Cartagena de Indias and its riches

Wednesday, August 23rd

Last night I felt a bit ill. Not sure if it was Jacky´s (Chloe and Andrea´s mom) cold in Panama that I got but I really did not feel well. In any case, I decided to take a tablet of the almighty Cipro antibiotic just in case it was an infection which would not be totally outrageous in our seventh week of travelling. This morning I followed through with the prescription and feel a bit better but not 100%.

The hotel is centrically located so we went out for a stroll to learn more about the city. This city is really one of the most beautiful cities we have seen so far. There is colonial architecture whereever you turn and the people are pleasantly caribbean in attitude. The hot climate adds to the equation to make this a very unique place. There are horse pulled carriages on the streets and high wooden balconies in the streets. At night, weak street lamps give you the impression that you are in the XVII or XVIII century (1600s or 1700s for the romanly challenged).

We get student discounts at the local museums so we took advantage of this opportunity to increase our cultural awareness for cheap. The Museum of History of Cartagena was really cool. This is actually the building of the Inquisition. That is, they used this as headquarters to the witch police. If you were caught misbehaving you were put through all these methods of turture. One of them was intriguing in that it was a table with ropes at both ends tied to circular cranks. The infractor was tied by its extremities and the cranks tightened the ropes ever more with every twist. Until bones and muscle was broken or a confession was made, which every one was earliest. The intriguing thing is that there were two ropes in one end, for both arms obviously, and three ropes in the other extreme, two legs and one... well, we´ll leave it up to your imagination.

We walked through the streets taking pictures like a good Japanese tourist would. We saw the Cathedral, the Simon Bolivar Park, Convent and Church of San Pedro Claver, Plaza de la Aduana, Plaza de los Coches and the city walls. FYI, this city was important because it became a warehouse for all the gold that the Spaniards stole from the indians in Latin America. They would transport the gold and riches to Cartagena and store them until they were picked up by ships bounded for Spain. Of course, this would only happen if pirates did not steal the gold before the ships arrive. This was a great problem and the Spaniards decided to build a wall around the city which still stands today. The building of this wall lasted 200 years.

The Spaniards also built the Castle of San Felipe on top of a small mountain which is actually a fort that was used to spot pirates approaching the caribbean coast. We passed through the Getsemani neighborhood and ate at the Coroncoro restaurant (great cheap food!) on Calle Tripita y Media. The sitting was tough since it was packed with hungry locals. We could not spot a gringo in the whole restaurant! After being sat on a table we realized it was a german-beer-tent-like arrangement in that we were accompanied by two other strangers in our same table. This local lady was very pleasant to talk to and smiled at our struggled way to order local delicacies. She was sure of what she wanted and ordered it in 2 seconds. She tells us that the restaurant is really not that busy right now even though there are people standing waiting for tables. She says that when it is really busy you cannot even walk in between the tables! After this, her male friend sits with us but the start talking about guys and how mad she was at this other guy. Alexey and I are thinking her friend is gay at this point.

Now on to a food comma. What better way to deal with it than to climb to the top of the castle. Once again we get student discounts!! WHOOOOHO! We sit at the top in the shadow of a roof and feeling the breeze cool down our skins which had been pounded by the heavy Cartagenian sun all day. Then we explore the dungeons were Spanish watchmen spent endless hours spotting pirates. It was kind of scary at some points since you could get confused in the dark dungeons and never come out! :)

Let´s now take a cab and stop by the circus to see their hours of operation. I have not been in a circus in such a long time that it´s very tempting. The cab does not charge us to stop by the circus since we already negotiated him to take us to the Bovedas by the north side of the wall close to the ocean for 4000 pesos (rate is $1:2370pesos). We walked along the wall and stopped to see a bunch of fishermen pulling the nets with their catch. After this we walked by Gabriel Garcia Marquez´s house and went to do some internet catching up. Hopefully, we will be able to upload some pictures soon.