Day 1 - Cartagena

laurensame
Jun 10, 2015
4 min read

Today we left the United States and arrived in Cartagena, Colombia. Our first flight was delayed around 40 minutes, which caused us to be late for our next flight. Luckily, there were around 20 of us from the first flight that were going to be late for the second flight, so they went ahead and held the flight for us. Literally, right after we got off of the first flight, we walked to the gate of the second flight (which thankfully was right next door). Everyone else was already boarded and I think they had been waiting for at least 30 minutes until we arrived! Then, there were some complications with the wind and long story short, we had to wait around 20 minutes before we could lift off. We were afraid that our luggage wouldn't make the connecting flight since we got on it so quickly, but all of our luggage showed up! On the second flight, I sat next to a nice guy that was probably in his late 20s. He's basically backpacking through Colombia without plans for two months. I got the impression that the two people he was backpacking with he had just met. After we had arrived to our hotel/hostal (which is really cute), me and the girls staying in my room decided to explore the city before we had to all meet back up to go to dinner. I got some really cool photos then. My favorite of the day is probably this one of the woman carrying fruit on her head. There were so many venders selling the most random things! One guy was sitting on a corner selling replacement blades for blenders! We managed to pretty much not get lost, so that's good! (I say pretty much because we accidentally walked past the entrance door to our hotel since it blends in with everything else. But, I soon started to notice that we were passing stores that we had not passed before. So we backtracked a bit, and then finally found our hotel.) One of our professors, on the otherhand, managed to become separated from the group which would not have been so bad, except for the fact that she does not speak a single word of Spanish! (She's teaching a culture class on Colombian literature...in English, of course.) We then all went to a restaurant together. I think there was a total of at least 24 people and the bill for our food, including the tip, was only around $120! I had the t

raditional fried chicken (non-breaded), white rice, beans, avocado, and plaintains. To drink, I had the national drink of Colombia: caña de azucar, a juice made with sugar cane, water, and cinnamon, I believe. Afterwards, Dr. Steffanell, the leader of the trip, treated us all to gelato. I had a taste of the maracuyá (aka lilikoi or passion fruit), which is one of my favorite flavors. But due to how tart it was, I ended up opting for the dulce de leche. Afterwards, we all took a long trek to the beach and just wandered the city together. I noticed the man that I had sat next to on the plane when we were down by the beach. Surrounding the beach were the remains of a fort. We also got to take a quick look in a former monastery that had been converted into an elegant hotel. It was really quite beautiful. Before coming back to the hotel, some friends and I stopped at grocery store, where I decided to look for fruits that I have not tried and authentic snacks. I ended up opting for a granadilla (which I learned about in Peru, but was too scared to try cause of the weird way it looked - but it wasn't bad. It wasn't necessarily the best in the world, but it was good enough that I ate it all. It was basically a clear pudding like consistency with seeds in in that were slightly tart. Without a spoon, eating it was interesting, but I managed!) and sweet plantain chips. I also happened to run into the man that sat next to me on the plane. This time, we actually spoke to eachother, asking how eachothers' experience of Cartagena was so far. I ended up being behind him in the checkout line when I realized that I had accidentally left my credit card in my jacket pocket, which was at the hotel. I also, conveniently only had American money on me. The man that had been sitting with me on the plane ended up volunteering to buy my food, which was super nice of him (although it probably only cost around $2, but still!). Oh also, it seems Colombian guys like to weirdly stare at me. Like, it happened twice. It wasn't people "checking me out." It was literally peoples' faces completely glued to me with a blank face. Their bodies were moving, but their faces remained fixated on me. It was weird.