Cartagena is said to be one of hottest, oldest and most beautiful of all South American city’s… In all three cases it did not let us down!
It has what’s called ‘The Old Town’ which is a town built within fortress walls which were used to protect it from any invasions from Spanish, Caribbean Pirates and pretty much all other forces wanting to take control of the port town.
Its a picture perfect town with safe streets, fancy restaurants and an abundance of tourists. As magnificent as the Old Town is the heat is pretty impressive and at 98% humidity A/C in your rooms is a must if you want a good nights sleep.
We were initially planning on staying in Cartagena for a couple of nights before jumping onto a sail boat headed for Panama, but found out that the boats don’t go everyday and we probably should have booked it a little way in advance as the next boat we could get on was leaving in 6 days – doh, that’s a long time to stay in one place without a beach!!
Luckily after doing a quick bit of due diligence, found there was a beach about 1 hour bus trip away called Playa Blanca where the locals (and a few tourists) take some time out of the hot city. We heard there was some basic accommodation sleeping in hammock’s along the beach and a few restaurants to eat at so we drew some money and decided to head there for a couple of days biding our time till our sail boat left.
Unlike some of the other beaches we found so far, Playa Blanca had white sand beaches lined with palm trees and the most 
turquoise waters I’d seen in years. Picture Perfect beach before 10am when all the locals boats arrived. Unfortunately we didn’t realize that it was a public holiday long weekend when we arrived on Thursday evening which meant that we were woken up at 5:30am but what sounded like an entire school of kids playing in the waters.
It was too nice to stay only one night so we made sure we had just enough cash (no cash machines anywhere near) and ended up staying 3 full sunfilled days. There was no surf so I ended up having a good relax for what felt like the first time on our travels!!
The only issue we had other than Mozzies in the hammock at night where the local hawkers who insisted on giving us a terrible 5 minute massage and then demanding $50 US dollars each…
After much 
arguing in Spanish they took $50 for both of us and never came back for the rest of our time at the beach. Unfortunately we didn’t budget for that and ended up having a very cheap dinner of Shrimp rice shared among 3 of us, not to mention having to ration the beers (grrrr!) – I am think we made it back to Cartagena with $5 in our wallet
It was also really enjoyable spending some time with a few new traveller friends we made on that leg of our travels, thanks for a great time Lauren, Kieran and Elisabeth!
We spent the next couple of days walking round the Old Town, enjoying the Carribean nightlife and the long weekend festivities which unfolded around us constantly. For anybody visiting, there is a bar called Havana just outside Old Town which was awesome fun and I can highly recommend it, especially if you want to try your hand at Salsa… Which apparently I’m pretty terrible at he he.
All in all a very nice way to finish our Colombian visit and a must see for all those traveling to the area.
Check out the rest of the Photo’s below, enjoy!
