Cartagena

I'm in Cartagena, Colombia, and it's hot as balls. And super humid. I feel like my legs are being assaulted on all sides by hot air. Sweat constantly trickles down my back and into my underwear; in fact, a thin sheen of sweat covers my body at all times. I can't even wipe the perspiration off my upper lip onto my forearm because my arm, too, is sweaty. And going in the shade makes no difference! There is simply no escape from the heat except air conditioning.

I'm only spending a couple nights here, because I want to get to the peace and quiet of a small beach town I heard about, called Taganga. Cartagena, while beautiful, has 1.2 million people in the metro area, and I'm just not in the mood for a big city right now. Also, it's kind of sketchy here, at least in Getsemaní, the cheap hostel area where I'm staying. A couple weeks ago two guys with guns walked into a nearby hostel at midnight, tied up the dude manning the desk, and went around the dorms waking people up and demanding their digital cameras, iPods, passports, cash, etc. That happens about once a month, apparently.

Anyhoo, I wandered around old town Cartagena, and it is gorgeous:

This one I took for Drew: