CJK Framingham: Colombia 2023

March 2023. We flew in to Cartagena and were greeted by a 60-minute wait to get through customs. I stupidly hadn't brought my Covid vaccination card, but we were able to talk our way through. Outside the airport the warm humid air felt good coming from March in New England. After a 15-minute Uber ride we were at the Hotel Dorado Plaza on the Getsemaní side of the Clock Tower. It proved to be a great location giving us access to everyplace we wanted to go.

We stayed in Cartagena for 3 nights. One of the nice things about Cartagena is that the main activity is just wandering the streets and taking in the sites. The walled city deserves its reputation as a great place to visit. It reminided me of the Colonial Zone in Santo Domingo and Old Havana, but the Walled City seemed better organized and better maintained. Narrow walkable streets with wide squares. Churches, tourist shops, coffee shops and upscale restaurants. The walls reportedly go on for 8 miles - so there's plenty of space. There are even ramps from inside to the top of the walls, where you have a great view of the sea.

One place I would not recommend is the Palacio de la Inquisicion. It's a museum in a beautifully restored old building, but it's almost empty of display items. You read your way from room to room. Getsemaní is an up and coming area outside the walled city. It is equally fun to walk around. There are less upscale restaurants, more art shops and some great street graffiti. At night Getsemaní is very lively. Beers for under $1. Mojitos $2. Steet musicians. Families run informal street-bars by setting up plastic tables and chairs in the alley. A lot of fun. The Plaza de la Trinidad is where the locals gather. It's a big party in front of the church. There are street vendors selling grilled pork sandwiches and every kind of arepa.

One day Mariana and I took a trip to the Rosario Islands. They fill up speed boats with 20 or 30 people and zoom you out to a small island chain. It's a 50-minute boat ride. Some of the passengers opted to go to an aquarium while the rest of us spent time pseudo-snorkeling. It was like snorkeling for people afraid to swim. Goggles without air tubes. No flippers. Wading/Walking/Swimming in groups to see colorful fish. The least able to swim held a rope and were pulled along by the guides. From there we zoomed back to Isla Baru, and Cartagena's most famous beach, Playa Blanca. It's a nice natural beach fully saturated with restaurants and vendors. A few tried to scam us and we saw a kid try to steal someone's belongings from the beach while they were in the water. Unpleasant having to keep such a close eye on your stuff. Still, when it's a perfect sunny 85 degree beach day, and your on a beautiful sandy beach, with 85 cent cold beers and abundant cheap snacks .. it's really not so bad! After a few hours on the beach our speed boat zoomed us back to the city.

Another day we took a short cab ride from the walled city to Castillo San Felipe. It's a massive stone fort that was built to protect the ancient city from pirate attacks. It's like other forts only bigger. There are great views of the city from the top. You can imagine firing cannons. Not sure about their range or how good their aim was. One fun thing to do is walk through the tunnels that connect the different parts of the fort. Probably they were used to supply the soldiers on the wall with whatever they needed. And supposedly they were built so that noise would carry so they'd know if another part of the fort was under attack. From the fort we could see the modern side of Cartagena. It's a big city with 20-25 story office buildings and apartment towers. We didn't see that from the walled city part. From the fort we descended to a nearby air conditioned mall, complete with modern stores and a food court. Upper class Colombians live well.

I think Cartagena would be a very liveable city, possibly even a nice place to retire. We ate our breakfasts at the hotel, which had a great buffet included with our stay. Lunch and dinner were mostly in small casual restaurants in Getsemaní. Columbian food is pretty good!

One night we wandered across Getsemaní to a part along the water. There was an area designated for dining, with a central bar area and several seemingly permanent food-truck kitchens. We enjoyed harborside dining, a wide selection of casual food, with a waitress and cold beverages. I feasted on arepas with Aguila beer. Good stuff!

One screw up was that I had booked, but not been confirmed, to a flight from Cartagena to Medellín. I'd lost my phone in a taxi the day we went to the Rosario Islands, so I didn't think to look for the confirmation until the day before we were supposed to fly. So, we wasted two hours finding out we didn't have a flight and then rebooking. Oh well. We flew from Cartagena to Medellín. We found domestic air travel in Colombia to be relatively cheap and easy. Security is more relaxed than international travel and flights between major cities are plentiful.

Medellín is set in a long narrow mountain valley. Flying in, the hills looked bright green. And when we exited the airport we felt the cooler air. Our Uber ride took nearly 60 minutes and took us through the longest tunnel I've ever been in. We stayed at the Hotel Greenview Medellín in the El Poblado area. It's an upscale neighborhood. We were a bit away from the main drag, but taxis and Uber rides in Colombia are cheap and efficient.

Since rain was expected, we checked out the Museo Casa de la Memoria, where we learned of the horrors of the drug wars caused by the Medellín drug cartel and Pablo Escobar. It helped us appreciate how far the city has come. We walked through the super busy El Centro area and visited the Palacio Cultura Rafael Uribe Uribe. It's a decent museum in a really cool building. Next we were in Plaza Botero, where we saw a dozen statues of fat naked people. We saw paintings of the same in the Museo de Antioquia. I guess I'm not a fan of Medellín's favorite son.

We found good restaurants on Calle 10 back in El Poblado. The Bandeja Paisa will satisfy the hungriest appetite. It's a lot of food! As in Cartagena, our Medellín hotel provided a nice breakfast. Colombia is known for having great coffee, so I was sure to enjoy that every morning.

We visited Comuna 13. It's an interesting concept. A local guides you up a series of outdoor escalators through one of Medellín's roughest barrios. It's advertised as a graffiti tour. And there is quality art to be sure, but it's really a poverty tour. To see how thousands of families live in small cement houses clinging to the side of a mountain. They have only sidewalks, no roads. And until the escalators arrived, needed to walk up and down hundreds of stairs to get to and from the rest of the city.

We took one of the Medellín Metrocable routes across several hilltops in another direction and got more great views of the city. We ate lunch at a local place that I'm guessing doesn't see a lot of Americans. But fried chicken is good anywhere. Then we tried the Medellín Metro. It's clean, efficient and inexpensive. Each of these modes of transportation attempts to move people to parts of the city that previously were under-served. Because it's a large city in a narrow valley with steep hillsides, the roads can't go everywhere. And on the valley floor the traffic moves slowly.

We wrapped up our day at the Jardín Botánico. Though it was raining lightly we enjoyed the park, with its assortment of trees and flowers. We saw plants we'd never seen before and funny looking South American ducks! Medellín is a mountain metropolis. In the hills of El Poblado we saw beautiful suburban homes. On Calle 10 a busy thoroughfare with thriving businesses. In El Centro a noisy, dense, crazy city center. And in Comuna 13 and La Aurora we saw bare third world poverty. It's a fascinating city with a lot to do. We only experienced a fraction of it. We needed more time to know the place.

We flew direct from Medellín to Santa Marta. Colombian domestic flights are efficient, no fuss affairs. Almost like taking a bus except that the airports aren't in the city centers. From Santa Marta airport we grabbed a cab to take us to Minca. We quickly noticed the temperature changes. Medellín was cool and damp in the monrning. Santa Marta was already hot at 11am. Minca was cooler again.

Minca is a small mountain town in the hills outside Santa Marta. The road became paved only 10 or 12 years ago and it's becoming a popular spot for backpackers because of it's mountains, rivers and waterfalls. Already there are hostals and small restaurants springing up.

Our hotel was about 2 miles outside of the little town. Our room had a wonderful balcony that put us at treetop level to the jungle sloping down to river. Mariana and I enjoyed a quick hike down to Cascada Escondida, which was right behind our hotel. It's a pretty waterfall that not as well known as the others in town. After a short steep decline we crossed a river, passed a short distance on an easy trail and came to the oasis. And we had it all to ourselves! Pure mountain water falling off the rocks above. A cool 30x30 natural pool. It was maybe 8 or 10 feet deep. What a perfect place to relax!

Meals we at the hostal next door to the hotel. Cheap simple Colombian meals on a varanda overlooking the jungle. We could see how the river wound through the hills. Birds soaring above. Small farms on the hills that looked impossible to reach. A very relaxing place.

In the morning we did a relatively short hike to Cascadas Pozo Azul. It was probably a 30 minute walk from our hotel along a dirt road. 80 degrees. Sunny. A few of the locals set up roadside stands to sell coffee, drinks and snacks. Pozo Azul is a little bigger and easier to reach than Cascada Escondida. The water felt surprisingly cold. The swimming area is larger and there are vendors on each side of the river. It was a Saturday morning and before we left there were more people arriving, mostly Colombians prepared to spend the day at the river.

We were in our hotel for only one night and we walked into town, all downhill, with our small bags. We took motoconchos from town to the well known Cascadas Marinka. These are the biggest falls in the area but more commercialized. There are 3 significant falls with pools at the bottom of each. There are stairs and a large wood deck around the large middle pool. It might measure 50x100. It's a great place to take a dip! On the hill above there were large hammocks what could accomodate 8 or 10 people. There was a 50 seat restaurant and bar under construction.

We took motoconchos back to town. Perhaps a 10-minute ride over a rough dirt road. We ate lunch at a comedor. I suspect Minca will continue to grow. It's easy to get to from Santa Marta and offers something different than beaches there. The same backpackers and tourists, domestic and foreign, that are attracted to Tayrona will be attracted to the emerald-green hills, cooler air, pristine rivers and waterfalls in Minca.

The collectivo from Minca down to Santa Marta was filled with backpackers, a few Americans, but mostly Europeans. It dropped us at the market in the center of town. We were anxious to get to the beach so we took a cab direct to our hotel in Rodadero, perhaps 5 miles from the center of town. A couple of the hotels we booked on booking.com asked us to rebook on WhatsApp. I guess to avoid whatever fees booking.com charges them. We never message, so when we arrived at Apartamentos Penon Del Rodadero we found our reservations had been canceled. No matter, they quickly found us another at the same rate. Fourth floor (of 13); a 2 story, 2 bath studio apartment with a sensational balcony overlooking the sea. Three nights. But I think I could live in a place like this.

Our hotel was on the edge of Playa Salguero, a super nice, sandy 1-mile long, 100-meter wide stretch of Caribbean beach. It's pretty much always 85-95 degrees and sunny. We never saw a wave higher than 24 inches in three days. It's probably one the most popular beach destinations for Colombians. With a beautiful boardwalk the length of the beach. And the Rodadero area is full of hotels, bars and restaurants.

The beach is infested with vendors. It's not as bad as Playa Blanca on Isla Baru in Cartagena, but you need to watch your stuff. The vendors were selling ice cold beer, mixed drinks, snacks and full meals from the restaurants just a short distance away. There was a fleet of 40-foot speed boats water-busing people to other another beach and Tayrona national park. At night Rodadero is lively. A lot of Colombians on vacation having fun. The streets are crowded, restaurants are busy and drinks are flowing. The malecon has vendors and street performers. It's a fun place to walk around.

The highlight of our stay in Santa Marta was our visit to Tayrona National Park. It's a large park along the coast east of Santa Marta known for its biodiversity, blue water coves, white sand beaches, crystalline lagoons and tropical jungles. You can get there by road and a hike, or by sea. We joined a tour from Santa Marta. They picked us up in a bus outside our hotel and handled the park passes for us. Then led us on a two-hour jungle hike to the various beaches and sights, culminating at the spectacular Cabo San Juan Del Guia beach.

Our hike took us along a rough trail at times passing over boulders and foot bridges before flattening a bit. It isn't an especially challenging hike, but the sun is always hot and it's a fairly long walk. The shoreline is mostly rocky with intermittent sandy beaches. The surf is too rough to swim comfortably at many of the beaches, but the views are fantastic. Blue sea, fine white sand, palm trees, rough surf and randomly strewn school bus sized rocks. Photos will never do this place justice. We spent a few hours at the beach, ate a nice lunch and then headed back. Though Tayrona is known for it's biodiversity we had only seen plants and birds. Then at the end of the trail that would bring us back to the road, high in the tree tops, we spotted monkeys swinging from tree to tree. Tayrona is an all day adventure that we will remember for a lifetime.