Cartagena Colombia

 It was a long travel day that started early. We left our hotel in Rio before 5am. We flew to Bogata, Colombia where we just barely made it through immigration/security to our gate in time for our flight to Cartagena. We arrived to our hotel just at check in time. We decided to make these four days in Cartagena mellow so we could have a relaxing end to our trip. The day we were traveling here was the same day Miranda was traveling back to NYC. She had been staying at our home since mid December. I was so thankful to have her there to cuddle our cats daily. Missing them a lot by this point.  

We stayed at a semi all inclusive resort. It was beautiful and fairly fancy. Our room had a bedroom and a separate living room area with a table and couch. We also had two balcony areas.

View from our bedroom 

View from the living room balcony 

After we got checked in and got settled in we went down and got our welcome drinks. Piña colada’s are always a good idea.  

We took time to explore the resort. It was very large and right off the water. We ate dinner at one of the restaurants (I think they had five at the resort). Matt got ceviche and loved it of course. 

Then we walked out on the beach to watch the sunset before Matt headed out on his run. 

With waking up at 2am Columbia time to start our travels, we were so tired and called it an early night. We were in bed by 8 and both of us asleep by 8:30. This was our first soft bed in five weeks. It was so comfy that I had the best night that I’ve had this whole trip. I fell asleep at 8:30 and didn’t wake up until 4 then went back to sleep until 7. Crazy, but it felt so good! The hotel breakfast buffet was pretty good. They had a lot of delicious fresh fruit.  Although you had to watch your food-especially the fruit. Since it was an open air area, the grackle birds knew to take advantage of anyone who wasn’t paying attention.  I even saw a bird grab a sugar packet off of a table.  It was fun to watch.  After breakfast we spent the bulk of the morning and afternoon just sitting on the beach and wading in the warm ocean. It was delightful. 

The hallways

View from the bed

Turtles!

After showering and eating some room service lunch we decided to head to the historic walled city center of Cartagena. It’s this older section of town right by the water that used to be a walled in fort. Now it’s streets of shops, eateries, and plazas. It was pretty cool. 

Matt next to the fort wall. Crazy what they built it out of.

Matt was pretty excited when we saw this coffee shop. When we went inside we knew we had to spend some time here. They had so many types of coffee and ways they made it. 

Matt had never had siphoned coffee before, so that was a must try. They came to the table and walked him through the whole process. It was pretty cool and Matt said the coffee was delicious. 

We decided to have dinner before heading back to our hotel. We randomly selected a place and it turned out to be great. Matt ordered a coconut lemonade and it was amazing! 

The next day started early. We were doing a whole day boat trip to five islands. What an adventure this was! We had quite a few surprises through the day, but that just made the memories better.  The tour was on a speedboat with 24 other people. Quite fun, but what was surprising was the loud Spanish party music that played the whole time. There was a group of about six girls at the front of the boat that had so much fun singing along and dancing in their seats to each song. It was fun watching them and soaking in their energy.

The first place we stopped was an area that had a sunken cartel airplane. We got to jump out of the boat and put goggles on so we could look down and see it. It was pretty cool! Very hard to get good photos though. 

Our next stop we got to get out and swim, snorkel for a while over some coral reefs. There was a current so our guide put out a line for us to hold on to so we didn’t float off while we were watching the fish. This was so fun! Some of the fish were very colorful. I had my phone in a plastic sleeve, but it still didn’t take good photos under water. 

The third island had spots for us to chill and relax with beautiful views too. 

While we were on this island they fed us lunch. I had grilled chicken and Matt had this fish-he said it was fabulous. They had this yummy coconut rice too. 

The fourth island was the most surprising for us. It was the“party island. Picture a spring break party. Loud music, lots of drinking, girls scantily dressed, all while standing at tables in waist deep turquoise water. Not the experience we were expecting but we took it all in and just laughed. We were for sure out of place, but it created a memory we never expected to have and the piña colada was beautiful. 

I didn’t get burnt (believe it or not) we were under a red tent. Luckily we were in the share the whole time on this island

Getting to the last island was quite the adventure. The ocean was getting rougher and we were zooming around and bouncing around like crazy. I got lifted off the seat several times. It felt like I was on that tidal wave boat ride at lagoon. We were all laughing so hard the whole ride. This island we stopped at was for relaxing, but there were a lot of vendors, little space, and loud music again. We didn’t stay there too long though. At this island half of our boat was staying at to do a different excursion and then the rest of us got back on the boat to head back to the city. 

Most of the ride back was just as bumpy and crazy as it was getting to that last island. Many of the people that were sitting at the front had stayed on the island so Matt got a turn at the front of the boat riding the wild waves. He didn’t last long because he didn’t want to break his back 😂 

After getting back and showering we did the buffet for dinner and treated ourselves to drinks for making it through the crazy but fun day we had. 

The next morning, our last full day of our trip, started like most of our mornings here at the buffet. Glaciers the pineapple here was AMAZING! Seriously I couldn’t get enough of it. 

Matt headed out for his excursion-a coffee tasting experience- while I had lazy time. Sadly an hour later Matt texted that his excursion had been cancelled. Bummer! Now he was very glad we had had that coffee experience in the walled city. We kept the lazy day going after Matt returned and even ordered room service lunch- complete with pineapple and coconut lemonade of course!

During our lazy time Matt hit a major milestone that he’s been trying to achieve for years…he scored a 340 on his hand held Yahtzee game. He was quite excited and took it as a good omen. 

We spent time sitting by the pool and then just before sunset we went out to the beach and had a lovely farewell walk. It was super cool watching all the kite surfers. What a skill! Our closing sunset was beautiful. 

View from the 10th floor of the resort

Then it was time to pack up and head to bed. Time to go home. Wake up was again at 4am.  Long day to get back. We go from Cartagena to Bogata, Bogata to Miami, then Miami home. 

So looking forward to drinking Dr Pepper, flushing toilet paper (haven’t done that in six weeks), not having to ask for still water instead of mineral water, and looking forward to cuddling my cats most of all.