Stranded in Cartagena

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Cusco remains my favourite South American city but Cartagena comes a close second. We had travelled down from Santa Marta with high expectations - unusually for a city The Lonely Planet identifies Cartagena as the #1 must see in Colombia - and the city didn't disappoint. Cartagena, or at least the old part, juts out into the Carribean and is ringed by a defensive wall intended to protect the city from naval attack.

We'd picked up plenty of advice and information about Cartagena during our travels all of which had been broadly positive and suggested we should base ourselves in the old town (the walled part of the city) and allow a couple of days to see the sights. We'd booked into a hostel in a central location near San Diego Plaza. It was a comfortable enough place with a small pool - very handy in Cartagena's hot and humid climate - although not quite scaling the heights of our hostel in Santa Marta.

Cartagena is a maze of narrow streets seemingly designed to catch out the directionally challenged. Despite plenty of squares and an abundance of distinctive buildings to act as landmarks it was a feature of our stay that I would find myself continually surprised and sometimes baffled by what lay round the corner. Perhaps all those cities laid out in an accessible grid pattern had spoiled me for more challenging navigation. It's the wall that makes the city and makes sure you can never stay lost for long. The wall was a response to repeated raids by British and French privateers in the 16th and early 17th centuries - including "the pirate Francis Drake" who raided the city in 1586. (I tried to explain to our guide that Admiral Sir Francis Drake was a great British hero responsible for vanquishing the Spanish Armada but was met by the sceptical laugh of one who is not to be gulled by an English tourist with a quirky sense of humour).

The walls themselves are several metres thick and 8 - 10 metre high, testifying to Cartagena's importance to the Spanish Empire as the main point of departure for gold and other riches heading from the New World back to the Old. Nowadays they serve a more peaceful purpose, beautifully framing the Old Town as well as making an excellent place for an evening's walk or a couple of beers whilst watching a Carribean sunset.

Within the walls UNESCO World Heritage status preserves the character of the Old Town by limiting the style of buildings to traditional Spanish one and two storey townhouses, which seem to nod towards a Moorish influence - shaded courtyards and balconies under the eaves providing some relief from the sun. We'd actually arrived in the wet season but this did not translate into any shortage of sunshine, rather the weather was humid as well as hot and from time to time the humidity would translate into a heavy shower that would clear as quickly as it arrived. Best, in these conditions, to get sightseeing done early in the day (the football scheduled for 11am and 3pm being a mere coincidence, all be it a happy one).

We left our hostel early to head out to the fort of San Felipe De Barajas, which overlooks the walled Old Town. Even at 8 in the morning the day was already hot, although the early start did allow us to beat the crowds and meant that at least initially we pretty much had the fort to ourselves. The fort is the largest and most impressive example of Spanish military architecture in South America. Whilst the city walls protected Cartagena from attack by sea the fort guards the neck of of the isthmus that joins it to the mainland. It was originally commissioned in 1630 and having undergone various revisions and reinforcements finally reached its current formidable scale and shape in 1790. It sits on a small hill with a commanding view over what would have been mosquito-infested marshland - an additional defensive line that could decimate any would-be besieging army. It successfully conveys its purpose - to give off such an air of impregnability that it's mere sight would act as a deterrent. It achieves this through a bewildering number of different buttresses and ramparts that establish a multitude of different levels and lines of fire.

We hired audioguides and spent the next couple of hours happily wandering the ramparts and exploring the tunnels that connect the different parts of the fort whilst listening to the violent fate that would meet any attackers - basically if the mosquitoes don't get you the crossfire must and in the unlikely event that some part of the defences are breached the fort can turn in on itself, collapsing tunnels and destroying bridges to isolate the invested area before training its guns on it. Eventually the heat and the growing crowds got to us and we beat a retreat back to the shade of the Old Town and the comfort of an air conditioned bar for Germany v USA.

Our days adopted a comfortable pattern of sightseeing and football. In addition to the fort we visited various churches and museums. Finally after failures in Bogota and Santa Marta we found a "Gold" Museum that was open - artefacts from indigenous cultures, including but not limited to golden jewellery. We visited the Museum of the Inquisition, at which our guide did a convincing job explaining the gruesome uses to which the various instruments of persuasion were put. But mostly we just wandered the streets enjoying the relaxed ambience and sampling some of Cartagena's many fine restaurants.

I have rather let lapse my occasional accounts of food in South America and am afraid that there will not now be any opportunity to put this right. However, no account of Cartagena would be complete without mentioning the excellence of Cartagena's dining and a couple of restaurants in particular. As the name suggests La Cevicheria specialises in ceviche and is particularly renowned for the spiciness of its sauce. I resisted the ceviche (but can attest to the spiciness of the sauce) and went instead for the Minorcan salad - a big plate of seafood in a citrus and sesame dressing served on a salad of tomatoes, olives, lettuce, star fruit and mozzarella - delicious. But this meal was outdone by our evening at El Santissimo. In my admittedly limited experience it's always a good sign when the waitress brings the bottle of gin to the table to pour your gin and tonic. I had the obatala, Carribean beef stew, which was delicious, absolutely the equal of some of my fine dining experiences in Cusco and Lima.

The one thing we signally failed to do whilst in Cartagena was successfully plan our exit strategy. We had discussed heading up to San Andres, a Colombian island that sits in the Carribean, about 800 kilometres north of Cartagena. However, we'd been reluctant to book flights until we knew how much time we wanted to spend in Cartagena. When it came to booking flights it seemed to me the best strategy would be for John to book his own since he would need a return to continue his travels on from Cartagena, whilst Penny and I would need singles since we would not need to return to Cartagena for our respective ongoing journeys. Unfortunately, whilst John was able to sort out his flight the plane was full when Penny and I came to book, leaving John to blaze a trail for us on his own whilst we kicked our heals in Cartagena before joining up with him a couple of days later. Still there are worse places to be stranded, at least we wouldn't go hungry and there was always the football...

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Photos

Too much time on our hands?
Arty shot of the shadow cast by my beer taken whilst waiting for the football to restart.

Comments

[D MJ Binkley]

Cartagena
A city we really want to explore and your lack of planning gave you all the time you needed! Really enjoyed the blog.