Colourful Cartagena

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Cartagena, Colombia

After holding our breath and getting through the gap over the ancient stone wall that was used to protect the harbour of Cartagena, we headed up past the skyline of the city of our first visit to South America. It was bloody exciting to be here and it seemed so strange to see the high rise apartment blocks and international hotels that we had not seen for months and months. We didn’t know a great deal about the city except that it was deemed to be one, if not the most beautiful cities in all of South America.

We motored up through the harbour to where the two marinas were and finally found our way to the Private Yacht Club called Club de Pesca where we had been so fortunate to have found a reservation. We got berthed up on the hammerhead and expected to be able to communicate relatively easy with the dock crew and anyone else working there. Not to be. As it turned out the dock master spoke a little English, the crew working the area spoke none and most of the office staff did not speak English at all. Fortunately, the Club Manager and one of the other office ladies, who happened to be named Yolanda spoke excellent English.

The Club had quite a few American and Canadian yachts and it wasn’t long before we made new friends and acquaintances as you tend to do. We arrived on a Friday morning and every Friday afternoon, evening, there is a happy hour at the Club bar where lots of yachties from this marina and as well as the other marina and anchorage get together so we had a great introduction to the place on the first night.

We met two Canadian families who had kids, Gary, Janine and their boys from High Five and Kev and Melissa and their boys from Solange. They invited us to accompany them to the local Italian restaurant for a cheap meal and a walk around the old town afterward, an invitation we jumped at it. After dinner we walked into the old town and were given a guided tour which was just brilliant and we soon realised why people rave about the old town so much.

We also caught up with the guys from Woolloomooloo and after a few beers, it was decided that we would by Simon's dinghy and outboard and add our old one into the bargain. This dinghy and outboard was the one that the kids had such a blast with wakeboarding in Bonaire and we knew it met our needs perfectly so naturally the kids were ecstatic at the purchase. We had, for so long, put up with a slow, wet inefficient 'water taxi' that was just too small for the five of us and the new beast is just brilliant, big and fast and dry - perfect combination.

We had some priorities to get done while we were there, including contacting an agent to attend to our immigration and customs requirements and we used a guy called David Arroyo who had been referred to us by the guys off Nika. David was great and not only did he help out with those obligatory requirements he also helped arranged the guys to get our boat to the Todomar Boat yard so we could get it lifted and have new anti foul applied. That work was done pretty painlessly and we took the boat over one morning, had it lifted, spent the day in the airconditioned mall while the bottom was painted and spent the night onboard on the hard stand and then back in the water the next day and back to the marina. Evidently everyone at the marina scoffed at the suggestion we would only be gone a night so we wiped a few smirks off some faces when we tied up mid afternoon with all the work done. The only slight problem we had was getting out of the boat yard as the tide was not quite as high as hoped and we needed a little help getting through the mud but apart from that Sunboy has a nice clean, bright blue bottom that will hopefully help us sail full steam ahead all the way back to home!!

We were still having problems with our VHF and we were able to get Sven, the local radio expert to come on board and run some tests and he determined that our original radio was perfectly ok, our main antenna connection was dodgy and our emergency VHF aerial had not been connected properly at the factory, So he refitted our old VHF which we then connected to our emergency aerial and at least we have some form of communication, all being well, that will see us out until we get to Panama City were we will get the new Raymarine tested at an authorised service centre.

We had heard that labour was very cheap at Cartagena and a good place to get your boat completely scrubbed clean and polished. Nikki and Luke do a brilliant job doing those things on a regular basis but we decided to give them a break and having this work done for 25 USD a day was a bit too good to pass up.

The downside to Cartagena was the fact that it was so incredibly hot and not being able to swim in the harbour and no swimming pool at the marina made the days pretty hard to cope with so it was no wonder that any chance to go to the big air-conditioned shopping mall was jumped at. We were finding Cartagena pretty cheap compared to other places and there was good access to nearby supermarkets and shops and Taxi’s into the old town were only a couple of dollars so it was easy and cheap to get into the old town and do the touristy bit as far as sightseeing was concerned.

I think I am pretty close to the mark by saying that the old town is about 500 years old and the original fort built overlooking the old town is absolutely majestic. After spending a few hours wandering around the battlements and exploring all the tunnels deep in the heart of it, it was easy to understand how the inhabitants of Cartagena were able to withstand such determined assaults by the British who laid siege for so long giving up and heading home with their tail between their legs.

The old town had such beautiful buildings and squares and parks and it was just fantastic to wander about, stopping for a bit to eat of a coffee and just taking it all in. I must say that I have not become a total fan of Colombian coffee, it has such incredible flavour and no hint of bitterness whatsoever so all being well we will have enough on board to see us home over the next few months.

We also made friends with Stuart and Trish who own a magnificent Discovery 67 and they were parked up behind us. These guys are from Scotland and are on their way around the world in their beautiful yacht. We were very fortunate to have been given the guided tour one day and no matter what I write, I would not be able to do justice to the description of how good their boat is.

Stuart and Trish were also friends with Phil and Krissie, our Aussie friends from Songline and one night the six of us went out to an Argentinean Steak House for dinner. After not having had a steak for quite a few months, the char grilled steak, washed down with a couple of bottles of Argentinean cab sav, we had was a meal to remember.

Not to let the kids feel left out, a couple of days later we treated them to a meal at the Hard Rock Café, a place where we always like to try and get to if there is one in any of the cities we are visiting. While still on the food side, the local Italian restaurant we went to on our first night was a very popular place to go to and when you consider that for lunch you got a soup and then a dish with meat, rice, beans and salad plus a drink for $2.50 you could not afford not to eat there!!! Apart from that they made sensation pizzas in the true traditional Italian style so it was not uncommon for a lunch and dinner session to be had on the one day.

After having the tragedy of losing our hard drive with all of our movies stored on it we thought Cartagena might be a source of someway to be able to replace them and as luck would have it, a number of street vendors sold suitable replacements. Heading off into the back of run down tenements with a few dollars in hand was an interesting experience to say the least, felt a bit like we were masterminding some dramatic drug deal but all was good, no knives in the back or guns to the head.

After the guys from Ghost arrived, we met up with them to give them the heads up about the place and spent some long awaited time together catching up on their travels and the places we had been to, along with making plans to catch up again in the San Blas and then, hopefully, get through the canal together.

There is no doubt that Cartagena has been the favourite place so far on our visits and it such a shame we didn’t have more time to spend exploring Colombia and other parts of South America but maybe next time. Our Spanish is improving little by little and we still have a few other places to go to practice some more. So now the time has come to get ready to head off for the San Blas Islands and then onwards to Panama. We are going to San Blas with the guys from High Five and it’s a bit over a hundred miles so we will leave early in the morning to make sure we make it there in time to clear the reefs without too much hassle. Debs has provisioned well so we won’t run out of food for the next couple of weeks, combined with what we can buy from the locals, all should be good.

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Photos

Cartagena
Night out at the steak house

People smuggling
Our technician, Harvier, getting deep inside the boat trying to fix the VHF aerial connections

The 'Fat Lady' Square, Cartagena
Lunch time

Comments

[Fran]

Wonderful place
Hi Guys, That looks liks such an interesting place. Love the picture of the lady with all the birds. Gee u guys could do a world trip on land and have accomodation all over the world. You have met some wonderful people on ur travels. Sending a big hug to u all. Love Fxx