Cartagena for my birthday

Direct flight from NYC to Cartagena on JetBlue for under $400? Count me in. It's a big reason I keep coming back to this city instead of somewhere that needs a connection. No layover, under five hours, steady cruising the whole way.

Then customs, which is the part nobody warns you about. Between immigration and the baggage belt I was stuck for about two hours, which after a direct flight is genuinely exhausting. I don't remember it being like this the first time I came, but build the buffer into your plan if you're landing in Cartagena.

The first slap of Cartagena humidity made up for it. It hits you like a wall the second the doors open and I genuinely love it. I got to my place around 5pm, dropped my bag, and went straight out to hunt for street food.

I'd booked an Airbnb in the heart of Getsemaní for the first stretch and it was beautiful: a pool, and a rooftop facing Castillo San Felipe de Barajas across the water. Sitting up there in the evening with the fort lit up on the other side of the lagoon does not feel real. It sits right next door to Casa Arinda, where I split the rest of my time, so you get two options on the same block.

Getsemaní is the reason to stay on this side of the wall. Centro, inside the old walls, is the postcard: balconies dripping with flowers, horse carriages, and about forty people trying to sell you a hat. Getsemaní is ten minutes away and a completely different animal. Murals down every street, music coming out of open doorways, plastic chairs on the sidewalk, and Plaza de la Trinidad turning into an outdoor living room every single night.

I ended up at Soberano Resto-Bar to sit and journal, with dogs and cats circling my table eyeing me for pets and snacks. I yapped with the staff for way longer than I meant to, went back, journaled on the rooftop, and went to bed early. A boring first night, on purpose. I've learned that if I go hard on day one I lose day two, and I wasn't giving up a day of this trip when I was working through part of it anyway.

This was a work day, so it started with the least glamorous errand of the trip: getting cash. Learn from me here. Barely anything opens early in Cartagena and the posted hours lie. If a bank says 7am, it opens at 8. I walked to three different places before I found one actually open, in the heat, before coffee. Go later than you think, bring a backup card, and keep an eye out for people loitering near ATMs, because you will get asked for money and it can turn into more than that.

Once I had cash I bumped into an Australian woman who walked with me to a cafe, and I ended up working there for a few hours. Great wifi, friendly staff, and they made me a fresh croissant and juice. Working from an air conditioned cafe between morning and mid afternoon isn't a luxury here, it's a survival tactic.

Lunch was at Tropic Pollo Arabe, a fish dish with rice and a fresh squeezed juice made from some Colombian fruit whose name I never caught and still think about.

I clocked back into work poolside for the afternoon, then went hunting for dinner and had ceviche at Casa del Tunel. Walked Getsemaní a while longer, then put myself to bed early to rest up from the heat.

Not every day of a trip needs to be a day. This one wasn't.

I want to say this because I think travel content has convinced everyone that a ten day trip means ten days of activities, and it genuinely does not. I did nothing on June 30. I got up late, ate, wandered, sat, ate again, and that was the entire day. It was one of the best ones.

Getsemaní is small enough that you end up walking the same four streets over and over and finding something different every time. A mural you didn't notice. A door open that was shut yesterday. Somebody's speaker going in the afternoon. I ate my way through most of it, which in Cartagena means arepas de huevo, fruit off a cart, and something fried you didn't plan on.

The heat is the thing that structures your day here whether you like it or not. Between about noon and four it flattens you. There's no powering through it, you just go inside, sit under a fan, and accept that the city is doing the same thing. Then around six the whole neighborhood comes back outside at once and Plaza de la Trinidad fills up with people selling beer out of coolers and kids playing and someone always drumming.

The thing nobody tells you about Cartagena is that the good part isn't a place you go, it's a time of day. Everything happens after 6pm. Plan around that and the city opens up.

Solo travel doesn't mean you want to be alone the whole time. So after wrapping up work I checked out at noon and into Viajero Getsemaní, ready to get my party hat on.

The front desk greeted me like an old friend, and when I mentioned my birthday was coming up they spoiled me with the birthday perks they give guests. Small thing, but it set the tone for the week.

Honest comparison, because I've now done both: I stayed at Viajero Centro last year and walking in felt like entering the Love Island villa. This one was calmer and more group oriented than I expected. It might have been off season, it might just have been that week. If what you want is people and noise, book Centro. If you want a beautiful clean place in the better neighborhood, book Getsemaní.

I still made friends with the girls in my room. We spent the evening on the rooftop playing icebreakers with everyone else staying there, and I met someone from New York, which meant making a friend I'd actually see again at home.

Then we went out. Bar hopping around a few places, tacos at Los Tacos Del Gordo, drinks and food at Discos y Mariscos, and a long stretch of just standing around in the Getsemaní streets, which is where the real night happens anyway. We got back to the hostel at 2am with the whole crew.

Started the morning at a little bakery in Getsemaní with a pan de bono and a juice, watching the neighborhood wake up.

Then Barú, the peninsula south of Cartagena, where the Aviario Nacional de Colombia sits right by the beach. It's the biggest aviary in the country, around two thousand birds across dry forest, wetland and coastal habitats. I took an inDrive instead of an Uber because it's cheaper, 20 mil pesos for the hour-ish ride out, and it was worth every peso.

The aviary was the coolest thing in the world. You walk a loop through the enclosures and you are engulfed by hundreds of species, macaws and flamingos and a condor that is much bigger than you're prepared for. GO EARLY. There is little to no shade, I was sweating like a dog the entire time, and there is no wifi out there at all.

That last part matters more than you'd think, because it's where people get taken. With no service you can't call a ride, and the drivers waiting outside know it. Bargain. I paid 15 mil pesos for the twenty minute hop over to Barú. And the actual scam: motorcycle guys will tell you there's an entry fee to drive toward Barú and that you have to pay it, to them, right now. There is no fee. It does not exist. Say no and keep walking. If you skim everything else here, take that.

Then Playa Blanca, which is the real reason to come out this way. White sand, water that genuinely does not look real in photos, and about nine people an hour offering you a massage, a mojito, a bracelet, fresh oysters. Say no cheerfully, they say no problem, everyone moves on with their day. It's not the hassle people warn you about online, it's just commerce.

We stayed until the light went orange, which out there happens fast and all at once. If you go: aviary first, beach after, same day, one trip. Bring cash in small bills because limited places accept card or have ATM's.

Back in the city that night we ended up at The Clock Pub in the center. A bartender handed me a free margarita and something in me switched straight back on. I said let's go, and we walked the center for about an hour before heading home around 1am, which means I rang in my birthday somewhere between that bar and that walk.

My birthday, in Cartagena, with Colombia playing in the World Cup. I could not have designed it better if I tried.

I was already running on fumes from the night before. I'd booked a day trip out to the Rosario Islands with someone I met that week, a guy who was supposed to fly to Medellín and pushed it a day to spend the day with me. We went to Luxury Beach Club and I paid a hundred dollars for it.

And somewhere out there it clicked. This was the same island I'd already been to, the one I came back to Colombia for in the first place. A hundred dollars to be delivered to a place I already knew, on my birthday. Regardless, it was open bar and we got fed some tasty fish, so I made the best of it.

Back in the city by evening, and by then the whole place had one thing on its mind, Colombia vs Ghana!!

We watched at The Clock Pub again, my second night there in a row, and by then they knew me. The bartenders found out it was my actual birthday and handed me a free drink, and then that just kept happening everywhere I went. I did not pay for a single drink on my birthday in Cartagena, and I want that on the record.

The street outside was better than any bar. When Colombia held on at the end the whole place emptied onto the road, horns going, flags out of car windows, strangers hugging. That's where the photo of me is, standing in the middle of it, completely overwhelmed and running on no sleep.

Here's the part I promised. I went back out to the same island on my own and did it properly: a ride down to Barú, then a local boat across for 7 mil pesos, about fifteen minutes on the water. Around twenty dollars all in instead of a hundred, and you go on your own schedule instead of a group's.

I stayed at Arte y Aventura, an eco-hostel over in the La Charca sector, and I need to talk about Carlos. He's an older man, genuinely humble, who paints and cooks like a master chef. The food coming out of that kitchen on an island with no proper grid beats most of what I eat in New York. He and his family take care of everyone who walks in like you're theirs, and they take volunteers if you want to stay a while and work instead of just passing through.

Later I walked over to the beach on the other side of the island, the one where Mantas Beach Club sits, and that's when it fully landed. I was standing next door to the place I'd paid a hundred dollars to reach the day before. Next door. What that hundred actually bought me was an open bar. You do not need an excursion for any of this. Just go to the island.

The reality check, because I'd want to know: this is an eco-hostel and it is a bucket shower situation. The island runs on limited power and limited water and the place reflects that. If that's a dealbreaker, book elsewhere. If it isn't, it's the best place I've stayed in Colombia.

The rest of the day was what the islands always are. Water so clear it looks fake in photos, no signal, nothing to do but swim and eat whatever's cooking and talk to people for hours. The boats run when the boats run, and you stop checking the time by about noon.

This was the day I actually came back to Colombia for. I spent it with the families I met out here on my first trip. Not a tour, not an activity, just going back to people who fed me and put up with my Spanish a year and a half ago and doing it all over again. There is a specific feeling to being somewhere far from home where people already know your face, and I don't think you can buy it. You just have to go back somewhere twice.

Five minutes from the hostel is Playa Escondida, the hidden beach, and it earns the name. Small, very private, shallow a long way out, with coral you can snorkel straight off the sand. It's also the best sunset spot on the island and it isn't signposted, so ask someone.

And I have to tell you what happened there, because it's the thing I'll actually remember from this whole trip. I don't know how to swim. I never learned. Playa Escondida is shallow enough and calm enough that I stopped being scared of it, and I taught myself to float. Then, over a couple of days, I taught myself to swim. A whole lifetime of avoiding this, and I sorted it out on a beach in the Rosario Islands the week of my birthday, because the water was patient with me.

One thing you actually have to plan out here: your food. Don't eat when you get hungry, because that's already too late. Places stop serving early and there is no popping out for something at ten at night. Tell your hostel earlier in the day or sort out a restaurant in advance.

That night we watched Mexico play England, on a remote island, with bucket showers and barely any power, a group of people who were strangers three days earlier crowded around one screen for a Round of 16 game at the Estadio Azteca. England won 3-2 and held on for the last forty minutes with ten men after a red card.

One warning nobody gives you: be careful with the dogs. Plenty out here are friendly beach strays and they're lovely, but some are aggressive and some are guarding property, and you cannot tell which is which by looking. Let them come to you, give them room around houses, and be extra careful after dark.

Last full day on the island, and I stretched it out as far as it would go. I was up before six, which out here isn't discipline, it's just that there's no reason to be inside once it's light.

Swam in the morning, which I want to point out is a sentence I could not have written a week earlier. Ate. Lay around. Swam again. Went back to Playa Escondida for the sunset because that's the spot for it and I wasn't going to waste my last chance.

Spent the evening with the same group I'd been circling all week, part hostel people, part families I've now known across two trips. That's the thing that gets me about coming back to a place instead of always going somewhere new: the second visit is a completely different relationship. Nobody was performing hospitality at me. I was just around.

Said goodbye to a few people twice, because the first one never takes.

Took an early lancha back to the mainland, and here's the one thing to know before you do: ask where the boat is actually landing. I assumed the tourist dock near the old city. The 7am boat let us out at the fruit market instead, which is a working market on the water where the local boats come in. Packed, loud, tarps and shacks, vendors everywhere. Genuinely interesting, just not where I wanted to be standing with all my luggage at seven in the morning. I felt fine because it was early and busy and I walked straight out to a ride, but keep your bag close and don't linger.

Then back to the hostel to collect my luggage, which I'd left there the entire time I was on the island. Do that. There is no reason to drag everything out to the islands with you.

While I was there I ran into a girl I'd met earlier in the trip, and we went out for one last meal together at Oh! Lala in Getsemaní. Ceviche, obviously. Cold, sharp, citrusy, and exactly what you want after ten days of that heat.

Then a ride out to the airport, where my flight got delayed and I was genuinely glad about it. One tip I only worked out at the very end: check whether you have Priority Pass. I did and had no idea it applied here. It got me into the lounge at Rafael Núñez instead of sitting at a gate for hours. If your credit card has travel perks, go and look, because plenty of people are carrying this and never use it.

Right as we're taking off to head back to NYC, Colombia lost. Flight was quiet, but my heart was full. Ten days. One birthday, one World Cup win, two neighborhoods, an island, one very expensive lesson about excursions, and a group chat I'm still in.