Bocagrande

The beach district of Cartagena, in Colombia. It sits on a strip of land that looks like an island but joins the mainland, with the old walled city visible across the water. This is the new city — a line of skyscrapers along the sand, at least one of them unfinished — and the comparison Harry reaches for repeatedly, and says locals use too, is mini Miami.

He walks the length of it in about an hour, ending at the far point for sunset.

What it is like

• Busy at the end of the day. He arrives as work finishes and finds it full of families and large groups of friends, which he takes as evidence of how social Colombians are.
• Worked end to end by street vendors. Food, drinks, jewellery, massages, photographs. He is approached continuously for twenty minutes and stresses that nobody is pushy — one refusal is accepted every time.
• Police are visible on the beach, which he notes approvingly.
• Beach huts along the sand add to the Miami impression. Some stretches of beach charge for seating; the part he walks does not.
• Groynes shape the sand into a series of bays.
• Wind and kitesurfers. Strong enough at the far end to make filming hard, and there are kitesurfers and surfers working it.
• Around 30°C with a breeze off the sea, and the water warm enough to wade into comfortably.

Food and drink on the sand

• Mango with salt — a large portion with lemon poured over it and salt on top; pepper is normally offered too and Harry declines it. The mango is much firmer than the English kind, closer to a vegetable, which he decides is why it is salted. He finds it good but bitter.
• A cold beer from a wandering vendor.
• A seafood ceviche-style dish with onion, prawn and lemon, eaten with wafers, bought without knowing what it was. He hates it, has to stand up mid-mouthful, and ends up in tears — and then says clearly on camera that it was not bad food, he simply didn’t like it, which is worth recording because the reaction on screen suggests otherwise.
• An aniseed spirit offered by a group on the beach, which he calls strong.

Practical facts

• A handmade bracelet from a beach seller: around 35,000 Colombian pesos against about $25 (from video – unverified) — the exchange discussion is garbled in the subtitles and the figures don’t reconcile, so neither number should be relied on. Harry asks outright for the local price rather than the gringo price and is told there isn’t one.
• A photograph or short service from a vendor: he hands over about $3 (from video – unverified) to a man who had asked for nothing.
• An unrequested massage is started on him by a woman working the sand. He asks whether it is free, is told it is not, and declines — no money changes hands. See the gift that isn’t free.

Harry’s tips

• Ask for the local price out loud. He does it here and it is refused, which is a useful counterweight to the times it works — haggle with a reference price.
• If a service starts on you unasked, ask the price before it goes further. The massage costs him nothing because he asks after about ten seconds.
• Walk the whole strip. An hour end to end, and the far point is the sunset spot with the skyline behind you.
• Don’t order blind if you’re fussy. He points out that he chose a seafood dish he couldn’t identify and that this is on him, not the cook.

Source videos

• You Must Visit This Beach in Colombia 🇨🇴 — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXYIM4JBRqg
• My Brothers Wedding in Colombia 🇨🇴 — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OldBGyvMzHM — seen from the water