A nice but not amazing place

It was quite an easy travel day to get to Cartagena from Santa Marta. After a short bus ride, we flagged a cab and arrived shortly at our accommodation. Of course, the driver ripped us off. This is common practice in these parts of the world, there are often no standards for taxi fare and when you don’t know what the fare is supposed to be, they tell you whatever they want. We assumed he was over quoting the price but he wouldn’t budge, and with no meter to gauge the true cost, we paid asking price. Upon arrival, our host told us what we should have paid. Oh well, we know for next time at least.

We booked a homestay with a local family: a husband, wife and their two kids. It turned out to be fun, they shared some of their cooking with us, and gave us some really good tips for places to go off the beaten path. This was a nice touch because, let me tell you, Cartagena is swarming with tourists! It’s a port city so everyday around 11am there is a rush of people coming off the cruise ship to see the city and spend money.

For our first day trip, we opted for the locals getaway beach, which was beautiful and quiet. As most of the “famous” beaches are outside of the city, most tourists have no idea that this beautiful stretch of Caribbean exists. One simply has to cross the typically unvisited city centre and you’ll have a beach almost to yourself! We ended up staying the whole day under a rented tent for shade and sipping cold beer purchased from the hawkers. Later that evening hearing about an amazing pizza place run by an Argentinian-Italian, we decided to treat ourselves. Seeing as that day of the week there was a two-for-one special, we couldn’t miss the opportunity. And thankfully we did! The pizza was amazing! We left with our stomachs completely stuffed and money leftover.

The next day we checked out the old walled city. Such amazing architecture, great bars and restaurants, and overall a great vibe. The lady in our homestay told us about the best spot in Cartagena to see the sunset, so we made our way there to get the most beautiful photos with no tourists in the way, it was stunning. Cartagena is such an amazing city to see and experience, but overall we couldn’t stay to long due to the uncomfortable amount of people - it was just too crowded for us. and how it actually changed the city. This isn’t meant to knock tourism, we’re tourists ourselves. But often in some places, the true feeling of a town or city can be watered down by artificiality while catering to foreigners.