Cartagena Colombia

Cartagena is one of the most beautiful sailn-ins in the Caribbean.

Cartagena, Colombia  is one of the oldest cities in the New World. However,  the number of highrise apartments and towering condominiums that greeted us as we sailed into port was pretty impressive. We were in port from 3:00 p.m. Wednesday to 3:00 p.m. Thursday, but as Steve was still a little under the weather, we stayed onboard ship on Wednesday.

Weds night we were treated to a performance by a Colombia folkloric troupe...lots of energy and testosterone. It makes our dancing look pretty tame and boring.

Thursday we were up bright and early as we made our way into the city. We hired a Taxi....Freddy O was our driver and his English was pretty good. We took in the tourist highlights, visiting the Monastary on top of the hill, the Fort of San Felipe, the Old Town behind 8 kms of 400 year old walls, and the San Pedro Church and Square. San Pedro was the first saint to be canonized in the New World. He tended to the African slaves as they were sold in the Cartgena square. Evidently 1000 slaves a month were sold there. His corpse (skeleton now) dressed in his finery is part of the alter at the front of the church.

Freddy O also took us to an emerald factory, ‘museum’ and showroom. It was interesting to see the process of how they mine, sort, polish and fabricate the jewellery,  but you could feel the heavy disappointment in the shop when we left without buying anything. However, one of the salespeople told us that someone from our ship was coming at noon to pick up an emerald they had chosen yesterday and was having set in a ring. The cost was a mere $30,000 USD. We told him we weren’t that kind of passenger!

Interestingly enough, Freddy O was pretty impressed that we live in Mexico. He said that it must be very dangerous for us. He likened it to Colombia 20 years ago. We didn’t bother to try to educate him.

A couple of things we learned about Cartagena and Colombia: Education

1.    is NOT free and accessible. It costs $120 USD per month to send two children to school.

2.   Healthcare is NOT free....it costs $100 a month for a family of four, similar to our Medical plans.

3.   As far as we can tell, there are no social programs.

4.   Thousands of people will make the several km long uphill walk to the monastery today and tomorrow to celebrate the festival of the Virgin of the Candelaria (the Colombian virgin.) 80% of the population is Catholic.

We have our second formal night tonight. I think I will wear ‘the ballgown’....the one that I put on the day before we left and couldn’t get off without breaking the zipper. Hopefully tonight ends a little better.

Tomorrow we transit the Panama Canal. There are new locks being constructed that will be finished in 2014 or 2015 in order to accommodate the larger ships. I don’t think we’ll see those, but it should be interesting to go through and up the canal.

 For some reason...Steve was drawn to this statue that was in the plaza!