The Situation did it at the Shore; we're doing it in Cartagena.
Today we relocated to Bocagrande. We wanted to see this newer part of the city before we left and Sarah was able to get a free room at the Hampton Inn using her Hilton Honors points (thanks Blackstone!). On top of that, this Hampton Inn has a rooftop pool with great views of the city - was a pretty easy choice to say goodbye to Patio de Getsemani one day early.
The first thing we did when we got to the Hampton Inn? Go to the gym. We hadn't stayed at a hotel with a gym on our trip so far, so we took advantage of it and had a long work out.
Running inside is much more pleasant than walking outside in Cartagena's mid-day heat.
After getting cleaned up, we walked around Bocagrande for a while and eventually got lunch at Gokela, a salad place similar to Chop't in New York. Sarah was over the moon - we haven't had something like this since we left. Unlike Chop't though, Gokela also had the added benefit of an extensive smoothie menu.
Sarah's salad and smoothie (and shades).
After lunch, it was time to get our tan on. We headed up to the rooftop pool to cool off and read for a while. It was practically deserted, which made it even more enjoyable. We stayed for a few hours and got some pictures of this part of the city before a thunderstorm rolled through, forcing us inside.
Much different than the Walled City.
Another view of Bocagrande - anyone else see a resemblance to Miami?
Our view looking back at the Walled City.
One interesting observation about Bocagrande is the amount of new construction going on here. The area seems pretty over-saturated with hotels, but there are several being built right next to the existing ones. It's unclear (at least to us) whether these new construction projects are genuinely underway or partially-completed projects that have been abandoned. I'm no engineer, but I would've expected the best way to build one of these things is floor-by-floor (as is done in New York). These new buildings look like skeletons - the builders put up the frame for the whole building first. Regardless of the state of these projects, it's an odd juxtaposition against the other nicely constructed resorts around here.
One of these "skeleton" buildings that will eventually overlook the bay.
Another one is right next to our hotel - at least it hasn't been "filled in" yet and isn't totally blocking our view of the beach!
Before we headed to dinner, it was time to figure out the laundry situation. Fortunately, the Hampton Inn will do all our laundry for us; unfortunately, they charge exorbitant prices for this service. We'll just have to wait until we get to Cusco on Saturday to round-out the L of GTL.
For dinner, we figured we'd try something different so we went to Arabe, a Middle Eastern restaurant. We had some great falafel, salad and beef dishes - it was a little pricey for Cartagena, but hey, the hotel was free!
Tomorrow we will kill time most of the day before embarking on the most intense travel marathon of this leg of our trip: Cartagena -> Bogota -> Lima -> Cusco. Our first flight leaves Cartagena at 11:35pm on Friday and our last flight lands in Cusco at 12:35pm on Saturday. Good thing we have a few days to recover before leaving for Machu Picchu!