Bogotá-Cartagena

Sun 1107 At gate 14D waiting for flight. Everything OK this morning really.

Woke up early but stayed in bed and kept drifting off, finally reluctantly got up about 0845. Hasty ablutions and packing, usual breakfast a bit after 9 - a bloke and a kid at table briefly, but apart from brief "buenos dias" he was engaged on his phone and so I copied him.

Same bloke who picked me up (Henry) drove me to airport - I paid Diana (owner) 15k before I left. I sat in front and we made acceptable smalltalk in Spanish, it's all practice. He said the weather in Bogota is very variable, it can be raining on one street and a few streets over it's sunny, also it didn't used to get over about 16C but now they are seeing 20C. He is/was an electrician and had spent six-seven months in Madrid for his business. He said there's a smaller less touristy hill next to Monserrate (name began with G IIRC) which I might check out when I'm back here in April. He also said there's a not-tourist-oriented cable car between two parts of the city which only opened about 8 months ago, which I might check out.

No real problems at airport, though auto check in machine refused to play ball right at the final step. I retried with another and it did again, so spoke to some staff (who all let me speak Spanish, I have no idea if I needed to) who checked me in. Unfortunately there was stuff about "no sharp objects" ; I asked checkin desk woman who said I should ask security and (jumping ahead) when I did get to security - relatively low-fuss, presumably as is domestic flight - the woman there said I could take my nail clippers but not my nail scissors, so I gave them to her. I could maybe have tried to sneak them through and plead ignorance but whatever. Bit annoying but not end of world. I was a bit disorganised at security, I kept my hidden belt on but it didn't upset metal detector despite having some bank cards and a small key in it, I was also scrablling to dump coins into tray at last minute - I really need to get more organised with having plastic bag to dump these contents into bag prior to security. I did remember to take my belt off and shove camera into bag and smartphones into fleece before arriving.

Biggest fuckup was that my bag went through before tray with jacket etc, and I managed to miss (or it beat me through the metal detector and I didn't realise) my bag going through, so I collected my tray (there was virtually no queue and it was fairly quiet) and was looking around for my bag to come through. Fortunately after maybe a minute I noticed it at the far end of the conveyor and no one had walked off with it.

Henry insisted on walking into the terminal and upstairs and over to the domestic checkin with me. I felt mildly out of breath walking up the stairs, will hope that's altitude. I wasn't going to tip him - it didn't really feel appropriate - but I decided I'd better so I started to pull wallet out but he shook my hand and walked off before I could pay him, so hopefully he wasn't expecting one.

There was a bit of drama about 0355 this morning, I was woken up by lots of banging and shouting in the hotel. Not entirely unreasonably I was pretty fucking worried - robbers? cops?? - but I sat tight and listened and I kept hearing a woman saying things like "querida" and "por favor mi amor" (I didn't get the bulk of the conversation) so I realised it was some kind of domestic problem rather than a direct personal threat. I was still feeling a bit nervous - I had fallen asleep with bathroom light on and it would be obvious from outside it was on, but I also didn't want to show a change of state by turning it off and indicating I was awake, nor did I want to sit there frightened in the dark.

I did wonder if I should call the police but it didn't really seem appropriate. It died away and then came back a little bit and I managed to get back to sleep maybe 0415ish.

I wan't going to say anything but the owner apologised to me at breakfast this morning, IIRC and IIUnderstoodC, someone had come back from a party with a friend and they had ended up fighting. I said it was fine, not to worry, life's like that etc. I had been planning on just not leaving a review of any kind after this scary disturbance, but I think after having that explanation I'll just forget about the disturbance and leave the (good) review I would have left if it hadn't happened. I think that's reasonably honest; it's not as if I have reason to believe this is a regular occurrence.

I must say - if only because I couldn't be sure the button on the door handle did indeed lock the door from the inside (I figured out the trick to leave the room with the door locked, but that only works when you can access the outside handle) so I was damn glad I had the Howsarlock on the door. It's obviously not going to keep anyone really determined to get in out of the room but it would certainly have stopped a casual attempt to enter or someone falling against the door from knocking it open.

I took a million pesos out at the Banco de Bogota machine on Starling card after checking in and before going through security. I tried another machine (Caja Social?? don't rely on that) but it had a max of 700k IIRC. The BdB fee was the same as when I took out 600k on arrival, so that's good; we're looking at 1.32% on the million, which isn't so bad. I've stuffed all this in my hidden belt until I get to the hotel in Cartagena and can reshuffle everything. Obviously holding a lot of cash has risks, but so does withdrawing cash, and it feels relatively secure here at the airport plus of course it's unlikely anyone is going to follow me all the way to Cartagena to rob me of the cash they saw me withdraw.

All the announcements are in Spanish only; again I would guess that's because this is the domestic terminal.

I am at this point only very mildly apprehensive about getting a crappy seat; I *have* flown on much longer flights in crappy seats before and I'm sure I'll survive.

1159 Boarding, by group, not mine yet. Looks like a fairly full flight. Just realised I forgot to proffer my dispoable razor to security and ask if I could take it, but it went through so fine. I'd rather have had the nail scissors than the razor though.

1220 Minor miracle - window seat in emergency exit row (12L). Only minor glitch is I didn't realise it was emergency exit row so took daypack out with liquids in to put under seat in front then by time stewardess told me and I put it back in main bag the compartment immediately above my row was full, so had to put it a few rows back, but not a big deal.

A320-200 FWIW. We got a bus to the plane; it looks like all the sub-gates starting with 14 don't have air bridges. Not a problem, just a bit of colour to this exciting report.

1754 Back at hotel after a brief (maybe 60 mins plus to be fair, I'm not really sure). To be frank I'm not very happy. Let's back up.

Flight fine, maybe 30 mins late but didn't matter. I was about last off plane as had to wait for constant flow of people getting off to abate before I could get back one row to get my bag, though not a huge deal. As I wasn't waiting for checked baggage I just breezed out of the airport, which feels super-tropical with the open-to-the-air corridors from the "gate" (walk down steps off plane past a couple of garden into open air corridor). It was hot but not unbearable, and I was wearing fleece.

Got taxi no trouble, a bit harried but there was no queue and really people were super efficient at showing/shoving me into a cab. Moderately nice views of surf on crowded beach on drive in. I and taxi driver both missed the hotel on first pass but he took me back round (all one way streets) and we found it. Nominal fare was 13.9k, I would have probably made it 15 anyway but as I was grateful he hadn't made a fuss about going back round I decided to give him 20. He did appear to not be remotely inclined to offer me any change from the 20 which makes me incline to think he planned to stiff me into paying 20 anyway, but still. Was super pleased to be at hotel.

Check in no trouble. Room is very cell-like but it is cheap and it's fine. Does have private bathroom - shower (had one before going out for walk etc as will describe shortly) is a cold water pipe with no nozzle sticking out of the wall, but it's so hot here that really isn't an issue.

Hotel presumably owner says no problems with security walking round here.

Anyway, so after shower+shuffling my valuables around and partly getting chaned I went out in quest of food and  bottle of water. I'll cut to the chase - the place is (insofar as I can perceive it through the fog of my bad mood) beautiful but it feels like an absolute tourist trap. Like Antigua but even more so. By sheer luck I stumbled across Diego Broaster near hotel which had massive pictures of food on the wall with prices like 10k. It had a few people in (it's not a huge place) so also a good sign. So down at heel it's far from clear they have waiters. I did manage eventually to order pechuga a la planca (for 10k) and after a longish (but OK) wait it turned up. Place doesn't seem to run to knives and forks. I saw some people eating fried chicken wearing disposable plastic gloves (which explains why waitress offered me "guantes" when I asked for a "tenedor" at the chicken place I went to in Bogota). To be fair the portion of chicken and chips was fairly generous. I just picked the chicken breast up in a napkin and ate it with fingers. I was supposed to get a small soft drink with it but no one ever asked me what I wanted or gave me one and I didn't really get a chance to ask. When it came to pay I just instinctively knew I'd never get change so I had to hand over some valuable-ish small bills, I paid 11k. I would have made it 12 but since I never got my drink I think 11 was generous.

I then went for a bit of a walk, keeping an eye out for somewhere to buy water and maybe some bananas. I'm guessing it's because I am in the centro historico, but just about eerything is a boutique restaurant or tour office or something. I think the cheapest I saw coffee for (and I had to go in and peer at the menu sneakily; most places don't seem to show prices because hey, the rich tourists will pay whatever, YOLO right?) was about 3k and that would then be plus tip. This is not in absolute terms terrible but still. I wasn't exactly in mood for beer but cheapest I saw was 5k and *none* of the beer prices I've seen bothered to tell you how much you got for your money, so it's probably a 20cl bottle or something.

To my credit I did walk quite a lot and I did manage to walk round without getting lost or using Google Maps. I did spot one or two small shops and eventually (just before coming back to hotel now) spotted one on corner opposite hotel. I got two 1.5l bottles of water - no prices shown, natch - for 7k. I feel bad because I'm clearly in a bit of a foul mood because at till some bloke offered to get me some cold bottles and then he started saying something I didn't understand and I just said it didn't matter, he went off to get the cold ones anyway but his coworker stopped him. They offered me a bag and I said "cuesta mucho?" because I thought between the ecofascists and the tourist trapness the bag might be 1k, but I think it was free. I wasn't *rude* as such, but I feel bad about this - they seemed perfectly pleasant people and trying to be helpful.

I saw a few (all very small?) cats on street during my walk and there was a kitten (which did let me stroke it, and I took a picture) on hotel desk when I came back.

I had vaguely intended to come back here, drink some of the water (one bottle was cold-ish) and go aross the road to a bar I'd seen there for a beer, but when I got back into the room I dithered and kind of felt sufficiently pissed off that it seemed like a bad idea to go and have a drink in this mood.

Breakfast is included here but is from 730-9 which isn't great, but I can and probably will get up. And I suspect I'll be eating at Diego's most days unless I can find somewhere else which isn't insanely expensive. It's not that I absolutely can't afford anything fancier, but I don't even *like* fancy restaurants.

It feels a bit of a shame to just stay in all night - I am assuming it *is* safe to be out at night, certainly I scarcely worried about safety during my walk earlier, perhaps because I was too busy being pissed off at the absence of somewhere to buy a cheap big bottle of water and/or somewhere to sit and have a non-insanely priced coffee (most places simply don't *show* any prices). There are *so* many other tourists around I do feel I blend in, and since I'm not flaunting massive wealth by e.g. walking around with a fruit juice from a street stall, I guess I'm a less attractive target than most of my fellow tourists.

But it's not as if this is my only night here, as I already said I am in a bit of a bad mood (for all that it's mildly abating as I write this). I am also yawning. I think the thing to do is to have a quiet night in (watch a bit of YT, etc), go to bed earlyish (the room does have a fan which is running full blast as I write this), have breakfast and then maybe go out tomorrow in a better mood and with "more time" to quarter the area and try to see if there are any safe-but-not-absolute-tourist-ground-zero parts where I can dine and (later tomorrow or another day) have a few meditative beers.

I have also been trying not to drink too much, I haven't had a beer since the flights out if I remember correctly, which is another small reason not to drink tonight.

My fellow tourists don't all appear to be American from superficial appearances, there seem to be quite a few Latin American-ish looking people giving off tourist vibe too.

Yawning again.

Just wrt prices while these are maybe extreme saw several restaurants with single courses at the 30-50k mark

2238 Bed I think. It's noisy, car horns and music from street, and intermittently it gets *very* loud as though a procession is going past. No window in room so don't know. Minor horrible visions of someone locking me in (the door is just padlocked from outside to secure it) but meh, be OK.

Don't feel too bad. Hearing all this stuff outside makes me feel a little bit lonely, which is perhaps irrational especially so early in the trip. It kind of feels like I've been away for ages already.

I will say that when I was walking round earlier there was a bit of a "yeah, this feels a little bit more exotic and lively and 'on holiday'" compared to the rather quiet (but not without minor interest, in hindsight) time in the suburbs of Bogota.

No idea if I will make it up in time for breakfast but we'll see. Plan for tomorrow is just to explore and not put any real pressure on myself.

Oh, wifi dropped out and I ended up burning some precious data on local SIM on YT without realising it. Luckily I had a tight-ish limit on data usage set which has kept the damage down; must be super paranoid about that if YTing it up in room in future.