Samstag, 22. Oktober 2016

COLOMBIA

¡Hola!
Well, we finally made it! - Cartagena
After we said goodbye to the cats, the lovely house and to Cessie, we took a similar small plane from Tortola to start the wierdest and most uneconomic flight journey ever. Why was it so strange you may ask? The flight in the small machine, from Tortola to Puerto Rico, was again very cool and adventurous. Yes Puerto Rico again! For those of you who looked up on the map where Tortola lies, this may already sound wierd. Why would you fly in the wrong direction??? We asked ourselves the same question. And this was only the beginning. Because from Puerto Rico we had to take another flight to Curaçao. Never heard of it? We neither!  No information desks and no flight information at all didn't make it easier to find our next flight tooooo you guess it.... not Cartagena. After we witnessed some strange situations at the airport we were more than happy to leave this strange people and happily found our flight to Aruba. Yes Aruba, the nice Dutch colonie in the Caribbean. That place looked nice, but no time for us to chill since we had to deal with the check-in desk, because they didn't want to let us fly into Colombia without showing a flight to leave Colombia again. How would we anyway, if we wanna travel to Ecuador by bus! Silly rules, of which we knew actually, but never had problems. However, after some friendly words and charming behavior ;-) we were good to go! Cartagena we are coming! What?! Still not Cartagena?! Would have been too easy, because Aruba is reeeeally close to Cartagena. So the fourth flight of the day would bring us to Bogotá. After a short but chilly stay in Colombias cold capital we could finally board our fifth and last flight to Cartagena, without any problems at the immigration desk. ;-)
On our flight to Cartagena, so back towards Aruba, we were just happy to soon end this uneconomic nightmare. The arrival nice and strange at the same time. Nice because it was warm again, strange because it was 00.00, and our first trip to Colombia. A lot of people told us and will tell you, that you have to take care when you are travelling in Colombia because it's dangerous. So we didn't really know what to expect. Today we know, it's like most of the time, people are just scared of some stories and with just some common sense and you'll travel as safe as in every other country. We were just happy to arrive at a really really small hostel, we could hardly move inside the room, and could finally get some sleep after another 17 hour travel marathon.
And of course a relaxing hot shower! Or not???
As we shall find out a bit later, there are no hot showers at the Caribean coast of Colombia. What most of the time actually isn't a big thing because it's hot anyway, but in some places it can get a bit chilly at night, or it still is in the morning. So prepare for some refreshing moments if you ever think about visiting the area.
By the next morning we changed the hotel and started to discover Cartagena. It's a lively city with a beautiful old town, and great clima if you like hot and sticky like we. :-) The rest of Cartagena isn't that charming. Also recommendable is the Barrio called Getsemani where all the backpackers stay and a lot of cool bars are located.
All in all did we like Cartagena and stayed there for quite a while and made some friends there. ¡Hola amigos!
Speaking of "well, we finally made it". In this chapter, the title has a double signification, because we finally made it to see our friend Silja again in Cartagena!!!!! :-) She and her friend started their travels just about a month after us and we didn't meet since then. She flew in from Los Angeles while her boyfriend kept doing the Route 66 to follow a month later. How cool to meet again!!!!

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