The Beautiful Cartagena: Part 2

As I mulled over what else I wanted to write about from our time in Cartagena, I realized that I forget an essential part of our day on Thursday: booking flights from Cartagena to Medellin. The discount airline in Colombia is called VivaColombia and flies to all the major cities in Colombia for a little more than the bus costs. The only problem with VivaColombia is that you cannot use a foreign credit card to purchase flights. Instead, you purchase a ticket through the website by choosing to pay using “Via Baloto”. Once you have chosen your flight and gone through the whole process of puchasing, you receive a confirmation number and have to take this to a Via Baloto station, which is really just a counter where you can cash in lottery tickets, amongst other things. Generally, we carry no more than 50 million pesos on us at one time (about $25 Canadian), and in order to pay for our tickets, we had to take out cash and then carry over 300 million pesos with us to the grocery store to pay for our ticket. After stumbling our way through the purchase, we were given a receipt that looked identical to that of what you would get if you purchased a lottery ticket. Showing up at the airport yesterday, we slightly uncertain as to whether we had actually purchased a plane tickets, or if we had simply purchased a very expensive lottery ticket! In the end, everything worked out fine; however, the whole process still remains mystifying to me.

On Friday, we went on a tour to Islas de Rosario and Playa Blanca, which is rumoured to be the nicest beach in the Cartagena area. We were told to be at the port no later than 8:30am to catch our boat. Upon arriving on time, we found that we needed to be there at 8:30am Colombian time. Almost everything in Colombia runs on Colombian time, which is anywhere from 15 minutes to 2 hours late. More than once now, Ryan and I have found ourselves in long lines that take ages with people constantly budging, or waiting around in a chaotic environment to get going. This boat tour was the latter, and we waited around for about an hour before we were ushered onto our boat. The entire hour was spent with tour guides from various companies running around like chickens with their heads cut off yelling out people’s names. Once getting under way, everything was great. We passed the old south entrance to Cartagena that was manned during the war, and enjoyed the 45 minute boat ride out to Playa Blanca with the wind on our faces, cooling us off after the long wait in the sun. Playa Blanca is a beautiful strip of white sandy beach and crystal clear turquoise water. We haggled for chairs and spent the rest of the day sipping coconut water and taking turns swimming in the water. It was a pretty great day! At 3pm, our boat left to head back to Cartagena. The wind had picked up substantially and the ride from the beach to the gateway was absolutely miserable. Us gringos had been sat at the very front of the boat, and driver seemed to think that the faster he drove, the better off we would be. With each bump, we were soaked a little bit more, and I become closer and closer to losing my lunch. I felt as though I was on a terrible roller coaster ride that simply would not come to a stop. This was the type of boat ride that is both jaw rattling and gut wrenching, and I was honestly surprised that no one was sick on the boat. But, perhaps this prairie girl just has terrible sea legs and the locals are used to that type of horrendous boat ride?! Either way, I was incredibly happy to get back to shore, and despite the awful boat ride, the beach was worth it.

After a much needed shower and lie down at the hostel, we set out to get some dinner. Being quite touristy, Cartagena was really expensive to eat in, and we had had a few nights where we just ate meat skewers and arepas from the local vendors. Both of us were feeling a little off, so we decided to play it safe and get food from the Exito (Colombian grocery store). Throughout my travels, I have always enjoyed foreign grocery stores. I love seeing what is the same as Canada, and what is different, and I enjoy spending hours perusing the aisles slowly. The Exito’s are a different story. They are similar to Superstore or Walmart in that they carry almost eveything. Alongside your usual produce, deli, bakery, and packaged goods, you can also buy clothing, appliances, and alcohol. Every Exito we’ve been in is like Superstore on a Saturday; it’s busy, crowded, loud and everyone is pushing. Although, in Colombia, people do not push nicely, and on top of that, they budge the line. There is nothing more infuriating than waiting half an hour to buy your groceries and have someone cut in front of you at the last minute. On top of that, Colombians have a habit of shopping in pairs and having one person go and wait in line while the other does the shopping. Just when you think you’ve picked the quickest line, someone rolls up with an entire cart full of groceries and clothing, and you are set back another 20 minutes. To make matters worse, the employees of Exito work at a speed slower than a caterpillar crawls. It is as though they are wading through molasses as they ring each item through. Time is not of the essence here, and people’s time is definitely not respected. After being in Colombia for nearly 3 weeks, this is definitely the thing that I hate the most about the country and the culture. Not only am I used to prompt service and organized lines, but my nature is to move quickly and get things done. I have to continue to remind myself that I am in their country and I need to respect that things are done differently here, yet I find it difficult to show respect when I feel like I am being disrespected. I am constantly reminding myself that I am not on a time constraint and that generally, I have no where to be at a certain time.

Long story short, after spending 45 minutes at the Exito feeling irritated, Ryan and I made it back to the hostel to make some dinner. We spent the rest of the night hanging out in the hostel with some of the people we had met, and packed our stuff up in preparation for our flight to Medellin. As I mentioned before, everything went smoothly with our ticket purchase, and despite waiting in a few more lines and battling a few more budgers, we made it safely to Medellin.