Hard Rock Cafe - Cartagena

 

A slight detour from my usual bollocks in this one, but it's a tale worth telling. I rocked up on an October morning after a ridiculous layover to a city filled with beautiful landscapes, wonderful coffee, and offered some of the best scuba diving I've ever experienced. There was a mesmerizing hustle to Cartagena like I've never seen before. People riding around with chilly bins selling cervezas and aquas, hustlers coming up to you and free style rapping with a boom box on their shoulder, and of course street vendors selling all sorts of hooky shit everywhere. It was awesome, very European, but mostly just extremely loose. 

I will say as much as I enjoyed the street vendors, the cerveza salesman, the 17th century walls around the city, and so on, I was extremely on edge for the first 24 hours I was there. I clearly looked like a tourist, I was on my own, and only having a basic basic understanding of the language. I found myself getting called Gringo a lot and saying "no, lo siento", but you have too. I was offered "anything you want Gringo" at almost every intersection and while 98% of the time, the fellas are respectful enough and leave you to it, occasionally they follow you for a minute or so, and once they realize you won't break, they sod off. 

After a day or so, I started feeling more comfortable in my surroundings. Much like everyone that comes here, I hit up some of the touristy spots, snapped some photos and took a day to myself. Making my way through every street with in walled city, listening to Ratt and using Google translate at every opportunity possible. I spent sometime at Castillo de San Felipe castle in the morning and found some of the best cafes, eateries, mum and pop restaurant come the evening. As the sun went down on what I would call a successful day of being a tourist, I found the best restaurant on Caribbean Sea and treated myself to a couple lagers, king prawns & ceviches. I was finally starting to feel like "yeah, I got this" and then roughly 7pm this is where things got weird. I asked for another round and was told no. In her limited English, and my very limited Spanish, I was confused, did she over serve me? I had only had a couple pints, is there a two beer maximum here? I would soon find out.

On my travels the next day, I doing what I usually do whenever I'm gallivanting around. It was hotter than hell, I was sweating more than a blind lesbian at a fish market and I was frothing for a wet one, just hoping the mountain were blue. Confused about last nights proceeding, but still, even today, no one would serve me. Was my Espanõl that bad? No worries, I kept on walking down the beach, asking for a pint here and there, but again no one would serve me. I made my way to a supermarket and all the beers was locked up. What was going on I thought? Do they not sell booze on Sundays? I eventually found a bloke flogging pints out of a cooler and it turns out there was a federal election on Monday so no booze sales the day before, because ya know, Colombia has been known to be such a law-abiding country in so many other regards. Suddenly everything makes sense. Needless to say, the price for beers from old mate explaining this were outrageous in comparison to yesterdays pints but they still pale in comparison to the piss Boston Pizza serves. I chucked him 50,000 pesos and solider'd on happier than a pig in shit. 

I spent the next day out in the islands scuba diving and cooking up meat on a barbie some blokes and I procured by the dock. The sun was out in full force and I was pink as in no time whatsoever. I've been lucky enough to scuba all over, I usually try to take a dip whenever I'm somewhere warm. Looking back I'm very thankful my old man threw me in the English Channel at an early age. He was always worried I'd fall into the wrong crowd of blokes which is easy to do in the shit hole I come from, so he kept us busy with random hobbies like this. At the time I wasn't so receptive to it, but looking back, I'm forever thankful.

My day diving was honestly the first full day in Colombia it didn't bloody rain, and my original plan after being in Cartagena for a 5 days or so was to nip up to Santa Marta to do some hiking in the jungle, sadly, this was not to be. The weather took a turn for the worse and this plan seemed to be one that wouldn't work out, turns out, October is a terrible time to go to this area of the world because it's their rainy season. Between this and the aforementioned "no booze on Sunday because of an election" probably could have been avoided on my end if I'd actually done some research, but let me ask you honestly. When was the last time you thought of going on a trip and saying "geez, I hope we're not going during a federal election or a civil uprising" that week? No. Never, you search the things you want to see, places to eat, places to avoid, and that's it.

I wasn't able to source a dirty dive bar in Cartagena, but oddly enough, one evening I found a Hard Rock Cafe, obviously not a dive bar, more of a corporate load of bollocks, but I checked it out nonetheless. It was much the same as all other Hard Rock Cafes in the world, good ol' 80's music playing, some wicked memorabilia on the walls and the snooker on the tele. I really enjoyed this little piece of familiarity for an hour or so. For what it's worth, I love all Hard Rocks around the world, its a little cheesy and feels a little forced, but it's a bit of fun and where else can I hear Total Eclipse of the Heart half a dozen times in the time of a footy match? 

A few days later the weather hadn't let up at all, the streets were flooded, I was wetter than a haddocks swimming costume and I said bugger this, Imma book an earlier flight home and get back to reality. I booked a new flight over a morning java, and it took me through Panama. "Wicked!" I said, I never thought I'd go to Panama, and this was an opportunity to go, why not? I booked a long layover, hailed a taxista and was boarding a flight to Panama City before I knew it. Turns out Panama City airport is fucking massive and filled with every American bar, restaurant, and shop imaginable. Handy as I was about to spend an unbelievably long time in it. I walked up to the customs agents, a journey I had made hundreds of times before in my life. The usual nerves kicked in but this time felt unusual, I was the only person trying to enter the country. 

"Where are you going Gringo" old mate said behind the counter. 

"Oh, I'm just in transit, I have a long lay over in Panama and I wanted to go see the city before my flight". 

"Not today Gringo". 

Unbeknownst to me, there was a civil uprising and the military had shut the city down during all the protests. I mean, what are the bloody chances?! Of all weeks for this to occur. I had grandiose plans of listening to Panama by Van Halen on repeat whilst walking around the ancient ruins of Panama City, finding a cheap Airbnb and getting home tomorrow, but no. Not today Gringo, not today. So there I was, stuck in Panama Intl eating tacos and drinking Balboa on tap, I guess there's worse ways to spend a revolution eh.

As loose as it all was, I'd go again tomorrow.

6/6.