Cartagena

They should write songs and film movies about this place. And, yes, "they" have many times. What a beautiful city. We prefer the old parts of town and don't really venture into the "modern" parts.
The locals, including the officious immigration guy, love to chat with Alisa. With all their talk about kidnapping her and marrying her off, I think we need to get a homing device on her.

Alisa enjoys the night life here while I just enjoy soaking in everything. And, we have built-in friends here as we keep running into our Stahlratte freunde.

Alisa does a terrific job keeping our travel authentic. When we traveled to meat-centered countries when she was younger, I would steer us to other ethnic restaurants where there was sure to be good vegetarian options. So, we ended up eating Korean food in Austria and Chinese food in Portugal and pizza wherever. But, Alisa persists and we sample excellent local fare. The varieties of arepas are far beyond what we get at Manhattan street fairs.


But, it does get wearisome at times being a tourist and knowing that we are being overcharged. I better get over it or as usual I'll get home and wonder why I didn't buy any souvenirs. It doesn't help psychologically that there are 1700 pesos to a US Dollar. What!! They want to charge me 40,000 pesos! Hold on, that's still a bargain for a US tourist.

There are a lot of nice side trips to take from Cartagena but I look at what it will take for us to get to our next destination, Mompos, and I think it might be better to hold onto the extra day in our itinerary just in case we need it later.

And, so we move on from the Holiday Hostel with strains of the Democratic National Convention coming from the TV in the common area (our double room is behind the hanging laundry)...