boca Chica, the smaller harbor entrance. (The larger entrance is Boca Grande, ie large mouth vs small mouth). It was a surprisingly lengthy boat ride in the bay, and a great activity for a warm day.  Along the way we noted a bunch of pelicans on a pier and a Carmen statue  (Carmen is the patron Saint of drivers and of the sea. We noted that she is particularly honored in Colombia. One driver would toot a salute to each Carmen we passed along the way...and there were a lot.) 

Castillo San Fernando de Boca Chica Fortress, constructed out of coral, controlled the entrance to the Cartagena Bay through Boca Chica. The fort successfully defended the bay several times, the most famous being, a raid by the French in 1697 and an attack by the British in 1741. Today it sits idly by as the traffic, including cargo ships, tourist boats to and from Islas del Rosario, and the occasional submarine pass by. One of the most intriguing aspects of the fortress was the ship detector. It is a small pit inside the fortress that is open to the sea. Water activity in the pit shows the wake of passing ships. Actually it was pretty quiet while we were there, but there were passing ships. Maybe that connection to the sea has become clogged over time?

We returned to our hotel and after a short break headed back to Nuevo Enoteca for pasta, Pat tried the Spinach Ravioli and Bill had the Amartriciana. Both were good but not as good as the pizza we had enjoyed there previously The wine selection was a Nero de Trioa, a new grape for us, from Puglia Italy. Back at the hotel we decided a nightcap was in order.  Pat had a pisco sour and Bill had the local aguardiente (anise flavored) liqueur.

Next morning we continued our exploration of the shops but found that our systematic approach earlier wasn’t all that helpful, so we relaxed and wandered. We ended up at Las Bovedas along the wall in the San Diego district. There we found a few gifts. Along the way we enjoyed the colorful flower decked houses of San Diego. 

For lunch we stopped at El Burlador Gastrobar for more tapas. At El Burlador the breadsticks are in the color of the Colombian flag (red is paprika, black is squid ink, and yellow is Parmesan cheese) and came with two sauces, one garlic cream with olive oil and the other tomato and garlic with olive oil. For our main course, it was hard to decide so we took the easy way out, we selected the combination, Surtida de Tapas, with 2 meats, 3 cheeses, Tortilla Española and Huevos Rotos (“broken” soft fried egg served over rice) and a nice bottle of Arienzo from Rioja.  Quite good. We talked briefly to a Brazilian couple who may visit Mexico and San Miguel next year.

 We returned to the hotel for a rest and to make progress on the blog.

For dinner we returned to Demente where we had the  Aji dulce frito (fried sweet peppers) as a starter followed by an artichoke pizza with pesto sauce. The wine was a Pinot Noir from Chile. The artichoke / pesto combination was OK but not as great as we’d hoped.  We followed this light dinner with a killer toasted coconut pie topped with vanilla ice cream. 

Next day, our last day in Cartagena, started with more shopping. We found the last few gifts we needed and even bought a teal colored panama hat for Pat. We returned to Zaitun for lunch. The “Almonds and Eggplant Beef” (sautéed cubes of beef loin on a bed of roasted eggplant) was excellent, as was the Charcoal Roasted Kibbeh (beef & wheat croquettes) with hummus, tabbouleh, and labneh (a creamy dip with cucumber). These were washed down with a bottle of French Merlot. And in honor of our repeat visit or it’s being our last day in Cartagena, Claudia treated us to a special soup "Mote con Queso", a traditional Colombian soup from the Atlantic coast. It is a creamy soup with potato, cheese and onion. We are not soup lovers, but it was very tasty. And to top it all off, baklava of course.

After lunch we walked around the walls starting from near our hotel over through San Diego to Getsemani. They say that there is about 7 km, 4+ miles, of wall surrounding the city. We question that as we were able to walk all the wall we could find and it seemed more like a couple miles. The walls are made out of coral stones and appear to be as much as 8-10 feet thick. We started with views of Caribbean and continued to the Castillo de San Felipe de Barajas and then the Bay views from Getsemani.

The walk back through Getsemani led us through the Clock Tower Monument and into Santo Domingo. We stopped at the Sofia Hotel (under same management as ours) to visit the rooftop bar where we enjoyed a bottle of Mixtus Chardonnay and Chenin Blanc accompanied with some nibbles. We also enjoyed the view of the Templo San Pedro Claver.

What we didn’t do...

• Chiva bus tour. The "night-life" 4 hour party tour on a colorful wooden Chiva bus complete with “pulsing live music”. These commercial tours are popular with the young crowd.
• Horse carriage ride. This is very traditional and romantic. And it is in a town where there is little traffic, ie little exhaust smoke to inhale. It would have been a great arrival night activity, but by the time we were seriously considering it we had walked the whole city several times and it somehow lost it’s appeal.

Chiva Bus...glowing from the pulsing music???

As you well realize, we love visiting new countries. We enjoy the expected and the unexpected. Our biggest surprise in Colombia was the climate, much more comfortable with less heat and humidity. Until we reached the Caribbean, we were in places with sufficient altitude to be comfortable (even a bit too cool), despite being so near the equator. In the Caribbean area, we had wonderfully cool winds. We understand that Caribbean Colombia can get overly hot and humid during the summer rains though, so timing is everything.

Another thing about Colombia is that they are less familiar with English speaking visitors. While there is sufficient English for travelers to get by, we were delighted that the locals also appreciated our Spanish speaking "skills". In other words they found it easier to be patient with us as we worked out our Spanish sentences, than to work through English themselves. And we enjoyed speaking more Spanish.

We enjoyed all our stops, and would recommend any and all to first time visitors. But for a return visit, we would consider Cartagena, Medellin, and Barichara. And we were told that it is well worth checking out the south and the east. 

The trip home was rather mundane, fortunately. We had a morning flight to Bogota and later that afternoon to MEX (we were 40 minutes early arriving!). We stayed overnight at the airport and went to La Mansion for dinner. We had Queso Asado (melted cheese with chorizo) and two salads, caesar for Pat and a mixed lettuce (arugula, radicchio, …) for Bill. And of course a bottle of wine. Our bus trip back to SMA set a new speed record for us. It was a quiet Sunday. First we observed how much more asphalt we were seeing ahead of us (rather than a mass of cars). Second there was only one slow down and it was brief.