Cartagena — Let's Go — The Girl Who Traveled

My 5 Day Cartagena Itinerary

The Quick:

Day 1: Landed on a Wednesday around 1 pm. Explored the Walled City/Getsamani area.
Day 2: Visited Castillo San Felipe de Barajas. Walked around the Walled City/Getsamani area some more.
Day 3: Pool day at the hotel, salsa club at night
Day 4: Spa day at the hotel
Day 5: Catch flight at noon back to NY

And the Dirty Details (scroll all the way down to skip if you just want some other tidbits):

Day 1: I arrived in Cartagena's international airport at around 1 pm. Usually when I travel, the part that gives me the most anxiety (especially if I'm traveling alone) is how to get from the airport to wherever I'm staying, especially if I don't speak the language. Since I was nervous about my weak Spanish, I had asked my hotel, Bastion Luxury, to arrange for a private driver to come pick me up. This might sound snotty but the total cost was $11 USD!!! Why would I NOT do this for piece of mind and safety? The taxis are not metered so I was afraid of negotiating and getting a bad rate. I probably had nothing to worry about, but for me, I just rather not put myself in a situation I'll regret.

Anyway, getting through customs took forever and I was worried my driver would not wait. I was on line for almost an hour! When you arrive, there are two lines. One for locals and one for foreigners so just pay attention which one to take. After I finally made it through, the driver was right outside the luggage pick up with my name on a sign. He wanted to take me to the car right away but I stopped him and asked in my broken Spanish if we could go look for an ATM. He nodded and I re-entered the airport through the departure entrance and asked the security guard where the "banco machina" was. Obviously, "banco machina" is not how you say ATM but I didn't know the exact words at the time (it's "cajero automatico" and I was tired) but he laughed and knew what I was getting at! So FYI the ATM machines are all the way to the right side of the check in area, near the elevators. I also read that most Colombian banks have a daily limit as to how much you can withdraw. The one that I used certainly had that--I could only take out 300,000 pesos, or about $100 USD. However that turned out to be more than enough for the few days I was there. The screens give you the ability to withdraw in English too. In general I always withdraw money from the ATM rather than exchange cash since the rates at exchange offices/desks are generally not as favorable. Also, my Chase card doesn't charge me on any ATM fees for the first four times each month if I use a non-Chase ATM machine so this works for me.

After this was done, my driver took me into the Walled City, which is about 15-20 minutes away from the airport, hardly any traffic. Even though the hotel told me via e-mail that I could charge the ride onto my hotel bill, the driver was insistent I pay in cash (probably because he knew I had it). But this was fine, since I wanted to get smaller change anyway. Tipping drivers is not expected or necessary either.

So my hotel. I loved it. Cartagena is known for their boutique hotels and Bastion Luxury was great. The staff speaks English well and check in was easy.

So nice to come back to cold comfortable room after walking around the humid city!

My room was on the 2nd floor and had no windows. Which I was totally fine with. Ok, it had one window but the view was right into another room across the way. It was quite comfortable and rustic, with stone walls and a huge shower. It's so humid in Cartagena that coming back to a nice air conditioned hotel room was really lovely. The hotel (like other boutique ones in this city) offered daily breakfast which was delicious. There was always a huge platter of fresh exotic fruit (some I have never seen before) as well as eggs, bacon, and other things you could order a la carte.

After checking in, I decided to explore the city so walked a bit around the wall. Although I planned to travel to Cartagena alone, it turned out a friend of friend was there the same time as me so we met up later in the evening for dinner at Malanga Cafe, which is in the Getsamani area.

The smallest and cutest cafe on a rooftop in all the land!

The food here was decent. I had the fish tacos and they were good. It was a bit breezy on the roof, which was a welcome respite. I do recommend this place for a relaxing dinner outside of the touristy area of the Walled City. Afterwards, we walked back to the Walled City (it's about a 10-15 min. walk btwn the Walled City and Getsamani and you do need to be careful which route you take. Basically, just stick to the main roads where you see people walking on too!) and found our way to Gabriel Garcia Marquez' house in Cartagena.

Nowhere in life is sadder than an empty bed

His family still owns it. He is the author of 100 Years in Solitude, which I read so long ago but remember it was easy to get drawn into the story. Around his house is where a few other nice hotels and restaurants are and it's nice to walk around, especially at night, when all the locals are out. Apparently much of the city isn't even open during the afternoon because of the hot hot sun, and as soon as it goes down, everyone come out to play and shops are open late!

Day 2: Felt like I had already seen much of the city just by walking around after dinner on the first day. Decided to do something touristy so my friend and I went to Castillo San Felipe de Barajas. We took a taxi there, it was cheap...a few US dollars (that we paid for in pesos but I can't remember how much exactly). You can walk there but I think it's faster and less hot to take a taxi. Most people advise that you go either early in the day or late afternoon to avoid the sun. We woke up late so we went at 11 am. It was fine though, just be sure to bring a cap/hat and shades! So was this place worth it to visit? Yes, I liked it. It's incredibly historic, dating back to the 1700s. And I love hiking and exercising so I didn't mind the steep walk up to the top.

The fortress at high noon, no shade to be found...

We spent maybe 2 hours here total. Afterwards we went to a nearby mall (that you can see from the fortress, it's like a 5-10 min. walk away) but there wasn't much to find there (that you cannot find in the US). Then we had lunch at La Cocina Pepina, which appears on many must-eat lists for Cartagena. In hindsight, this probably was the best meal we had there. Food was very authentic and fresh, but in general, I didn't find food in Colombia all that appealing. I thought food would have more flavor like Mexican food but it wasn't that way at all. For dinner we went to La Cevicheria, which was put on the map by Anthony Bourdain.

Ceviche and Lobster Paella at La Cevicheria

It was decent but not the best ceviche I ever had. We tried the trio of ceviches and had the lobster paella, which was a ton of food! The paella was good but for some reason I think I expected more. My friend ended up taking most of it back to her hostel and eating it for two days.

My favorite part of this day though, was walking along the Walled City at sunset and climbing through one of the holes. With our feet dangling over the ledge, we watched the sun go down as the cars zoomed by and the sea breeze cooled us.

Day 3: By Friday, we were tired from walking around 90 degree weather all day. So we decided to spend the day at the pool on my hotel rooftop!!! Apparently all the boutique hotels offer this in Cartagena and I could see why. It was a welcome relief to walking around sweating. I got up early enough to snag a cabana and thoroughly enjoyed the pool.

View of the pool at the hotel next door!

After lounging around most of the day, we had lunch at Vera, which is a swanky Italian place at the hotel on the other end of the street. It was a bit pricier than our other meals and it was fine, but not memorable. However, the ambience was very nice. Then we got dessert at Mila Patisserie, which was good if you like sweets. After dessert, we went back to the Getsamani area and spent the rest of the night salsa dancing to a live band at Cafe Havana. This was fun, and I would recommend this place for a night out. It's a good mix of locals and tourists. There is a cover charge on Friday night and it's better to go a little early (around 10 pm) to get seats at the bar or a table if you want to sit down. The club shuts down by 2am though.

So I didn't get back to the hotel until 3 am, and although I found the Walled City to be safe, all the hotels shut their doors at night!!! So when I came back, the entrance was locked. I knocked, but I knew no one would hear me since reception is a bit further away from the entrance. Luckily, I had international service on my phone so I called reception to let me in. I don't know what I would've done if I didn't have it. I probably would have gone to my friend's hostel, which was only 3 blocks away, and ask their reception desk to call mine. Hostels there seem much more lax about people coming and out of their places whereas hotels definitely were not.

Day 4: My friend left Cartagena so I spent this day alone. I was pretty much done seeing the city though so I spent the morning up in the pool again and in the afternoon, I went to the hotel spa because it was so cheap! Well, cheap compared to NYC. I did a two hour massage service which was only $110 USD and included tip! It was a great way to spend the afternoon. For dinner I went nearby to Restaurant 1621, which was highly reviewed and located inside another luxury hotel, the Santa Clara. It was so disappointing! The restaurant is in a beautiful space (you can sit outside in the garden) but the food was blah. I opted for the tasting menu since it was cheap (again, compared to NYC so why not try it!) but I wish I didn't and saved my money. None of the 8 dishes I had were memorable. I only remember my tuna being dry or overcooked and not really liking much of any of it.

Day 5: I was very much ready to go back to NYC. I was relaxed and did everything I wanted to do already. I knew the airport didn't have much but wow. It REALLY did not have much. Do NOT plan on eating at the airport at all. There's like two casual places where you can buy food but it all looks kind of blah. I had a sandwich since I was hungry. Also, it's not necessary to show up to the airport that early. Checking in was pretty fast and easy. It's a very small airport. If you can, eat before you go or bring food! Going back, I took a taxi from the hotel and it was about $3 USD.

What I Didn't Do

Visit the Rosario Islands. This needs to be planned a bit in advance though (especially if you want to avoid crowds) and I didn't have time.
Go to Bocagrande. Everything I read was that it's like the Miami of Cartagena and that it's really commercial and brand new and that's not what I was looking for. Why go somewhere that has all the same stores I can find in the U.S.? So I mostly stayed in the old part, the Walled City, which is rifled with charming colonial architecture and seemed more authentic.
Go on a horse-drawn carriage. These are everywhere in the Walled City! I rather walk around and get lost on all the little side streets. Might be something fun to do though, especially if you like horses.
Buy anything. Although there were a lot of shops and I love shopping, I didn't find anything that special or unique to bring back. Depends what you're looking for. I really enjoyed wandering around and exploring all the artsy stores in the Walled City, though most were geared towards tourists.
Eat street food. Maybe I would've had better luck?

Where to Stay

Best bets are staying inside the Walled City. You can easily cover the whole city in a day but it has a lot of character, despite all the tourists. The Getsamani area, a 10 minute walk from the Plaza de Paz (where the clocktower is) is "up and coming" and more artsy. See the blue dot route below, I thought this way was the 'safer' route to walk in between the two areas. It is relatively safe, but if you're a woman or traveling alone, I just recommend sticking with this route in the evening at least when going back and forth between the two areas (rather than the gray-line route). During the day I think either route is fine, but the blue route seems to be more heavily trafficked with tourists. Once you pass Parque de Centario, you're essentially in Getsamni, which also features a lot of interesting graffiti art throughout the neighborhood. Wander around for hidden restaurants.

What I Liked Most About Cartagena

It's saturated with its own culture. The people are nice, very friendly. I didn't think anyone tried to take advantage of me as a tourist (meaning, trying to overcharge me or harass me), nor did I feel discriminated against (which unfortunately happens sometimes, as an Asian). I loved walking all around the fortress that surrounds the city by the sea, especially during sunset. There's a couple of outdoor bars along the top of the wall where you can hang out and have a drink and listen to live music (Cafe del Mar being the most frequented one). It's very easy to get around and see everything, and staying at a comfortable hotel was a good idea when I ran out of things to do and I could just relax there. So for me, the trip met my needs but don't come expecting that you can fill a lot of time just staying in or near the Walled City for more than two days.