Cartagena, Colombia

Today we are in Cartagena, Colombia from 6:00 AM until 2:00 PM.

We set an alarm for 6:15 AM this morning, we wanted plenty of time to get ready and eat breakfast before we headed to our Included Tour at 8:10 AM.  

We both slept well, and I woke up fever-free, which was nice.  Stephane was just slightly congested but not feeling bad, hopefully, I did not give her whatever I had/have.  I told Stephanie it was almost the same symptoms we have had after getting our Moderna COVID Boosters.

We headed up to the World Cafe Buffet, thinking it might be crowded, but it was not, and we were easily able to get a table and eat breakfast without rushing.  Afterward, we went back to the cabin to get ready and put on some sunscreen.  It is a nice sunny day, so any time outside will be a potential for sunburn.

At 8:00 AM, we headed down to Deck A and disembarked the ship.  We headed over to the tour coordinator to check in and were assigned bus No. 7 for our tour.  We headed over to the buses and found our guide holding his Bus 7 sign paddle.  The only problem was there was no bus number 7 here yet.  It was the same for bus No. 6, but it arrived shortly thereafter.  Several buses departed but we were still waiting for ours to arrive.  About 10 minutes later, the bus arrived and we all boarded.   It was a nice new bus and about 2/3 the length of a large tour bus so it could navigate on the narrow streets of Cartagena.

Of course, since it was a weekday, there was a lot of morning rush-hour traffic.  We slowly wound our way over to the fort called El Castillo San Felipe de Barajas.  We thought we might go inside, but that was not part of the tour, it was both an extra cost and took longer than the time we had for this stop.  The fort is very large. 

All we were able to do was get off the bus and take a few photos from the outside.  Of course, there were street vendors everywhere and there was a constant barrage of items thrust at you, belts, some type of money collection of bills and coins (no reason why), Maracas, hats, t-shirts, and other items.  We only spent about 15 minutes here, but even that was a little confusing.  Apparently, our tour guide, Roosevelt was using his phone for a clock and it was obviously off by 10  minutes, his time and everyone else’s was different.  This caused all of us to be uncertain of what he meant if he said we were staying for a certain number of minutes, but then the clock time he said to be back did not match up to that duration.  

We all got back on the bus and now we had an extra passenger in our group.  Apparently, she had missed getting back on her bus that had stopped here before ours, so now she had to ride with us to the next tour stop to catch up to her bus.  What was funny was that she seemed to want to argue with our guide on what he was telling her to do, some people…..  She had caused the issue but was not willing to go with his plan to get her back to her bus, which he told her again was already at our next stop.

Our next stop was Bovedas, which was originally used for storing provisions in the thick wall surrounding the city, next as a dungeon, and finally, it was converted to stores.  Each one of the individual areas was now a single store.  It was a little touristy, several other buses were here, all stopping at a different store, spreading the wealth so to speak. 

Our guide said our meeting point was store number three, which also was where we were dropped off.  Another person on our tour was also confused by the time difference the guide kept saying and asked him about it.  That was when he and we found out his phone time was off, at least by ten minutes, if not more.  Now, we were not certain when we needed to meet back at store number 3, the amount of time he said we had here, or the corrected time now that he knew his phone time was off.

We headed into store number 3 and I was able to use the tiny restroom before anyone else even found it, it was on the side and guarded by a lady attendant.  By the time I got out, there was a line several deep, including Stephanie, who was three back.  The bathroom line was really slow, and we heard one of the other guides tell people every store had a restroom, so Stephanie headed to another store two doors down where there was no line.

We had wanted to go and see a couple of streets in the Old Town a couple of blocks away.  These streets are known for their buildings with balconies overhanging the streets below.  However, after the bathroom time spent, we did not think we had enough time because we were not entirely sure when we needed to be back, so it was not worth the risk of missing the bus.

Stephanie had seen some woven straw fans inside the first store and we headed back in to check them out.  The pricing was all in local currency, so we asked about the equivalent dollar price.  The lady we asked then asked another man and he said $7.00 US.  I thought that everything here was somewhat negotiable, so I told Stephanie to tell her $5.00 US, and that was acceptable. 

We headed back to the bus, people were already boarding, and we got to our seats.  Stephanie was glad to have the fan to use to help her keep cool.

After everyone was back on the bus, we left and passed by several of the Old Town streets.  We could see the beautiful buildings and their balconies, but only as the bus slowly passed by.  We took some photos through the bus windows. 

After Old Town, we headed to a ritzy area of town called Bocagrande.  This is where most of the upscale hotels in Cartagena are located, as well as many high-rise condos.  It is along the beach, but since the beach is all public, the buildings are all across the main street from the beach.  It was scenic but seemed to be more oriented to selling this area for potential return visits.

It apparently is a nice place to visit, and is close enough to the Old Town to walk and spend time there exploring.  

We ended back at the port and this was when the best part of the tour started.  We were dropped off at a free nature preserve called the Oasis Eco Park which is inside the port,.  Everyone getting off their tour buses is routed through the park as well as anyone walking out of the port.   There were lots of parrots, lots of peacocks, some anteaters and several other ground-dwelling animals.  The reserve was quite large and well maintained and clean.  We spent about 45 minutes wandering around taking pictures of all of the animals.

After a walk through the gift store to cool down, we exited the park. There were free shuttle buses to take passengers to their ships, but we opted to walk it was not that far.  The only issue was that we were swimming upstream against all of the passengers that were now exiting an AIDA Cruise Lines ship.

There were only two ships including ours in port when we arrived this morning, but now there were five total, one of which was a Windstar Sailing Ship.  We are scheduled to leave by 2:00 PM, so we should be one of the first ships out.

We headed inside and grabbed two more bottled waters from the ship’s supply at the gangway.  Bottled water is not that available on board, and we understand why, the plastic bottles are a large pollution issue.  We went back to the cabin to drink some of the bottled water.  We had taken plenty of water with us, having also grabbed two bottles from the ship’s supply on the way out.  However, we were never certain where the next bathroom stop would be, so we did not want to drink too much fluids and then have bathroom issues.  That is one thing I wish they did a better job of, letting you know about bathroom stops or the lack thereof.

The tour was not that long, but if everyone had their coffee in the morning, people just need to have bathrooms at some point in time.

We made two bottled waters of GatorAid from the supply of powdered mixes we had brought from home.  We both thought we needed the electrolytes after it was so hot today.  After drinking the water and cooling down, we headed to the Grill at the Pool for some burgers, the first of the cruise.  We both ordered the Pancho Burger, which normally comes with a beef pattie, arugula, guacamole, blue cheese and a spicy mayonnaise on it.  

Stephanie deleted the blue cheese on hers and I deleted the arugula on mine.   We also ordered onion rings and some fries

They were really good, but almost as messy as they were tasty.  We determined that having a whole burger each was just too much food, and next time, we will split a burger and not get as many sauces on them, it was just too much juicy stuff!

We were only scheduled to be in Cartagena until 2:00 PM, and at about 1:30 PM, we headed back to the cabin to watch the ship depart from our balcony.  We could only see one-half of Cartagena from our side of the ship, and most of the larger buildings were only visible from the other side of the ship.  We grabbed the camera and our phones and headed to Deck 2 to take some pictures from that side,  and then also from the stern where we could see the entire city.  It was pretty hazy outside, and that made the city look hazy in the pictures.

We spent the remainder of the afternoon just hanging out, having a couple of drinks in the Explorer’s Lounge.

We were not planning anything special for dinner tonight, we just went to the World Cafe for the buffet.

We called it an evening at about 10:00 PM.  

NOTE: I forgot to finish this post on the day after we were in Cartagena, and I did not figure that out for several days afterward.   Everything is accurate up to the sail away.  But, we could not remember the exact detail of what we did after that.  We will have to think about that day to make sure we capture everything correctly, if we ever do.  Maybe we will have a multiple choice event story and everyone can make up their own ending to our day!!!