Finally a nice sunny day today! The weather has been so horrible in Victoria lately that I have been dreaming about selling up and hightailing it down to Mexico for good. Oh well.
One of the towel critters left on the beds at night. They were all really cute.
So after two sea days we sailed into the port of Cartagena Columbia. Now the first time I went to this city I wasn’t too sure what to expect as you hear all of these stories about the drug trafficking etc however what I found was a very beautiful city with a lot of culture and very warm and friendly people who were very proud of their country. I really loved the old walled city that I saw last time I was there so I really wanted to see that again.
Here are some pictures of the Cartagena skyline as we were coming into the port. It is a busy port with a lot of freighter activity.
Mom was not really up to walking a lot so we opted for a horse and carriage ride through the streets of the old town. I am not sure what I expected, maybe something like what we have here in Victoria where we have laws about animal abuse. What we got was an older carriage a little worse for wear. Now this part doesn’t really bother me what bothered me was we had one horse pulling 4 people plus driver and the horse was skinny and not well cared for. This broke my heart and really coloured my view of the whole tour so this is one excursion that I wouldn’t recommend and I will be complaining to Holland America about.
Here is a picture of a wonderful old door and that beautiful ocher colour. Sorry about the picture being a little off kilter I found it was a little hard to take good photos from a lurching carriage.
Look at these wonderful colourful baskets someone hand made. I just love the abundance of colour that tropical countries inspire. Doesn’t it just make you want to start a very colourful quilt.
Here is another picture with the old architecture with that wonderful ocher colour mixed with white.
Another view of the city skyline. This is looking from the old walled city over to the new modern part of the city. Lots of new hotels like the Hyatt and other well known hotels have been built just in the last 5 years alone. Once we had finished with the carriage ride part of the tour we had 20 minutes to go shopping (what is a tour without shopping). Luckily that is not enough time for me so I didn’t buy anything. We then had an hour’s bus ride through the newer part of the city where we got to see expensive condo buildings and lots of beach areas. I didn’t get any pictures of that though as I hate taking pictures through bus tinted windows.
Here is a picture of a flock of pelicans.
We stopped at the Castle of San Felipe for about 5 minutes just so we could take some photos. One day I want to come back, walk the old city and tour this fort which was built by the Spanish to protect the city from pirate attacks.
A lone man on a drawbridge. This was taken as we were heading out to sea.
Can’t you just see the cannons firing from the portals on this picture. Glad it is no longer used.
Some more views as we head out to sea. The next day we started our transit through the Panama Canal itself. I guess that will need to be Part 3.
Click here to receive the free Inspiration Journal pattern and sign up for the newsletter
