Into the Caribbean: Cartagena

We left Medellín early and took a long mini-bus drive to the airport along a hilly and windy road. Slept most of the way after my late-night blogging (and the two mojitos probably didn't help either).

The 9:00 a.m. flight got us in about 10:00 a.m. and we had the rest of the day free to explore.

Cartagena is a very pretty town - the old town is enclosed within old city walls and the camera was busy: very colourful, very touristy. Quite safe here, even in the town section outside the wall where life goes on as normal for Colombians and, although it was a bit rough, I quite enjoyed this area too.

Cartagena is on the north coast of Colombia with a population of about a million, making it the 5th largest city in Colombia. It was founded in 1533 by the Spanish but there were indigenous peoples before that. It faces the Caribbean Sea to the west.

It is hot here; we set off walking when we arrived and the temperature was already 31 deg C.

We wandered the town buying fruit from street vendors, then water from the supermarket. We entered the old town via the Puerta del Reloj (Clock Gate), which comes out onto Plaza de los Coches (Square of the Carriages). We did a circuit and wandered down many pretty streets, ending up back where we started via San Pedro Claver Square and the church also named for Saint Peter Claver, where the body of the Jesuit saint ('Saint of the African slaves') is kept in a casket; and we exited the old town near the Plaza de la Aduana (Customs Square), next to the mayor's office.

We returned to the supermarket for more water and were pleased to be back at the hotel about 2:30 p.m. Very hot! Our rooms were now ready and it was good to get wet washing out to dry, have a shower and settle in. The hotel is nice - especially the big ceiling fan!

We had a quick FaceTime session with Kathryn & Regis this afternoon. Kathryn was feeding Sophie and the cute little girl glanced towards us as if she knew we were watching - big brown eyes! She is very cute.

We have 4 girls leave the tour at this point and 3 new girls plus one guy join us so after a briefing, we all went out to a farewell/welcome dinner at a restaurant nearby. The food was yummy as were the cocktails. It was a good night.

This was the part of town outside the walls. 

Now, here are the photos of the Old Town within the walls: