This morning we berthed in the tourist capital of Colombia, Cartagena.
Cartagena is pronounced carta-heena, and there are t-shirts everywhere saying “It’s not Columbia, it’s Colombia” so now you’ve been told.
Our first paid shore excursion today for a walking tour of Getsemani, the arty part of town. It was marked ‘strenuous’ which is partially why we chose to go on it. Leave those on walkers to do the emerald tour or the coffee tour, and get some decent exercise. But no. When they announced it, three bus loads of waddlers got up, and really the most strenuous part of the tour was getting onto the bus.
Like most of these tours, especially those that are already pre-paid, the quality depends on your actual guide, and ours was obviously doing it every day. Lots of information to impart, but no personal interaction. Anyway, we got to see everything on the itinerary.
Cartagena was an important waypoint for all of the gold that was plundered by the Spanish from tribes and nations in South America such as the Incas. It was also an emerald producing centre, and one of the two slave markets permitted by the Spanish in South America. So, it was flush with cash.
Anything flush with cash was a target for other powers. In this case the English (remember Sir Francis Drake), and loads of pirates. After being completely looted, and razed to the ground the first time, the town decided to build some formidable fortifications, a fort/castle, and huge city walls. Didn’t stop the second sacking of the city, but it did repel the third – reputedly the largest single naval invasion force until D-Day. The ‘heroic city’ is still its epitaph, as later still they also took serious losses attempting to gain their independence from the Spanish.
The walls and a view of the fort was the first stop this morning. Then it was into one of the two old parts of the city – Getsemani. It’s now the arty part of town, and comes alive after dark with restaurants, bars and music. But it was a nice place to walk around during the day to explore the various streets, each with their own decoration theme.
Back on the bus and on to the other part of the old city, known locally as The Old City. Smart people them. Had a couple of ‘free time’ sessions, principally to loosen your wallet, but we managed to get a coffee being close to lunchtime. Shown a couple of squares and important buildings that are on our itinerary for tomorrow, so I won’t bore you with them now.
Back to the ship for a bite to eat, then we wandered out to the cruise port entrance where we had been promised that there would be wifi. Being 3pm and all the cruise boat tours having returned, they were madly shutting up all of the shops so there was no internet to be had anywhere. Harrumphing madly, we started the trek on foot back towards town looking for some kind of a cafe that listed wifi. Finally found a cafe after walking for half an hour, and had to ask the manager to input his password as its not made public. Not surprisingly the password was 12345678
Dealt with parent administration, read mail and uploaded a couple of days worth of blogs, before beginning the long trek in the gathering darkness back to the cruise port. Had to ask a guard to let us back in, as everything was locked up for the night.
It was the ship’s on-deck BBQ night, so we sat up on deck watching the sun set over the city skyline. We were the only ship in port today, so it was very peaceful on the dock, but that’s about to change tomorrow when 2000 Germans arrive on a 12 deck monster.
Getsemani
Getsemani
Getsemani
Castillo San Felipe
Our Dinner View
At the cruise terminal