Cartagena, Colombia
Dusk on the streets of Getsemani. The oppressive heat only just lifting, the waning sun dimming the swath of facades to a set of soft pastels. The streets and town squares once again swarming with people: the sweaty and well-suited business set making their way home from work, hostel hunting backpackers haggling over the cost of an evening empanada, and long standing locals passing the time in doorways and crumbling stoops, already 6 cervezas deep. Stray dogs curl into their frail bundles throughout the plaza de Trinidad, no doubt awaiting the carnage of street food scraps as the international parade of aguardiente guzzlers line their stomachs for the night ahead. My last night in the effortlessly charming, chaotic, enlivening Cartagena and I am (as travel always leaves me) on a new page of my story, sharply aware of the ease of my American life as I've known it, fearful for the fate of my country yet grateful for a surge of perspective on its place in the world.