Colombia Day 3: Cartagena
Day 3 started a little later after our night out dancing!! Got some avocado toast at the hostel and then headed into the hot hot heat & humidity and walked over to a vegetarian restaurant in old town. This neighborhood (Getsemani) is legit the cutest! I love all the art on the streets! And you don’t get attacked by vendors incessantly like you do in old town!
Got second breakfast at an awesome health focused vegetarian restaurant- Resaturante Girasoles Vegetariano- which was incredible. Just to be able to order off the menu and not remind them no leche y no huevos y no carne etc was nice. They had three breakfast options and Robyn and I both got the same thing but they looked different so we’re not sure what’s up. The papaya was amaaaazing! i don’t always love papaya but this papaya was fantastic. And the arepa wasn’t super flavorful but was very tasty. And the sausage was fantastic!! I don’t know what they made it out of and have never seen anything like it before but it was so good! And the hot chocolate was great too, even though it was 90 degrees outside! They didn’t have AC in there but the fans and breeze were totally good enough! We peeked around the little attached store as well that had things like goji berries, chia seeds, soy milk, and loads of herbs. So rad!
After second breakfast we wandered in search of Alquimico- a bar that was on one of the housewives shows that my sister wanted me to go see. So we crossed that off the list & away on our adventure we went!
Next up was a beer shop called beer lovers. They had a few Colombian beers on tap and tons of bottles from around the world. Sadly they didn’t have any of the porters or stouts i wanted but they did have the Hofbrauhaus dunkle i love (and also had last week in Chicago…) so i got that. Robyn got to enjoy a flight of Colombian beers and try a Belgian beer (her favorites) she had never tried before. We met Adam and Shawn from Canada that were in Colombia for a bachelor party but the other 8 dudes they were with didn’t want to do anything besides stay at their mansion they rented and eat and drink and hang out in the pool there. Who comes all the way to Colombia from Canada to do that?! in any case they were super fun to chat with for a bit and the music there was AMAZING (80s random playlist most of the day… then pop music)
After Beer Lovers we headed to lunch (because we love food) and walked about half a mile to the one vegan restaurant in the area- mar y Hojas. It was ridiculously cute!!! So many cute little signs and we sat on a terrace that had beautiful colorful flowers everywhere. I loved everything about it (except the slow service that seems to be a trademark of Colombia). We both got Colombian veggie burgers that were lentil based and quite possible the best veggie burger I’ve ever had- definitely top five- after 23 years of eating veggie burgers. The patty itself was chocked full of flavor and was crispy and delicious. And it was topped with all sorts of well seasoned goodness like onions and tomatoes and avocado with some herbs that just made it SO good. It came with chips and beans and everything was perfect. We finished the meal with a chocolate brownie that wasn’t my favorite but was nice to have a vegan dessert!
After our amazing vegan lunch we headed over to the KGB bar Cindy was at and I legit loved this bar. We sat in the back section that had AC and BLASTING loud music and was totally decked out like a Russian submarine. We took pictures with Putin and had lychee martinis and had a blast! Seriously cool bar!
Then it was back to the hostel with a pit stop in the plaza de los coches because there was something cray cray going on. Tons of policia everywhere. And chairs set up with families sitting waiting for something to start and a band of what looked like high school kids getting ready to play. Turns out it was some sort of graduation from a police school or something- kind of weird spot to have a graudation with a ton of tourists hanging around and street vendors pushing their goods but whatevs. We watched for a bit but watching someone you know graduate is boring enough… watching a graudation of strangers when you don’t speak the language? Not the most entertaining thing in the world!
After that we headed back for showers and getting ready for the evening and joined up with our hostel roommate Joe and headed over to Bocagrande- the area of Cartagena with all the skyscrapers and much more commercial things like KFC and McDonalds. Went to La Diva and it was amazing! Thanks, TripAdvisor! They were able to make me a suuuuper delicious pizza with onion, eggplant, red pepper, and basil. It was legit delicious and after giving up pizza for lent except while in Colombia it was sooo good! Had a couple bottles of wine with dinner and Simon and Hannes who we met on the catamaran on Wednesday joined us for a bit as well! Such a great time enjoying a leisurely meal with friends!!!
Then cabs back to Getsemani to our favorite bar- El Arsenal- the rum box. Cabs from the old town/Getsemani area to Bocagrande/new town were only $10 mil, which is like $3 USD. the bar was dead, as was every place we passed. I guess Thursday nights aren’t a big thing here? But we had fun with our once again free rum + chocolate and shishito peppers with amazing cocktails. Called it a night around midnight and can’t wait to see what Medallin has in store for us!! (Also apparently Medallin is pronounced Med-a-djeen there so we’re gonna have to practice speaking like locals! Hahaha