The Price of Paradise [Cartagena, Colombia]
While Colombia has definitely been one of my favorite countries we’ve visited to date, it took me a while to look back on Nat’s and my time in Cartagena in a way where I could write about it the way it deserves to be written about. This is because Cartagena triggered so many thoughts and feelings for me, from intense enjoyment and wonder to crippling frustration and anxiety. One of the overlying themes that came to light was the dichotomy and paradox of the nomadic tourist. I wrote this post about it separately. This one focuses on all the rest.
Cartagena de Indias (not to be confused with Cartagena, Spain, though I’m sure that one’s nice too) is paradisiac. Off the Caribbean Sea, the temperature is hot, the sun shines, the food is divine and the old city — which is where visitors spend 98% of their time — is stunning.
Cartagena also has a rich history. Known to locals as La Heroica — the heroic one — Cartagena suffered many invasions and attacks until it built the walls that still stand around its old center. Even then, it had to declare independence twice before Simón Bolívar, “El Libertador,” led the city to its final independence in 1821.
You can feel this history when you wander around the old town. It’s quite small — you can easily cover the whole center by foot in an hour, maybe two — and each plaza has its story, its monuments, its charm. One thing that stands out in Cartagena is its houses. Painted every color in the spectrum with magnificent doors and brass knockers, each one is a feast for the eyes. But be careful, you need to look where you’re walking too lest you trip on a loose cobblestone or run into a street performer trying to earn some cash.
While performers are my favorite kind of hustlers, they’re not the only ones making a living off of tourists. It’s something I was highly aware of during our time in Cartagena, in particular when we went to Playa Blanca for the day.
Playa Blanca is on Isla Barú, about an hour away from Cartagena’s center (and when I say center, I mean the Old City — Cartagena does also have a business district). It is the place everyone recommends if you’re longing for some beach time, as Cartagena’s immediate beach is rocky and thus not the best depending on how much of a beach bum you are.
Luckily, we got a referral for our Playa Blanca adventure: an Uber driver that a friend from Medellín took when he was there a few days prior. Our friend told us we’d get a good deal to get dropped off there and avoid the super crowds. That is all we knew when we called him up though, and I admit we went grossly underprepared for what was to come.
Playa Blanca was INTENSE. The minute we got near, young guys started running after the car, pointing us here and there, trying to get us to park in a certain area and pay them a certain fee. Our driver knew all the tricks, and explained to us that these guys basically want you to pay them to be at your beck and call, get you lunch, charge you extra for it, hook you up with lounge chairs, etc. He cruised through and met up with a guy he had called earlier on our ride: his contact on the ground, which… was to be at our beck and call, get us lunch, hook us up with lounge chairs, etc.
At this point, I realized this was not going to be a regular “drop-me-off-at-the-beach-and-bring-me-back-afterwards” kind of excursion. With hustlers at every turn, we just had to pick ours, and since our driver basically did that for us, we were in for the ride. When said-hustler, who I have to acknowledge was very charismatic and nice, told us it cost COP 20,000 (~US$7) for a round trip to a more secluded part of the beach where we could relax without as many vendors nagging us, the above-mentioned anxiety started to kick in. I had only taken enough cash to pay our driver, get lunch and a little extra just in case.
Still, we went on the boat ride.
We landed on the far side of the beach.
We were offered a pair of lounge chairs.
Sure, we got a little swindled by two masseuses who cut short a supposed 30-minute massage and tried to tack on a 20% surcharge for paying by credit card (which they confirmed would be possible when I tried to turn them down because we didn’t have enough cash), but other than that, our hustler and his crew were very sweet, accommodating and hard-working. In the end, they made things very easy for us, combining all our expenses (boat ride, lounge chairs, drinks, lunch) into one credit card payment, which I daresay our entrepreneurial hustler managed very efficiently.
We went for a dip. I read my amazing book, Tim Marshall’s Prisoners of Geography. We shared a tasty fish for lunch. And though I wish I could have been more carefree about how the day unfolded, we ultimately enjoyed a safe and beautiful day at the beach.
My only regret was not having a better understanding of how the day was going to unfold so that I could have managed my expectations and relaxed a bit more. I’m not much of a beach person, it’s true, so perhaps I just lacked the experience of beach-going in touristic places and this is not news to anyone. Lesson learned and with it, an appreciation for the locals who work hard and respectfully for a living that is still far below the average earnings of Europeans or North Americans.
The rest of our stay involved lots of good food (La Mulata, La Cevicheria), beautiful sunsets (including one from the very trendy Cafe del Mar), an insightful walking tour (courtesy of Free Tour Cartagena) and some much valued pool time which felt like pure heaven. (Yes, I’m more of a pool girl than a beach girl… can you tell?)
We also got to hang out with one of our friends from Origen CrossFit in Medellín and see the badass founder of the box compete in the Cartagena IRONMAN (seems like we’re chasing those on our travels!). This made us feel right at home again in Colombia. We feel such a strong connection with this place.
In conclusion, La Heroica was a lovely way to close our Colombian chapter. 3 days of sun, long strolls and coastal bliss were a perfect change of pace just about halfway through our working travels. Yes, it was somewhat blemished by my fear of being taken advantage of and my self-consciousness at being a ‘tourist’ but in retrospect, I learned that I shouldn’t let the price of paradise affect my enjoyment of it and that being prepared for the worst does not mean I should come to expect it.***
