Cartagena and Santa Marta

The flight over was faster than I thought and after a small airline bottle of wine and a quick nap, I awoke in Cartagena. First thing I noticed as I looked out of the plane window was the military presence that lined both sides of the runway a scattered intervals. I hoped that was a good thing. After a quick check through immigration and a 10,000 pesos taxi ride to overtown Cartagena I arrived at the hostel Vic and I agreed on. As I was checking in, Victor walked through the door. It was great to see him in his rugged-Indiana Jones Latino- like presence. We headed over to a different hostel a few blocks away. After settling in to our four bed room with 2 other people, we hit the town and headed straight for a bar and caught up.

Cartagena is a beautiful city lined with colonial architecture and vividly colored walls and balconies. It looks soo much like parts of Habana only better maintained. The muralla that surrounds the city is an incredibly well built and impressive fortress. As I stared down from the wall sitting on a canon, I remembered ¨El Malecon¨ in Cuba. The rest of the day and night we spent taste testing every national brand of Colombian beer we ran into and exploring this beautiful city.

Our room mates included a 36 year old guy from California who is also a teacher and was on another one of his many travels. South America was the tail end of this trip. He started out in eastern Europe and trekked many countries along the way. The other room mate was a younger good looking woman from Spain who was travelling in Colombia alone. I have to admit that there is something romantically admirable about all those that travel the world in this way, but there is an additional respect for these women who do it alone. They are pretty ballsy and courageous to hop from city to city and country to country in almost complete uncertainty about where their paths may lead.

Santa Marta is the next stop for us in this trip. It is a beach town nestled in the northern coast. A five hour bus ride and a few stops later, we arrived. We walked for a while and found a place to stay that two europian backpackers recommended. Five bucks a night, two beds, our own fan and we each have a nail on the wall to hang our towels. You can´t beat that! It is a very basic arrangement with a shared bathroom that is sort of outdoors. It has a small restaurant/bar at the bottom where we hung out last night and met some more interesting people. One couple from montana who have driven through all of Central America and are driving down all the way to the end of South America in a car they bought for $400. There was a beautiful young British girl who is traveling alone and will go back to study anthropology in England. Later on we explored and drank some more beer and finished a bottle of Aguardiente. We found a little local club and hung out for a while where I actually danced for a while. It has been a long time since I shook my ass on the dance floor, strangely liberating.

Santa Marta has a long stretch of boardwalked beach beautifully decorated giant sized indigenous statues are placed along the way. It is lively and entertaing both in the day and night. Yesterday I dove into the ocean in my underwear and felt a little akward, especially when my underwear ended up somewhere below my knees. After I got out I didn´t feel too bad, because there was some guy who had decided to take an afternoon jog along the beach in his underwear. At least mine had a tropical theme and as long as the front didn´t open up, I could get away with fooling people into thinking it was a bathing suit.

Don´t know what´s next, but Vic and I decided a while back that we had to find the famous Hormiga Culona. It is a species of giant ants that are cooked and eaten in a certain part of Colombia. I´m not leaving this country without taking a bite out of that ass!

Juan Valdez continues to evade me. There was a siting of one of his garments in Cartagena, but other than that...nothing.