Departed from Cartagena at 8:17pm. Before I started my date in Guatape, I really should give a shout out to Daniel, my Airbnb host in Cartagena. His hospitality made my stay in Cartagena a lot more enjoyable than I expected. He has gone out of his way to make me feel welcomed and provided assistance where it is needed. The restaurants he recommended I have enjoyed all of them. In return, I would totally recommend anyone who visited Cartagena, they should consider staying at his Airbnbs: Pombo211, Delaiglesia, and Infinitum2907.
The flight to Medellin international airport from Cartagena took about an hour. The view of Cartagena from above was mesmerizing, the bay, the old city and the new city, I have just walked a ton on those old streets the past few days. In this trip, I was not able to find a view that I can see both the old and new town in the same frame. There is always a next time.
Here is my fate with taxi drivers. After I got out of the airport, I am supposed to look for a stand for white taxi, and they are the authorized taxi, and will be more reliable and they may be more expensive but should be more reliable. I asked some information desk where I should find this taxi stand. The lady pointed me downstairs to the left. I went and got of the door, there are a bunch white cab and there was a sign saying Medellin, so I talked to one of them, “a Guatape” and showed him the message my Airbnb host in Guatape sent me, it included the address, as well as the rough cost. He seemed to be ok and wanted to take me but he kept trying to explain something else. We tried typing and speaking into the google translate, but it did not sound right to me, something paper needed to be filled, and to avoid that, something private. I did not like the sound of that, so I walked away.
A few of them all gathered explained to each other, this guy is going to Guatape and he does not understand...ba..ba..ba… (those are just my guess of what they were saying), and they ended up passing me to this freelance driver I ignored previously, so I showed him the same message where I want to go, he quoted a price way higher than my Airbnb host suggested, so I walked away again, back to looking for that invisible taxi stand. The same guy who had tried to explain me a spaghetti length of Spanish on the google translate, we gave it another try again. He said the exact same thing to my google translate. I still did not understand, but it seemed he really just want to help, so I confirmed him that we are going to Guatape for total of 140000 COP todos. He said Si. I said ok, and then I jumped on his car.
I am not stupid, so I turned on the google maps and made sure we were heading to the right direction. Though even if we were not, I am not exactly sure what I could do at the point. The initial 5-10 mins were some kind of uneven roads and some narrow streets, it was nonetheless matching with google’s suggested maps route… I started to wonder how rural Guatape is exactly. He tried to talk to me a few times, sometimes I picked up some key words and was able to give him some key word answer back. Otherwise, he said something, I repeated what he said, he thought I understand, and I did not ask him further, there is that. We got in this village kind of place, and he suddenly turned into a dirt road, going up a small hill, I was like ok where we are going. I started talking pictures, just in case, he was going to lock me up like Kathy Bates in Misery, break my legs and start feeding Colombian dumpling or something every day. Inside I was freaking out, and then there was a gate he opened and we entered, he saw I snapped a photo at the corner before we turned up the small hill, so he explain me that was his house.
Suddenly, I connected the dots, his taxi was registered for Medellin and he is not allowed to drive his cab to Guatape, so he came back to his place to switch a private car, now that makes perfect sense. Nonetheless this whole ordeal is still freaking scary. I got my bag out of his taxi, his black dog was sniffing my bag, and he had a wife too, I gave her a little asian head node bow, and she was like what is this creature doing in my house (that was just my guess too). So, now I felt a lot better, we switched the car and get back on the way to Guatape. This taxi driver I could sense that he was a very gentle man, he kept trying to talk to me, telling how beautiful country is, when we drove by a lake, or mountain, he would be like, this is bonita, that is bonito. He got me to where I needed to be, I gave him a good tip, and I asked: tu número de teléfono por servicio de taxi en Medellin? That is what I said. He gave me his card. So, I thanked him and started my Guatape adventure.
