Woke up pretty early this morning, not sure why though. Maybe it was the eagerness to finishing seeing Cartagena before heading out to Toganga. Today we were going to explore the Castillo de San Felipe, then go do some shopping, and lastly, help Manning with a makeover since he was getting a bit shaggy. The castle was pretty cool and fun to explore. There wasn’t a whole lot to it actually, but there were tunnels that you could walk down into and the view of Cartagena from the top of the castle was just so beautiful! We found one tunnel that took us deep down inside the castle and we were unsure if it would lead us out to anything. I felt like Indiana Jones on an adventure, and just waiting for bugs to start filling up the tunnel. Manning and I walked slowly behind, and it was getting darker and wetter in the tunnel. Luke and Gorky flashed their cameras to see what was ahead and I guess they didn’t like what they saw as they started yelling and quickly ran back towards us. We all started screaming, turned around, and ran as fast as we could back to where we entered from. Once we were out, we couldn’t stop laughing. It was like those horror movies where the typical white people have to explore and see what’s going on… well that was us! But overall we still had fun exploring everything.
With all the excitement, we now needed food. Of course, we went to the plaza area again since we could eat there, shop there, and get Mike a manicure too. But for some reason today seemed so much hotter & more humid (and it was only 11am!), and we seemed to be less decisive on what we wanted, and we walked around and around trying to find something to eat. The streets were twice as busy as they had been days before – it almost seemed like I was in a different city! There were double the street vendors with food and goods to sell. I was starving but more so now I wanted to shop instead of eat, but I was starving. As much as I was ready to settle on eating the local yummy street food, we finally found a cute little restaurant to dine at. What we thought was a simple order of juices and ceviche all around turned into a nightmare lunch. I was already feeling crabby from the heat and hunger, and I just wanted something refreshing. Lunches in Colombia are really big and fulfilling, and the lunch specials all reflect that. So we ordered off the regular menu just to get something small and quick. Negative. What we thought was simple took over 40min to arrive. The drinks alone took 25-30 min! Now I was even more irritated because the seats were getting uncomfortable, I was thirsty and people who sat and ordered way after we did were served and almost done with their meals – that’s because they ordered the lunch special! Then when the ceviche finally came, it was not edible. There was this nasty sauce that the shrimp were smothered in, and at this point I didn’t even want it. I just wanted out of the restaurant. We left and was about to go shopping when it started to rain. This would have been good for bargaining, but bad for browsing. I bought a few things but was now ready to get the heck out of dodge and start fresh in a new place. Over to Exito (Colombia’s version of a Wal-mart) we stocked up on some travel goodies and snacks, headed over to the hotel, and then relaxed in a minivan for the next 3 hours as we made our way to Toganga.
Toganga is a very very cute little fishing village that seemed very popular with backpackers. I can see why though, it was so chill and just relaxing. We didn’t have any reservations, but there weren’t that many places to stay at so we chanced it and cabbed it to the first place we had recommended to us from others back in cartagena. They had enough beds to accommodate us all, except one didn’t have a mosquito net, and since I had just seen a moth the size of my foot, I was a little leery on what else we might encounter there too. A few in our group went to explore the other sleeping areas and report back to us on what they found, this way we were dragging everything with us everywhere. Not to mention, the quicker we could find a place, the faster we could grab some food since we hadn’t eaten since the awful lunch back in Cartagena. An hour later and a big confusion with beds and locations, etc, we separated and ended up back all together at a place called Casa Blanca literally right on the beach. I had my own room that overlooked the water and marina, and the others shared a room upstairs.
We were lucky to find a place still open since it was past 10pm now. But we ordered some drinks and food and just sat back and relaxed with some music in the background, trying to unwind from the long crazy day we had. It seemed like such an emotional day, could have been the PMS. I think I just had an emotional breakdown trying to do what everyone wanted to do and make sure everyone was happy and content. I was happy to just have the day behind us and ready to eat some dinner. Everyone’s food was coming out and it looked really good! But… mine never came. And my refreshing drink I was waiting for didn’t come either. We had to remind the guy a few times, and I think they just wanted us to leave so they could go home – I didn’t blame them! Finally a fruit drink came my way, I took a few bites of some leftovers on a few plates and then just called it a night. With the day I had, it was probably a good thing I had my own room to tuck and hide away into. I knew today was just a bad day… tomorrow would be better.
