End of Week 1 in Cartagena

Our first week here seemed to go by quickly and we've become fairly well oriented to Cartagena, I think. Most of our time so far has been spent inside the old town but now we'll start to venture to other places. Being here 9 weeks means we don't have to rush around trying to do everything at once. A major challenge of finding your way in the old town (which can be walked from one end to the other in about 20 minutes) is that the street name changes at each intersection. So Mantilla becomes Soledad which changes to San Augustin which morphs into Moneda which transforms into Cruz, all while walking straight ahead.

This fine gentleman (Ender) led us on a free walking tour of the old city. A very entertaining fellow who was anxious to give us lots of information about the history of the city. We thought it was going to be more like an orientation so, while you history buffs out there might have loved it, we found all the info a bit overwhelming. Perspective is an interesting thing though, as he talked about how Sir Francis Drake was nothing more to them than a despicable, marauding pirate whereas it seems to me that our schooling taught us something quite different. Aside: although Ender probably made more than 100 "mistakes" with the English language during the tour, we understood every word, which is sort of a lesson to us that we don't need to worry about speaking perfect Spanish.

A fancy coffee shop/book store called Abacus that we visited. Most of the books were in Spanish but they did have an English section.

No body image problems in this city, we thought, until ......

It's all fun and games until both eyes get poked out.

What do the pointy headed women do for a living?

This little girl got her father to buy something to eat from the nice ladies. Sun is setting in the background.

We took a drink down to the beach to watch the sun set as well as the locals enjoying a holiday. The feast of 3 kings which we call Epiphany.

Sarah did a no-no, taking a picture of this Palenquera without asking or paying. In fairness, we weren't told that information until after the picture. Originally these women came from a village called San Basillo de Palenque which was founded by freed and escaped slaves. Now they simply pose for the tourists, take some money and go home to watch Jeopardy in Spanish.

Meet my friend "Fat Gertrude" (La Gorda Gertrudis), a sculpture by Fernando Botero. Legend has it that if you touch her left breast it brings you good luck.

The Clock Tower, picture taken from just outside the old city walls.

Free hugs, but they also gave us a free shot of rum along with a little bit of chocolate once inside. This place is in a part of Cartagena called Getsamani, a name which will be familiar to most Christians. The name of the bar is The Rum Box and we went there to meet ...........

....... these fantastic Canadian expats. Want to hear something weird? All 3 women in this picture have a sister who lives in Edmonton.

Hasta luego!