April 28 – May 30, 2023; 10059 nm and 1531 days after departure from La Rochelle.

Ups… that previous version of the blog post went out too quickly. Hit the wrong button and no possibility to get the notification emails back again. Sorry for that but here is the final version now.

It was great to be back in a huge, loud and never sleeping city. Located close to town and with safe possibilities to leave the dinghy, the anchorage in Cartagena provides almost everything a sailor can dream of. It also directly connects you with the always-in-a-party-mood Colombians. So far I would say they party the best from all the places we’ve been until now. They party on beaches, with great pleasure on boats, in bars, in buses, on the streets, just everywhere. And when they hear music you can be sure they know the lyrics and sing along. Street vendors, taxi driver, police men and women – you name it, they all sing and dance when they have the opportunity. So much fun! Still, after a while it did get a bit exhausting. Every morning party boats from Cartagena left, heading to Islas Rosarios. The daily business. In the afternoon they all came back in a fantastic mood with music booming from their blasted speakers. Often, they passed by so close that we could have easily handed over some beverages, (which they would have done with pleasure, I’m sure).

When all the boats had returned from the islands, the sundowner boats started to do their turn. They were comparably quiet and were more in the relaxing and enjoying the sunset mood. Kinda slow motion – nice for us. Once they returned, slowly the night party boats got involved. A very special crowd. They started late but with immediate high energy party fun. I’m sure the many adult beverages and the incredible loud music helped to be on top of the fun within minutes. Many nights we were surrounded by those party boats and their cacophony of crazy loud music. That was double fun for us. Altimate was shaken by the boats passing so close and our ears were treated every minute by different rhythms of raucous Colombian music. As much fun as it was in the beginning as unpleasant it got after a couple of weeks. Well, our impression might have been a little exaggerated as we both got pretty ill. We caught the flu or maybe even Covid. My guess , it was covid. Even though a rapid test told us it was not. We had all the flu-ish symptoms, like headache, coughing, fever, feeling super exhausted etc, but no runny nose. However we felt extremely shitty (excuse language) and spent a whole week aboard. Looking back I had the impression we were almost always sleeping unless the music boats were passing and accelerating the pain in our heads with their unbearable load music. Fortunately we felt better after 5 days and we slowly returned to feel like normal humans again. And suddenly music boats were almost fun again!

First thing we did when we arrived in Cartagena was picking up our credit card. Yesssss, (even before we went to the agent to do the check in)! That felt good, being able to shop again. Yet first we had to clear a few obstacles with our beloved American bank. Them refusing payments with our new credit card, we couldn’t buy anything which cost more than a few bugs. Can you imagine? You think all is good and you want to buy an item and then the bank rejects it! Just like this. You call the bank and think it’s ok and then the next day the same problems! Only because the clever bank was wondering why suddenly the card was being used and on top of that now used in Colombia??? Fraud everywhere. How could we have used the card without having it??? WTF!!! It took us again annoying phone calls until they really believed that it was US using OUR credit card. Eventually that stupid problem was solved and we made our credited card glowing. I can tell you! A birthday present for me, a new apple for the crew and many items for Altimate, including new salon cushions. Spending money without any problems was a relief and of course much fun! Apart from reducing our account level we enjoyed the big city life with its many possibilities. Malls, bars, restaurants, museums, street life, well anything a real city provides. We met new sailors and also unexpectedly run into some sailors which we hadn’t seen since Las Palmas/Gran Canaria. With all those possibilities time was flying.

After our time out being ill we decided we needed a break from the city and headed off to Isla Grande which was only 20 miles away from Cartagena. A great idea as we could finally jump again in the water and disappear a few minutes from the heat. (You do not want to swim in the anchorage of Cartagena.) Altimate got a proper belly scratch and apart from a few hours a day, when the party boats from Cartagena came, we were all alone in the bay. In the late morning the bay got rapidly filled up with boats and then the party began. Music, dancing, drinking… the whole program. The bay got so crowded that one boat anchored so close that we could have easily walked over. We were drinking coffee, they were drinking cocktails. Even in our best times I doubt that we could have coped with morning cocktails. Also, as soon as the boats arrived suddenly very creative vendors appeared and offered all kind of drinks even with ice-cubes!!! All that, just on a small kayak. Very impressive! The party lasted 3 hours and then we were alone again. That was manageable and in fact a fun distraction.

Back in Cartagena we slowly finished all our errands and refilled our provisions. One day of our last week we joined a salsa, bachata dancing class. It took place on a private roof top in the late afternoon in Getsemani. (Getsemani is the cool neighbourhood next to the walled city.) So we not only had a nice view but also a nice breeze, which we very much appreciated as it was pretty hot. We were supposed to be 8 participants but 4 didn’t show up so we were only two couples and two teacher. That was actually nice as we couldn’t have imagined being 10 people on that small roof dancing. It was a fun afternoon and we learned the steps for both dances. I also learned but didn’t manage to do so, that the female part also had to be sexy while dancing. I did try my best! The (male) teacher showed us how to move the arms and body to look sexy. Steps were no problem for me but trying to be sexy always ended in loud laughter. Especially from my beloved El Capitano. That was not fair! It was a blast but after 2,5 hours we were sweaty, exhausted and happy to finish the class. Being right in the middle of Getsemani we looked for the next cool bar and enjoyed a nice refreshing cool beer. By chance we picked the right bar for that evening. They had life music and we could watch others dancing salsa and bachata. With our new gained knowledge we felt we could talk about their performances… Of course they all could dance very well! Fortunately we were so exhausted so we had an excuse not to join.

With our still valid cruising permit we could have stayed until mid June, but our desire to enjoy big city life was for now satisfied. Though we couldn’t resist to treat us with a final last fancy dinner. Next to Club de Pesca was the restaurant Fuerte de San Sebastián del Pastelillo. A posh place with a beautiful view and great food. For the first time in our life we almost spent half a million for a dinner! Kind of expensive but so worth it😋!! Well, belly was full, money gone, time to leave. The next day we got our exit papers and stamped passports from the agent and were ready to move on heading slowly back to Panamá.