9 Days in Colombia

Raised eyebrows and slow nods were the most commonly elicited reactions when I told people I was going to Colombia. American tourism to Colombia is slowly on the rise, but unless you have gone, or know someone who has recently visited, you too are probably a bit perplexed as to why anyone would go there. I find that the most common association that Americans have with Colombia is drug trafficking, cocaine, and gangs a la Narcos and tales of Pablo Escobar. Yes, that is absolutely part of their history and they will be happy to discuss it with you, but the country is quickly moving past that predisposition to show how much more it has to offer.

Colombia is a vibrant country with tropical beaches, lush rainforests, and world class cities. There is a renaissance happening in the cities, particularly Medellín, which is a rising spot for innovators, foodies, and art lovers alike. Part of the Amazon rainforest and the Andes mountains run through the country and contribute to the incredibly diverse climates and biodiversity there. Colombia is the 2nd largest producer of coffee in the world despite having little to no coffee culture themselves. From the high altitude capital of Bogota set on top of the mountains, to the tropical arrival spot of Christopher Columbus in Santa Marta (for which the country is named), there are endless opportunities to experience the beauty of this country.

I planned this trip hastily and got a little carried away with packing as much into my allotted time as possible (per usual) so I encourage you to use this as a guide, and not to follow my itinerary exactly. I will give suggestions of how to make your trip more enjoyable along the way. Check out the individual city guides for more details.

Day 1, Cartagena: We arrived in Cartagena on JetBlue direct from JFK and took a taxi from the airport for $11 USD straight to Hotel Monaguillo de Getsemani. We dropped our bags and immediately hit Maria Bonita Taqueria Cantina for a couple tacos since ONE of us refused to eat breakfast. We proceeded to walk around and get acquainted with Getsemani. It’s a small, “hipster” neighborhood next to the walled “old city” of Cartagena. It’s relatively quiet and surrounded by tons of street art, decorated alleyways, and brightly colored buildings covered in bougainvillea. I much prefer it to the “old city”. Around 6pm we checked into the room, freshened up, and ventured out to dinner. In classic Nina style by doing all things at all times, we started with apps at Maria, followed by a cocktail at Alquimico (first floor), and ended with an al fresco dinner at Alma listening to live Colombian music. Crashed hard around 11pm.

Day 2 Cartagena to Medellín: Breakfast seems to always be included at the hotels in Cartagena. I had a few suggestions for brunch spots from friends/guides but always ate at the hotels since it was quick and free. Getsemani is a 10 minute walk (at most) from the walled “old city” so we ventured that way after breakfast. The one surprise and one negative to my trip was how many street vendors there are in the old city. You will get bombarded and they will try to sell you everything. We were propositioned to purchase hats, sunglasses, soda, water, beer, more hats, prostitutes, fruit, candy, magnets, drugs, and everything in between. Everyone is selling something. After meandering around the city we had to rush to get lunch because SOMEONE refused to eat breakfast again. We shared a delicious broiled fish and coconut rice dish at La Mulata. I had my first limonada de coco here and my life was forever changed. After quelling some hanger by bringing blood sugar levels back up we ran back to the hotel to get our bags because I am an insane person and realized after booking roundtrip tickets to Cartagena and realizing the length of the trip that it would be a good idea to fit Medellín into the mix and I have a very easily persuaded travel companion (except for when it comes to convincing him to eat breakfast).

Try not to be in a rush when you get to Medellín because the airport is far (45-60 mins from the city), it’s one road over the mountain, and the traffic is awful. They are almost done building a tunnel through the mountain that is expected to be completed in a couple months which will cut down the transport time significantly. Luckily, I emailed the restaurant where I made dinner reservations ahead of time and they saved our table. We checked into the sparsely decorated but hip 574 Hotel which is a perfect mix between mid-century modern and industrial aesthetic; showered quickly, and were out the door. Dinner was at OCI.mde, a semi-al fresco, industrial, chic spot where we had suckling pig and short ribs and envied every plate that was put down around us. After dinner we wandered around the El Poblado neighborhood waiting for a friend from New York who was traveling through the city at the same time and was eating at Carmen. There are TONs of bars to hop into in downtown El Poblado, some of them touristy, some of the local, some of them kitsch, some of them classy. We met up, sat outside, drank a couple of Club Colombias, compared travel notes, and laughed about NYC things in the middle of Medellín.

Day 3, Medellín: We woke up early and had a little breakfast at the outdoor cafe attached to the 574 Hotel which was included in our room. I finally convinced the travel companion to eat something in the morning, so we avoided any midday hangry disasters from here on out. We met up with a Real City Tour guide at the train station which was about a 10 minute walk from our hotel. If you stay closer to the main center of El Poblada your walk will be longer and up/down a pretty big hill depending on the direction. The metro in Medellín is a beacon of hope for the city. It’s impeccable and the people treat it with incredible respect. The Real City Tour was incredibly informative, lead by an engaging and entertaining guide, and stopped at all of the spots I wanted to see downtown in El Centro. I felt much better about my decision to take the tour after seeing the hustle and bustle of El Centro and being able to appreciate what I was seeing supplemented by the guides anecdotes and stories. We left the tour and got the traditional plate of bandeja paisa. Paisa is a colloquial term for a Colombian from Paisa Region and locals are very fond of calling themselves, and others from the region by the name. After the sharing the huge plate we found some respite from the heat inside the Museum de Antioquia, a museum with a large number of Fernando Botero pieces and a gallery dedicated to his own art collection which included some Frank Stella and Richard Estes. After the cool and calm relaxation of the museum we boarded the metro to the “Industriales” area. Here we went to the Mercado del Rio to rest our feet, sit directly in front of an industrial size fan, connect to wifi, drink a beer, and ignore each other for 30 minutes. The market was similar to all of the new open concept markets popping up around the world. There were stands for pizza, paella, sushi, beer, and more. The bar area where we were sitting started to get packed and lively at 5:30 on a Friday evening, as everyone was getting off work. Other areas of the market were still relatively quiet. We stopped at Cerveceria Libre where they fed us airy crisps by the cup full, which I inhaled greedily, and a delicious stout and passionfruit wheat. After freshening up at 574 we headed to Carmen for dinner and Bogota Beer Company for a drink afterwards.

Day 4 Medellín to Cartagena: We woke up early, again, and had breakfast at the little outdoor cafe. One of the things we really wanted to do in Medellín was do a Comuna 13 tour and chose the one with the most accommodating time frame for allowing us to make our flight on time. We took a taxi to Toucan Tours and got checked in. This tour’s differentiation is that it is a bilingual tour with a guide from the community and some of the proceeds of the tour go to Casa Kolacho, a non-profit urban collective that runs a hip-hop cultural center for the kids who are growing up in areas like Comuna 13. The kids are kept busy dancing, song writing, rapping, and making music instead of getting involved with unsavory activities that their communities were faced with in the past. This tour involves walking to the La Poblado train station with the guides and getting onto a local bus to head up to Comuna 13, which was once considered Medellín’s most dangerous neighborhood and caught in the crossfire between the rebels, insurgents, and the military. Now with escalators to assist in moving about the neighborhood, brightly painted houses, and incredible amounts of street art, the community is working to transform itself. If I were to do this again, I would hire a private tour guide as I felt like taking a bilingual tour was making all of the descriptions drawn out, it was a large group, and we could have asked many more questions and catered it to our interests a bit more. We left the tour as everyone (like, many, many tours of people) were gathering in one area to watch a hip-hop performance and caught the bus back to the metro station. We had about 30 minutes to spare and the travel companion wanted to ride the cable car so we did that. I didn’t love this as I was getting a bit motion sick and the windows were a bit too blurry to stare outside, but we did enjoy riding with a tourist from Panama who enthusiastically chattered to the locals who jumped in and out of the cable cars at each stop. They wanted so badly to talk to us and even after realizing we had awful Spanish, kept pulling us into conversations. Once back in Cartagena we checked into Hotel Las Carretas in the city center. Travel companion went to the KGB bar, which is a bizarre Russian KGB themed dive bar, while I popped into Casa Chiqui, which is a boutique curated by a well travelled, well known woman of the city. I decided on a pair of big, colorful straw earrings and a big, gold shell ring. Perfect Cartagena accessories. We ate at La Cevicheria where we had A LOT of ceviche and I poured a little rum in my limonada de coco.

Day 5, Islas del Rosario: We were picked up at the hotel at 8:30 by our free shuttle and dropped off at the marina. Someone met us at the entrance and showed us to the spot to sit which correlated with the boat we would be taking. The marina is quite the operation with a few dozen boats being boarded by day trippers and overnight guests, all headed to any one of the resorts in the Rosario Islands. Our boat was private, going directly to our resort but there are some boats that will make multiple stops and even stop in Baru. Everyone put on their life jackets, we cruised into the harbor and we were off. I’ve heard and read horror stories of the boat trips in and out to the islands but our trip out was quick and painless, as the morning commutes are usually a bit more calm than the afternoon. We were greeted with a glass of wine after arriving at Coralina Island and everyone was led to their assigned loungers. Since we had booked the bungalow on the water, we were taken to our private dock with 2 loungers and a ladder into the ocean. The room was beautiful, spacious, and breezy. Just laying in bed and listening to the waves lap against the retaining wall below us was hypnotizing. The bathroom was kind of outside, with a thatched roof and a huge tree branch making its way through the space. I’ll use any excuse to pretend I’m in an outdoor shower but when you’re rinsing off next to geckos and butterflies, I think it counts. I spent 90% of my time in a bathing suit, sunning and snorkeling. Around 2-3pm, depending on the wind (and waves), the day trippers head out and only those staying at the resort remain. We used this time to practice backflips off the docks, sit in all of the loungers, pet the resident pup, and generally own the island. Meals at Coralina Island are provided so we ate fresh seafood, coconut rice, arepas, and fresh juice. I think I only had one limonada de coco.

Day 6, Islas del Rosario: I spent my day jumping off of my private dock and snorkeling to my little hearts content. Among the notables I saw an octopus checking out a conch shell, a sea urchin about the size of a basketball, and schools of thousands of small silver fish skimming the surface, shimmering and glistening around me as I floated. I felt like I was in another world. The new round of day trippers and resort guests landed around 10:30 and suddenly we had to share the island again. I had wanted to kayak and we decided to go out after lunch. The wind starts to pick up on the islands around 12 so this was a BAD IDEA. The first half of the cruise, which quickly goes around the bend to the back of the island was calm and relaxing. The second half of the paddle was into what felt like gale force winds and 2-3’ waves which, when sitting in a kayak felt monstrous. We were woefully unprepared and there was almost a minor breakdown from the travel companion, but we made it after what was probably 20-30 mins of non-stop battling the winds and waves and were able to laugh about it afterwards. There was NO laughing from the back of the kayak before docking though. Thank goodness he ate. Around 3pm the resort decided it was time for the day trippers to head back and we hitched a ride on the boat to our next resort. This is where my late planning really bit me hard because for some reason, the Monday evening of our trip was almost entirely booked until essentially only hostels were left. I reluctantly booked us one of the last rooms on Isla Grande at Cocoliso Resort and regretted the decision about 2 seconds after walking off the boat. We had just come from a bungalow on the ocean to what I can only compare to a downtrodden and abandoned beach resort in Wildwood, NJ. The air conditioner was strong and there were a couple cute areas to sit. Otherwise, I was really disappointed with the general upkeep of the room, the resort, and the quality of the food. We took a walk around the Western end of Isla Grande and of course, the two resorts next to us were practically luxury accomodations compared to our abandoned Jersey Shore motel. I feed a wild parrot who was hanging out at Gente del Mar. I pet approximately 7 dogs, most of which joined us for a pack walk through the trails. We bought some trailside beers from the little makeshift cantinas attached to people’s houses. At night he jumped in the enchanted lagoon but unfortunately, we were not enchanted and saw none of the touted bioluminescent plankton. I felt a bit bougie and high maintenance when I asked the person manning the front desk of the hotel to find us a boat tour that could drop us off at our next resort first thing in the morning. He sent a few texts and quickly arranges a boat to pick us up at 9am.

Day 7, Islas del Rosario: The guilty conscience of being high maintenance and wanting out of that resort faded as soon as I stepped foot onto the most rickety boat with two local guys who spoke absolutely no English. I didn’t care one bit as we were back on the water, lazily cruising around, listening to this guy tell us things about the island in Spanish while I understood about 25% of what he was saying. He guided the boat into what seemed like the middle of nowhere and anchored. He handed us snorkels and fins and motioned for us to jump in. The travel companion jumped in first and immediately started yelling into his snorkel. His muffled screams were something like “holy shit”, “oh my god”, “holy shit”, “you have to see this” repeatedly until I jumped into the water a minute behind him. And dear reader, holy shit. The boat was positioned in the middle of a circular reef, about 60 feet across, and there were hundreds, maybe thousands of fish below us. Fish and coral of all colors, all sizes. I felt silly for falling in love with snorkeling the day before in the hazy waters along the coast. THIS was snorkeling. Have you ever seen a Rainbow Parrotfish? They’re huge and boast neon colors that I didn’t know existed in nature. Angelfish, Butterflyfish, I think I even saw a bunch of “Dorys” aka Blue Tangs. I could have floated have done this forever. Once we were back in the boat they took us over to jump in and look at where there is a sunken plane directly in front of Pablo Escobar’s abandoned mansion. Some people say this a drug cartel plane, some claim it’s Pablo’s, but we never really got an answer and I can’t seem to find anything online. It seems hard to consider that this actually sunk in the area where it is but I also think it’s hard to imagine Colombia intentionally dropping the plane here. Who knows. We were dropped off at our next resort, Isla Del Sol, where we immediately jumped in the pool and raved about how we are professional snorkelers now and how many fish we saw. In the afternoon we walked out of the resort and towards the “downtown” of Isla Grande. According to the proprietor of our first resort, the country took over the islands in the 80’s and the only people allowed to keep their property were those that had been there before the 60’s. This is now a very old town in the middle of a national park, surrounded by resorts. There is a dirt soccer field in the center of town, children playing with spinning tops, stray dogs, cock-fighting rings, and makeshift bodegas. We walked past the back of Pablo Escobar’s mansion, now seized by local squatters who demand payment for photography or entrance, and found a deserted spot to watch the sun set.

Day 8, Islas del Rosario: More pool time. More ocean time. More sunning time. Finished my book. We started chatting to other hotel guests and quickly became friendly. A young and eager couple from Argentina. A veteran solo traveler from Norway. A super hip and creative couple from Peru. A funny and dry humored couple living in Switzerland, him from Egypt and her from Romania. We ate lunch together, drank beers together, we led them all on an expedition to see Pablo’s mansion, and then we took over a nearby day resort to watch the sun set. The couple from Switzerland bought a bottle of rum from the bar and we all sat and talked and laughed late into the night after dinner and the feeling of bonding with people across the globe who all ended up on the same island was empowering and inspiring.

Day 9, Islas del Rosario to Cartagena: More pool time. More ocean time. More sunning time. Around 3pm it was time to head back to Cartagena. While the winds always pick up in the afternoon our ride back was relatively tame apart from a few big bumps over some errant waves. We checked into Casa Pizarro in Getsemani and relaxed by the pool for a little. I had originally booked the room with an outdoor jacuzzi but the air conditioner was broken and they moved us to a larger room with a balcony on the second floor. It was pretty loud in the morning with lots of activity on the street but this was probably my favorite hotel out of them all. We showered and went to a food truck area to watch the sun set that we had seen from the boat when heading out to the islands. We then went into the walled city to meet up with the Isla Del Sol crew at the Alquimico rooftop for drinks. The service was a bit slow so we decided to venture somewhere else. Someone from the group suggested sitting in the Santo Domingo Plaza and ordering bottles of rum, which isn’t exactly how I would have spent my last evening, but I was happy to be around new friends.

Day 10, Cartagena: We woke up early, enjoyed breakfast on the roof of the hotel, and ran out for some last minute shopping. We bought bags and cuban cigars and hunted down a certain vendor I had seen on the first day that had some small paintings I wanted. I regretted not having more cash to spend because everything was so cheap. This was a whirlwind adventure and I was sad to see it coming to an end, but I was exhausted and all out of pesos so it was time to head home.