The Month in Cartagena
Published February 9, 2025
Here we are. It's the Cartagena Blog post.
I've written a few versions of this. Most (all) of them contain phrases to the effect of -
‘I fucking hated this place.’
HA. … !
oh baby
But did I? Do I?
Now back in England. The thing I knew would happen is happening. I don't want to be there. But there are some things that I'm looking back on romantically.
Mostly it's the tight blue jeans and shorts. The thin shirts and little sun dresses. Mostly it's them, mostly it's that.
And the sunsets, the sunsets out the window from my rooms in Hotel Stil.
I'm honest. So you can go ahead and hate me if your opinion of South America means so much to your identity that you can't process mine.
At times, A-Lot-Ta times. . .
I hate the language.
I hate the food.
I hate the music.
I hate the architecture.
I hate it all.
I hate all this Spanish shit, I hate South America.
eh..
I chose the city lauded as one of if not The most beautiful on the continent. I didn't find it beautiful, or maybe beautiful enough. It wasn't ugly. Just not special.
Ouch.
How did this all happen anyway? How did I end up in Cartagena, Colombia for well over a month?
A picnic bench in a backyard of a hostel on the Upper West Side. Go find the post. Go read the post.
I cancelled the original trip for the end of the year and the beginning of the next —the blitz through the continent in favour of some slow travel.
This was the right decision. And if I made another decision, that would have been right too.
I make the decision right by how I play after.
I think I played Cartagena as well as I could have.
I got a lot out of it. Out of this time. I learnt more about me.
And despite not connecting deeply with the city around me. I still found spots, hotels and streets and restaurants, and my coffee shops. I carved my own city out of the material around me.
BradEarth Cartagena
Hotel Stil and the view of the city and the sea
The Starbucks on the corner
Tienda Café, and my sofa facing the portrait of My Son Jesus Christ
The big yellow Exito store
The KFC with the friendly doorman
The greasy dollar pizza joint
Qbano and the vegetable burger, and the free football on the walls
The shit hostels, with the maddening and hilarious, but still quite loveable Gen Z
That was my Cartagena.
The people were mostly nice too, smiley, casual, happy.
There was a lot missing though.
It was a dark, ghoulish place.
There was a quiet, gnawing despair about Cartagena.
Anyway. It's done. Goodbye, Cartagena, Colombia. And for a while, a long while? South America.
I have several months in England now. This glorious land of my human birth. Something I'm very happy about. I am very happy about it.
And then I have ASIA TRIP EIGHT. And that will be a fucking blast. Back home. Another kind.
There's still a part of me that wants to find something I do love within South America. Something that truly connects.
It will probably be a woman. I once loved an Argentinean, I could love another.
I'll see. I'm in no rush.