| Manga also
has a spectacular yacht club, fine restaurants and quiet tree covered streets.
The pace is less hectic in Manga than it is in the walled section.
Real estate
prices here tend to be a bit higher than within Cartagena Viejo, possibly
because many of the city's wealthier residents live in Manga. But
don't be discouraged, there are sections of Manga which are slightly tarnished,
with older slightly run down houses that would command a lower price tag.
Manga's tree lined streets are a pleasure to walk through, with open-air
fruit stands, corner markets and bakeries giving a pleasant sense of community
to the area. If I couldn't find what I wanted in Cartagena Viejo
I would certainly pick Manga as a very good alternative. While it
doesn't have the excitement of Cartagena Viejo, it also doesn't have the
negatives such as loud music at 2 in the morning or throngs of tourists
like the older city often does.
Summing
It Up
This article
is far from exhaustive and I know that. It is impossible to put an
entire city into an article, or even into a book. My goal has been,
as it often is, to put the flavor and ambiance of a place into words that
may reach across to the reader.
What have I
left out? Enough to fill an encyclopedia. For instance, there
is also a long beach which stretches along the coast to the north-east
of the city. That beach is very Caribbean and would be a choice place
to live. I've included a photo of this area on the next page with the resources.
Would Cartagena
Be A Good Place To Lay Low?
If I were going
to pick a place to lay low, I'd pick somewhere off the beaten track.
Cartagena is certainly off the beaten track. Its yacht basin means
that you can enter and leave the country via boat, plus there are multitude
of small harbors near to Cartagena, plus Cartagena is close to Venezuela
in case one wants to fade into another county.
Freighters
enter and leave Cartagena on a daily basis. Freighter travel is an
excellent means of low profile travel. Most freighters will give
you a ride for a price.
The negatives
Colombia's 35 year civil war has made entry and exit to and from Colombia
a body-search affair. They aren't looking for fugitives, nor for
those folks who are simply trying to lay low; they are looking for FARC
- The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia - People´s Army.
Something that need not concern us, unless politics & violence is our
game.
Colombian
Second Passport
Also, it is
important to note that is easy to get a second passport in Colombia.
Colombia is a major source of 'second passports,' of the
far from legal type. In Colombia it is a common practice to use the
birth certificate of someone who is deceased to create a second passport.
These passports are usually available for $5,000 to $15,000. Use
caution in the purchasing of such a document. Do not contact the
author nor this website for information on the purchase of such a passport;
we don't have them , we don't recommend them and we won't direct anyone
to a source for such a document.
If you do pursue
such a dangerous route, note that it is imperative to speak Español
when you are traveling on a false travel document that is from a nation
whose national language is Español. A Colombian Passport is
not a great travel document, but it may get you through a bad situation
in an emergency. Of course it could also get you into a worst situation
than the one you are already in.
We have a page
of resources based on this article on the next page. Take a look at it.
There is also some information there on Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican
Republic, all of which were also mentioned in this article.
This article
is not meant to be a
Blueprint on how to disappear, it is only meant
to offer some information that is not readily available anywhere else,
and to point out some mindless and dangerous discrepancies that are currently
being pandered as professional knowledge on disappearing. Professional
knowledge on disappearing is seldom dispensed by those who are not on the
lam, and never dispensed by those who are.
If you get
to Cartagena, I may be somewhere else. ...then again, I may be there,
watching you.
Resources
On This Article Are On The Next Page: Click
Here - |
