Holas mis amigos! I've made it to Colombia :) I've flew into Cartagena, spent a day exploring, then rushed over to Santa Marta, which is on the Caribbean coast.
It's been pretty nice so far. I'm not going to lie, I was incredibly overwhelmed during my first few hours alone in Cartagena. I was so excited the night before leaving that I didn't sleep a wink, and then passed out on my flight, only to realize I didn't get a chance to see NYC one last time. Corny, I know... but since I have no idea when I'll be back, I wanted one last look.
Anyway, when I got to Cartagena, it felt oppressively hot (though I've gotten use to the weather and laying out by the water pretttyyy quickly!). my spanish is nooo bueno, and then a bird shat on meeeeee. I almost cried but luckily a nice man started talking to me. It turns out he was a professor whose speciality is linguistics anthropology. He studies languages from around the world on the verge of extinction. He said a lot of other smart stuff, mostly things I didn't understand, then we went to get a Grandilla juice which was pretty tasty once i got over the weird lookingness of the fruit (This from an Asian person!)
Once I got back to the hostel, I met an American who went to UVA and a group of Brazilians who taught me dirty words. I learned boceta means bus in Colombia or vagina in pourtugese (the more you know!) and we ended up grabbing food from a street cart for dinner, buying a box (!!!) of rum, drinking in the plaza, watching little kids play futbol, and dancing the whole night at MediaLuna which apparently is theeeeeee place to be on a Wednesday in Cartagena.
I woke up a litttle late the next morning so I missed the bus I was planning on taking. Luckily, once I got to the bus station, another bus company was leaving for Santa Marta. I had read Colombian buses were notoriously cold so i had worn a sweater and a pair of sweatpants. THAT WAS A LIE (or only applied to the larger, more luxurious lines) and since I was on a cheaper company, it was hot as hell and i was sweating my ass off for a good 2 hours before we finally made a stop. Which was nottt Santa Marta btw, but since mi espanol es a little rusty, I hopped right off and started walking towards the bus terminal's exit. Luckily, the bus driver, who became my BFFL because I ended up sitting in the front, chased after me and told me "NO DUMBASS. THIS IS Barranquilla. NOT Santa Marta."
my new amigo. I told him "perdon... saca una selfie conmigo? SONRISA!"
So I went to the bathroom, stripped, felt a thousand times better, got back on el autobus, and made it to Santa Marta about 3 hours later. And then in about 3 hours time, I was drinking Caipirinhas with some peeps from my hostel, The Dreamer, and we went out to Charlie's Bar in the city, which turns out was owned by an American whose been living in Colombia for the past 3 years & opened up a bar (basically he has my dream life.) ANYWAY, it was great, everyone should visit, especially because there was a spontaneous breakdance party.
Charlie is to the right... he's living my dream life!!!
Then we went to El Mirador in Taganga, which is the next town over, and spent the whole night dancing on a cliff overlooking the water. PRETTY STUFF.
This was the view. Obviously, not at night, but I wanted to show how pretty it was. It was also very breezy which was good cus i was hot from dancing.
Anyway, I got tired, went back to the hostel, fell asleep on a hammock and just woke up. I've decided to spend the day relaxing by the pool, since i've been running around and will be running around the next few days. I signed up for a 4 day/3 night hike in the jungle so let's see if I can survivee (and then later blog about it!)
CIAOO!!