Once I woke up early enough to check my emails and still found that I was alone, I caught up with my mail and blog, sorted out my luggage and checked out in time to grab a 11am bus to Cartagena.
The weather was cloudy and grey, but the bus stop was surprisingly well equipped and modern compared to the rest of the city that I had seen, and I was beginning to think that maybe I had judged it too soon, but by now it was too late.
20 mil pesos for a 5 hour bus journey from here to Cartagena was on the agenda, and I ended up sitting behind a polish guy and across form a Israeli, who by the end of the journey we had all become kind of good chums, swapping a few jokes and bits of news.
The bus left half an hour late, but was modern and showed a couple of movies which was cool, except thy chose to show a couple of horror / thrillers which is pointless as without perfect sound and atmosphere you cant get into one of those movies, so it was just a lot of mixed up images. The also had a film called 80 minutes which was so transparent that even without the sound up loud enough to hear I could tell where it was going and guessed the twist in the tail ending and even the bad joke at the end long before I saw it.
Once we arrived at Cartagena I had a hard time finding the details of my hostel, so the Israeli kindly suggests that we can all share a taxi into the city and maybe try to check out this hotel that he saw in the lonely planet, which I agree to as a firm believer in the old saying "things can happen when you say yes".
The taxi ride was short but during the time we managed to find out a few things about each other and when we arrived at the hotel I was pleasantly surprised as it was comfortable, clean, tidy, had brand new televison sets still in the boxes just minutes away from being installed in all the rooms and both a fairly quiet aircon and fan, which was doubly cool, plus at a price less than the one I had just left in Santa Marta. Plus it was minutes away from the beach and all the happening places in renovated part of the old city.
After we dropped out bags off we went on a bit of a wander, and ended up following the old port defence wall for a bit, which was very cool and picturesqe, til we reached a mini restaurant with a great view overlooking the sea. The prices were very steep for what they were, almost as much as standard London prices, but then we figures that it was as much for the location and for the many slim waitresses on offer as it was for the drinks.
We then headed into the city centre and found a place that looked ok and had on offer a 18 mil pesos meal, that seemed very reasonable. The warning of if anything seems too good to be true then it probably is, came back to haunt us, as despite us asking for the special of the day, and did so many times, when the final bill came through it was almost double what we were expecting to pay.
We argued, we haggled, we negociated, we argued some more and then in the end I just reasoned up with the guys that we shoudl just pay what we consider a fair price to be and just leave, which eventually we did. It was a shame, as I did not want my first thoughts of Cartagena to be negative, considering how beautuful the buildings and the location was, but then I was reminded that this is very much a tourist place and not just for Europeans but for rich Colombians, and thus a bit of over charging was almost inevitable.
Finally the Israeli said that with the nighttimes pretty much dead during the early week, this being Sunday was the best and maybe the only chance for us as a group to go out and try to see some proper nightlife, however I guess that it was just not my night.
We grabbed a taxi and ended up paying a minimum 5 mil pesos fare for a 3 minute walk to the happening part of the old city, only to find it almost empty except a few sexy chicas with their older boyfriends and some local guys sitting on the bar. I ended up sitting along side the locals who in no time at all got up on the bar, started dancing and them drunkenly came on to me in Spanish, only for his equally gay and drunk friend to try and translate for me that I could have with or both of them if I wanted.
Because I did not want to ruin the night for my new friends I did my best to shrug this off, but by half midnight and with a promising early morning alarm call for a cruise tomorrow, I just did not feel like trying our luck somewhere else, so I bade them farewell in the taxi as i went off to bed while they started on to the taxi driver to go to some other place that was happening.
An hour of so later I heard them come back, and in the morning I got the news that the taxi driver took them first to a straight out whore house, which they left in about three minutes flat, before then going on to a better class place that still ended up being a place where all the local women were for sale, but this time they liked to play a little shy and a little coy, waiting for you to dance with them and pick them up rather than the straight out come on and what is your pleasure kind of attitudude. I was very glad that I stayed behind, although being with a few reliable buddies the experience could have almost been worth the inconvenience and loss of sleep.
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