My first visit to Colombia was anchored around the opportunity to experience Barranquilla’s Carnaval. Inspired by stories from Colombian-American friends and others who recently traveled there, we were eager to check out Carnaval, nearby Cartagena, as well as Bogota and Medellin.
Check out the links above for details of the rest of our February 2023 travels in Colombia, but here are the highlights of our two Caribbean coastal stops: Cartagena and Barranquilla. Colombia had some surprises I shared previously too.
Know Before You Go
In addition to the information and advice found in other city guides and tour books (such as: yes, Colombia is safe and welcoming to visitors), I found a few things worth emphasizing:
- Cartagena and Barranquilla are hot and can be pretty windy. Bring your sunglasses and a hat, and expect that your clothes might get pretty dusty and sweaty.
- Barranquilla’s Carnaval is a BIG event. I was alternately amazed by the quantity of folks watching the parade and the quantity of folks participating in the parade. I have no idea how so many people descend on the city at once to leave enough people to do both.
- It should go without saying—but also worth repeating—that in any crowds one should keep close tabs on their valuables. But especially at Carnaval, there are So. Many. People. Double your efforts, leave the valuables you can at your hotel (or at home), and put the ones you must bring in a secure place, like a zippered or concealed pocket.
- Just like the rest of Colombia, a lot of businesses—including bars and restaurants—close, or close early on Sunday. Keep this in mind in order to avoid unfortunate surprises as you’re planning your activities and meals.
- If you’re traveling between Cartagena and Barranquilla, flights from one city to the other require connections through Medellin or Bogota and take longer than driving. Taxis or other private transportation should be available, although we took the MarSol bus. It was inexpensive and relatively convenient, though the terminals may or may not require an extra connection depending on where you’re coming from or going to.
Sightseeing Highlights
Despite reading up beforehand, I was surprised at how big Cartagena and Barranquilla are. They’re not relaxed resort towns, for sure: each city is home to about 1 million plus people, and Barranquilla’s metro area is nearly double that. One aspect of that (which I did know beforehand) is that the nicer Cartagena-area beaches and any Barranquilla-area beaches are a 30+ minutes outside of the downtown commercial and tourist areas. As such, we never made it to the beach (insert sad face emoji).
A few of my highlights are below. As with other posts, these aren’t meant to replace other guides or guidebooks. But feel free to take bits and pieces of my adventures as a perspective on the spots I visited that may be unique to what’s mentioned elsewhere.
Our Street Food Tour of Cartagena was one a friend recommended via GuruWalk and one I’d recommend too. On a leisurely walk through the Getsemani neighborhood we learned about Colombia’s food culture, sampled arepas, picked up some history, drank a local beer, tasted Colombian chorizo and bollas, and had some of the freshest cocteles de camarón I’ve had.
Plaza de la Trinidad, however, may have been my highlight of Cartagena. The centrally-located square is relatively sleepy during the day, but at night, it’s bursting folks watching the street performers (tips are appreciated), food vendors, and folks selling beer, soda and water out of their coolers. If Solar Bar and Food is open (the hours on their site and Google didn’t prove accurate for me), their second-floor balcony provides a perfect perch to sip your drink and take it all in. The action in the Plaza is definitely hopping by 9pm and continues well past midnight.
Calle de San Juan and Calle de los Cuadros in Cartagena are filled with art. Street art covers many of the walls, and the ones that don’t have street art are lined with local artists’ works available for sale. There’s also a restaurant and coffee shop if you want to recharge while soaking it in and people watching.
Barranquilla held its own in the street art department. Just east of La Casa del Carnaval are a number of streets with spectacular murals, such as Mural Colorbia Sabor Bajero. Many are pinned on Google maps, or just wander the neighborhood and stumble less discovered ones. We walked as far as Plaza de la Aduana, where some locals advised us to proceed with extreme care if we went further east (we turned back there).
The Gran Malecón del Río in Barranquilla was another pleasant surprise. We only traversed a small section of the Malecón, but given more time, we would have explored more. I suspect at times other than Carnaval (when it was difficult to get to the river side of the parade route), the wide path for pedestrians and bikes would be more lively and more of the restaurants and food stands would be open.
Carnaval de Barranquilla
Carnaval was a major motivator for our trip and anchored our travel schedule. It’s epic: one of the biggest celebrations of its type in the world. As I noted in the post of things I didn’t expect in Colombia, tickets are a must for most events, and it’s essential to get many of them in advance.
We managed to get last-minute tickets to the Friday evening coronation event at Estadio Olímpico Romelio Martinez and it was a great way to start off the celebration. As with most things Carnaval, it started a little later than scheduled, but was full of performances, dance, music, and celebration. Fireworks followed the coronation of the Carnaval Queen, and a concert came after that. Below the stadium was a marketplace of all things Carnaval—lots of stuff you probably don’t need, but also a great place to get a last minute Carnaval outfit for the weekend’s parades.
The biggest events of Carnaval were the parades. Especially on Saturday, EVERYONE turns out to perform in the parade, watch the parade, or sell their wares to parade-goers. Other guides also advise buying tickets to the palcos, or parade grandstands, and they’re right. Unlike parades in the U.S., there are few spots to see the parade if you’re not in a palco. And even if you find a spot, the covered grandstand seating helps ensure you can see the parade and don’t melt from the hot sun while doing so. Tuboleta is one of the most prominent sites for tickets and LGBT folks will find Palco Puya Loca the most welcoming one.
The Saturday afternoon parade is the largest and most heavily-attended one. Don’t wear out your Saturday finest, though: parade goers are obsessed with spraying their “fun” foam and throwing around handfuls of corn starch. You’ll surely be ready for a shower by the end of the parade.
Sunday and Monday parades are worthwhile too, if you’re not exhausted after Saturday. The subsequent day parades aren’t as busy as the Saturday one, so it can be a good opportunity for a more relaxed experience (and one with less foam and starch). Regardless of the day, the costumes, music, and choreography is amazing and it all is surely an experience to remember.
Eating and Drinking
In addition to the street food tour, we ate well in Cartagena and Barranquilla. These coastal towns have a strong focus on seafood, but there are plenty of other options too. Some of my favorites included:
Terraza Municipal is a gorgeous waterside food court in Cartagena. The vibe is hip and relaxed, with DJs bringing the music, a central bar serving up cocktails of all sorts, and wait staff bringing around food from the carts that surround the plaza. It’s a curated experience, for sure, and the prices reflect the upscale atmosphere the place presents, but it was a great spot to wrap up our stay here.
Tacos la Neta was an awesome rooftop spot in Cartegana atop Selina (see my notes on lodging below). The food was good, the cocktails were great, the view was even better.
Cucayo was a great spot in Barranquilla. Lots of folks from the parade migrated here for food, as well as some media folks (we tried not to end up in the news). The food was good, not great, but the menu was also limited for the busy time we were there
Finally, La Matriarca was a great meal to wrap up out experience in Barranquilla. The food was great, even if the service was a little distracted by the crowd.
Nightlife
Gay nightlife seemed particularly absent in Cartagena. While there, we found one club, but it felt somewhat dominated by escorts. The staff were friendly, but it’s not a place I’d go back to. Other places I’d read about in others’ guides didn’t seem to be around any longer.
That said, much of Cartagena’s Getsemani neighborhood was lively at night and I never felt uncomfortable being there with the hubby. Even after midnight on Tuesday, things were hopping at Plaza de la Trinidad (more details above), and that was true every other day of the week too. On a Thursday night, we checked out Havana Cafe which was well worth the cover charge for us to enjoy the great live music.
Barranquilla was a different story altogether. I’m sure everything was significantly busier due to the influx of Carnaval, but Friday night was packed at Patio (and they struggled to get beer to the bar as fast as people were ordering it, let alone to keep it cold). Saturday was just as busy at Lives (at least on three of their four dance floors) … and similar to Patio, the booze ran dry pretty early for the “open bar” setup.
Lodging
Casa Zahri was our home base in Cartagena. The location right on the bay was beautiful and exceptionally convenient for all of our exploration, and even our private rooms in the hostel were very reasonably priced. Private rooms had air conditioning, which was wonderful to escape from the city’s daytime heat, but if a long, hot shower is important to start your day, look elsewhere (water pressure wasn’t much at best and was barely more than a dribble of cold water in the mornings).
Selina Cartagena was about a block away from Casa Zahri and would likely be my top pick of hotel for my next trip to Cartagena. The rooftop pool and restaurant are beautiful, and the rooms that had a door open when I was headed up to the restaurant looked very nice.
In Barranquilla, we defaulted to the Hampton Inn. It was the one American chain we stayed at during our trip to Colombia—and our most expensive stay of the trip—but had rooms available when we finally got around to booking our stay for the Carnival weekend. The rooms were quiet and comfortable and the location was in a decent neighborhood that was relatively accessible to all of our excursions in town. For a return trip, I’d look more closely at other options that might be less expensive or have more local flair, but the Hampton was a decent choice just the same.
Upper Left Traveler 