Cartagena

 

In the afternoon we took a tour of the city. It seemed like a tourist trap to me but as I always speak out against these tours, and I am called negative, I kept quiet this time. But once again I was proved right. It was the worst tour I ever did.

Like prisoners of war, we were bundled onto a bus of 10 rows. There were no windows or doors on this bus, just bars to keep us from falling out. The tour guides packed as many people onto the bus as possible. Our row had five people in total, the two of us, a man and his wife, and one of their three daughters. Their two other daughters sat in the row in front of us with four other people. The row in front of them had nine people. Nine people in one row? And you are surprised that I referred to us as prisoners of war as we sat on that bus roasting in the heat and stinking like day-old shrimp?

We went to Boca Grande to pick up tourists from their hotel. This took us an hour. Just an hour going to each of the hotel blocks picking up people. It was then that I fully understood that in some cultures the word tourist easy translates to suckers.

On the row of nine people (of which five were children) a fight broke out among the kids. The mother split her beer over her husband and two of the boys started punching each other. The father leaned over to stop the fight and revealed to the whole bus his builder’s bottom. It was not a pretty sight although the Brazilian lady right behind him, thankfully saw the humour in the whole situation.

Our first stop was on the beach of Boca Grande for a five-minute photo break (yes, it was those kinds of tours). The father with the beer-drinking wife and three kids (let’s call him Pepe) was of larger proportions and was struggling in the heat. When I caught sight of him, milling around his screaming kids, I thought he was sweating all over. But how could someone’s ankles be so incredibly sweaty? The man was dripping from head to toe. His t-shirt clung to his side-rolls and belly. I pointed him out to the Viking who explained what happened only moments before. In order to cool down he jumped in the sea. The man just plunged into the Caribbean with his clothes on, got out soaking wet, and opened another can of beer. And then he got on the bus as his clothes were still dripping.

He may have been onto something because as we sat in the bus sweating he was cooling down, though I wondered about how he felt covered in salt. Eventually, marinated in saltwater he must have begun to roast like a salmon over the grill. The rest of us just melted like ice-cream.

‘It is 100% humidity’ said the tour guide, a fat, lazy man who seemed to fall into the job after being pressured by his wife to find employment. Eventually he stopped getting out of the bus to show us the sites and honked the horn went it was time for us to come back in and make our way to the next site. At one point we were waiting for three tourists for ten minutes and rather than get out he kept honking the horn. The rest of us sat behind him, packing in, swimming in our own sweaty juices like a pack of sardines. The driver, instead of going to help to find the lost tourists who were holding us up, sat next to the tour guide laughing. His open mouth displayed his only five front teeth on his upper gums, of which one was gold. Maybe he was a pirate in his previous job.

We made our way to the fortress which meant climbing to a building 300 metres above sea level. If anyone looked remotely decent at the start of the tour, by the time we reached the top of the fortress that look was replaced by them looking dishevelled, tired, sweaty and flustered. Even the tour guide was getting quite tired, and the sweat patches that had formed had now taken over his clothing completely. He was dripping with sweat so to be more comfortable he delivered his tour while he saw in the bus and we stood around him in the sun.

When the Spanish Conquistadors arrived in the newly discovered continent the natives believe that the hairy, blond Spaniard on his horse was one frightful creature. The natives had never seen a horse before nor a light-skinned man. Some people say that tourism is neo-colonisation so I wondered today what the Colombians thought of the plump, white European tourists as they walked around Cartagena, sweating in the heat (the patches of sweat spreading across their cheap grey t-shirt) and turning red like lobsters.

 

The only people who looked remotely decent towards the end of the tour was the family of the three daughters. The father looked like an academic (a professor of Egyptology? Asian Studies?) with his beard, glasses and explorer’s hat. Together they had borne three ethereal-looking daughters with slender necks, small but elongated noses, a strong jaw and high cheekbones. Their willow-like hair, or different hues of blond, clung around their necks, to which they would sometimes tie up in a make-shift bun to keep cool. Like everyone else, they were trying to stay comfortable in the humidity. Unlike everybody else they were doing a better job at it.

Their white skin, their ethereal look, the floral patterns on their clothes with a funky cut gave them a wholesome, pure look. They reminded me of a band, composed of only family members, that stood up for family values. They were a cross between the Osmonds and Lana del Rey.

They spoke Spanish but clearly looked European. I wondered if they were Argentinian Jews as they showed little interest in the religious sites and stuck closely together. It was clear that they were cut from a different cloth. I was completely intrigued by them and eventually were beginning to become intrigued by me, but not because I was as interesting as they were but because I was staring too much.

Our tour guide was accompanied by a young lady, she must have been about 16 or 18 and it must have been her first job. She seemed to have very little training which was hardly surprising since all the tour guide did was sit in the front of the bus dictating to us the history of Cartagena. Standing up at the front of the bus, she introduced herself.

‘Hola, buenas tardes’ she screamed into the microphone.
‘Buenas tardes’ some people muttered, paying more attention to their screaming kids or wondering how their sweat patches expanded so rapidly.
‘I said, ‘Buenas tardes’’ she shouted again into the microphone. Who did she think she was? Shakira or someone?
‘Buenas tardes’ most people shouted back, trying to keep cool and keep their cool. In this heat no one had time so such excesses.

‘I’m going to tell you a little bit about the tour. But before I do, I want to explain our services. For 50,000 pesos you can have a family photograph by the sites. For 40,000 pesos you can have twenty small bottles of water. For 30,000 pesos…’ she droned on about what we could spend rather than about the city that was passing us by.

 

When we reached the fortress the tour guide spoke to two Americans in English for five minutes and then in Spanish for 10 forgetting that the rest of us were there and then he sat in the shade before leaving the whole group to his protégé while he went and sat in the bus. She then took out the camera and began filming the people on the tour. She filmed us as we were having our photo taken by the Colombian flag. She filmed us walking up the stairs and asked us to wave. She filmed us as were queuing in line for the bathroom and looking over the souvenirs (‘don’t bother with these souvenirs’ she said ‘I know a better place’ where she would get commission).

‘Why is she filming us?’ I asked Anna Maria, a young Texan lawyer I met on the tour.
‘It’s for their promotional video’ she said.

‘So they are using us for their promotional video of their tour that we do not even endorse?’

At that moment a tall, good-looking Colombian man walked past. He was wearing white, looked fresh in the hot sun and led a small group around the fortress explaining its history. More than that he had a small, gold patch on his crisp white shirt that said his name and, more importantly, said ‘Professional Tour Guide’. The only patch our tour guide had on him were sweat patches. It was not until that moment that I felt like a sucker. I had been taken in by the worst tour in Cartagena. What I saw was not the city but every walk of life, sweating collectively in one bus painted in bright colours.