Cartagena

Saturday, February 2, 2002

010-24.600 N
075-32.400 W

How to describe Cartagena...wow, that's tough. A myriad of adjectives flow through my mind: loud, alive, fast, gritty, exciting, beautiful, new, old, fun, and many more. It's a great place to spend some time and get to know the area.

The city itself was founded in the mid-1500s by the conquistador Pedro de Heredia. It was destroyed by fire and attack several times until it was finally rebuilt with a huge stone wall surrounding it and with the requirement that all of the buildings be built of stone. Due to this, many of the old buildings are still standing. Unfortunately many of the original relics seem to have been sold or stolen, and replicas have taken their place. But it's still amazing. If you remember the movie "Romancing the Stone", this is where it was filmed.

It's obvious that a lot of money has been put into restoring the old city. The architecture is stunning. You can walk through mile after mile of narrow streets lined with 3 to 4 story tall buildings which are beautifully painted and decorated. And they don't shy away from the use of color.

The old city is very much alive with shops and housing. This isn't just a tourist destination. Once again you find that shops have been grouped by type. There's the hardware store street, the electrical street, the shoe street, fabric street, etc, etc. The biggest problem that I see is that all of these stores are tiny and only carry a small selection of materials. It takes many trips to multiple stores to find (if you can) what you need. Having a very limited Spanish vocabulary sure doesn't help, but pointing and acting gets the point across. And on a few rare occasions you might even find someone who knows a little English (big bonus!)

On top of the stores it seems that everyone is peddling something. You name it: water, paintings, jewelry, t-shirts, sun glasses, watches, ice cream. My favorite is a large fresh glass of Manderine orange juice for $0.25. You are constantly approached by people and it gets very tiring to constantly be saying "no." The noise level of the city is also amazing. Between the cars, trucks, horns blaring, and people are hawking their wares, the din is overwhelming in certain parts.

Crossing major streets reminds me of running with the bulls. You have to weave your way through the moving traffic. This is not a task for the feint of heart. Walking on the side walks is also challenging with constant holes and protrusions. This would be a US personal injury lawyer's dream location.

Outside of the old city you find the new city, which contains miles of high-rise apartments and hotels. From what I've heard, most of these were built with drug money until the government cracked down about ten years ago. What amazes me is that at night you can see how few of these are occupied. Clearly the party is over.

The harbor provides a wonderful view of the old and the new city. Unfortunately the water is pretty foul and turns strange colors on some days. I can't wait to move to a location where you can swim and make water. It's also very still during the morning and the heat gets oppressive.

Food is very cheap. You can walk down the street from the marina and get a tenderloin sishkabob dinner for $2.00 and beers are $0.90. You can't cook for that price! There are lots of good places to provision and Club Nautico marina provides a safe location to leave your dinghy, get laundry done, etc.

Right now the plan is to reprovision the boat and move down the coast sometime mid next week. I'll post again from there.
Log ID: 162