Tag: Cartagena

Cali, Colombia

November 30, 2025 BY CASSANDRA JOHNSON

Cali. I had a feeling I would really like this major Colombian city. Nice and warm, I found myself taking a stroll each day looking for a particular food spot or coffee shop. From a variety of points, I could work/chill with a little dessert and a warm variation of a sweet beverage. Cafe mocha, cappuccino, etc and by now, I had also developed a taste for Colombian coffee. The only factors slowing me down were the hills and the steep drop offs, some occasional rain. I was continuously walking up, reminding myself that it was going to be so much easier coming back, but honestly the steep downslopes were something one should brace for as well.

Well, I made it and I notice that once I know there is a spot within reach, no matter how far, I am compelled to get there, even foolhardily. I laughingly remember a friend getting lost from his hostel in Cochabamba, Bolivia and he said something to the effect that if you are going to wander off, don’t do it downhill, seeing as how he had to return at the opposite angle, righting himself up a steep incline.😊

I leaned into Cali’s ambience. People were friendly, not too particularly focused on what my story might be, but still engaging, treating me as if I could be from there or aptly treating me like a welcome guest. Cartagena would later prove similar, though the weather was much hotter.

Cali had left me curious. It was a place where more people looked like me and previously, I had just spent a day or less there. Fortunately, I was able to stay for about 12 days this latter time, since I could be flexible with my bus tickets from there back to Bogota. I liked purchasing them in person on the day of my trip, leaving my bags in the bus terminal luggage storage, so I could be free to walk about and eat in the city, leaving any weight behind. I also left them behind when arriving before accommodation check-in times.

I knew the bus station well by now. I had taken to the budget travel option over the flight I took into Colombia primarily when I arrived the very first time in Colombia and stayed in Medellin.   

Cali is a place I could have stayed for a majority of my 90-day Visa but I was also ready to get back to the chillier Bogota for a work minus distraction strategy that Bogota was more suitable to me for, and what I needed to fit in before stopping in Cartagena and getting out a somewhat underrated country, before I was required to leave altogether.

A Long Journey’s Vacation

April 28, 2023 (April 18, 2025 memory) by Cassandra Johnson

I landed in Cartagena, Colombia and I tried to make my trip more daunting, but things pretty much went off without a hitch, from my Uber from my last nice, rented apartment in Bogota, Colombia to the airport to the Uber from the airport to my cost efficient, hospitable hostel. I had only booked four days in Cartagena, and I decided to stick to this rather than my other extensions or trying out a different location/neighborhood and different hostel, hotel or AirBnB in the same city.

So, I speak to this daunting in the way of realism versus self-sabotage, not in the sense that I wanted that but in the sense that I was bracing myself for any hiccups, say for instance, like I had in Merida, Mexico. I did not want them but sometimes expectations meet preparedness meets “waiting for the other shoe to drop”.

This was the beginning and continuing on, I enjoyed Cartagena more so in the way that my 3 shifting bunkmates and other guests throughout the hostel were enjoying it rather than my digging into the more everyday living and nomadic work I do and had been doing in more extended stays. I did my work intermittently. In my walking trip around, I was greeted by a lot of local people in Cartagena that share my dark complexion and greeted by many who do not. There is a friendliness – overarching –  in South America, Mexico and Central America that I inexplicably cannot compare to a friendliness I have ever felt before. I have been treated nice throughout all my years (not always well, of course), but many times abroad, there has been this experience of being a welcomed guest in a private home.

In my short time, I experienced more than I expected. The heat was simmering but the vibe was ideally immeasurable. Getsemani neighborhood was my hyped up, yet chill place (about 40 minutes from my lodging). I was surrounded by art and rounded out with traditional food while intermittently chatting with the guests from Mexico, Colombia, Canada, England, Sweden, France and the local owners, intertwining the moments, sharing each day.