Cartagena pasties

I’ve noticed that in South America that – well, the bits of it that I’ve been to –pasties are pretty popular.

Lunch places often have a heated display sitting on the counter full of these small packets of deliciousness. Yum I do love me a pasty.

At the judging in Blumenau, one day we were served mini-pasties in the coffee breaks. Two different types: one with minced beef, the other with cheese. The former was quite like a Jamaican pattie, just without the spice. Very nice it was. Perfect for dropping on top of a dozen Barley Wines.

In Cartagena, we noticed that a type of pasty was very popular for breakfast amongst the locals. Round, rather than the classic pastie shape. I was intrigued. But not enough to forgo my breakfast eggs.

Then one day, when for some reason I’d forgotten to eat lunch, I happened to be passing a little place that seemed to specialise in these pastry delights. Feeling peckish, I popped in.

With some pointing, I managed to order a pair of these parcels of perfection. And a can of beer. You wouldn’t want to eat them dry. They came with a weird looking brown spicy sauce.

What would I discover inside?

Egg. The answer is eff. And minced meat.

A nice lady came over and showed me something on her phone. She’s translated a description of what the pasties were. Some local delicacy, evidently, eaten by people living on Columbia’s Caribbean coast.

I can highly recommend them. Not the Andina beer, though. That’s a bit watery.

Cartagena Beer (part two)

My first encounter with Club Colombia Negra was accidental. When we were in the cavernous – and wonderfully good value – Espiritu Santo

Mikey had eaten there before I arrived, though had trouble finding it again. Which isn’t as surprising as it might sound, the exterior being virtually unsigned and giving little indication of the large beerhall-like space inside.

I’m not sure why they brought us the dark version when we ordered two Club Colombias. But I’m glad they did. I was expecting something like the pale version just coloured up with sugar. The faint, but definite, flavour of roast suggested that there was dark malt of some kind in the recipe.

In some ways, it’s not a million miles away from a Dark Mild. Especially the light hopping. Good enough, at least, to switch me over to it for the remainder of our stay in Columbia.

After my first encounter with craft beer in Columbia, Mikey quickly hurries us on to our local – Restaurant Estrella. Unlike most other places, it wasn’t closed up and air-conditioned. Instead, it relied on big open windows and ceiling fans for cooling. It worked well enough. And it was popular with both locals and tourists. And – importantly for Mikey – it was cheap. Around €2.50 for breakfast and €3.50 for lunch.

The booze was decently-priced, too: €1.50 for a Club Colombia and €2.50 for a 3-year Medellin rum.

This particular day, we settled in for a long lunchtime session. 

With both rum and beer. Mikey didn’t stay on the Negra long. I was in for the long haul.

The pub was quite odd in some ways. It operated sometimes like a shop. OK, people buying water to carry out wasn’t so strange. But some of its other offerings were more unusual. Like toothpaste, soap, razor blades and batteries. Never seen those in a pub before. Oh, and marijuana paraphernalia.

All the dedicated craft beer bars were “temporarily closed”. Which meant my opportunities to drink anything other than Club Colombia were pretty limited. My next chance was on our last day.

Much of the morning we spent hanging the hotel around waiting for a Covid test. Which pissed Mikey right off. Leaving me to figure out how to spend the last of my Columbian pesetas.

Craft beer. That seemed a good use. I trundled down to the 3 Cordilleras place. And sat outside in the shade of a big umbrella.  Looking at the menu, I had just enough for a beer and a rum. As long as I drank the pale one. Which is what I got. Along with a 3-year Medellin rum.

The beer was pretty decent. The rum as excellent as always. A fitting full stop to the trip. Though I did have a few more rums in the airport lounge. 12-year Medellin, that was. Really lovely stuff.

Cartagena Beer

You may have guessed from what I wrote earlier about my time in Columbia that it wasn’t a beer trip. Well, not in that sense. I wasn’t going out of my way looking for good beer.

Club Colombia was what I mostly drank. A perfectly OK Lager. If you drink it while it’s cold. As good an incentive as any to keep up the drinking pace. I was perfectly happy to drink it. Always from a bottle. I don’t think I ever saw it on draught.

Over at Beer Advocate, Club Colombia gets varied reviews. A few gushing with praise and a few others gushing with venom. And lots of mediocre scores. The negative comments I find undeserved. It’s a perfectly practical drinking beer. Which was all we needed. One that was easy to get hold of.

While having a breakfast – the one with the very loud man – I spotted a “craft beer” sign on the restaurant opposite.

“Do you fancy a quick one over the road? It is almost ten, after all.”

It didn’t take much arm twisting to get Mikey to agree. He’s as big a pisshead as I am, when on holiday.

We took seat on the balcony, which overlooked a small square. Very scenic to look down on. And we were beyond the clutches of the dreadful buskers.

They sell three 3 Cordilleras beers on draught: Blanca, Rosada and Negra. We both opted for the latter. It’s nice and dark, with a hint of roast. A pleasant enough Dark Lager, I thought. According to both RateBeer and Beer Advocate, it’s a Stout. OK. Didn’t particularly strike me as being a Stout. 

A perfectly drinkable beer, but pricey at $14,000 for 30-35 cl. I knew I had zero chance of getting Mikey to have a second one.

“Fancy moving on to the local?”

“Sure, Mikey.”

Which is what we did for a few hours. Bottles of Club Colombia Negra and shots Medellin 3 year old rum. Very nice that is. The rum, I mean.

More about that next time.

Cartagena breakfasts (part two)

After a couple of days of breakfast disappointments, we decided to try another new place.

As with many restaurants we visited early doors, it was deserted. Almost. One table was occupied by a group of men. One of whom was so load, that he literally made me jump. And hurt my ears. While being right over the other side of the room. And me having my back towards him. I was so glad when they fucked off and I could eat my breakfast in peace.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. I was delighted to see fried eggs on the menu. But worried they’d come hard fried again. That would be such a downer. I tried to make clear I wanted the yolks runny when I ordered.

“Huevos fritos. Liquido, por favor.”

See how fluent I am in Spanish. Almost like a native. At least the waitress understood, as two beautifully fried eggs arrive a little later. I’m so happy. Even though they’re served with nothing other than toast.

I didn’t have a beer to wash it down for a change, instead having a coffee. Mikey, made of stronger stuff than me, stuck with Club Colombia. What a hero.

No breakfast the next day. I was feeling as sick as a dog. I didn’t leave my room all day. And ate nothing save a couple of bananas.

Luckily, it only lasted a day. I awoke the following day with quite a hunger. Time for another new breakfast location. Quite a posh looking place where the staff outnumbered customers by three to one.

Scrambled eggs with ham, I order. And a coffee. I’m such a wimp. It was already 9:30 and there I am drinking something alcohol-free. Mikey, true to tradition, stuck with Club Colombia.

After ordering, I notice that they did fried eggs. Damn. The scrambled eggs are pretty nice, with loads of really tasty ham. But I do like fried eggs for my breakfast. Maybe we needed to return here.

Which is exactly what we did. There’s something on the menu called an American breakfast. I quite fancy that. But it comes with scrambled eggs. I order it and ask if I can have fried eggs. No problemo. “Liquido, por favor.” It worked last time. Let’s see what happens here.

Finally, three-quarters of the way into my stay, I get something like the breakfast I was after. I’m so happy. My breakfast looked happy, too.

I was so pleased, I went back the next day.

Cartagena breakfasts

Breakfasts. We ate quite a lot of those. One every day in fact. Not always that early.

In Colombia, breakfast means eggs. Mostly scrambled. As I was to find out. As I began my quest for fried eggs. More of that later.

My first morning there, Mikey tried to take me to a place he’d been before. But he took a wrong turning and we ended up at some random place. In a courtyard set well back from the street. No wonder we were the only customers.

While I was waiting for my eggs with ham and cheese, I got my first taste of Club Colombia. Rather bizarrely served with a glass full of ice. Mikey had settled on Club Colombia as it was the strongest of the standard Lagers. It’s OK. Not unpleasant.

Oddly, my eggs came with chips. No vinegar, sadly. Not a bad breakfast.

 

The next day, we breakfasted where Mikey had wanted to take me the day before. A place with big open windows, high ceilings with fans and a breakfast menu.

Yippee! I squealed (well, not literally) when I spotted huevos fritos - fried eggs – as one of the options. You can imagine my disappointment when it arrived with the yolks fried solid. They came with a small sausage, a piece of cheese and some inedible fritters. Not a breakfast I’ve had before.

OK other than the fritters, if a little strange. Club Colombia was the perfect accompaniment, with its beeriness and alcoholiness. Along with a shot or two of Medellin 3 year old rum.

Huevos Rancheros. I spotted those on the menu of the first place. Aren’t they a sort of fancy fried eggs? I suggested we gave them a try.

The restaurant was as deserted as before. Two beers to wake us up. And two Huevos Rancheros.

What a disappointment. Not the beer. The food. More fucking scrambled eggs. With some sort of meat bits. Not very nice. It’s not served with toast, but plain white bread. Which is almost as hard as toast.
 

Not very nice at all. Worst breakfast by far.

More breakfast fun next time. Will I get proper fried eggs? Yes. I will.
 

Cartagena

It’s another early start. I rise at 06:30.

And that’s as far as I got with my notes on my Columbia trip. No day-by-day account this time. Which makes sense, as this wasn’t a beer trip. Well, not in the usual sense.

“You’re crazy, Ronald.” That’s become Dolores’s catchphrase when I tell her my travel plans. She did have a point this time. A mere 46 hours after getting back from Brazil I was on a plane bound for South America again.

That wasn’t the original plan. The holiday was to celebrate my mate Mikey’s 50th birthday. The intention was to go to Thailand. So at least I wouldn’t have been travelling back on myself. We’d even booked tickets.

The rules for entering Thailand were pretty strict. A test before departure, one on arrival with 24-hours quarantine, another test and 24-hours quarantine after five days and a final test just before departure. Lots of faffing around. We decided we couldn’t be arsed.

Where else could we go? There were two simple criteria: it had to be hot and cheap. While Mikey was on the KLM site, a suggestion for Cartagena popped up. Would I be interested in going there? Course I fucking would. It’s a new country and in South America.

We cancelled our Thailand tickets and rebooked for Cartagena. I sent Mikey come info I’d found about the city. Which could have been a big mistake. The bit about crime and safety freaked Mikey out a bit. I eventually talked him down by sending him even scarier information about Florianopolis, somewhere I’d visited just a couple of months earlier. And had found perfectly safe.

Nerves settled, Mikey was very enthusiastic. Found us accommodation right in the centre of town. Great! Saves me lots of trouble.

Mikey went out a couple of days before me. Leaving about when I returned from Brazil. Just before I was due to leave, I received an email. “Buy rum in the duty free. There’s an election and no alcohol is being sold.” That’s a bummer.

Being a decadent bastard, I got an Uber rather than the bus to the airport. I also wanted as much time as possible in the lounge. Where I had a mini breakfast and several whiskies. They won’t serve doubles, so I always just buy two at a time. One Scotch, one bourbon. No ice, of course.

The flight out was long. Over fourteen hours. With around four of those on account of going via Bogota. That bit was great fun. Everyone had to get off the plane, with those carrying on to Cartagena herded to one side. Someone with a clipboard crossed off the names of the connecting passengers.

But, clearly didn’t catch everyone. As after we had been herded a hundred metres or so down a corridor, they came around again with a fresh list. What was going on? I’d expected to be guided to a transit lounge. 

Every 10 minutes or so we shuffled forward 50 or 100 metres only to be stopped and held again at some random point. Eventually, we were ushered towards the security check. One of the ground crew shouted “Puerta cuarenta y cinco” and quickly fucked off. We were left to fend for ourselves.

Yes, we had the fun of going through security again. Just as well I’d kept the receipt for that duty free rum. Otherwise, it would have gone in the bin with my bottle of water.

I checked a monitor and gate 45 was indeed where our flight was. And 400 – 500 metres back in the opposite direction to which we’d just walked. Did I mention that I was gasping for breath the whole time? Bogota is at 2,600 metres. Around 1500 metres to high for my crappy lungs.

I was tempted to nip into one of the bars I passed for a quick rum. But managed to resist. Just as well, as the flight was already boarding when I got to the gate. All told, around 90 minutes of pissing around, just to get back into the same seat.

The remaining flight was pretty short, around an hour. We landed at Cartagena just before dusk. In delightful South American style, I was ushered into the priority queue and walked straight up to an immigration booth. Where a nice young lady looked at all my documents and stamped my passport. That was nice and quick.

Mikey had also arranged a taxi pick up. As we raced into town a fat red sun was just dropping into the sea. The city’s ramparts full of tourists taking in the fading glow. That was a good start.

I was boiling hot when I plonked my luggage down in my room. And set the airco immediately to Antarctica. A change of clothes later and I was banging on Mikey’s door. Duty free rum in my hand.

After a few rums we wandered down to a nearby square. Where we were able to score a couple of shots in a pub. They didn’t seem to be taking the whole dry for election day thing totally seriously.

A few more rums in Mikey’s room and I was ready for my bed.