¡Viva Cartagena de Indias!

That’s the official name. Cartagena is big and sprawling with many high-rises but the first thing you see when approaching from sea, are old Spanish fortresses on either side of the channel. Long ago the Spanish sank ships and dumped debris to seal off the natural entrance closer to the city, so everyone had to run this gauntlet. (Yup, a lot of history in this post!) The bay leading to the city is similar in size to San Francisco Bay. Our marina, Club de Pesca, is right in the heart of the city with one side of the marina actually being the wall of Fuerte San Sebastián del Pastelillo, a very important battery that was part of the second line of defense for the city. As always, click on the pictures to scroll through them full size and read the captions.

Once we settled in we set out to see the town. Only this time, we were so taken with the place that we stayed out terribly late for a week straight! As I said, our marina physically borders one of the old forts and its partner sits 200 yards off our port bow. That fort, Baluarte del Reducto, forms a corner of the curtain wall around the outer old city. The wall is huge and was well fortified but it was not the primary defense. It was literally built along the outer edge of the islands that make up the old city. I’m pretty sure we have walked all seven miles of what’s left!

There is an older, even bigger fortified wall around the original inner city. (The clock tower picture above is part of the inner wall.) And just across from the curtain wall, on a hill overlooking all of it, is the MASSIVE Castillo San Felipe de Barajas. All of this was built over the course of roughly 400 years to protect the accumulation of Spanish treasure. Portobello, Panama, was the port for movement of treasure from the west side of Central America and everything coming from the Philippines while Cartagena was the port for everything coming from South America. The loot was stockpiled over the course of a year and then loaded onto hundreds of galleons and escort ships and sent in fleets back to Spain. This made for a tempting target and time and again Cartagena, like Panama City and Portobello, was attacked by pirates, British and French armies. Each time it was sacked, the Spanish rebuilt even bigger. Thus, the almost absurd size of everything. The main fort was really more the joining of three smaller batteries into the largest fortress in the new world. By the end, it even had five miles of tunnels underneath the surrounding grounds so that the Spanish could blow up siege equipment or groups of attacking troops. The most famous fight happened in 1741. The British destroyed the first two forts at the mouth of the bay and attacked the two smaller ones by our marina. Although they did finally defeat the San Sebastián defenses, it had taken so long that disease had taken nearly half of the army and they no longer had the forces required to take the big fort. This retreat is cited as the reason Spanish is still the language of the Americas.

Yes, we liked the place so much we asked James to come join us as he had a few days to kill before he moves to Germany. Needless to say, we have only just started coming home at a decent hour and we’ve been here nearly three weeks! The old town is just fantastic. Our best description is that it is a blend of Old Panama City, New Orleans and Valencia, Spain. There are hundreds of nice, upscale bars, restaurants and small hotels, many with rooftop or courtyard seating. Narrow streets, wooden balconies, vibrant colors and art everywhere. Three cathedral size old churches and many smaller ones. Lots of live music after 9 pm and the Colombian people dress very well when they go out. We have taken to stopping in a place for one drink/appetizer and then head on to another one. We’ve covered a lot of ground but there is so much to choose from. Back at the boat, we’ve also had new covers made for our inside cushions, a new stovetop grid made out of stainless steel to replace the rusty original, had the dinghy motor overheating problem fixed, re-stained the topside tables and companionway steps. We can also get Amazon here so what we can’t find in town gets delivered.

And sometimes during dinner, this happens!

We’ve been out salsa dancing twice at Club Havana, above. One of the parks has sloths and Tamarin monkeys (mono titi) in the trees. Wild parrots here and there. We’ve enjoyed some pretty fancy food and drink presentations and the US dollar goes far here, at nearly 4,000 pesos to 1 USD. A trip to the ATM results in a wad of bills too big for a wallet! We spend a fair bit of time cleaning the AC intake…I know, first world problems! And John got a couple new hats.

Weddings are big here. Big churches, big parties and lots of looky-loos. A really cool thing we’ve never seen before is a group of people all in fancy white dress will show up just before the bride and groom leave the church. As soon as they step outside, they strike up drums, the ladies dance, pose for photos with the key folks and then lead the procession that goes off to the reception. It happens at every single wedding and we’ve seen at least ten. A wonderful touch, we think. The 400 year-old bones are Saint Pedro Claver, a priest who baptized over 300,000 slaves, ministered to them and helped improve their living conditions throughout the country. He actually lived in that church.

We took a trip up to the highest point in the city to see the Convento de Santa Cruz de La Popa. It was continually run until Colombian independence from Spain when the new country expelled all catholic orders. There is a list of all the head priests with the gap years shown. During the war of independence from Spain, Simon Bolivar occupied the convent with his regiment. He was almost killed one night when a cannonball fired from the big fortress just missed his head as he was leaning out the window.

The Spanish Inquisition for New Grenada (South America) was based here for 200 years in the building below. The window to make an anonymous accusation was at carriage height so as not to inconvenience anyone. Only five people were burned at the stake here. But they had a painting of the Spanish priest who personally sent over 2,000 people to the stake back in the old country. What a guy!

I’ll wrap it up with a couple random pictures. Those are naval ships. There is a large navy base that runs along the peninsula to the right of the frame, ending near the old city.