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Cartagena is a dreamy town with the encanto especial of a sleeping beauty. Its old centre, surrounded with strong fortification walls since the 16th century (the last conquest of Francis Drake), is formed by crooked, narrow streets of cobblestone through which echoes the clop of horse hooves like a resonance over the centuries. In the evening, smooth illumination caresses the balconies and creates a captivating atmosphere.

It is a peculiar place. And a precious one. Glimpsing through wooden entrance gates of private houses when roaming around, one sees patios with green gardens and shining swimming pools. As I read recently, ten percent of population comprise forty-six percent of total income in Colombia, while on the countryside, sixty percent of population live on the breadline. Among latinoamerican countries, economic disparity is highest in Colombia (see here and here). In this hermetic paradise, however, life is untroubled. Its colonial style architecture makes it appearing more european than any european city.

One day I undertook a touristic excursion to the Islas del Rosario, a national park about two boat hours away: crystal clear, blue water, coral reefs with rainbow-colored fish and white beaches.

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Woken by the implacable alarm clock at a quarter to four in the morning, I swung my feet out of the bed – and stood in a pond of water. For the short night, I had switched off the fridge… After a nocturnal bicycle trip to the terminal in the north, I reached just in time the bus to the coast, to Cartagena. It was an odd feeling to watch from the comfortable seat the landscapes and the faces flashing by behind the window. Accustomed to the bicycle, I felt that I somehow did not deserve to see them, like a gift not earned, like a win of an unfair battle, like an inappropriate temporary intrusion into foreign lives. After a climb into the clouds, when we reached my good friend Río Cauca at Valdivia, the mountains gave suddenly way to green meadows with cattles browsing under a plam trees and to flooded fields with sheds covered by palm leaves. At the peajes all along the way, sellers of snacks and souvenirs climbed the bus.

With a delay of about two hours after an obscure stop on the road, we reached Cartagena after 15 hours at about 9.30p.m. Que calor! I asked the bus driver for the way to Bocagrande to my hotel: „One hour in this direction, but don´t stop on the trip! Good luck.“ Riding through the suburbs, I understood his indication. 40min later, I reached the hotel, but my reservation was lost and the place all occupied due to the following monday, un dia festivo. Asking around in the neighbourhood, I finally found a bed for one expensive night but had to pay in cash. This raised the need for a cajero: the first one was run out of notes, the next one closed, the third out of function…

At midnight, I finally bedded my exhausted head on the pillow (luckily no fridge in the room).

A rich night in a disco with Salsa all the time. What a moving, lively music with intense rhythms and charming trumpets! Differently than in Europe, people is dancing exclusively pairwise, but changing often and without any decorum of goodbye. Many also brought campanas producing an unbelievable noise to accompany the loud music with even louder rhythms. We stayed until they switched on the light early in the morning.

Belalcázar, the native town of Nancy Estella, is a nice pueblo with old wooden houses typical for rural regions of the zona cafetera and particularly famous for its tall statue of Christo de Rey. Unfortunately, instead of various experiments dropping coins (according to the formula h = 1/2*g*t^2 from an energy ansatz), we were not able to determine exactly its altitude due to the lack of a precise chronometer.
A visit of the family of Noelia gave me the opportunity to understand first hand the art of growing coffee plants in symbiosis with palms (to prevent soil erosion and pest infestation) and the further processing.

During a little walk in the village, I was particularly impressed by the silence and the great view from the cementerio at the top of a little hill, where the tombs were only marked with hand-written wooden crosses. It is the attitude that all life is preliminary, a moment in time, leaving nothing substantial but recuerdos for the descendants.