Day 47. Today we went to the beach with Alex and Billy. We met at the clock tower (aka El Torre del Reloj) at midday. El Torre del Reloj is where everyone meets everyone as it’s pretty central and hard to miss.
We initially headed out of town to Bocilla but were disappointed to find ourselved mobbed by sellers before we’d even stepped out of our taxi. Also, the sea didn’t look to inviting so we ended up at Boca Grande instead.
Mob of friendly street sellers at the beach
Cartagena is a walled city. In the evening, after our arroz con pollo (chicken and rice), we walked all the way around the substantial wall which surrounds the Centro Historico, a rite of passage for all who visit. As we circled the wall, we stopped to sample some of the fruits on offer from street vendors.
City walls
The standout food to beat all foods in Cartagena is the truly amazing array of fresh fruits for sale from fruit sellers which litter the streets, and a meal would not be complete without a fruit juice, either with milk or with water depending on the fruit. If you’re hot and thirsty, stop at one of the coconut stalls and have someone with a scary machete open a coconut for you.
Man with large knife opens fresh caribbean coconut
The list of fruits found here is endless, but a selecion of fruits familiar in the UK and popular here include papaya, watermelon, melon, pineapple. Fruits which we’ve never seen before include:
- Tomate de arbol (literally tree tomato): plum tomato shaped guava tasting fruit good for making juice
- Guayabana: occasionally seen on the label of a fancy fruit drink in the UK – like a small guava
- Zapote: large avocado-like fruit with red flesh which tastes fresh and sweet, good for a milky drink
- Borojó: makes a fruit shake with milk which tastes like smelly feet, reminiscent of an old red wine
- Nispero: small brown fruit with a sweet sticky orange flesh which tastes like caramel
- Granadilla: a large orange beast with a pointy head that has the flesh of a passion fruit but is much cheaper
- Mora: a cross between a raspberry and a blackberry, great for milk shake
- Lulo: looks and tastes like a cross between a sharon fruit and a tomato, fantastic with milk
- Curuba: looks like a cucumber, tastes like a guava
Granadilla
Tomate de arbol (tree tomato)
Lulo
Curuba - doesn't look sweet, but it is!
Fantastic collection of fruit. I think I may have seen some of them before on Voyager with some leola root 🙂
Hmm… Come to think of it, we saw quite a few Chakotay lookalikes in Central America, and you may have seen in an earlier post that Sulu from the Starship Enterprise drove one of our buses in Mexico!