Walled City

Wow, here we are, South America!

Balconies everywhere

The flight was so short, it was amazing that they managed to serve snacks and drinks, but they did.

So here we are, standing in line for customs longer than the flight took. It's nice, and it's hot; hotter than Panama. The agricultural dept of Colombia accept Gillies papers from Costa Rica without any fuss, and 29000 pesos later we'e out looking for a taxi to old town.

We find that the Hotel Viajero liked Gillie, and we were to stay there for one night in relative comfort. Unfortunately, the hotel cannot accomodate us for another night, so we have to go around the corner to the Hotel Artun for another 2 nights. We had planned for only 2 nights total, but the Friday "unstuffing" exercise took all day, and after nearly 12 hours of frustration in the port I decided to stay in air-conditioned comfort for one more night.

Cannon fodder

Cartagena is interesting, and our brief stay only whetted our appetite for this old jewel of days gone by. The wall around old city was to protect from maurauderers who saw the plundered treasures of the locals by the Spanish as a really tempting target for a little more plundering. Galleons, pieces of eight, dreams of Caribean pirates, rum, all that stuff. We enjoyed walking around in the narrow streets feasting our eyes on its old charm; balconys dripping with potted flowers and plants, amazing old wooden doors with decorative door knockers, markets, salsa dance bars, horsedrawn carriages, and more than anything was the ever friendly chatty helpful Colombian.

Friday night, Eve got to stay by herself in an outdoor (guarded) parking lot, and she survived just fine, thankyou. Saturday morning, we dragged our belongings down to her, and we roared off in search of more beaches, rum, more of that. 

Come on out of there, we know you wanna

Get that sailboat outta here!

More cute Cartagena

Pretty photogenic places