Cartagena City Tour
Thursday, August 24th - this morning we went on a city tour of Cartagena. Around 8:30 the open sided tour bus picked us up, we were apparently the first, and then it spent an hour picking everyone else up. The main tour coordinator was apparently Venezuelan but he didn't do the talking and i think actually he disappeared at some point. Of the other passengers, one couple was from Los Angeles, and one man traveling alone was from New York. I asked that man what brought him here and he apparently just likes to travel, he mentioned he's been to over thirty countries, which is more than me but not by a lot (i think I'm at around 25. Amd hey 6 in the last two months alone). We agreed that Zanzibar and Tanzania are lovely. If i was more extroverted maybe I'd have befriended him but though we got along very well during the tour i didn't get any social media information from him. Everyone else was once again Latino &/ Caribbeano. Very conveniently the tour group had two guides, one who guided most of the group in Spanish, and one giving commentary in English just to myself, the guy from New York, and a Brazilian woman who apparently speaks no Spanish, though she appeared to be traveling with two Argentinian women. She asked Cristina to translate something into Spanish to tell them but Cristina couldn't understand her English ajaja. It's funny how she and i have literally no trouble communicating but anyone else more or less can't communicate to us in the other's language.
Cristina and i were by now down to our last 20,000 pesos so we were rather desperate to find an ATM (there was none near our hotel). We wanted to buy Cristina a hat and new sandals or flip flops as the only pair she'd brought had broken already.
They told us a bunch of stuff i don't remember offhand except that Cartagena was founded in 1533 and has a population of 1.5 million.
Our first stop was some apparently iconic shoes:
I didn't catch the significance of these shoes.
Next we went to the castle, which was an impressive edifice of layers of slanted walls heaped up on a hill. I felt going here was a very apropos bookend to having last month visited first interior slave camps in Ghana, then Elmina Castle from where they were despatched, to this castle on the other side of the sea that overlooked the major slave receiving city for Spanish south America. Though this castle unlike Elmina didn't actually have the slave dungeons within it.
Here Cristina and i were mainly separated on our separate language tours. Castle was neat, i like castles. It differed from most European castles I've seen in that it made significant use of the hill it was on and what looked from the outside as walls were actually reinforced side of the hill, so on the inside you were never behind really tall walls. There were some tunnels into the hill including some that just wound around and around to eventual dead ends just to fool intruders and waste their time. Here in the castle Cristina saw the perfect hat but we didn't have money for it!
We were also told of various times pirates sacked the city (before the castle was built) amd the English unsuccessfully tried to take the city (after the castle was built).
Next we went to a big "CARTAGENA" sign amd took pictures in front of it.
Amd then finished in old Town, which consisted of a lot of adorable narrow streets with colonial era buildings lining them with bougainvilleas reaching up to balconies.
After the tour ended we were given the option to take the tour bus back to our hotels or stay here amd we chose to stay. We found an ATM just outside old Town amd were finally able to get money (300,000 pesos, about $75, is the maximum they'll disburse. Which is weird, even in the most impoverished African countries i can usually get the equivalent of at least $100 even if i need a wheelbarrow for all the notes), so we walked up amd down the cute narrow streets looking for sandals amd a hat for her.
Finally i succeeded in getting a picture of her with a bowl of bananas on her head like the Chiquita woman ajaja
We succeeded in the sandals but not the hat. The perfect hat she'd been teased by in the castle could not be found down here.
Just as we were getting tired amd hungry a woman selling tours spoke to us, amd as soon as Cristina opened her mouth the woman was like "ahh Venezuelana!!" Turned out she was herself Venezuelan from Margarita Island. So we talked to her a bit about that amd our ambitions to go to the Rosario Islands, amd then mentioned we were hungry amd did she have any recommendations, amd she took us a few blocks to a place she recommended as cheap amd good, amd it didn't disappoint. Cristina got her on whatsapp if we do go on a day trip to the Rosario Islands or something i think we might use her she was nice, i liked her more than the one in our hotel.
Then we returned to the hotel. Went swimming on the rooftop pool at sunset. Was amused to note we were one of four similar couples all doing the same thing.
Amd that was it for today, all caught up again! No idea what we'll do tomorrow. Amd i feel cured of my brief illness, though the doctor says she can still smell flu on my breath 🙈
Cristina and i were by now down to our last 20,000 pesos so we were rather desperate to find an ATM (there was none near our hotel). We wanted to buy Cristina a hat and new sandals or flip flops as the only pair she'd brought had broken already.
They told us a bunch of stuff i don't remember offhand except that Cartagena was founded in 1533 and has a population of 1.5 million.
Our first stop was some apparently iconic shoes:
I didn't catch the significance of these shoes.
Next we went to the castle, which was an impressive edifice of layers of slanted walls heaped up on a hill. I felt going here was a very apropos bookend to having last month visited first interior slave camps in Ghana, then Elmina Castle from where they were despatched, to this castle on the other side of the sea that overlooked the major slave receiving city for Spanish south America. Though this castle unlike Elmina didn't actually have the slave dungeons within it.
Here Cristina and i were mainly separated on our separate language tours. Castle was neat, i like castles. It differed from most European castles I've seen in that it made significant use of the hill it was on and what looked from the outside as walls were actually reinforced side of the hill, so on the inside you were never behind really tall walls. There were some tunnels into the hill including some that just wound around and around to eventual dead ends just to fool intruders and waste their time. Here in the castle Cristina saw the perfect hat but we didn't have money for it!
We were also told of various times pirates sacked the city (before the castle was built) amd the English unsuccessfully tried to take the city (after the castle was built).
Next we went to a big "CARTAGENA" sign amd took pictures in front of it.
Amd then finished in old Town, which consisted of a lot of adorable narrow streets with colonial era buildings lining them with bougainvilleas reaching up to balconies.
After the tour ended we were given the option to take the tour bus back to our hotels or stay here amd we chose to stay. We found an ATM just outside old Town amd were finally able to get money (300,000 pesos, about $75, is the maximum they'll disburse. Which is weird, even in the most impoverished African countries i can usually get the equivalent of at least $100 even if i need a wheelbarrow for all the notes), so we walked up amd down the cute narrow streets looking for sandals amd a hat for her.
Finally i succeeded in getting a picture of her with a bowl of bananas on her head like the Chiquita woman ajaja
We succeeded in the sandals but not the hat. The perfect hat she'd been teased by in the castle could not be found down here.
Just as we were getting tired amd hungry a woman selling tours spoke to us, amd as soon as Cristina opened her mouth the woman was like "ahh Venezuelana!!" Turned out she was herself Venezuelan from Margarita Island. So we talked to her a bit about that amd our ambitions to go to the Rosario Islands, amd then mentioned we were hungry amd did she have any recommendations, amd she took us a few blocks to a place she recommended as cheap amd good, amd it didn't disappoint. Cristina got her on whatsapp if we do go on a day trip to the Rosario Islands or something i think we might use her she was nice, i liked her more than the one in our hotel.
Then we returned to the hotel. Went swimming on the rooftop pool at sunset. Was amused to note we were one of four similar couples all doing the same thing.
Amd that was it for today, all caught up again! No idea what we'll do tomorrow. Amd i feel cured of my brief illness, though the doctor says she can still smell flu on my breath 🙈