Cartegena is truly a lively little town.
Last time I was here, I think most of my post and pictures was about the old historic walled town. Its the same... beautiful old restored buildings and street cafes and wealthy foreign and Colombian tourists, massive stone walls and iron cannon, monuments to colonials, pirates, slaves, revolutionaries etc... very nice indeed :)
But there is also a far less sophisticated side of town, and its less tidy and less hygienic, and far noisier etc... The district where most of the budget accommodation (where I am staying) is a veritable "labyrinth of life". Absolutely everything is going on here... There are beggars and prostitutes and drunks and peddlers of fruit and ice and shoe repairers and deep fried street meet and walk by coffee vendors and taxis and trolleys and dogs and business men and police and paramilitaries and hostals and hotels and laundries and internet and restaurants and builders and hardware shops and.... The list is in fact without end.
It seems like in support of Darwins theory, "Commercial Selection"is in full force, and just like the natural version in these hot humid climates, the concentration and ferocity of the selective forces here are amplified way beyond what we "Westerners" usually encounter.
Ill post some pictures of stuff, but pictures really dont do it justice . They can capture a visual moment here and there but they just cant capture the continuous dynamic melee! Neither can they capture the constant variety of smells of sewerage from a street grating, and choking exhaust, and the sickly sweet rotting vegetables/fruit. Or the subtler smells of wet dog and deep fried chicken or the "fresh" meat in a butcher shop etc... Its an olfactory feast :)
Or the sounds of it all... Every street hawker has a unique cry that they repeat constantly at full volume... and the taxis and motorbikes are constantly using their horns... or the rattle of another street trolley as it moves slowly along (they use large wheel bearings directly as wheels here) or jack hammers or just every imaginable conversation under the sun from all the people...
Its "humanity with intensity!"... and a little surprisingly, I quite like it :)))
