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Ah, a nice cooling breeze, natural air conditioning right off the Caribbean, perfect for walking Las Murallas. The thick walls were built, started at the end of the 16th C to guard the old city from pirates, buccaneers and other marauders, and were finally finished in 1796. Now you can walk a good portion of the original walls, and keep cool at the same time. You get a completely different view of Cartagena from the top of the walls. From here you can pick out your next leafy plaza to stop for a coffee, a beer, or my favourite, a tall glass of fresh tropical juice.
We flew from the cool, autumn-like climate of Bogota to the tropics of Cartagena, where we spent the next four nights exploring the UNESCO sights of this old, Spanish Colonial city. As soon as we checked into our hostel in the Old City, we headed out for a walk to orient ourselves through the narrow streets. We made sure we had a map as each block has a new name in the old city and they are not all set on a convenient grid pattern. Cartagena is full of well preserved colonial buildings and we intended to see many of them over the next three days. We headed north into a busy commercial area full of end of day shoppers, and then out to the docks where impressive bronze statues of three Pegasus sit on Martyrs Square commemorating the independence of Cartagena from Spain in 1811. There were a few tall ships in port, one with full rigging, Gloria, with a line-up of more than 100 people all waiting to board the ship for a brief tour. We decided to continue our walk rather than stand in line.
 Pegasus on Martyrs Square |
 Clock Tower Gate |
We walked through the most famous city entrance, the Clock Tower Gate, into the Plaza de la Aduana (Customs House), with its statue of Pedro de Heredia, the founder of Cartagena. One day we happened upon a fashion photo shoot of a bridal couple in the square. The plaza would be the perfect backdrop for all sorts of celebrations. The upper classes of Colonial Cartagena displayed their wealth by the number of balconies graced their houses. Cartagena was obviously a prosperous town as entire streets displayed elaborate balconies on every upper floor window.
You can’t visit Cartagena without visiting at least two of the interesting museums. Our favourite was the Museum of the Inquisition, housed in the actual building where trials were held to determine the guilt or innocence of the accused heretics. Besides leading us through the displays of indigenous life before the arrival of the Spanish, our tour guide, Tony, put his theatrical personality to good use when talking about the Inquisition era and the ghoulish torture instruments. Towards the end of our tour the conversation turned to emeralds. When a man wears emerald rings on every finger, you know he will show you the best shop to buy Colombia’s most famous gems. We decided Tony probably makes more in commissions from the jewelry store than he does as a guide. I now am the owner of a pair of emerald earrings that beg to be worn with an outfit to do the emerald colour justice.
Yes, we went to see the convent and church dedicated to the first person elevated to Sainthood in South America, San Pedro Claver, who was the revered for his work tending to the poor and especially the black slaves. As is the case for many revered saints, his body was preserved and is on display in a glass case in the church.
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) had two very interesting exhibits, besides showcasing the best of new Colombian talent. Olga de Amaral is the best known of Colombian Textile artists. She has won awards around the world and had books published highlighting her work. Her wall hangings are noted for their use of gold and silver fabric tags to fabulous effects. I especially loved wandering between the exhibits of her works.
The 10th Annual International Classical Music Festival was just beginning and the MoMA had the best photographs of performers over the last 10 years. There was a photo of siblings Scott and Lara St John, violinists who were teen agers in London, Ontario when we lived there. My favourite photo was taken behind a French pianist highlighting her much annotated score. It just revealed how much work goes into the interpretation of a composition by a musician. Inspired by the photographs, we discovered there was a performance scheduled for the next afternoon in the upscale Hotel Santa Clara, once a convent with a chapel where the concert would be held.
The concert lived up to our expectations. We got to wander about the lobby and atrium of the hotel before taking our seats in the candle lit chapel. A program of sacred music by Vivaldi and was performed by an excellent youth choir and orchestra from Bogota with soloists from Italy. This was the first performance of the year in the chapel and half way through Vivaldi’s Gloria in Excelsis, the lighting for the performers failed. The performance was halted and electricians were summoned. It took almost half an hour to correct, while the audience chatted and refreshed themselves with chilled bottles of water provided by a sponsor. Nobody seemed to mind the unscheduled intermission. The concert continued without pause. The orchestra included two instruments I had never seen before. They were Tiorba, or Theorbo, a member of the lute family, with extended range to provide bass accompaniment. I spoke to one of the musicians, a young man from the US who told me he had been studying the instrument in Italy for 15 years. We were leaving the next day for Santa Marta, otherwise we would certainly attended another concert.
Herb Auerbach asked about our dining experiences.
Bogota had not been memorable, but we found several good restaurants in
Cartagena. Most of our dining was at small restaurants with street side tables
clustered around two small plazas, Plaza Fernandez de Madrid and Plaza San
Diego, near our hotel. They were alive with Christmas lights, vendors selling
crafts and souvenirs and strolling buskers. The food was good too. Being a
Caribbean
town, we mainly stuck to seafood. Of course we sampled
several versions of ceviche and a good seafood pizza. One morning we walked to
the Getsemani area, once a less savoury part of town just outside the city
walls, now being gentrified and full of good restaurants. We had a large
American-Colombian breakfast at Oh-La-La, with scrambled eggs mixed with
tomatoes and onion and tamales served with a cream sauce and cheese. Our next
favourite breakfast and lunch restaurant was the vegetarian Girasole (sunflower)
that served tasty treats for a very reasonable price.
Unfortunately, our visit to Cartagena ended on bad note. As we had in Puerto Morelos over Christmas, we brought our laundry to a professional service. When we returned to retrieve our clothes we discovered that two pairs of Ray’s pricey Ex Officio travel underwear had been switched to cotton boxer shorts. I must commend the laundry for how they handed the situation. When they couldn’t trace Ray’s underwear, they reimbursed us for the amount to replace the two lost pairs. We are now doing laundry by hand and draping it around our room to dry.
We had originally booked for four nights at Hostel de Viajeros. After being awakened at 1:30 AM and again at 4 AM by returning party goers, we checked out. It was still the holiday season and booking I found online were scarce in our price range. We did find a room in an Airbnb not far from our current hotel. The apartment, rented by a Colombian woman and her British roommate, was in a large complex of small family apartments. We had a small room with a balcony facing the street. It was advertised as ‘bohemian decor’ which really means minimum. That would have been fine if the street noise in the evening hadn’t been so loud. I coped with my ear plugs, part of my standard travel kit. Then we were assessed for extra charges which we considered above and beyond reasonableness. The issue went to Airbnb conflict resolution. We made our case and as of now, the extra charge has been dropped.
That said, we returned to Cartagena for one night on January 18 before our flight south to Medellin and enjoyed a quiet night at the small Casa Abril Hotel.
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