A New Day, A New Continent
Day 103
Up just before sunrise we stumbled out of the hostel into the quiet and still cool early morning streets of Panama City. We hailed a taxi and for the first time on the trip we were headed to an airport. As we arrived at the airport and checked our bags it really set in that we were flying. I felt almost defeated, sort of like we failed. The toughest thing about the flight is how short it is, 488km from Panama City to Cartagena.
We walked around Tocumen Airport looking for a breakfast place, we found one. Only one restaurant in the entire airport! Are you joking me? Not only that but this one restaurant was charging $8 for eggs and toast. We opted for Nescafe lattes and a chocolate bar. Soon enough we were boarding the Aires plane. It was small, maybe 30 passengers. The flight time is 55 minutes. We definitely are not used to arriving places so quickly. As we took off to the left was a vast expanse of green, the Darien Gap stretching to Colombia. On the right we could see the waves of the Pacific crashing ashore.
Just under an hour later we started to the decent to Cartagena’s airport. The only part of the city we saw was the narrow strip of resorts that line the coast outside the historic centre of the city. On the runway were two large U.S. Airforce planes, probably part of the Americans “Plan Colombia”. As the plane landed and the door opened it almost felt like a bus, they called out “Cartagena!” 4 of us got out of our seats and exited the plane, the rest were off to Barranquilla. We walked into the neat airport customs area and it was deserted. Just the one Colombian from our flight, an Aussie named Blair and us. One custom agent was working. Where the heck was everyone? I knew Colombia wouldn’t be crawling with tourists but Cartagena is the one city that is very touristy. This was kinda eerie to be honest with you. We quickly passed through customs and then changed some U.S. dollars into Colombian Pesos. We claimed our bags, went through a search and were out sharing a taxi with Blair the Aussie to the old town of Cartagena.
This was the first time we have arrived in a country without any kind of guidebook or even a map. All I knew was we wanted to stay in the colonial old town and a hotel named Marlin sounded good online. As we entered the old city and passed through the walls I felt like we were almost in Havana. Buildings were beautifully rundown but some were beautiful restored to their former glory. The taxi deposited us in front of the Marlin and after a brief dispute over the fare we settled and checked out the Hotel Marlin. We decided to stay as the room was 30,000 Pesos (about $15). It was fan cooled but clean enough and even had cable tv.
We each took a shower and then hit the streets to explore a new city, new country and new continent. It was exciting to be in South America, even if we had to fly here. Being Sunday much of Cartagena was closed, even though its a city of over 1 million people. We were immediately struck by the beauty of the city and how clean the streets were. We found some decent chinese food for a late lunch and then sat and watched life go by in Parque Bolivar, the beautiful main square of Cartagena.
We instantly liked the city and looked forward to getting up in the morning to see more and to explore when more is open. We spent the rest of the night relaxing in the room watching a movie, it was an early night.
Tags: Panama
Michael Coroneos
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