Day 2 - Cartagena (A Wee Bit Better)

It was a packed day that started late, thanks to too much Aguilla Light, Vodka, and a few other mischevious devils! and it started off pretty darn funny. I tore up the room looking for my ORANGE (<- this is significant) quick try towel (guys: they have no towels here at this lovely establishment) and forgot I put it where I could find it.. in my vanity bag. Let's proceed to after I shower and dry off.. I grab a piece of tissue and wipe the back of the neck.. it's orange. I thought to myself, well maybe this is bad tissue. I repeat and repeat.. my darn skin is orange! My clothes, my bra, my ears were all orange. Well I guess I was supposed to have prewashed the quick dry towel separately before I packed it.. d'oh. Just call me SunKissed today no pun intended..

I was supposed to go to the Spanish School @ 9am to discuss if I could take a week of classes.. Well I sorta made it at like 10:30am. I took a few pics along the way. So Cartagena is divided into neighborhoods. Today I am referencing the old city (walled city) and outside the city. The Walled City is beautiful. It's vibrant and bustling with people. The architecture is pretty amazing. Outside the Walled City is not as fabulous, but they have a lot of great restaurants, and home to a ton of better priced hotels and hostals. It's quasi-touristy, but not really.

This is the outside the old city in the area of Getsemani.











These pictures are from within the plaza/square inside the walled city. The picture to the left is the Clock Tower. You can kind of use it as a guide (think north star) when navigating the walled city. The picture to the right is iono. Let me go back and look another day for a name. According to Wiki "The official entrance to downtown Puerta del Reloj (Clock Gate), which comes out onto Plaza de los Coches (Square of the Carriages)." The third picture captures some of the architecture within the city.

 

I get there and tell them I am below 0 on the Spanish knowledge scale and I wanted to be functional. Sidebar: Demeeka, I know, I know.. you gave me Rosetta but I was trying to graduate and couldn't multitask, lol. She said I could do intensive classes @ 4 hours a day *insert perplexed face* then she says most people say its too much and I said I concur, so we opt for 3 hours. Their electricity was out, so they kind of had a makeshift office.. I was sweating profusely everytime I breathed, but I decided to stick it out and take my first class. I learned to say I am from the US and my Spanish is bad.. Yo soy de dondre Estado Unistados y Me Espanol es malo!! Should I have learned that combo on my first day?!

I then took my first trip to the Exito! Can you say very nice! I got some snacks so I could move a little faster in the mornings since I've committed to 9am for the rest of the week. I am all about PB&J for breakfast. I also bought some yogurt, but we'll talk about that in my next update.

The hotel was having Mexican Night at the Pool area - 2 burritos and 2 shots of tequila for 12,000 pesos (roughly $7USD). The pool party scene felt as if it came out of an LA or South Beach scene were people were too cool for school.

 Me and the girls I met, Maggie and Mary Ann decided to venture out and see what we could find. We ended up in this place that had pizza and live music..[will insert name later]. Nelson, quite a character, also made us margaritas! But uhm ordering that was a fiasco, because margarita is their pronunciation for pizza of the plane kind.

When the live music went on.. it was hilarious they were covering English songs. I did a quick sound bite to capture the moment, but it seems to not want to load at the moment [will insert when i can].

The pizza was fabulous though, but not filling. The night progresses and we end up back at the hotel for the remainder of Mexican Night. Me and the girls decided to indulge, me the tacos and them the tequilla a match made in heaven! The techno came on and fully dressed people got into the little pool and began fist pumping. Some of the guests did some face painting and I decided to retire to bed!

It was a long day of just getting oriented during the day. Tomorrow continues the adventure!

Oh.. here is the pictures of the public banos! Not my cup of tea, but I am not judging. It works for them!

Oh sorry these posts are soo long! I just want to set the context.. Then I'll cut to the good stuff and pictures with MAYBE some historical reference.. to WIKI.