Days 2 and 3 Cartagena

Group yoga
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The first few days in Cartagena have been fantastic. For those of you that are interested in an adventurous vacation, I would highly recommend checking out the calendar for Escape to Shape (www.escapetoshape.com). The owners, Erica and Francesco have thoughtfully and meticulously planned out trips to exotic destinations. Current locations also include Sicily, Morocco, Guatemala with possible future trips to Cambodia, Turkey, and Greece. Several celebrity guests will be visiting various locations, but for privacy reasons they are not revealing their names. But hoping to have the list before I leave.

Carla as gumby
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Our days here begin with a lovely poolside breakfast of fresh fruit and Colombian scrambled eggs. All the meals served during our stay are small portions of low cal, low fat, and low carb food. Our chef, Nora uses the freshest ingredients and all of our meals have been outstanding! I am hoping Erica produces a cookbook with a compilation of all the recipes, because I am committed to maintaining this strict healthy diet. She was also a co-author of the Bikini Bootcamp cookbook, which has some fantastic recipes.

Loving life in Paradise!

Salsa lessons
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Typically after breakfast, we take a 2 hr yoga class from Kristen. Unfortunately, practically everyone but myself is an advanced yoga student. Carla, my roommate is like Gumby. She could easily work for Cirque de Soleil as a contortionist and can practically twist her body into a pretzel form. Check out the photos of some of the unbelievable poses. After a vigorous 2 hour workout, they serve us slivers of fresh coconut for a snack, which is awesome if you have never tried it.

We usually eat lunch around 1 pm and then are free for a few hours to get a massage, shop, sightsee, read, etc. Times flies here in Cartagena and there is never enough time to fit everything in that you would like to do. Erica has many planned activities for the late afternoon and evening which include Salsa lessons, Spanish classes, Power Abs class, Pilates, Wall Walking tours, etc. After our evening activities, we eat a group candlelight dinner and drink some vino, so we are not totally deprived! Once we finish dinner, we are free to roam the streets at night. Despite all the bad press about Colombia, Cartagena is actually extremely safe.

Carmen Miranda
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I love life here!