With nights that seem impossible to end early and a contagious vacation vibe, Cartagena seems made for lazy starts and long brunches. Oddly however, the brunch scene here has until recently been fairly lacking. The fact that Cartagena already created breakfast perfection with the invention of the ubiquitous “Arepa ‘e Huevo” might have had something to do with it? For those of you who, like me, consider brunch to be the most pleasurable way to start the day/combat hangovers/delay reality, fear not! I am delighted to report we are seeing a host of restaurants and cafés brunching out (pun intended) into the realm of champagne-spiked breakfasts.

Here’s the best of the brunch:

PASTELERIA MILA
When Mimosas in Cartagena were barely a mythical whisper from those fortunate-enough to have ventured overseas, Pasteleria Mila was pioneering their cause. The home of the original Cartagena brunch, Mila still remains one of the city’s best; thanks to an enormous selection of scrumptious sweet and savoury offerings, gorgeous French-farmhouse ambience and those aforementioned Mimosas. If you can make it out without ordering “breakfast dessert” from the ridiculously tempting window displays, you’re a better man than I am.

TRY: Colombia’s unusual sweet/salty combo of hot chocolate and melted cheese.

Brunch from 8am Monday - Saturday and from 10am Sunday
www.pasteleriamila.com

CAFFÉ LUNATICO
Cute and quirky, Caffe Lunatico has quickly won the hearts of Cartagena’s brunch bunch with beautifully presented breakfast plates that taste as good as they look. Wash them down with all-day jugs of Sangria, or on Sundays, why not sign up for bottomless Mimosas? Because, as they say, brunch without champagne, is really just a sad breakfast.

TRY: Broken eggs with yuca or Cartagena’s (and potentially the World’s) best French Toast
Brunch 11am- 3pm every day.
@caffelunatico

CAFÉ STEPPING STONE
If you’d like a side of social conscience with your coffee and croissants, Café Stepping Stone is for you. The brainchild of two young Aussies, the project aims to share some of the cafe culture Australia does so well (yes, including brunch), whilst helping train, educate and support Cartagena’s disadvantaged and at-risk youth.

TRY: The menu is loaded with yummy vegetarian and vegan options.

Brunch from 8am Monday - Saturday, and from 9am Sunday
www.cafesteppingstone.com

OH LA LA
Take a beautifully restored high-ceilinged, light-filled Getsemani house with an incredible past, add soul-pleasing food and lashings of French-finesse and you have one of our favourite breakfast destinations. Think homebaked bread with real butter, homemade jams, granola and yogurts, toulouse sausage, decadently creamy omelettes, still-warm bollo served with the best suero you'll try (local delicacy).. all lovingly prepared and beautifully presented (like, really beautifully, in that, must upload to instagram immediately, kind of way).. trust us, you'll be charmed to bits too. 

Breakfast 8am-1pm Monday -  Saturday (Also great for lunch, or early dinner)
Found on Calle Larga, near the corner of Calle Vargas close to Cocina de Pepina​

EL BISTRO
Chef and foodie favourite, El Bistro, does a weekly Sunday brunch that places traditional Caribbean cuisine front and centre for a breakfast unlike anything you will try at home. Featuring elevated local classics such as arepa de huevo with smoked trout, chorizo empanadas, and fish Sancocho; your guayabo (slang for hangover) will be a distant memory thanks to this restorative fare.

TRY: Empanadas stuffed with seafood casserole and the amazing selection of German-baked breads

Breakfast Monday - Saturday 9am -1pm; Sunday Caribeño Brunch 10am- 4pm
www.el-bistro.com

OH! LA LA
Housed in a beautifully restored Getsemani space, Oh! la la is imbued with a romantic charm that captivates all.. and that's even before the impossibly chic food and drink start arriving. Homebaked breads with real butter, homemade jams, yogurt.. it is all so beautifully presented and lovingly prepared, you can't help but sigh in satisfaction (and upload a gazillion photos to the medias). There's proper Toulouse sausage, delicious granola, a decadent creamy omelette, still-warm bollo (a local favourite) washed down with good coffee and amazing juices. A definite favourite.

Brunch 7am-1pm Monday to Saturday
Calle Larga  corner of Callejon Vargas (around the corner from Cocina de Pepina)


CAFE ÉPOCA
Café Epoca is for people who choose their brunch based on the calibre of the coffee. Roasted in-house from the best of Colombia’s beans, this could be the very best cup in Cartagena. It’s not just coffee-snobs who will be satisfied; the food menu reads like a brunching all stars and definitely doesn’t disappoint in the delivery.

TRY: It’s hard to beat creamy avocado smashed on toast, right?

Brunch from 9am daily
@weare.epoca

CREPES & WAFFLES
For visitors it might be hard to accept that a restaurant that seems from the surface just to be a run-of-the-mill chain, is somehow capable of commanding the unfaltering devotion of an entire population. Yet this is exactly the power of the almighty Crepes & Waffles. Basically, if you live in Colombia, you will most probably eat here at least once a week, every week, for your entire lives. And then, on Sundays, it’s brunch time, baby. Mompox mozzarella, bread baskets, all the eggs, mimosas and nutella/banana crepes. There’s definitely worse ways to become a household name.

TRY: Baked Lebanese eggs, guanabana smoothie.

Sunday Brunch from 10am
www.crepesywaffles.com.co

Como es? Good valued corrientazo that's a step up from the standard fare
Donde es? Getsemani, Plaza de la Trinidad 9-111, Cartagena, Bolivar
Cuanto es? Cheap <$15,000
Cerca a? Plaza de la Trinidad





Located right on the much-beloved Plaza Trinidad in Getsemani, this is a great little spot for a corrientazo lunch that offers a little extra than the standard fare.

Sometimes, for example, they will have potato salad or borronjil (a kind of eggplant/platano smush) as a side. And instead of panela for your included drink, you might get lucky and arrive on the day they have watermelon juice.

There's a good range of mainly-meaty options that rotate frequently and sometimes get a bit adventurous. Most of the standard meats-based options are COP7000, but if you opt for the fish filete you'll pay 10,000COP. It's totally worth it. You'll receive a giant portion of fish fillet, battered in a salt and pepper spiced mix and shallow-fried to produce something that kind of reminds me of Cantonese style flounder. Which is to say it's very good. Plus it comes served with coconut rice- a coastal speciality and totally delicious.

Even the soup options vary (fish, triseca, hueso, pollo, patacones) and you might even be lucky enough to get mote de queso – a rich yam-based soup with chunks of cheese that's a speciality of the Atlantic Coast.

At night, the pizza oven gets cranked up, street tables and chairs come out and the cafe gets busy churning out light and crispy pizzas to the hungry plaza folk. They do pastas and burgers too, but I've only ever tried the pizza. Depending upon the toppings you choose, you can get a fairly giant pizza that would feed 2-3 people for around 14,000COP. I add my own dried chilli flakes to up the ante a little.

Lots of people arrive to Cartagena with the expectation that, as part of not-quite first-world Colombia, things are going to be cheap. 'Fraid not. Depending upon where you are coming from and how strong the currency you're converting is, things will be, for the most part, about the same price as in your first-world country (eating, drinking etc) or, even more expensive (accommodation, boating etc).

BUT if you know where to look there are still some choice options to eat on the cheap. I've made up a bit of a list of my favourites (in no particular order) HERE, but first here are some general tips to eating cheap:

1. Lunch like a King.
   

For most Colombians, lunch is the biggest meal of the day. So if you want to save money, take advantage of the competitive corriente pricing around town (more on corrientes next) and fill up at midday. The servings are so large you'll only need the lightest of dinners.

1. Keep things current.
   

Corrientes are the daily meal option. At lunch they will usually consist of a soup to start; hueso (bone) or costilla (rib) are the most common and are made with potato and/or yuca, a chunk of bone with or without some meat attached (depending upon the generosity of your server) cilantro and maybe some other vegetables. You may also find pollo (chicken), pescado (fish) and patacones (plantain) options. If you're really lucky there might be mote de queso (a specialty soup with chunks of cheese and yam) or Modongo (hmm.. the less you know the better.. basically stomache lining/offal.. but mighty flavoursome).

The main plate will include your selected meat (carne [beef], cerdo [pork], pollo [chicken], lingua [tongue], higado [liver] or pescado [fish] being the main offerings) plus a varying combination of rice, lentils, beans, salad (always very basic - lettuce, tomato, onion), patacones and banana.

To drink, the usual offering will be aguapanela (brown sugar dissolved in water with lime juice), chicha (rice-based fruity cordial) or jugo (juice of the day). Corrientes are usually a lunch time thing, but a handful of places serve them up all night long too. Expect to pay from around COP$6,000 up to $15,000 depending upon the place and whether you choose the more expensive fish option.

1. More the merrier.
   

Go to where the people are and you're more likely to find a better variety of good-valued meal options. Ludicrously high rental prices within the walled city makes it more difficult to find food for cheap, so head a little further out. Getsemani has a good offering of cheap eating to target both locals and backpackers. There's some good options around La Matuna aiming to capture the commercial/professional crowd of employees and even upmarket Bocagrande has some good lunch-time deals as the restaurants fight it out for tourist lunchtime trade.

1. Eat street.
   

Don't be scared to grab some food from the many street vendors, plonk yourself down on a bench and eat al fresco. After more than a year of living here and eating EVERYTHING offered on the street, I have never been sick once. You can pick up a styrofoam tray filled with lunch (rice, beans, salad, meat) for 4000 pesos from 12-2pm daily (popular options run out quickly so for more choice, eat earlier!) otherwise you can get all the street snacks I write about HERE throughout the day. Remember! You can also book in for my Street Food Tour!

• When in Rome...

I love Asian food and I cook a lot of it at home, paying a premium for my imported Oyster sauce because sometimes I just want those oriental flavours. But if you want to eat cheap you can't expect to eat the same way you do at home. People here don't really eat fresh, healthy protein-based salads, for example, so if that's what you are hankering for, you can find it, but expect to pay more. Eat what the locals eat and it will be cheaper. And apologies vegetarians - for the most part, Cartagena is very bad value for you.

OK! You're now ready for my list of cheap(er) restaurants. Go here.

Do you have any other tips to eat cheap around Cartagena?

It's a universally accepted truth that time flies when you're having fun. And since this past year living, working and loving in Cartagena has absolutely rocketed by, you can assume that I've had mega huge truckloads of fun. Although, as many of you can attest, I kindof always do.
Since this is our anniversary, I wanted to get all romantic and write a bit of a love letter/thank you note to my adoptive city. It might help to explain what the heck I am doing all the way over here in Colombia. And maybe even inspire some of you to visit.

So..
Cartagena! Mi vida! Mi amor! It's been one year since I found myself at your tiny aiport after flying from Buenos Aires, via Peru. We got off to a pretty good start right away. Despite never meeting me before, new friend Willy, picked me up from the airport and dropped me at my hotel. This, ofcourse, involved driving along Avenida Santander where I first saw the kilometres and kilometres of unobstructed beachfront I am now so familiar with, stretching out for me under the setting sun. And man! You sure know how to set a sun. Where do you even come up with those colours? The dreamy purples and blues, nudging their way into the shock of almost fluorescent orange and peach, all set off with a kindof halo of gold and a salty ocean haze. Each day your sunsets are different and differently spectacular. I never tire of them. 

I arrived just as you were readying yourself for the start of FICCI: an international film festival that transforms the streets and plazas and theatres around town into one giant free movie cinema – 7 days of almost non-stop film. There was a buzz, an energy, almost touchably thick in the air. It seemed that every bar was filled with up-and-coming directors discussing way-out ideas, getting drunk on aguardiente and dancing salsa. 

So I joined in. Obviously. 

There was a tall, dark stranger who held my body close so that I had no choice but to move as he moved. I overcame my Australian “personal-space issues” and together we danced; sweaty, exhilarated and punctuated by shots of Colombia's own rum, until the sun threatened to rise again. I retreated to my beachfront hostel by way of a hilarious taxi driver, rested for a few hours, then set out once more under the gloriously warm sunshine, impatient to explore.

People often ask me, Why you? Why would I choose to live in Cartagena? My answer usually has something to do with the warmth, the colour, the music I encountered that first day walking around your streets, and that I continue to experience each day as I fall more and more in love with you. It somehow felt like you were giving me a giant hug. The way 8 different types of music were playing simultaneously from 8 different portable music players within the one short street and it still felt right. The way the vendors pushing carts of fruit, saturated in colour, would sing out their daily haul – aguacates, papaya, limones, so that the people in the houses could come out and buy from this ever moving mobile market. Everyone and everything here seems to move with music. The people act with kindness, humour and smiling eyes. Life is taken way less seriously than dancing here.

I've more than embraced the dancing way of life. I manage to dance in some way every single day. Sometimes all day (hello fiestas de independencia and Carnaval, I'm looking at you!). And that's good enough for you. The people have in turn embraced me; this crazy Australian who dances a lot like a Colombian (but a little too fast and a little too big – “mas SUAVE por favor!”) and it hasn't seemed to matter a great deal that my Spanish is below par, so long as they can see me wiggling with all my energy and with a mega-watt grin. I started going to Zumba classes with the amazing, incredible, inspirational Erv. We started giving the classes publicly in Plaza Trinidad. The locals, the children, the expats, the everyone – joined in.. lending me almost celebrity status in the barrio. One of the songs we dance to is that previously annoying car alarm sound. Like the entire song is made up of that series of sirens. So anyway, thanks to zumba and Erv and you, Cartagena, even a previously annoying sound now makes me smile and want to dance.

So yes, even though I definitely stand out here, I still feel like I fit in.

I've learned so much!
Drink half your cup when you buy a juice so you can get a top up free. Tourists never do that. Suckers. And isn't that awesome? You always want just that little bit more, right?

Catch a colectivo. This is the best concept ever. No matter where you are going you can always share a taxi with three other complete strangers and share the expense, you just have to know where to leave from and get ready to raise a single finger (this is the symbol for colectivo as opposed to regular private taxis). When I do catch a taxi (very infrequently) I know all the real set prices for the different barrios depending upon the time of day. And if the taxi driver says an amount higher, I've learned to say “No jodaaaa” until he realises I am, in fact, a costena disguised as a blonde Australian. I've also learned to decipher the meaning of the different taxi-horn beeps (“hey, I'm here”, “hey, want a ride?” “hey, you're pretty”, "Hey other taxi, if you don't move I will hit you", “Hey, I'm bored waiting in this traffic”).

I've learned to distinguish between merengue, vallenato, champeta, reggaeton, salsa, cumbia and bachata (among others) and do a passable impersonation of someone who knows how to dance each of the different styles.

I've learned a lot about your history, the stories, the monuments, the ongoing struggles, the controversies. There's still so much to learn. Your past reads like an adventure novel: Ameri-Indians and gold-filled tombs, Spanish kings and Inquisitions, corsairs and pirates, gold and emeralds, slavery and immigrants, cholera and Catholicism, fortifications and fights for Independence. You've definitely led an interesting life.

And wow! You are super popular! It seems everyone in the world wants to visit you, have a major international conference or event with you, get married with you. A city after my own heart, you really like to party. And when you party, you always do it for at least a week. None of this weak-assed single day stuff for you. No senor.

I've had pinch-me-moments where I've been invited to enormous colonial mansions with grotto-like swimming pools and chandeliers with real candles. Days out on yachts visiting private islands and eating lobster. Met inspirational people and certified geniuses. Basked in the glow of their ideas and ambition, then felt a little cold when they all inevitably packed up and returned to reality.

I haven't found a boyfriend. But I've amassed some seriously entertaining stories while I've looked. And I think I'm getting close to developing an understanding of the complexities of Colombian men and the way they are different according to which part of the country they hail from. And why I probably won't end up being with one. That's all fodder for a separate entry, however. Perhaps a book.

More importantly I've made some really amazing friends. America's best and brightest who are here working as part of Peace Corp or the Fullbright Scholar programme, other expats from around the world who are captivated by the latin world and have come here to teach or translate or volunteer and make a difference, others who work in tourism or hospitality, locals who are endlessly sharing their perspectives and priceless insider knowledge with me, or teaching me street-slang. People I've partied with, danced with, eaten with, spoken very bad Spanish with, felt a connection with, felt like I belonged with. People who visited for a short while but somehow formed a bond with me that I will carry forever. So many amazing friends that it really feels like it has to have been more than a year to have amassed such quality and quantity. I'm not going to name names, but thank you. I love you.

Can I just name random things I love about you now? Gonna.
I love the pimped out buses with all their glitter and signs praising God. I love the enterprising rappers and chocolate salesman that travel on them looking to make a bit of money. I love how the buses have sound effects (like a cheesy radio station) so they can wolf-whistle hot girls they pass.

I love all the public holidays you have. It seems like there's one a fortnight. Someone recently told me that Colombia is second only to Argentina as having the most public holidays in the world. Nice, right?

I love Getsemani and the feeling of community there. If one person owns something, the entire barrio owns it. Need a ladder? Well, go see Rodrigo. Need a hammer? Dario is your man etc. People have less, but then they also have more because everyone shares.

I love how it's always Summer. Always.

I love leaving the house feeling dowdy only to be declared a goddess, queen, precious princess (insert multiple other over-the-top compliments here) by every man I pass.

I love $3 pedicures and $4 haircuts.

I love bolis (frozen home-made ice-blocks in various tropical fruit flavours).

I love the bright pink Kola Roman softdrink. I especially like how big, tough men drink it completely unaware of how effeminate the pretty-pink creaming-soda-like drink appears. And gosh! The old 80s adverts are so awesome!! .

I love the Plazas: Trinidad for chess playing and friends-greeting. For watching freakishly talented youngsters play after-school soccer. For warming up with a few tienda-bought beverages before heading out for the night. San Diego to soak up the creativity of the artistic students who frequent it. Simon Bolivar to buy enyucado from one of the Palenqueras. Santa Domingo to watch Shakiro (your tubby-bellied male drag version of Shakira) mime and dance.

I love the way costena women colour-block. And colour-block in neon no less. Black? You've got to be kidding. Their patchwork painted houses are just as bright and I really believe all this colour makes people happy. It definitely makes me happy.

You can buy hot pork crackling whenever you want, but my obsession is coconut water. It's all new craze and fancypants in the first-world (or is it back to being old news now?) but here it is fresh from a coconut, fresh from the beach. The water is poured into the same long thin plastic bags they use for bolis, and tied off. When the bags are used and empty they look like condoms. This amuses me too.

I love all the hand/body gestures and their meanings, like how Colombians point to stuff with their lips. The way they say “no” with the most decisive finger-wave you've ever seen. [OK!! I will not give you any more tea.. sheeeesh!]

I love running along your bays, your beaches, feeling the salty breeze on my skin, perhaps on the way home, pausing to buy freshly caught fish from the very man who caught it.

I love that people love big butts here, to the extent that butt implants are really commonplace. If someone tells me my ass is big, it is 100% genuinely intended as a compliment. My roommate actually applies butt-enhancing cream every night in the hope of making hers bigger.

I love my work. Our website, www.thisiscartagena.com is going to be a huge success and I love that I've been on-board almost since the beginning. I'm also loving doing my tours with www.cartagenaconnections.com and sharing all the the things I love about you, giving visitors the local experience even if they are only in town for as little as a day.

I love your walls – 11 kilometres of communal seating area with amazing views surviving from the 1600s; the perfect perch for making-out, sunset-gazing, wish-making. Or just public drinking. I love how on Sundays they turn into the perfect backdrop for baseball.

I love how if you feel you need to “get-away”, you're just 15 minutes by dinghy from Tierra Bomba, which feels like your own private island retreat. And if you have ganas to go further afield, the islands just get more and more beautiful and remote.

There's things I don't love, ofcourse. My biggest gripe is the way people (like, every single person) litter your beaches, your streets, your waterways. Then they tell me it's good to do it because it gives the people who clean, an occupation. But the public cleaners only clean certain parts and the rest of the rubbish mounts up and clogs drainways, and lines the bottom of the bays and chokes wildlife and is stuffed amongst piles of rocks on the beach. But I am going to do what I can to try and change some of these attitudes.

And I've got time to do it. Although we're still in the honeymoon phase Cartagena, I really believe we have a future, and I plan to dedicate myself to making it work with you (sorry Mum). 

So, thank you Cartagena for an amazing year. Thank you for giving me a place in the world. Here's hoping things just keep getting better.

And can we maybe do something about the boyfriend, please?

It started with a seemingly innocent and not unfamiliar question.

Are you American?
"No.. soy Australiana"...[ Pause for wide-eyed disbelief] "Sii... Muy lejos!" (Very far).

He insisted. But.. do you play baseball? 

Well.. when I was a child I played softball. He agreed it was the same thing and started talking excitedly with the others.

It was Wednesday night. I was in the Plaza Trinidad Getsemani, watching the old-timers labour over their chessboards and occasionally getting flogged royally by whichever of their number decided to take pity on me and give me a go.

But now something else had piqued their interest: my supposed proficiency in baseball. Another hour of heated discussion and it was decided. I would be joining one of the local women's baseball teams. I was ushered off with vague instructions that I would be playing on Sunday at 4pm.

I didn't know where, who with, what or much else. I needn't have worried. The entire neighbourhood knew everything on my behalf. For the next few days as I walked the street, the usual greetings were modified to include a mimed baseball swing and a thumbs up. Then on the appointed day, I was walking home after a meeting at about 3pm and a skinny kid with an enormous smile came running up to me.. talking quickly and grabbing my hand. I needed to come play baseball NOW.

I quickly shoved on what I thought was baseball-appropriate attire and tried to keep pace with my new friend as he weaved in and out of the backstreets. As we ran, I received the excited calls of good luck from my neighbours. The kid led me to the team captain who explained (eventually) that I would also need a photo for the registration card. Woah. This was official. Paperwork completed, I was dragged (literally) by three girls to meet the coach. 

I started to get a bit nervous. I mean, the last time I had held a bat was when I was ten years old. Ten. And now there was a building crowd and a coach and an entire neighbourhood cheering me on. 

The coach took me through some warm ups. Catching. Fielding. Batting. I cost the team 4 balls as I belted them over the buildings. Oops. Coach seemed happy though. As I completed the drills I noticed a couple of the old-timers from the Plaza watching my progress from the side and nodding conspiratorially amongst themselves. 

Then the drills stopped, there was more rapid discussion in indecipherable Costeno Spanish and I was dragged off once again. This time it was to the house of one of my teammates (picture a city shack, 6 people sharing a double bed, clothes strung throughout the ceiling and a lot of happy semi-clad children) to get my uniform which was, appropriately enough, an incredibly bright pink tshirt. Awesome.

I was ready to play.

So the venue. I found the above photo that someone else took over a year ago through a google search. But when I arrived in my bright pink tshirt, the wall was filled with supporters. Standing room only filled. And standing is dangerous because a home run is whenever you hit the ball over the wall. Some had signs. Some had noisemakers. The wall you see in the photo is centuries old (like 16th?)  and I think you'll agree it makes a pretty impressive backdrop for a first-time baseball game. Home base is actually on the other side of the road now. And the streets are filled with hotdog and hamburger vendors. The photo also doesn't show the music. I mean it can't. But the music was blaring! Contagious wiggle-your-bum salsa, hip-grinding reggaeton, sing-out-your-soul vallenato. I joined my teammates at the side of the diamond and waited. There was a game still in progress and I witnessed one of the most Colombian scenes ever. Bases loaded, scores locked and still the tubby guy on third base couldn't help himself from dancing when his favourite song came on. Classic.

So the game itself was pretty straightforward. I batted fourth and managed to equip myself fairly ably, hitting the first ball I faced and making it to first base. Our next 2 players struck out, but then curvaceous Catalina hit a cracker and I sprinted for home. Unbeknownst to me I had accumulated something of a fanclub, and as I pounded into homebase, they erupted into a stirring chant of "GRINGA GRINGA GRINGA!!!". My teammates surrounded me, hugged me, high-fived me. It's been a long time since I have felt such a profound sense of accomplishment. 

Then it was three out, change sides. In the field we kept the other team to a single run also but they were noticeably better than us. Next time at bat I repeated my first-ball, first-hit effort and made it to first. But we were three out before I could make it home. The crowd shouted instructions throughout the game. And this crazy crazy fanatic who I think was aligned to our team, was forcibly removed on two occasions for screaming at the umpire. The final score was 3-1 to the other team. And unfortunately my teammates didn't accept the loss graciously. The game ended with them shouting at the umpire something I still don't understand and storming off to gossip amongst themselves and leaving me bewildered and shaking hands with the girls of the other team.

It was crazy, colourful, manic and I loved every minute of it.

So.. putting on my tour guide hat now.. If you are in Cartagena on a Sunday you must must must get yourself along to a ball game. Buy a hotdog con todos (with everything), a beer or kola roman from the local store, plonk yourself down on the wall and soak up a non-touristy but totally delicious chunk of Cartagena flavour. And look out for a tall blonde girl on second base who can't help herself from dancing between batters.