Day 7, Cartagena, Columbia

So Cartagena on this trip was an overnight. We had never done an overnight before so we thought this would be an interesting experience. Now we were late getting into port since we were late leaving the night before. We had made arrangements with a private tour to see the sights of the town.

This morning I ran up to the buffet and got my wife some food for breakfast as we had to be off the ship right away to meet our tour. I don’t believe I ate anything till later. We all sat on our balconies and waited for them to announce that we could leave the ship. We watched as the buses pulled in for the ship tours, and had to laugh as some of them do not know how to park.

After a bit we got the announcement that we could leave the ship. We made our way down, and lucky for us they have a shuttle at this port to take you to duty-free shop area which is right but the entrance to the port. We made our way through here and got to our meeting spot for our tour.

Our tour guide and driver helped us all on the bus and within moments we were on our way to explore Cartagena. My sister arranged the tour through Dora the explorer. Sadly I don’t remember the guides name, but she was great.

So off we went to our first stop which was the monastery. Now it was palm sunday this day and as my wife tells me (she is religious) this is a very religious day. As we were driving up we saw many people carrying palm leaves which explains why. We were told that for the next ten days people have to walk up the hill to the monastery every morning. I know that is not one hike I would want to do.

We got to the top of the hill and luckily were allowed to park inside the gates of the monastery. I want to mention at this point that I found the vendors to be very aggressive in certain areas, but if you said no, like our tour guide said they would leave you alone. So we parked and got ready to get out. Jordan, Sabrina, Jeniffer, Jacqueline, and I got our, Jordan went right back in because of the heat, and we went exploring. My mother and grandmother decided to stay in the van.

Here is the view from the monastery. It is the highest point in Cartagena.

Here are some of the beautiful flowers that were in the courtyard. As our tour guide was telling us there are only three monks that live and take care of this monastery. It is very clean and maintained.

This is a small well that was in the center of the courtyard.

As we walked through our tour guide told us the history of the monastery. I missed a lot of it because I was taking photos. We came across this which I took a photo of and we told the tour guide that the Canadian dollar that is in there is worth more than a dollar now since it was replaced by the loonie.

Here are some more shot of the view.

Here is a picture of the altar.

One of the many statues.

Don’t remember exactly what this was for, I missed that part of the tour while taking pictures.

The statue at the top of the steps leading to the monastery. After our tour we headed back to the van, extremely hot and sweaty. As we learned later it was 46C at the monastery that day.

We headed off on our bus to our next stop which was the fort in town.

Here is a quick picture I took while driving by.

Here is a picture of the fort from the other side. We did not go up it just explored the lower region. It was funny here as we got out of the van one of the vendors noticed my wifes purple hair and was just astounded by it. He kept pointing at his head and saying something we couldn’t understand with just a look of shock on his face. It was quite funny.

Here is a quick picture of Sabrina. She joined us out of the van for this part of the tour. Again my mother, grandmother, and Jordan stayed in the van.

This is a statue of a one-armed, one-legged explorer that ended up dieing here. He was trying to take over the city but failed.

These are the crests around the above statue.

Another view of the top of the fort.

I was trying to take a picture of the exit from the underground tunnels but the security guard was there. Our tour guide was nice enough to get the guard to move for a moment so I could get a clean shot.

I think if we ever go back I would like to tour more of the fort. I know there are a lot of tunnels and such inside and I think it would be fun to explore it more.

So we hopped on the bus again and we headed to the old walled city. This was one area I wanted to see as I had heard it was very beautiful and interesting.

Our first stop was the old jail cells which have now been converted into shops.

This is the view down at all the shops. If you look at my wife in the picture, she picked up that hat after her incident in Costa Rica.

Jordan came out of the bus for this stop as it was shopping and he wanted some precious stones. This is the inside of one of the shops. The window is all you would get back when this was a jail cell.

So after the stop at the shops we started driving around the old city and here are a few shots I got.

So when we got to the theater here we opted to continue to explore the city on foot. Our guide was concerned about our family as they were only sitting in the van. They agreed that was ok and they were fine. So my sister, my wife, and I headed out on foot for what we thought would be a short tour.

Here are some of the buildings that lined the street. I will say I did take a lot of photos here so I wont be posting all of them to keep this down a bit.

One of the churches we went to. Sorry don’t remember the name of it.

The view from the top balcony in the church.

Some of the stained glass that was in the church.

The roof of the church. The priest that lived here came to help save the slaves. He would take the injured of sick ones, buy ones that he could and help them. The inscription says a slave to the slaves.

This is the priest’s body being shown at the altar in the church.

There is a large museum area where they bring artifacts from all over the country to be displayed here. This statue we looked at and thought it was bronze, but our tour guide knocked on it and when she did you realised it is actually made of wood.

These statues line the streets as they show the original workers doing there trades.

This is the main square in the city. They used to have markets here and sell slaves.

This was the original court-house.

Another one of the buildings lining the streets.

This is the clock tower at the entrance to the city.

This was one of the outdoor markets that we went through.

This is the center square. A few pictures of the surrounding buildings

This I found interesting. The middle window is where you could report if someone was not Christian. You could come here and if you could give them proof they would arrest the person. The two round windows are the jail cell windows. Our guide also told us back in the day if you weighed more than 100lbs, it meant a woman was a witch, and a man was greedy and you would be punished.

At this point we were getting tired, hot and hungry. We stopped at a small grocery store and bought some drinks. I had a Coca-Cola light which I have to say tastes completely different than diet coke from here and a lot better. After this we carried on.

Our tour guide seemed to know everybody and she got us into this closed restaurant so we could see how the old buildings are being used today.

This was the knocker on one of the doors. Our guide explained that they would usually represent what type of job you had.

A couple more buildings along the street.

So we went into another church at this point. Sorry don’t know the name of it.

Another body on display.

Since there are no graveyards in the area they would bury people under the floor of the church. The grave stones would then be used as the floor. Here is one of a pirate.

Some of the statues around the church.

So at this point my wife was feeling really sick. Her and I are both diabetic so I knew this was not going to be good if we didn’t head back. So we told our tour guide that we needed to go. So we headed out the church and she lead us to our van that was parked just at the outskirts of the walled city.

We got back to the van and as we found out had been gone for about 2 hours. Lets just say they were not to impressed. Our driver then headed back to the pier and our tour guide gave us a bit more history of the sights we were seeing.

We got back to the pier, thanked them greatly for the tour, gave them a good tip and headed back to the duty-free area.

My wife wanted to go back right away as she needed to eat. She took off and as she said didn’t wait for the bus and just walked back to the ship. She even beat the bus doing it.

I stayed with the rest of the family as they looked through the shop.

As I waited for them I went outside and took some pictures of the animals in the area. Here is a peacock.

Here are the monkeys that were playing in the trees.

After doing their shopping we  headed back to the ship. Once there I went and checked on my wife. She had eaten something and was feeling better. We then I believe went swimming. After I grabbed a quick bite to eat, and tried a drink from slush by the pool.

We then relaxed as usual, had a quick nap, shower, all that fun stuff and then got ready for dinner.

Here is our menu for tonight.

The poached Anjou pear and gorgonzola cheese.

I had the smoked ham and split pea soup. It was delicious.

Jordan had a large plate of shrimp for his dinner.

The Mesclun salad.

Sabrinas Caesar salad and the beef bourguignon.

The crispy chicken roulade.

Banana fosters for dessert. It was delicious.

Apple crumble I believe.

So after dinner Jacqueline, Jordan, and I went to watch Spectre which was tonight’s movie. I am a huge James Bond fan so anytime I can watch one I will. Jordan hadn’t seen it but he really liked it.

After the movie I took my camera out to do some night shots of the city.

Here are a few I took.

After this I took some shots around the ship playing with my camera settings and then decided to head to bed.

Next up is our second day in Cartagena and a little bit of a more relaxed day. Again thanks for reading and if you have any questions feel free to ask.