Benvenida al Caribe!!!

After the onslaught in Peru, the thought of going to Cartagena, probably the most visited destination in Colombia, scared me a little - the hustlers, the postcards, the pizza, don´t ask. But no. It helped that it was low season but folks were pretty laid back anyway. Cartagena is an old Spanish fort with a pretty old colonial town (a small section really) with a walls and all that. I stayed just outside the flashy part of the city in the part a little more run down and colorful, a lot more cheap and a lot more people for rent.

I arrived there after an overnight bus, midday, hot and exhausted and fell asleep, only wake up hours later and find no one in the hostel to talk to. Restless i hovered over to another place of lodgings i would´ve stayed and pretended to be looking for a room while i was spying out people. What was i to do? travelling alone and all one needs to fish for company sometimes. So when i saw a fella, Amir, checking out the local map i invited him and his mate, Chuck, out to see the old town, and off we went. Later that night i did find the usual beer guzzling crowd at my hostel and i got started again.

But it was Monday night and everything seemed to be closed, so what do a bunch of drunks and a tipsy lass do? Go to a brothel of course. Not very exciting really, my new found mates were too busy making sure i was ok to notice the working girls and we soon left. Left again in our hood and wondering the streets till we spotted a light and music on a corner and we unanimously decided to stay. Folks were simple, beer was cheap, women were scarce but dancing was on the cards even spilling over into the footpath, where sat an old big woman on a crate, observing and unobtrusively begging. Yes we were obviously foreigner but not the first ones to ever go there. As me and my gringo mates (british in fact but it´s all the same) were dancing salsa really badly, i started to get offers from the young men there for a dance, and there began my 3 hour dance-marathon where sweat glistened and poured down me. The old woman gave love advice to the gringos, warned us who to stay away from and who was likely to stab us and so we watered her with an nonalcoholic malt drink all night and we were in awe that she never needed to get up and pee once(...). The men were not sleazy, the women were not intimidated, and they even tried to teach me the swirly grinding pelvic moves that make salsa so sensual and stunning to look at. In fact, I bonded incredibly well with my new Caribbean friends who were content, with big broad genuine smiles, to enjoy their Colombian life to the max. Well, how was i to know there was a brothel next door and of all the nice putas i made friends with. What can i say, it was one of my best nights out.