Bamboozle - Cartagena de Indias.....Estupendo!

Cartagena de Indias.....Estupendo!

Bamboozle

Jamie and Lucy Telfer

Mon 31 Aug 2009 02:15

10:24.601N 075:32.614W

We are now in the astounding city of Cartagena on the Caribbean coast of Colombia. We have had several reports from other cruisers about this extraordinary spot but nothing had prepared us for the charm and beauty of this barely altered old walled city with its maze of colourful streets, bougainvillea clad balconies, shade dappled plazas and imposing churches. It is a UNESCO world heritage site but until recently security issues and the activities of a number of revolutionary terrorist groups have kept the world away. In a country better known for cocaine and kidnapping than its cathedrals, Cartagena is a little gem and we have (so far) felt safe and welcome. The Colombians are smiley, expressive and excitable (it may be the coffee?) and we have discovered that either they speak very fast or we haven't picked up very much in our recent efforts to learn some Spanish.

Cartagena was one of the major cities of the Spanish empire in South America and has seen enormous wealth during its almost 500 year history. There was a city here a full century before the Pilgrim Fathers arrived in New England and sometimes, wandering the streets, it is hard to believe that we are in Latin America rather than some little known corner of Mediterranean Europe. As one of the main gateways into the continent an extraordinary amount of gold, silver and emeralds were stored here before being loaded onto galleons to be carried back to Spain. As a result the city became a magnet for pirates and suffered 5 major sieges during the 16th Century alone, with Sir Francis Drake (pirate or gallant naval hero?) pillaging the place in 1586 demanding, and getting, a huge ransom not to entirely raze the city. Eventually the locals got bored of being robbed and raped and decided to build the most stupendous fortifications to protect themselves (and the gold that they had already stolen from the Indians) from further attack. It is these walls and "Castillos" that have continued to surround and protect the old city not only from the ravages of war but also from any insidious architectural invasion. With Colombia seemingly (and hopefully) getting a grip on its internal political and security situation the next invasion is on the way and may be more welcome......"the tourists are coming" and they are going to love what they find.

Away from the old town, Cartagena is not quite so pretty, in fact coming in by water one could be forgiven for thinking you had somehow arrived in Miami with countless thirty and forty story apartment blocks lining the beach to the south of "El Centro". It is also hot.....really really hot......I can't even begin to tell you how hot it is. In recent months we have got used to waking up in the morning and just dropping over the side for a refreshing dawn swim but you wouldn't want to do that here! We are anchored out in the busy major shipping harbour and the water is a fragrant dirty dark brown and is often topped with a thin rainbow coloured haze of oil. We have grown more weed and barnacles on our bottom in the last week than we have in the last 5 years and I, for one, am not going in to clean the prop until we are back into the azure blue of the real Caribbean. The other slight disappointment is that the fun sounding Club Nautico that we are anchored off, a well known rendez-vous for cruisers, is in the middle of being redeveloped. To give them credit they haven't closed the bar although they probably should have done. The Colombian Health and Safety Executive (if it exists?) is clearly on holiday as the place is a full-on building site. On our first evening Lucy and I decided to have a beer in the bar but while we stood with a cold "cerveza" in hand a workman took a sledge hammer to the main pillar holding up what was left of the roof.....we moved quickly outside!

One of the many wonderful streets in the old town.