Cartagena Columbia

After being roused from my slumber at 5.00am (yes you are reading that correctly!) to witness the ship starting its entry to the port of Cartagena I sat myself down for a buffet breakfast and indulged in some scrambled eggs and smoked salmon. You enter Cartagena through a choke point only 180 metres across. There are two 16th century Spanish forts on opposing points. The city has been attacked by the French, The Dutch and the British and ultimately became heavily fortified. The Spanish were running all of their Peruvian silver and gold through here and weren't keen on having it conveniently hijacked by competing nations, or for that matter, pirates. 

We headed to the Convento de la Popa located strangely enough at the Top of Mount Popa. It's origins date back to 1607. It was built after a Friar had the Blessed Virgin appear to him, telling him to build a church on the nearest hill to Cartagena. Apparently said hill was tormented by an evil spirit, in the form of a goat. Once the building was complete, and consecrated the goat was thrown from the precipice to rid the church of this assault on God's good graces (I mean they didn't even slaughter it). This was supposed to restore Christianity to the region. I think personally it may have been the first recorded use of a product that Colombia has subsequently become more famous for, but there was mention of this in any of the interpretive material. 

The convent changed hands after various invasions and Simon Bolivar even kept his regiment there when he was freeing South America from the Spanish. Locally he is known as El Libertador, or the Liberator of America. He led Colombia, Bolivia, Panama, Venezuela, Peru and Ecuador to independence. 

From there we pushed on the old town, inside a walled city. Beautiful period architecture, tastefully maintained and presented in all of its pristine glory. This picture of perfection was somewhat offset by the ridiculous number of touts trying to sell hats, chess sets, magnets and other ephemera. I felt like reenacting that scene out of Flying High.

The one thing I didn't get to try was some real Columbian Coffee, even though we went to a coffee shop (I know right). I bought a packet to bring home so hopefully its allowed back into the country. 

After wandering around the old town and visiting an emerald shop, apparently Columbia is known for quality emeralds as well, we adjourned to a delightful restaurant in an old harbour fort and watched the world go by. Try as I might there was no way I could tell if any of the boats motoring past were Columbian drug runners. I certainly wasn't going to ask. 

I jumped back on the ship only carrying Columbia's second mast famous export and had a little nanna nap. Before I knew it we were heading out of the harbour, past the the forts, past the new city, and past all of the cigarette boats, ready for our entry into the Panama Canal at 6.00am tomorrow morning (yes you read that correctly)! 

Plus I got to see an Anteater, some Macaws and a flock of Flamingoes.