Cartagena, Friday

Fri 1600 Back at hotel, been here a bit. Not too bad a day on the whole.

I forgot to set my alarms for breakfast but luckily realised while I was lying awake in bed dry-mouthed not knowing the time but assuming it was early as alarms hadn't gone off yet. Got down about 850 and got breakfast OK.

Back to room for miscellaneous dithering. I decided I'd try to sort out bus to SM and then try to go over to El Convento de la Popa, to which latter end I installed the EasyTaxi app on my HTC and set myself up an account. That was surprisingly easy and a quick play with it showed I could get a taxi practically at the drop of a hat for a reasonable price, so I was all set to be impressed.

I checked the price of the SM transfer at tour agency in hostel entrance and it was same as at Mamallena (56k). I asked to book, however - and I did at least manage to keep my head together enough to understand all this in Spanish - it turns out that for some reason the tour agency at hostel can't book this for me, but I can go over to Marsol (sp) agency by taxi on my own (5k-ish, apparently) on Sunday morning and get a ticket cheaper (52k) as there are always (!) free seats. I did point out that it wasn't really cheaper by the time I'd paid for the taxi, but anyway.

I then popped out to Mamallena and they will do it for 56k and I would be picked up there and it's door to door, but I need to book it the day before. So I'll probably go over there tomorrow and book with them. Bit annoyed with myself for speaking in English with woman at ML desk because I'd seen her doing it with other people while waiting and I decided it would be weird to speak to her in Spanish, *but* when she turned to me she addressed me in Spanish and I should have stuck with that. Meh. Continually feeling wrong-footed with the language, I just have to hope it's all practice/experience.

Anyway, I came back to my hotel and got a small bottle of water and loitered in entrance (not really speaking to tour woman, who was sort of ignoring me too) and ordered a taxi. The app said it would be about a minute or two, and as it was my first time I chose the (significantly; not 10%) more expensive "taxi with tip" option. When I chose it it chuntered away about finding the nearest driver, then told me the registration and description of car, driver's name and that he would be with me in about 8 minutes. So there's fucking deception right out of the gate.

I forgot to note the actual time I ordered the cab - and the app never lets you see this or anything afterwards - but given when I *did* start paying attention to the time I am 99% certain I was waiting over 20 mins and 75% certain it was over half an hour, all the time the app showing the driver would be with me in 8 minutes or so. (Holbein's constant?)

When it did eventually turn up he said something about bad traffic and I just said "si, si" and we didn't talk.

When we got up there I had been planning to pay him off (presumably via ccard via the app not with cash), then summon a fresh cab to take me down when I was ready. But he said - and I give myself some credit for mostly being calm and doing fairly well with the Spanish - that there was no mobile reception up there (and indeed I had loads of bars but no data symbol; in hindsight I wonder if it would have worked if I'd tried, or if I'd just toggled mobile data on and off, as I had to do that back down in town to get data on the return journey) and that he would wait - as long as I wanted, we sort of settled on an hour - and he would charge me the same to go back down. I wasn't happy with this as a) I feared I'd get hit with some unnegotiated-in-advance fee for the waiting time b) I wasn't even certain how the app would charge me - would pmt be taken from my card as I thought, or not - and I wasn't sure how I'd end up paying for the return journey or paying for the outward journey twice over a cash-vs-card mixup. But since he seemed, at least, to have a point about mobile reception I decided I pretty much had to go along with him - the last thing I wanted was to get stranded up there.

This spoiled my visit, somewhat. It turns out there's not a huge amount to see - a very nice view over the city and a small convent with a very beautiful courtyard and has a few mildly interesting rooms and a black and white cat (which I didn't try to stroke), but that's it. So really "an hour" was fine, but left to my own devices and having no other urgent plans I could have spent longer staring meditatively at the view, whereas as it was I felt under pressure and couldn't help worrying about what exactly the final fucking damage was going to be for the taxi or if there'd be a major scene and also thinking that the longer I left the taxi waiting the more I might get stung for. (There are no taximeters in Cartagena.) I did say to myself that I was assuming bad faith on the part of the taxi driver, but I felt a bit vulnerable at this place on the edge of a bad part of town (free advice on Lonely Planet site does expand on what my outdated guidebook says and says it's not safe as road skirts one of the less salubrious districts) and I had hoped to avoid all this kind of shit by using the ET app.

I did my best to avoid letting this completely fuck things up - I told myself I was *already* shafted so might as well make the most of it - and I was able to admire the view to a reasonable extent.

I also spotted a large stick insect on the low "seat" ridge running below the wall stopping you falling over the edge as you admire the view and went over to take a look at it. I put my foot up next to it to take a picture to show the scale and then noticed a second stick insect was crawling up my trouser leg (on the outside). That gave me a brief shock but was also sort of cool. After taking a brief photo/video, I tried to shoo it off by prodding it with the camera - it didn't move at first, then it leapt (I thought it was flying for a moment, but I'm guessing it wasn't) really quickly and landed back on the "seat" . I watched them for another minute or two; I did wonder about trying to get one onto my hand, but although I was pretty certain they didn't bite or sting I wasn't absolutely confident and decided not to risk it. That was pretty cool all the same.

Anyway, got taxi back down - a little bit of chat with driver at first, but we sort of dried up after a bit. Got back to hotel and he fiddled with his phone and the app showed a fare of about 23k - it had originally quoted me something like 8-12k (no idea why there was a range). I was frankly relieved, because having agreed with driver to pay double when we arrived at the top to cover return journey, this sort of capped the maximum fuckery to 46k. I had also said to myself I was going to calmly discuss things with the driver and not just blindly go along with whatever he said, so at least I could feel I'd had a go at standing up for myself.

Anyway (summarising my own understanding of the conversation), he told me the 23k was the fare for one way and that I therefore owed him the same for the return journey. I queried why it was 23k when I'd been shown 8-12k on the app (including tip) and he basically said that the price on the app meant nothing, and he showed me a laminated card showing the fare to La Popa (I suspect my capitalisation is all screwed with this name, but never mind) was 80k. Now if that's true, why was he accepting 46k in the first place? But I felt honour was satisfied by having discussed it calmly at some length, I gave him 25k in cash and was fairly relieved to have got off with a mere flesh wound at worst.

All the same, I would still like to understand what's going on (I mean, except if I'm desperate, why would I bother with the ET app if the price is fiction, on top of the arrival time of the cab being fiction? I can take a cab off the street and get stiffed on price without any waiting around) so I've sent them a message via the app - stressing I'm not complaining *yet*, just confused - and we'll see what they say. If it turns out 23k was for the round trip then I will tell them what happened and ask for a refund but since I don't have a receipt for the cash payment it may well come down to my word against the driver's. I'm not deeply annoyed about this, I think the fact I didn't allow myself to be steamrollered into agreeing without putting up any kind of fight helps a lot. Plus a) I would probably have tipped him 10k or so for waiting if there hadn't been this suspiciously approximate doubling of the "one way" fare, maybe he'd have done it for free but no waiting was factored into the original price (I am assuming here it's true there's no mobile data at the top to order a fresh cab), so I'd have paid (say) 12k*2+10k ie 34k anyhow, so at worst (and it's still possible all this is totally above board, though I'm dubious) I got scammed out of 14k, which isn't nothing but isn't worth getting massively worked up over b) my *outdated* guide book talks about expecting to pay up to 60k for a taxi, so in some ways this is maybe still cheap anyway.

Oh no, outdated guide book says 45k, free web page version says 60k, and you might get it for half that if you haggle. They have the admission price wrong (it's 12k not 11k as the LP web page shows) and given MG's "review" I don't take their prices too seriously, but still, if they say up to 60k and 30k would be good and I paid 48kish I didn't do too badly.

Incidentally, during my 30ish min wait for my cab, there was a taxi driving past the front of the hotel approximately every five seconds. Obviously I didn't time it but seriously, an almost non-stop flow of taxis. But I didn't want to take the risk of being ripped off by taking a random cab, thinking erroneously that the pre-quoted price on ET would protect me. In hindsight, now I know how it works, I might well have preferred to get a street taxi (I *think* the risk is mainly being ripped off, not robbed, some websites says it's fine to take street taxis but always check price upfront) and explicitly negotiate an up-wait-back fare before getting in, but it's easy to say that now.

After quickly copying photos onto my (Priv) phone and leaving them uploading and having what turned out to be a longish phone call home,  walked over to walled city for late-ish lunch. I went to Shaddai in same street (but nearer clock tower) as Alain's, having seen their cheap menu outside other days. I ordered pechuga a la plancha and was initially rather surprised/disappointed to be given a bowl of soup with a somewhat gristly chicken wing floating in it, but I thought it *might* be a starter and said nothing, and though I had lingering doubts that was going to be my lot, it turned out I was right and it was just a starter. It wasn't bad either, though had I had to pay 10k just for the soup as I kept suspecting it would have been pretty poor value. The chicken breast was very nice when it came, the salad was dressed so I couldn't eat it but it did come with some (probably) fried plantain slices and rice, and for 10k - I never got a bill but went up to pay and guy said 10k so I handed over 12k - extremely good value. I didn't get a drink, mostly because waitress asked me while I was having the soup and I was having distrustful feelings the soup was my lot and the last thing I wanted to do was pay extra if I'd already been scammed into paying 10k for a bowl of soup. There was also a tiny element of suspicion in that the outside menu listed drinks but the prices were blank, although that probably wouldn't have stopped me ordering otherwise. I will probably go back there again tomorrow now I know it is actually a good deal.

I then took a very brief detour round part of walled city - I was briefly tempted by an amazingly intense lime smell to buy some iced lime juice from a street vendor, but I didn't, and perhaps I should have done - and came back here.

I'm going to go out again in 30ish minutes and have a few quiet beers at ML. Quick shower first I think. I should say that it feels hotter and more uncomfortable today and maybe yesterday too than it did before; I'd have hoped to be finding things *more* comfortable, but maybe it is actually really hotter and it's not just my perception.

I should say I'm very glad I did go to La Popa, the views really were good and the convent quite nice though not in itself a must-see, it's just a shame it was marred by these concerns with the taxi. But as I said to myself during the half hour wait for the taxi to arrive, taking the taxi and doing it via the ET app were part of the experience/experiment today.

2008 Just got back from Mamallena bar, had 4x330ml bottles, feel not pissed but surprisingly non-sober. Felt a bit of a loser sitting there on my own but that's just lack of it being a recent habit, sure I will get over it. Better than sitting on my own in room every night - though health-ish concerns suggest a compromise is needed (as I more or less am). And to be fair, for all my occasional thoughts about "how the fuck will I fill the time" , last night was spent entirely in hotel after I got back from naval museum and although I did watch some YT it probably totalled about two hours and yet the evening as a whole felt almost too full to get all the little "chores" I wanted done.

2022 I have to say, and I've felt this on previous trips if I hadn't read it, a serious weak spot in my style of travel is the discomfort of watching a YT video on a smartphone. I read a tip recently that you can use a camera tripod as an improvised stand to hold a smartphone up, and in the past I've used books and towels (to stop slipping) and things like that, but that needs a table and chair. When - as now, and as in Bogota - I have a bed and not much else (I have a table, but no chair), I end up lying on the bed face up holding the phone in the air and my arm starts to hurt, or I lie face down on the pillow looking at the phone propped in front of me and my neck starts to hurt. What never works is lying sideways as a) the fucking phone often decides to rotate the screen unhelpfully b) ignoring that, my headphones get pushed against my ear on the lower side of my head and it hurts.

This isn't an earth-shattering problem but seriously, at home I can *comfortably* (literally) spend time watching YT, whereas when I'm away it just feels (again, literally) painful at times.

Sat 0000 I think I'll go to bed soon-ish. Plan for tomorrow is I think to have breakfast, pop over to ML to book the shuttle for Sun 10am - I might have to be there for 9am but it's not too bad waiting there, and given the expense and massive wait time for ET it's not like I really want to be getting a taxi over to Marsol's office/terminal myself, and if I do a 10am transfer I'll have time in hand to eg go over to terminal myself and get 12pm bus if things somehow go tits up - and then spend the day wandering round wherever feels safe, probably mainly walled city, and just trying to relax and soak up the atmosphere (such as it is) and continue the exposure therapy wrt fear of mugging/aggressive touts.

I am not too fussed about that boat trip over to whatever that other place was. I can always come back here another time if I want - and I need to remember that although I do feel myself getting old, at least my inter-trip interval is now one year, not 3-4 years, when you're jumping forward 3-4 years time to the "next trip" and quite possibly therefore 6-8 years to the next visit to country X *even if I really love country X*, it's only natural to think "fuck, I'll be so old next time I get a chance to come back" , whereas one year isn't so bad. I think I might have had minor regrets (not deathbed level, of course) if I hadn't done La Popa, as I am a sucker for getting up to high places with cool views.

0036 Bed. Incidentally not long before I left ML bar tonight, Aha's "Take On Me" was played (not a remix AFAICT) and I was interested to observe some of the bartender's friends seemed to get *really* into it. Maybe it really is the classic of synth pop that Spanish guy I watched dissecting it on Youtube says it is. (I quite like it, but had I not seen that YT video I'd have assumed it was such an old song no one under 40 would ever like it.)

(They also playing "Getting Jiggy With It" . Twice. So not all good. ;-) )