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Published: June 29th 2007
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We have done some sightseeing around Cartagena by boat and Chiva and bus. Every trip was enjoyable and showed another facet of this really lovely place. Our first trip was by boat to an aquarium and beach. There were dolphins sharks, many types of large fish, sea turtles and tropical fish. The aquarium had walkways around the ocean that was fenced off for the creatures. I believe the dolphins could have jumped out if they wanted to. The guides threw fish to show us how they snapped them up and swam for food. The dolphins did a bit of a show. It truly was a lovely setting. Some of the islands we passed by were very tiny and had homes on them that covered them in total. Not a spare inch of land left. I don't know how they get on in a very high tide.
Then off in the boat to Playa Blanca, this is a really typical Carribean type of beach, or what I imagined them to be like. White sand, coconut palms, thatched huts, warm blue water. We had lunch there and it was fish, then down to the beach. The only problem was we were approached
by people giving us gifts of oysters and souvenirs of oysters and then wanting 40 mil for them. Paul told them no way, and paid 2 mil for his lot and 1 mil for mine. I wanted to pay with a souvenirs from home!
This was a really lovely day and the boat trip was about 2 hours each way. On the way home we heard thunder and thought we could be in for some rain. It thundered away for the rest of the day and at night we could see lightening. We thought of going to watch the lightening show but were too tired so off to bed. About 2 am it started to rain, thunder and crashing lightening. What awoke me was rain on me. I thought it was coming in the window, but no. It was pouring through the ceiling and the fan was turning it into a shower. We had to get the gear off the floor because it was getting deeper and we had to move the bed into a dry spot. It was a true inundation. In the morning we told the hotel owner and he had trouble believing us because most of
the water had drained through the floor or evaporated in the 30 plus heat overnight. I spoke to other people in the Hotel and they hadn't had any problem or even heard the rain.
We had organised another bus trip and off we went in very fine hot weather. We went to Volcan de Lodo El Totumo. This is a mud volcano that has stairs built up the side and you climb up and sit in it. This was something really different to do. The volcano was about 30 meters above ground and the top of the cone was about 4 meters across with a mud pool fenced off and the inside was the consistency of piklet mix. In we went. A most strange feeling because you couldn't sink, or turn and you bobbed around like a cork. It was very hard to move across from one side to the other. You could hold onto the sides and push down with all effort and go down to your shoulders and bob back up. After a soak in the volcano I got out to wash off in the local lake. I went back up to collect my camera off a
man looking after it and Paul was still in and the bus was waiting to leave. He liked it too much. WE were taken to another lovely beach for a swim and lunch, more fish.
We went on a Chiva bus trip to some of the sights of Cartagena. This included a huge fort built to help keep pirates away and protect the town. It was amazing technology and took up a whole hill. We also visited the Convento de la Popa, built on the top of another hill overlooking the whole city. We could hear loud music coming up from the neighbourhoods below. We visited an emerald jewelery shop and unfortunately, I am going to return home without any jewels, they were very expensive. We walked home from the posh side of town to Getsemani, the best part where we stayed. We felt quite tired after another long day.
We were hanging around to post a parcel home on the Monday and we found out it was a holiday, so we had to cart around our packs and a box to our next stop which was Taganga.
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