Nov 7, 2017

Awoke as we pulled into the bay at Cartagena Colombia. Huge soaring skyscrapers surrounding stone and coral forts built in the 1500’s. Saw the fort where Romancing the Stone was filmed – even saw the pit which held “the snappers”.

The Virgin of the Navigators, with child, sits in the middle of the bay.

They watch over Cartagena and keep it safe. We pulled into the dock around 7am and again, no promised thundershowers. It was 80-90-100 degrees with 90% humidity. Now, I like to think the heat doesn’t bother me, but I was proved wrong today. It knocked the stuffing out of everyone. We were dripping wet with our clothes soaked through half way through the day.

We met our tour guide on the pier to walk to another dock. The walkway was lined with big pot of bougainvillea in every imaginable color. In fact, all off the downtown plazas and squares are covered in hibiscus, lantana and bougainvillea, hanging from balconies and climbing walls.

We boarded a tour boat and had quick trip around the harbor, seeing the sights and hearing the perfection of life in Cartagena. Carlito, our guide, really loves this city.

 

Carlito gave us some pointers about how to get around. “Don’t give papaya” – it means, if you leave it lying around, it won’t be there when you get back. A hitchhiker’s thumb in the air means let me pass through the traffic. And that the vendors are not aggressive, but they are persistent. Boy-howdy, are they persistent. You can say, “no, no, no,” but as soon as you say “no, thank you”, they leave you alone. That mostly worked, too.

We walked to the Clock Tower, the old fort where all the treasure of South America was stored in Spanish days.

There are numerous statues of statesmen and priests, with churches to match. There are streets full of Colonial and Republican buildings. Colonials were built in the 1500-1600’s with wooden balconies, Republicans were built into the 1800’s with cement balconies. All were painted vivid bright colors, festooned with flowers and mostly well maintained.

The streets were narrow and cobblestoned, pedestrian and cars jockeying for space but no honking or collusions. Many of the bigger houses had huge double front doors with a man-door in one side. These were for the servants. The double doors were opened for the master of the house so he could ride his horse inside and dismount, or the lady could alight from her carriage and so avoid the street. Door knockers indicated rank and wealth.

Lion headed door knockers meant judicial or police, hands meant cleric, lizards meant royalty and sea life meant businessmen. There were also round doomed rivets placed on the doors which indicated how much wealth or slaves the owner had. 

We watched a gang of excellent street dancers performing amazing breakdancing, an artist painting on mirrors, went through an emerald museum, with an excellent opportunity to purchase from and authorized source, watched the old craggy black ladies in brilliant satin dresses, selling fresh fruit from bowls on top their heads and dragging tourists into photo opportunities, only a dollar.

A US dollar equals 2800 Columbian pesos. As Carlito says, we are millionaires.

We returned to our boat and to what we thought would be another tour of the old forts along the waterfront. We hadn’t quite understood the part of the tour description about an open bar with local music and forklorico dancing.

  Our party boat floated about the bay for over an hour, with a 4 piece folk band playing local music and two beautiful dancers in white, swirling their skirts and enticing us to join the party. Rum and coke for all! There was some more history given and a few sights pointed out but it really was a  booze cruise. Jim and I ended up dancing on the front of the bow as we passed by the Princess, giving it an ocean wave and cheer.

Hot, sweaty, dehydrated and tired, we were back on board by 1:30, and happy to be home.