I know many people who love Cartagena, but I am not one of them. It feels like Bourbon St in New Orleans mixed with some fancy-pants, overpriced Florida city like Miami. Or to be more generous, it feels like some small coastal cit in Spain, but with US city prices. To walk down the street in the evening is to be approached by somebody trying to get you to come into their shop, eat at their restaurant, take a ride in their horse-carriage, etc. I find that exhausting.

Cartagena does have some beautiful colonial architecture, which makes worth it the trip – one time.

The city certainly makes for some wonderful photo opps, especially when traveling with a photogenic individual. 🙂

We walked over to the old city’s fortifying walls to watch the sun set over the ocean. Again, picturesque, for sure.

Also, windy.

We then set out to try to find dinner. The hustling was overwhelming and we were starting to get hot, tired, and cranky. Thankfully, we stumbled upon a lovely place that had a rooftop restaurant above the chaos of the city streets. We enjoyed some food, relaxed in the breezy night air, and discovered that Anna-Sophia likes rose wine better than red but strongly prefers an Aperol spritz. Good to know.

The next day had another boat ride in store for us (gulp), so early to bed, peer usual.

This trip was a mix of repeats and new experiences. One of the destinations that would be new this time would be Santa Marta and Tayrona National Park. Tayrona covers a sizable chunk of Colombia’s Caribbean coast north of Santa Marta toward the Venezuelan border. It is important to the indigenous people of the area, and for several weeks each year, it is closed to the public for the local people to observe their cultural traditions unbothered.

We arrived in Santa Marta and made our way to our hotel. Lodging here is quite affordable, so I booked us two rooftop suites with private swimming pools. It’s so hot in this part of the country that swimming almost becomes critical to prevent exhaustion.

We went to the main town square for dinner. While the food was good, the square is hectic, full of street performers and other people trying to get you to part with your money. I could tolerate it for one or two nights, but this was overwhelming otherwise and not an experience I would want to repeat multiple times since I am not 23 years old any longer.

I arranged to take a sailboat to the park from Santa Marta. The other option involves small boats like we took last time in Isla Fuerte and that was not an experience Anna-Sophia or I wanted to repeat. So we boarded a very nice sailboat and headed out to sea. Two-thirds of the way there, we recalled that none of us love the ocean. It was rough. But we did eventually all make it there!

We spent 3 hours on a gorgeous beach, enjoying the clear, warm water. Ali sat in the sun while the other 3 travelers enjoyed the shade (where the locals set up our chairs, perhaps anticipating that the near-equatorial sun wouldn’t be kind to our fair skin).

Tayrona is really different than other beaches I have been to before – the mountains seem to rise almost directly behind the sand. No dunes or gentle sloping here!

The ride back was a bit better – less of the boat feeling like it was jumping out of the water and crashing back down – but there was still a lot of rolling. Enough to convince me that I’ve had all of the sailboat experiences I need in this life. 🙂 Also, the boat had to navigate through some pretty rocky water, which makes this non-swimmer a bit nervous.

Another dinner in the crazy town square and then early to bed. With so many early mornings and hot days, we seem to be settling into an early rhythm. There’s no shame in bedtime before 10pm!

I hadn’t expected much from Bogotá. Capitol cities are often crowded, bland, and soulless. We only had a day and a half in the city, but we were all very pleasantly surprised by what Bogotá had to offer!

Our hotel was in the lovely old part of town called La Candelaria. The hotel itself was the former home of an anarchist writer José María Vargas Vila, and it is lovely. Like in Morocco, the houses here often have open courtyards to provide outdoor space that is also safe and secluded from the street. It’s an architectural style that I appreciate.

We arrived very late and so we went straight to bed. After enjoying a hearty breakfast, we set out for Montserrate, the church on top of one of the city’s many hills. To get up there, you can either climb the exceptionally steep mountainside or, for a few dollars, take a funicular. FUNICULAR!!!! Anybody who knows me knows how excited I am about this option, and it was not a disappointment!

This church was nice, but the location is truly the show-stopper here. At an elevation of over 10,500 feet, the views are breathtaking. Bogotá stretches out as far as the eye can see, almost reaching for the mountains in the distance. Regardless of our religious beliefs, this felt like a very special place worthy of reflection.

After exploring the church (and discovering that our skin burns exceptionally quickly at such elevations), we descended back to town in search of lunch. Arepas were our target, as the should be for anybody in the region given how delicious they are! Melissa found a well-rated place on our path and we eat course. It was a bit odd to discover that it was a street cart vendor, but hey, why not?! For about $5 total, we each had an arepa. Salty, a little sweet, hot, crispy, and cheesy. And Ali and Anna-Sophia went to the minimart and got drinks and a snack that they said was something only I would like. I guessed mayonnaise flavored potato chips and I WAS RIGHT!!!!!!

My day really didn’t feel like it had any room to go up at this point, but Bogotá had more ways for me to love it in store. We meandered over to the Museo de Oro (Gold Museum) to see the insane amount of gold treasures that have been discovered over the years from across Colombia. No wonder the Spanish thought this was the famed city of El Dorado – people of all status levels wore gold jewelry, while in Spain, gold was exceptionally precious. And thus begins many, many years of colonialism…

Since we are in coffee country, we stopped for a delightful mid-afternoon coffee and snack. We passed through Bolívar Square which was absolutely packed with people (and pigeons). Something was going on in the area because police had blocked off several streets…not sure what that was all about.

When we were last in Colombia I learned about Botero (actually, I saw a painting of his in Buenos Aires a decade ago and loved it, but didn’t realize it was that same artist until recently). Botero’s style is adorably chubby people and animals. His sculptures are prominently displayed around Medellin, but he has a large museum in Bogotá of his own artwork and that of his private collection, all of which is in this amazing free museum. Picasso, Monet, Degas…it was such an amazingly rich collection.

For some reason, this very tall painting of a little round blue bird sitting on a tiled roof really captured my attention. I can’t say why I love it, but I do. A lot.

After a delicious dinner, we were off to bed.

Before departing for the coast the next day, we went on a walking tour of the area’s graffiti. I remembered from our last trip how gorgeous the graffiti could be, and I was eager to learn more about it. Our guide was wonderful, explaining the different artists, their messages, and the culture around street art.

I loved my first trip to Colombia. It was weeks before we all learned about COVID and our lives were all changed. I am curious to see what’s changed and what hasn’t and to share this gorgeous country with Melissa and Ali.

I planned our itinerary to avoid the regions called out by the State Department as particularly dangerous (Venezuelan border, some parts past Cali, and, of course, the Darien Gap along the border with Panama). We are sticking to pretty major tourist areas like Bogotá, Salento, Tayrona National Park, Cartagena, and the Rosario Islands.(Full disclosure: I don’t love Cartagena. It feels like being in Spain – very European and not so much South American – including the prices of things).

This is a pretty long trip for me. I’m a solid 7-8 day kind of person, but this will be over 10 days because of a flight change. Thankfully, there’s plenty to see and we will see quite a bit of it!!

When we were in Peru, I had to put my limited Spanish to the test. I expected a lot more English than we encountered, so I had to force my brain to string together the limited words that do I know into sentences to convey what we needed. I recall encountering more English in Colombia, but I am going to try my hardest to speak in Spanish. It’s funny that people are shy about using a language that they aren’t good at. I mean, I am clearly not fooling anybody into thinking I am a native speaker. If I am obviously learning and trying, that’s respectable! I wouldn’t think poorly of a tourist with broken English in the USA, so I should own my limited Spanish and use it so I can get better! Except if I encounter that same accent that I ran into off the Lorica coast last time – I don’t know what language that was, but I speak and understand none of it. 🙂

¡Vámanos!