The Cartagena 🇨🇴 Hatred Shall Continue Until Morale Improves

Beaches, Brothels, and Drunken Uber Drivers

Mar 20, 2026

Cartagena, Colombia — an open-air brothel masquerading as a city.

It was my second trip to the city. The first one had been pleasant enough — a weekend jaunt with a girl I was seeing. Boutique hotel, drinks in the old town, all that jazz. But it was a quick trip, 48-hours.

This time around I planned to stay a week with some buddies. Exploring. Partying. Doin’ hoodrat ‘tings with my friends.

We rented a penthouse apartment on the beach in Bocagrande for the week. I was excited. At this point, I thought Cartagena was a wonderful place.

That was about to change.

See what had happened was…

We check into our Airbnb in the late afternoon and immediately head out for dinner. Dinner leads to drinks. And we party the night away. Was a fun night.

Around noon the following day, we’re finally able to get out of the apartment and head down to the beach in Bocagrande.

Now, the beach here isn’t great. Average at best…

But we’re hungover, just looking to relax under an umbrella, take a swim, and chill.

So we do exactly that.

We find an empty patch of sand, pay for an umbrella and some chairs, start to unwind. We’re laughing about the night prior, having a good ole’ time.

Then one of the beach vendors walks up behind us…

“You want a massage?”

I turn around to see a woman resembling Martin Lawrence in Big Mama’s House.

She was bigggggg. We’ll call her: Big Mamacita.

I reply: “No thank you. Have a nice day.”

But Big Mamacita isn’t taking no for an answer: “You sure? My hands are very strong. I give you massage for free.”

I reply in a relaxed manner again: “No, we are good. Thank you.”

She keeps pushing, asking around our whole group. Everyone politely says no, thinking she’ll eventually take the clue and leave us alone.

Then out of nowhere, after we had told her we did not want a massage damn near a dozen times, I hear a noise. Like someone squirting lotion out of a half-empty bottle. Then I feel it, a cold wet feeling that’s running down my back…

She had squirted lotion on my back.

I stand up and start yelling, “I TOLD YOU NO!”

I grabbed her towel and wipe the lotion off my back, while still yelling at her, “LEAVE US ALONE!”

I figured she would have gotten the message at this point, but the next part really blew my mind.

As I’m yelling at her, she looks me dead in the eye and says, “PAY ME!”

Me: “The fuck are you talking about? Get the fuck out of here.”

Big Mamacita replies, “Pay me for the lotion and I leave.”

I’m fucking flabbergasted at this point. Truly bewildered. About to completely lose my cool.

My friends are on their feet now too. We’re all yelling at her. Other people on the beach are staring. It’s becoming a scene.

She asks for payment again and we tell her to fuck off one last time, which she finally does.

In Cartagena, you cannot relax on the beach.

That’s not all…

Big Mamacita finally leaves us in peace.

We sit back down under the umbrella, but our relaxing day at the beach just turned tense. We decide to go for a swim in the ocean to cool down and chill out.

Frolicking around in the ocean, swimming, relaxing, laughing about that whole ordeal. Then this dude on a jetski comes up, “You want to drive the jetski?”

Me: “Nope, all good. Thanks!”

Just like Big Mamacita, he gets pushy after the first no: “You sure? This jetski is fast. It’s really fun. I will give you good price.”

The homies and me all reply, “No, thank you.”

He continues asking, but at this point, we just turn our backs to him and ignore him. Thinking he’ll just go away.

Which he does end up going away.

But not before driving the jetski full speed at us as we’re swimming and then hard turning it a few feet away from us and spraying us in the face with seawater.

“FUCK YOU! YOU FUCKING CUNT!”

He drives away laughing his ass off, as we’re cursing and flipping him off. My buddies and I are now pissed. We honestly don’t know what to say at this point, as none of us had ever had back-to-back horrific experiences with locals like this.

In Cartagena, you cannot relax while swimming in the ocean.

Nowhere is safe…

As we make our way back to the beach, my one homie finally says what we’re all thinking:

“The locals in Cartagena suck!”

We laughed and wholeheartedly agreed.

In the evening, we decide to hit Ciudad Amurallada, the historical walled city, for some dinner.

I call an Uber.

Uber shows up and just as we open the door, we’re hit with a smell. A smell we all know the instant it hits the nostrils — weed.

The Uber driver had been smoking in his car while driving to pick us up.

Lovely.

Whatever, we get in and off we go. He’s driving us, we’ve got seatbelts on, it’s a 10-15 minute trip, should be fine.

The Uber driver starts talking to us, asking our plans for the evening, and of course, offering the customary “chicas” to the gringos.

We decline numerous times, but he’s a bit pushy.

The ride continues and it’s been about 15-minutes. I hadn’t been paying much attention, just chatting with the homies.

But we should have been at the old city by now.

My buddy had spent some time in Cartagena before and leans over, “So I think he took some wrong turns, this isn’t the old city.”

I open up Uber, we’re far away from where we should have been going. We start questioning the driver, “Hey where are you going? This isn’t close to the old city.”

He laughs, “You’ll like this better, I promise”

We start yelling at him, “Where the fuck are you taking us?! TAKE US TO THE OLD CITY.”

Just as we’re about to snap on this guy, he pulls up to what is clearly a brothel.

“TAKE US TO THE OLD CITY! WE’RE NOT GOING INSIDE THAT FUCKING BROTHEL.”

He turns around and makes a confused face, “You don’t want chicas?!”

NOOOOOO!

He rolls down his window, waves goodbye to the doorman, and reluctantly takes us back to the old city.

But…

As he’s driving us to the old city, upset that he couldn’t get his brothel commission from a group of gringos, he opens up the glove box.

Inside, he grabs a bottle of rum that’s half gone.

He begins chugging the rum as he’s driving. It was clearly something he’d done before.

My buddies and I look at each other — WTF!

Finally, we arrive to the old city. We jump out of the Uber as fast as possible, happy to have made it out alive.

In Cartagena, you cannot relax while taking an Uber to the old city.

Cartagena, Colombia 🇨🇴 The Worst City in Latin America

That day kick-started my pure and unadulterated hatred of Cartagena, Colombia.

But it was far from the only day…

Since that trip, I’ve visited Cartagena two more times — for a total of four trips to this absolute shithole of a city.

I’m a slow learner.

On one of those trips, quite possibly the most insane thing that’s ever happened to me in life occurred.

And while the situation did not involve scopolamine or prostitutes — surprisingly — I don’t think I’ll be sharing it online. ‘Twas a legitimately insane situation that only a handful of my closest homies even know about.

But that situation further fueled my hatred of the godforsaken city known as Cartagena, Colombia.

My best advice for anyone reading this…

Do NOT pass “GO.”

Do NOT collect $200.

And sure as shit — do NOT visit Cartagena.