| Cartagena |
Wednesday
29 SEP 2004
Breakfast
is included in the price of the room at Hotel
da Pietro, so of course we took full
advantage of it. Fresh fruit, fresh
juice, scrambled eggs with tomato &
onion, arepa, coffee, croissants &
breads, very very nice and made all the
nicer because of the beautiful patio in
which we dined. The street outside, (Carrera
3), is very lively and while we ate
our breakfast we would catch glimpses of
passers by, usually just the tops of
their heads & their shoes because a wooden fence surrounds the patio.
After breakfast we caught a taxi
to the old part of Cartagena,
the part you see on all the postcards,
it cost 3500 pesos or about $1.50 for
the fare. The old part of Cartagena
which was founded in 1533, is much more
than I expected, I assumed that it was
probably just a few old houses and a
cathedral, boy was I wrong. UNESCO
declared the city a “Historical
Patrimony of Humanity in 1984 and it
is easy to see why. It is much larger
than I imagined and the wall that
surrounds it is quite intact and
massive, but better yet, it is not a
museum piece of a town but a
living-working place. There are children
in their clean uniforms heading to
school, old timers sitting on the corner
chatting about life's important
subjects, people going about their daily
business and of course the omnipresent
street vendors.
Many of these street vendors were
passing out business cards for jewelry
shops selling gold & emeralds, after
a short time I had amassed quite a
collection... so as soon as I spied
someone coming towards me with a
business card in their hand I would whip
one of my cards out and hand it to them
first. At first they didn't know what to
think, they would stare at me with a
quizzical look on their face and then
look at the card I had handed them, then
back at me; gradually a smile would
spread across their face and they would
start laughing. Sometimes they would
yell to their friends further up the
street, telling them what I had done. I
had a great time with this.
To most people I am a gringo from the
US, but one astute vendor said to me in
fairly good English, "you from
England?" It turns out his brother
lives in Wolverhampton! I wonder how he
spotted me?
We stopped in a few shops but found them
generally overpriced compared to Bogotá,
especially the emeralds. One really
fancy shop had some nice ornaments and
some well-made Botero figurines (not
officially Botero), Botero figurines are
a dime a dozen in Cartagena, but most
are clumsily made. We found a nicely
made figurine of a Spanish dancer and
decided to give her a new home in
Orlando.
We walked and walked and walked; when we
got tired we would sit and watch the
locals and tourists. We were sitting
near the old wall and could faintly hear
the strains of El
Caiman, it would start then stop,
then start again, it was a local group
of musicians practicing. We waited for
them to go through the entire tune but
they never did, just the first few bars
over and over again. Tired of this and
saying no to Mont Blanc and Rolex
vendors, we headed back through the maze
of ancient streets towards the
cathedral. The square is beautiful,
spoiled only by the sight of a dog lying
in the midst of a sea of people, its
insides hanging out, the dog was
obviously dying, but nobody paid any
attention to its plight. Plaza de San
Pedro Claver is full of quirky metal
sculptures, a man with a sewing machine,
two men playing chess, a couple having a
drink, all made out of scrap metal; the
chess pieces were spark plugs. They are
really fun to look at. The cathedral is
quite simple in appearance was begun in
1575. It was partially destroyed by
cannons from Sir Francis Drake's fleet,
but was finally completed in 1602.
We caught a taxi back to the hotel and
went down to the hotel's restaurant for
a nice pizza; afterwards we went once
again to Mimo's for an ice cream. We
realised we were a bit low on cash so we
headed to Carulla to draw a bit out of
the cash machine, we had to get a bit
extra to book our chiva
tour and our boat to Islas
del Rosario.
All content copyright © 2004 Jim Thompson
|
|
|
 |
Click on photos to open full-size
in new window.
|
.gif){kind=spacer}
