Cartagena’s helpful, friendly people (Colombia)
I traveled alone to Cartagena for a week and had no trouble at all as a solo female traveler. The people of Cartagena are very nice and helpful and I never felt unsafe.
Here are a few examples of their helpfulness:
On my first morning, while being overwatched by a 9-foot tall painting (?) of Al Capone eating spaghetti on the wall of the restaurant in the hostel I was staying in, I looked at the table set with breakfast in front of me with two white containers, and one with pepper (none of them the same), and decided the big one with the most holes on top must be sugar (there wasn’t much thought to this, just of the two I grabbed the bigger one and shook some into my coffee). Within seconds, the server came by and replaced my coffee and told me I had just put salt in it. Lol.
Later that day I bought a SIM card, and apparently, it didn’t come with minutes or data in it, as has always been the case when I’ve bought one before (which I didn’t understand because no one spoke English). After finally understanding what I had to do (go down the street to the pharmacy and get minutes added), I went back to the store and tried to explain to them that I could write a note in English for their future English-speaking purchasers to tell them what they had to do so they wouldn’t be as confused as I was. But I had trouble communicating that, and the woman behind the counter wrote me a note that I could hand to someone asking for minutes to be added to my phone.
In the afternoon, I was crossing a 4 separated lane road and was always one lane behind a vendor. I was in the middle and going across to the divider he was on, and he looked behind him and gestured to me to follow him as the road was clear on his side too.
Yes, there are people begging for money, but none I saw were at all aggressive. So if you are worried about traveling alone to Cartagena, here is one more person who had no difficulty whatsoever, and met many helpful Colombians. 🙂Cartagena is beautiful and affordable, check out my other posts for things you can do/see there:
Cartagena attractions: churches, parks, doors, and kites
Cartagena – Sloths, red squirrels, and capuchins
Happy travels!
