Cartagena: History, Mojitos and New Friends
Despite a late evening, we wake up early, pleased to see that the overnight rain has made the heat and humidity recede. It’s still lightly drizzling, but that makes for perfect conditions for our self-guided walking tour of the Old City. It does look different during the day… much less crowded. We visit beautiful cathedrals, older than our country and still holding active mass; we see pigeon-filled squares, seemingly characteristic of every city; and we walk along the wall, which still looks much as it did when it was used to protect the small city. 
We stumble into a small café for lunch, encouraged by the fact that we are the only gringos in a packed room of diners. Our food is cheap and traditional. Soup flavored with beef bone, pollo frito with plantains, rice and potato salad. After a brief rest, we head back out to see Castilla San Felipe, the huge fortress overlooking the city and the most formidable defense structure ever built by the Spanish Army. We weave through tunnels and secret rooms, built years before our country was even discovered. The fortress single-handedly changed the course of history for all of South America, as the continent would have otherwise most certainly have been taken over by the British.
Okay, enough of a history lesson for today. We head back to our hostel for a siesta. Mamallena, the hostel we are staying in, really is a wonderful place. The atmosphere is laid-back and welcoming and their many pets – including Suki the sleepy white dog,a rabbit that drinks beer and pees on the lawn chair, a cat and a parrot- roaming the place happily. Many travelers hang out in the court-yard at any given time, sharing tales over cards or a beer from the corner mart.
On this particular evening, I sit down with Amy and Neil, a wonderful couple from the UK who started their own travels in Vegas. Courtney and Nate come and join me, we talk for hours over mojitos (the hostel also makes excellent ones, seems to be a theme here) and soon Nate has a place to stay when he is in Sheffield.
