Cartagena Day 326 10/08/2015

A Chilean couple who were staying at b&b had told us about MarSol, a transport company who offered a door to door  service between Santa Marta and Cartagena. We decided to travel with them and the owner of b&b booked our tickets on the mid morning bus. We had another lovely alfresco breakfast before packing our bags, reflecting on how little of the contents we'd be using over the next 5 weeks. We were picked up just after 0930 and after a few further pick ups in the town set off south west along the coast to Cartagena. The journey was uneventful, stopping a couple of times on route for refreshments and toilets. The road crosses a narrow isthmus before reaching the outskirts of Barranquilla, an industrial port which apparently has no reason to visit it. If the rubbish strewn outskirts and shanty towns were anything to go by we'd have to agree. We arrived in Cartagena just after 1400 and were dropped off near our b&b, Zana, in the Getsemani area of the old town. We checked in, dropped off our bags and headed out to find somewhere for lunch. We stopped at a french creperie enjoying savoury crepes and fresh juice and sheltering from the sweltering heat. From Colombia we are planning to go to Panama as we continue to make our way to Cancun. There is no road access between Colombia and Panama and of the three options of travel between the countries two included rough sea crossings which we weren't keen on so we were left with the third option of flying. Over the last few weeks we've been trying to book tickets with Copa Airlines online but without success as they don't seem to like foreign credit cards. So after lunch we headed to a travel agent hoping they could help us. Nearly 3 hours later we left with an Avianca flight via Bogota (in fact it's a return flight to Cali as that was the cheapest option but still extremely expensive to travel such a short distance). So to travel a few hundred miles west we have to fly nearly 500 miles south, change planes and then fly 800 miles north west for two thirds of the price (still nearly £700 though). Explain that one and we thought bank prices were illogical! Back at the b&b we cooled off and then headed out for dinner at La Guacha for steak/chicken washed down with a lovely glass of Argentinian Malbec. We've still not found any Colombian wine and time is running out!

Crossing the isthmus