Today marks the end of our Colombia travels, after spending the last five days in Cartagena. This city is the closest we have visited in Colombia to Cuenca in many ways. The total city population is roughly 900,000 compared to Cuenca’s 550,000, so a bit larger. The walled city, where we stayed, is known as the Historic Centro, which is the same name of the area we live in Cuenca. As with Cuenca, the Centro district is largely self-contained and totally walkable. There is one important difference though — while I sometimes say Cuenca is a couple degrees cooler than I prefer, Cartagena is a Caribbean coastal city, and the heat and humidity are killers! We were told that the temperature ranges from 80 to 90 (F) year-round, and always 90% humidity. The days we were there surely had that humidity, but the temperature was in the high 90’s too. We would wander outside a few hours in the morning, then retreat to the hotel’s air conditioned room until about 8PM, when it was tolerable to go outside again. I have no idea how anyone survived in this city before the invention of air conditioning… Also, while the tap water is safe to drink in Cuenca, here we had to rely on bottled water — and there is a mountain of plastic being generated from all those water bottles as a result.
Cartagena definitely had the best food we found in Colombia, and some of the best we have ever had, period. We celebrated our 43rd anniversary our second night in the city, with an absolutely fabulous dinner at Alma’s, just a block from the hotel.
The walls around the city were first erected in the late 17th and early 18th century, to ward off English sea attacks. 80% of the wall is still intact, and the walled portion was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1984. I found it interesting how short parts of the wall are. You can see a man running on a section (upper left above), and note that the wall is less than 10 feet high here. Left Center above shows how the buildings (prior to 1984) have massively outgrown the wall and reach right up to within a few yards of the wall. Turn left a little (lower left) and you can see how the wall is a bit higher, and modern high rise buildings in the distance (also middle right). Look closely and you can see construction cranes too, as new buildings are going up constantly outside the walled Centro. The cannon placements are still there, but now overlook a towering landscape. Interestingly, it required between 10 and 15 minutes between each canon fire, because of the heat generated by the explosion. Hard to imagine a battle at that pace.
One interesting vignette was a protest outside the Judicial Center (lower right). There were 9 protesters chanting and yelling, including one priest. Everyone else just walked by, sometimes after taking a photograph, but otherwise ignoring them. My Spanish is not good enough to tell what they were chanting, but apparently they don’t have much traction among the locals.
In a city as hot as Cartagena, fruit vendors were everywhere to sell a cool plate of food. Many of the women were dressed in colorful Caribbean dresses, and a purchase of a small plate was rewarded by them also modeling for our cameras.
Just across the highway from the wall was a small area where fishermen would bring in their catch, and sell it directly to anyone wanting fresh fish. All the fish that were caught were quite small, with most being no more than 6 or 8 inches long. Hardly looked like big enough to eat, but they worked diligently to clean and filet them. There were also a dozen or so herons and pelicans hanging around for discarded entrails, as well as a few kids playing in the surf to keep cool.
We have started taking “free walking tours” (funded by tips at the end) in most cities we visit, and we did that here too. Unfortunately, this was not one of the better tours, and I am not sure I would recommend it here. A few times we saw a student in full graduation regalia walking the streets, surrounded by their family. We saw enough of them that it appears to be a tradition for the family to show off their graduating child. At dinner that night, the table next to us filled up with about 20 family and friends, and we discovered (lower right) that it was a university graduation being celebrated.
We were told by our guide that the government here is very corrupt. As one example, they let in 3000 students into the university each year. However, there are only 80 seats for the final graduation exam. Most students must bribe the professor to get a passing grade without actually taking the exam.
Many of the doors in the walled city had elaborate door knockers on them.
As with every city in Colombia, wall murals were quite common.
There was also public art throughout the walled city.
When we asked at our hotel where we could go for a good Pińa Colada, we were told to go to the KGB. Sure enough, a Russian bar, dedicated to all things Soviet, and they did indeed make excellent drinks. As we walked in, the music system was playing “Every Breath You Take” by Sting, with the phrase “I’ll be watching you” as we entered. Seemed all so appropriate for a KGB bar… ☺
We then headed over to a restaurant on the Western wall, to watch the sunset, on the night of our anniversary. We came across an engagement photo session on the wall too (upper right above). The sunset was a bit of a disappointment (not much color or drama that night), but it had a cool breeze off the ocean, making it a nice way to stay outdoors and not melt in the process.