Cartagena, Colombia
Full of fury and completely exhausted, we arrived in Cartegena (at 7:30am, kill me). I cannot emphasize enough just how tired I was, and now we had about 7 hours to kill before we could check into our air bnb.
So a little about Cartegena, it’s a costal city in Colombia, with strong Caribbean influence, it became a very rich city back in the day, so the Spanish who colonized there built a big protective wall to fend off pirates. Now it’s a very colorful and lively touristy spot full of bars and beautifully decorated colonial alleyways, beaches, and yummy ceviche. It’s also hot as shit!
The funny thing about traveling, is that a day of traveling is like equivalent to a week of ordinary life. But since MY ordinary life is kinda fucking crazy, and an ordinary day for me is equivalent to like 2 weeks of an ordinary person… carry the 2…square root it….the past few days have felt like a year! (are you keeping up with me?)
So me and dad managed to survive the heat until we could check into the air bnb (I shamelessly fell asleep at a café while my dad was trying to figure out how to turn his phone on). We pretty much wandered around in the blistering sun scoping out the area while I was trying to find a swimsuit (I forgot mine in Guatemala UGH. And let me say, this was the first swimsuit I have EVER owned that made me feel pretty. Good swimsuits are hard to find when you’re shaped like a panda!!!) At one point I just burst out into tears walking down the street. And I’ve been that girl, more times than I can count. Just confidently walking down the street with tears pouring down my face without a very good explanation. I was definitely about to start my period.
We checked into our air bnb promptly at 3:00 and I promptly took a nap that lasted 3 hours. I would have slept more but I during my wandering I signed up for a salsa class that started at 6:00. The salsa class kind of sucked, but I made some friends out of it, so it was a win. I went out with them and gave dad the night off (more like he just wondered the streets alone, but he’s chill). We went to a bumping street in Getsemani and ordered a bunch of beer and pasta and it was so nice to spend time getting to know complete strangers. At some point I started talking to this very tattooed man behind me, and he immediately took a liking to my salsa friend Courtnie. I can’t blame him, Courtnie is a fine ass black woman.
I ate my pasta and at some point I started talking to tattoo man’s friend, and I need to set the scene here. So the way my chair was positioned, I had my back completely to this man. I was with my friends, and if I turned my chair around, my back would have been to them, so not an option. The reason this is important because I ended up having uninterrupted conversation with this man for 20 minutes without ever looking at him. It’s also important because this man and I ended up getting married.
So the next day me and dad went on a bike/food market tour and I got horribly sunburnt and ate some of the most interesting food of my life. We went to Mercado de Bazurto which is a real deal filthy grungy heart and soul outdoor food market. They had cow stomach and pig head just sitting on planks of wood for sale, and every step you take you can feel the crunch of fish scales. My kinda place. They also had a small restaurant area where people physically grabbed you and brought you to their restaurant. We ate at a small local stand called Cecelia’s where our lord and savior ANTHONY BOURDAIN once ate at. So ya, not to brag or anything.
After the tour I took another nap and when I woke up dad was nowhere to be found, and wasn’t answering his phone, so I left and checked out the giant castillo de San Felipe. Watched the fabulous sunset, and ran into someone who I took a dance class in Cali with, who I never even introduced myself to, she was just like,” Did you go to that dance class in Cali a few days ago” (?). Talked to her for a bit, took some pictures of her family, then made plans to hang out with Felix. Felix is the man who I never looked at the night before.
Still couldn’t get ahold of dad and was getting nervous, so I went back to the Airbnb. He wasn’t there either, but I had a date, so I grabbed the wine opener (upon request from Felix) and went on my merry way (dad ended up calling me back the moment I met up with Felix, todo bien). We shared some wine on one of the historic walls near some kids doing drugs. We had nice Spanglish conversation and he was flirting so hard core with me it was funny. At some point a man came up trying to sell us water and we bought some and he said he wished up luck on our love, and Felix said we were married, and I drank some more wine. One thing led to another, I fell for his ethnic charm, and we smooched!
Get Nonessential Travel Blog’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
He walked me home and told him I’ll see him in a few days after my dad leaves. The next day me and dad did a boat tour to two different islands, expect we didn’t go to two islands, we went NEAR two islands (the description was misleading!!!) but we felt pretty extravagant, and we snorkeled and ate yummy food, and I drank a pina colada out of a pineapple someone made for me in their kayak bar (because how can you not). Dad kept looking off in the distance. I knew he was sad it was his last day. No one ever wants vacation to end but based off how many times he said he wanted to buy a house in Colombia, I think he really liked it. And I obviously encouraged it!
We had one last fancy ass meal at la Cevicheria (another Anthony Bourdain spot, sue me). We walked the heavily Christmas decorated streets before going to bed. Dad got an early start the next morning, doing what ever it is dad’s do on vacation (drinking coffee, eating peanuts, idk) and we met up for waffles and an hour later ate more ceviche (the man likes his ceviche). We had a nice recap of the trip and he left for the airport. CRY.
It was a good trip. I hope he enjoyed it. Of course I always feel a sense of responsibility when I travel with people to make sure they are having a good time. Whether I invited them or they invited me or whatever. It’s because I’m a woman! It’s what I do! Plus I feel like people look to me for travel wisdom (?) because I’m a seasoned veteran. But every country there is so much to figure out, and so much of the magic of travel is random and left up to change and happenstance.
