A 2 centre holiday to combine some history and local culture with beach life. During the Thanksgiving break in November, we flew from Miami to Cartagena for a couple of nights in the city. It would have been more scenic to find accommodation in the old walled city but we opted for the new town and a hotel with a pool and beach access so we could take a dip after travelling and exploring.
We briefed the children that the first couple of days would involve sightseeing and walking but that would be followed by complete relaxation in Barú in our remote beach house. Since our time was short in Cartagena we signed up for a free walking tour in the old town so we’d see all the highlights. That filled our morning and after we were very ready for ice-cream at Gelateria Paradiso, an ice-cream parlour tip we’d been given by a school friend of our daughter – owned by a relative of theirs. Great local flavours, many of which we had never heard of, like hibiscus, kola roman, flor de Jamaica; luckily they offered tasters to help make our choices. It’s a very pretty city to explore but as with anywhere popular with tourists, there are many people trying to sell you souvenirs, boat tours, and Big Ass Ant snacks! There were lots of interesting shops and boutiques I could have happily spent more time exploring if we hadn’t had hot children in tow.
To get views of the city we travelled by Uber to Castillo de San Felipe de Barajas, the fortress a short drive from the walled town. Be sure to take water in with you. This time, conveniently, people were selling it by the ticket office – it’s a hot climb to the top. The children really had had enough by this point but fortunately, there were underground tunnels and passages in the cool for them to run in which turned things around!
For the following 4 nights I had booked an Airbnb house on Isla Barú, only accessible by boat. With the booking came a local guide who would meet us at our hotel, take us to the supermarket for supplies (nothing would be available once we were on the island except local seafood) and accompany us on the boat to the house. This felt like a great adventure if a little nerve-wracking, and it really tested my Spanish.
He met us in good time in the hotel reception and arranged taxis for us and our luggage to go to the supermarket. We needed to stop for cash too to pay the cook/housekeeper, who also came with the booking of the house, and he detoured for that. In the supermarket he helped with suggestions and enabled us to get ingredients for local dishes, for example, arepas which we were aware of from living in Miami but wouldn’t know how to prepare. Clearly this was a well practiced system and it worked well. He grabbed 2 trolleys – one for our luggage and one for our shopping – and then got a shop worker to accompany us on the short walk to the port so we could continue to transport everything easily and then the worker returned with the trolleys.
When booking the accommodation we were given 2 options – the public boat or a private transfer. For the experience and the price we opted for the public boat on the way out. It was interesting to travel with locals on their commute, sitting with our feet on 100s of eggs and next to coolers full of meat which we assume were going to the hotels on Barú.
And then we arrived at our island paradise!
Our guide took our order for fish, prawns and lobster and went to buy it from the local fishermen. Meanwhile, the housekeeper unpacked our shopping and discussed what we would like to eat for dinner that evening. Any time we were ready for a meal we could ring a bell at our house and she would appear from her neighbouring home to prepare it.
All that was left for us to do was alternate between swimming, reading, strolling along the beach and using the kayak.
Love your blog! Baru sounds amazing!