Day 2 in Cartagena

We started the day at 8am, I woke up surprised to see that we were the last ones up and out of our room. We had breakfast at the hostel which consisted of  toast, cereal and these weird fried wonton things.

Here are some pictures of what the hostel is like:

All different rooms, kind of like a motel

This is where we eat breakfast. It is included in the price. You clean your own dishes.

Our room, there are 3 more bunks just like these sets (see Mom, I can keep my room clean)

Our first goal for the day was to finally exchange some American cash for Colombian Pesos. Chris, our roomie from Michigan, handed us a map with 3 banks highlighted on it. We headed out confident that we would be fine. We found the first bank after 15 minutes of wondering around. Unfortunately, it was the wrong one because they didn't exchange. They redirected us to one that would. We got lost on the at one too but found another. They did the same thing, pointed us in a different direction. This time we actually found the one we were supposed to but we couldn't exchange without our real passports (we only carry copies with us). So, after all this, we headed back to the hostel to grab our passports. When we arrived back in the room Chris was surprised that we needed our passports and offered to walk us to a close money exchange station. Gratefully, we accepted his help. Remember when we had tried to find a place the first day but decided to eat instead? Little did we know how close we were, turns out the restaurant we ate at also exchanges money.

After finally obtaining some usable money, we headed to the port to buy tickets for a tour of Isla de Rosario for the following day. Along the way we did some more site seeing.

One of the sites was this beautiful church, it was so old and had so much history. A gentlemen approached us and just started explaining all about the church. He went around and talked about every statue in the sanctuary.

We walked out of the church to find an alley filled with John Deer tractors. I'm still not sure what they were doing in the middle of the city but it was fun to see all of them. When we left the tractor filled street we were approached by a Jamaican man. He asked us if we were a part of the tour. We said no and told him that we were on our way to buy tickets for the Isla de Rosario. He happened to know one of the workers who sold tickets so he said, "Follow me" and started leading us down a different street. We were unsure whether or not to follow the stranger in the strange city down some random street. Being the smart, young adults that we are, naturally, we followed :P. Long story short, he sold us the perfect tickets to the island.

After buying our tickets, Jeremy and I split some street food for lunch. I bought some "Arrepas con queso" (Maize and cheese) and he got a cup of papaya and watermelon. It was a cheap, tasty meal.

We went back to the hostel after eating and spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out in the hostel. We got to know Chris a lot better and he gave us lots of helpful advice before he had to go catch his plane.

We also became friends with the Chilean girls staying in our room. They introduced us to there fellow travelers and we all hit it off.

We left the hostel briefly for dinner but we just found another street vendor and had some interesting hot dogs.

We came back to the hostel to participate in the dance lessons that they were offering for free. We learned an entire Salsa dance. It was really fun and I was surprisingly better than I thought I would be (what I'm saying is I wasn't COMPLETELY terrible). After the lessons, we met a group of Argentinean guys and we all hung out. It was such a large, crazy group but it was extremely entertaining.

photo credit: Alex

Most of them spoke some English so they would speak to us in English and we spoke back in Spanish. It was a great way for all of us to practice our skills.

Later in the evening, we went to a local dance club. Our group was huge and crazy.

It was a unique experience, it was so fun to be out with such a large energetic group but it was also very exhausting. On the way home, we were serenaded by some old man carrying a guitar and singing. He walked with us for a couple blocks and played songs the others could sing along to.

We didn't return to our room until 2 AM and we had to be up by 7:30 the morning. All in all, it was very worth it.