From Bogota we headed to the Caribbean and the town of Cartagena. They had an unusual amount of rain before we arrived, four days straight, which is pretty unheard of in November, and it was still threating rain when we arrived. The water stayed for a few days and made for some interesting navigation of the streets.
In light of Julia’s last post, puddles weren’t the only things to watch out for when walking the streets of Cartagena!
Cartagena has an old city that has a wall around it. The old city architecture is very colonial and reminds me a bit of New Orleans and was beautiful to walk through.
It was nice to have our own personal interpreter and master negotiator along!
While searching for lunch in the old city, we found a creperie in a very unique and beautiful building which had previously been a monastery. Some of my extended family wasn’t so sure about crepes, but my family likes them. These ended up being the best we’ve had outside of Quebec, providing a great variety of savory and sweet and quickly became a favourite of the whole family.
The next day we took a guided tour of Cartagena where we visited La Popa Convent and the fortress of Castillo San Felipe de Barajas.
The courtyard of the convent and the inside of the chapel.
The fort as seen from the convent and the convent as seen from the fort.
The fort was originally built in the 1500s on a hill outside of the city wall to defend the city from pirate attacks by land (the city itself defended the sea). However, the fort was expanded to allow the Spanish to defend against British and French attacks and in the end was the largest fort in the Caribbean. Lacking a natural quarry, a lot of the stones were taken from the sea, coral and all.
The tunnels of the fort where intentionally built at a certain height so that the Spanish could easily run in the tunnels but it would be more difficult for the taller French and English soldiers. My brother and I exemplified how this worked very well!
The fort had a lot of cannon defense slots which now provide beautiful views when you look out.
One of my brother’s childhood memories of Colombia was green mangos with lime and salt. We found some in the cafe at the top of the fort. They almost looked like fries and we all enjoyed them.
Our AirBnB was next to the beach. Unfortunately the beach section right in front was closed and they were building a new retaining wall. However, the open beach was only one block down and we still had some good views of the ocean and for the first two days, the rain clouds coming in off the ocean!
Thankfully even on days where it did spit a bit we still had breaks in the weather where it cleared and we could take some walks and quick swims in the ocean.
There were definitely a lot of vendors trying to sell you things, but what we found the most interesting, was that so much of the beach was blocked off into 10ft square sections with rope and each had an umbrella in the middle. You needed to walk through a grid of roped corridors to get to the water.
Unfortunately the rest of our family needed to head home after Cartagena but we were so glad for the short time we could spend with them and the experiences we could share. We felt blest to have the time together.
