Day 7: One Short Day in the Emerald City!

…with abject apologies to the composer and lyricist of ‘Wicked’…


Cartagena - the one place on this cruise that none of has been before. Not for lack of trying, though. The last time we had it on an itinerary in 2006, Crystal’s insurance company decided it was too dangerous to stop here so Curacao was substituted . The government and policing situation has improved markedly since then, especially in the tourist cities, so nowadays there’s no such problem.

Our walking tour really didn’t take us around too much of the old city area, but we did visit the walls, and a handicrafts/jewelry/ticky-tacky souvenir market, and then a church and a museum, and a jewelry store…do you see a pattern developing here? The only funny thing was that none of the major jewelry stores in the Caribbean - Diamonds International, Effy and the others - and most notably Colombian Emeralds International itself, were nowhere to be found. And for the length of time we had to stop, it would have been a real rush if anyone was looking for emeralds, so none of us even bothered.

The original fort built by the Spaniards in the 1500s

The old city is really quite beautiful and would be an even nicer walk around if there was a little more time and a lot less humidity (the natives, though, have not been complaining since there’s been more rain than usual in the area since November and they were happy for the break). The architecture, Spanish colonial, is very pretty. Many of the buildings are painted, some have ornate balconies and many of these are covered with beautiful flowering bougainvillea bushes.

The Cathedral

And just so everyone knows our streak is still intact - there's scaffolding on the altar of the cathedral!!!

Although we didn’t do any shopping, Norm decided to try a local Colombian beer. He decided it tasted quite ‘light’, sort of along the lines of Budweiser, we guess, but pronounced it ‘Okay’.  We can now say we have been to Colombia. Oh, and we did buy a pound of “Colombia’s Finest”. Coffee! We bought coffee!

Off to the Panama Canal tomorrow. It will be an early start as our transit through the Gatun Locks is scheduled to start around 7:00. Tour time is still up in the air depending on when we get to the Colon Yacht Club.