Fear and trepidation as we approached a huge 25-foot high portal built in the Mayan style; apparently, the entrance to our Mexican hotel but more reminiscent of the entrance to Wormwood Scrubs. An official holding a threatening clipboard halted our vehicle and bombarded our driver with a list of questions designed to ensure that only foreigners and not local Mexicans were permitted entry into the 240 acres of resort which lay beyond the gates. The Guantanamo model, I guess. We realised that we were to be incarcerated without remission until the following Monday, physically cut off from the outside world, our worst nightmare when travelling, not our style at all, but we had a job to do so we pressed on, and on, and on for fifteen minutes to reach our accommodation. With dusk approaching, we plunged into dense rainforest along a network of winding tracks crisscrossing the terrain. Think Into the Woods, eventually making out a further network of waterways and mangrove forest hiding an occasional hotel condo and allegedly the odd alligator.
We had inadvertently entered ersatz American territory, an enclave inside Mexico populated exclusively by tanned fit 35-year-olds on a business retreat bellowing at each other across the pool, cocktail in hand. Then you suddenly realise there are local staff here too scurrying about silently and obsequiously doing their guests’ bidding, but as they are often less than five foot tall, dark-skinned blending in with the background, they make no impression on the surroundings and are only visible to the guests when handing them yet another tequila, paid for by some mysterious corporate account to which they all seem to subscribe. The pool was completely full by 2 pm of guests standing around in clumps, to a man/woman clutching a drink. No one attempted to swim, probably just as well as the water must have been alcoholic too.
Arrival at the front desk was curious. Flunkies hovered everywhere as we drew up: the drinks man, the hot towels man, the luggage unloading man, management representatives bowing and scraping waving us towards a reception desk where a lone employee was fully occupied on his lonesome handling other guests checking in, changing money etc. with almost twice as many staff as guests, I reckon there should have been 3 point 7 check-in staff, so another fifteen minutes was added to a very long day. From then on, service went the other way into overdrive; a request for an extra teabag resulted in a month’s supply, a call from a concerned senior hotel exec and a request to complete a survey on the experience. A loo roll request would have no doubt recreated the Manuel scene from Fawlty Towers. On the plus side, there are more loungers than guests rather than the usual other way around, which means we don’t have to get up at 03:30 to place our special import towels with the German flag on them to secure a spot.
The management’s concern for the wellbeing of its guests stretched to all the restaurants where a request for a table automatically led to questions about dietary needs and allergies. Not sure if this is another Guantanamo feature or just a fear of litigation. I thought we would have to succumb to a medical to get anything to eat, but we had a wedding to attend in a nearby hotel, so we pressed on in a good cause in this surreal world, convincing ourselves that we would in future try to avoid being held to ransom like this, where competitive alternative eating options were deliberately made unavailable and where, just maybe, everything might not be subject to a standard 38 percent tax/service charge.
NB: the alligators are no longer alleged.
***
How to summarise first impressions of Cartagena in Colombia? Perhaps like Tobermory on speed, well not speed in Colombia obviously. What strikes the first-time visitor is the exuberance of colour, houses painted in the whole Dulux range, profusion of bougainvillaea, overhanging wooden balconies, a stream of horse-drawn carriages with drivers dressed like undertakers, and above all, people of every ethnic group and colour from descendants of the Spanish and Africans as well as indigenous tribes.
The old city is still encircled in solid walls from the sixteenth century and laid out on the grid design with small green squares every so often and, of course, imposing churches for this 85 percent Catholic city. The city museum reveals the power of the church in days past with the full range of instruments of torture available to the local inquisition from the year 1610 for two hundred years. Its history, set at the extremity of vast swamplands, has been turbulent as an entrepôt for gold and slave shipments in this major port on the Caribbean. The only invasions these days are huge cruise liners, of course.
History books tell us that is wasn’t long before the British and French wanted to muscle in on the gold trans-shipments, either by condoning piracy or, in 1741, directly when an attempt was made by the British to capture the city. Their fleet was held up and routed by a stocky Spanish admiral called Blas de Lezo sporting just one leg, one eye and only one arm, but even in this truncated form, he outwitted the British as all the guides proudly boast at every opportunity. I am not sure how he lost his limbs, but I know the meals in local restaurants do cost you an arm and a leg. My advice if you visit is to claim that you are a national of any other country but England. On a bus full of Chileans, Brazilians, Venezuelans etc., we felt distinctly uncomfortable as the guide disparaged the Brits over the loudspeaker, despite the fact that the gold didn’t belong to the Spanish in the first place, of course. Just for a change even the Americans weren’t the baddies.
After a hot and humid few days in the city of Cartagena, a few restful days on a nearby beach seemed appropriate before our return flight. It all looked great on paper: only 14 rooms, no children, ‘away from it all’ location, so we booked a nice room with balcony overlooking the pool and beach. But something seemed a bit odd. We ate breakfast on our own, then pool snacks almost on our own and dinner in solitary confinement in the evening. The food is OK, so? Well, it is true that we are about 40 years older than all the other guests but, so?
Things became clear last night when we sauntered down and found a couple of comfortable seats near the pool, noticing a couple nearby smooching on a sofa. We studiously studied our drinks list in the gloom when a waiter approached and asked if we would mind moving to another area as the nearby gent was planning to propose to his lady friend and did not want to be crowded out. Fair enough, but I had spoken to the lady already, an American, and it transpired her Spanish was even poorer than mine (zero) and as her intended was a Spanish-speaking Colombian, I wasn’t even sure she knew what was about to happen, never mind what the next forty years would hold in store for them.
We settled down with our mojitos while they ordered dinner, snuggling together in horizontal mode on their sofa in the gloom, but when the waiter eventually returned with the order, they were sound asleep. The waiter had to shake them awake which all sounded very unpromising for their evening’s plans. I feel we were relocated for no just reason after all.
So finally, it was clear that the hotel specialised in honeymooning or romantic trysts which made public areas very quiet, our room less so, surrounded by full-on extra-curricular activity. Not quite a Costa Rican love shack, but…