Cartagena, Columbia

Oct 12, 2010  38 Celsius and hummmid

Happy Birthday Chuck!!!

We sailed into Cartagena about 10am. A very large city, which has a new town and an old town with 14 million people. The heat just hits you like a wall when you get off the ship. Fortunately we found out there was a shuttle to the entrance to the port where the taxis are. There were parrots all over the area (pic). Another couple, Buttons and Terry, who we talk to frequently are leaving at the same time so Terry negotiated for a taxi - $20 for all of us. It takes about 15 minutes and the air conditioning is not very good. He lets us off at the entrance to Old Town, which is where we decided to go. We only have 5 hours here so can’t do everything. We go into the walled city and the architecture (pic 2 & 3) from centuries ago is everywhere. We start walking and darting into one shop after another. Of course they all have much the same stuff, but many of them are air conditioned so we go in for the reprieve. Buttons and Joan are leading the way from shop to shop, while Terry and I are trying to take pictures, then we look around for the girls and the people on the street tell us where they are. Finally we ask where we can go for a cerveza, (pic 6) and one guy says just a minute and another runs down the street, and comes back with a guy with a cart with drinks!! We said “no” we want to sit down, so he tells us where there is a place to sit down. Just a few blocks away there were several small restaurants, all with tables outside in the square, but you don’t know who’s is who’s so we start bargaining with the girls for 2 for 1. We get $3 but sit down at someone else’s table and try to get her down to $3 but they won’t budge. Another girls comes to us and says $3 and takes us over to her table, so after all that the beer was so good. There were people with their wares constantly after us, but we just kept brushing them off. We saw women carrying fruit and baking (pic 5) on their heads. We also saw Juan Valdez and his donkey (pic 40. After our rest we start heading back towards the gate we came through in the wall. Eventually and many shops later we find it and as we emerged, Joan said she didn’t think there was a taxi when all of a sudden there were about 15 right there, and we said we would pay $15 and he said ok, so we headed back. Many people speak English well. It is a great city to visit (pic 1). Once back on board we had lunch and then into the pool. It doesn’t feel quite as cool today, but was very refreshing anyway. At happy hour we chatted with a couple of the men who were at the Indian village tour I went on. One was from New Jersey and one from Calgary. At dinner we sat with 3 people from Seattle, and a couple from Arizona. The show tonight was a female singer Robin Fellows. She was a good singer, but too much theatrics. Back to our room where it is much cooler and we have to turn our clocks ahead one hour anyway.