Cartagena

We had heard Cartagena was the most beautiful city in the Americas. So of course, we came. The drive from the bus station to the city did not make it look extraordinary. But after we settled in, we started walking around, and sure enough, it is beautiful, and very reminscent of New Orleans. Pastel-colored buildings (paint colors softer than Mexico), balconies with trellises, narrow streets, old buildings, courtyards, tiny walkways that appear out of nowhere. Plus, of course, the old city walls that we had to walk on.

The city has the same faded beauty I remember from New Orleans. Each corner offer a zillion photo opportunities. Lovely.

One of the things we notice, all over Caribbean Colombia, is the increase in black people. But what´s also noticeable is the ease between races. We had read in our guidebook that there is very little racism in Colombia, and I pick up on that physically. It's wonderful to be in a community where I don't sense hostility.

Yesterday Barry suggested we eat lunch at an Indian restaurant he had spotted. Indian? I was pumped. One thing we have not seen anywhere in Colombia is ethnically diverse restaurants. So we walked from one end of Old Town to the other looking for it, headed down a little corridor off the street to the restaurant, and sat down at a patio table, only to discover it was a restaurant called ¨"Caribe de las Indias," a play on Cartagena's name. Nothing to do with East India! Instead it was same old: rice, a patch of lettuce, and fish. And a Club de Colombia beer that we split, and mango juice. (Not too shabby, even if it wasn't aloe gobi!)