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7 November
2000
Cartagena, Colombia
10*24.640N, 075*32.552
 Cartagena
has been a surprise. We were expecting just another Caribbean city
- too hot, overbuilt, and under-economized - but Cartagena is more
like dipping into the Med. History and modern sophistication blend
in a pleasing and elegant harmony.
Cartagena was
founded in 1533, and by mid century it was the major consolidation
point for the silver, gold and jewels being plundered from the New
World by the Spanish. As such it was a popular target for pirates.
In response to these attacks the Spanish built an elaborate defensive
system of walls, the main one encircling the town, but also linking
together outlying forts, which included a wall right across the
closest entrance to the inner bay. Although the city was subsequently
besieged by both the French and British navies, once the walls were
completed it was never again taken...until 1821 when Simon Bolívar
finally wrested the city - the last, insular outpost of the Spanish
- out from under Imperial rule. Indeed, the weeklong holiday celebrating
Cartagena's independence is just about to start!
 Most
of the defensive walls encircling the city are still in place, and
the Old Town has been preserved much as it was. To the south of
it extends the crooked elbow of the Boca Grande Peninsula with its
mix of modern high-rises and hotels. To the northeast rises two
of the city's most famous landmarks, Fort San Felipe, and, even
higher, the Convento de la Popa, (which has been restored by Augustine
monks and is now actually a monastery!) North and east of all this
sprawls your usual urban industrial spread, while tucked into an
armpit of the inner bay is Isla Manga, an upper middle class area
of old mansions and mid-rise apartment buildings, on the south edge
of which is Club Nautico...our home base.
 Neither
of Colombia's internal problems - the drug industry or the guerilla
war - is manifest in Cartagena itself, and by all accounts the city
sits apart from these issues. One analysis we heard before we came
was that this is where all the drug lords come to vacation and by
common agreement it is a demilitarized zone! There is some impact,
however. Although a couple of cruise ships a week fill the streets
with shoppers, their stay is brief, and the hotels and restaurants
are all but empty. Grocery stores are modern and well stocked, but
there are almost none of the international American products we
have come to take for granted in Trinidad, Venezuela and Curaçao!
On the other hand, someone is keeping this city alive!
 During
our first week we got a lot of things done, but almost nothing related
to typical touring activities. Our anchor windlass had gone "pee
weak" as Don would say, and he had had to weigh anchor by hand
our last two departures. In trying to determine the problem, Don
was a paragon of a troubleshooter, methodically checking contacts
and wiring from end to end of the system. Then he was sure it was
the Venezuelan battery we'd bought in Margarita. Finally he was
forced to open up the motor itself, where he found a broken brush
holder. By good fortune this is the kind of thing Cartagena excels
in, so much of our first week was spent negotiating our way through
battery and motor shops and "mechanical" Spanish. Thank
God for our friend Kathy Parsons' book Spanish for Cruisers, with
its extensive maintenance vocabulary! On the other hand, virtually
none of our other little projects will see completion as the stock
of general marine and rigging parts is very sparse. For example,
although every cruiser in port is hot for some spare fuel jugs,
no one has yet caved in to the $40 price tag on the one $20-diesel
jug in town. Similarly, the only line in sight is dock line.
While Don was
struggling with wire and multimeters, I was motivated to sit down
and write two articles about our trip, one for Cruising World and
one for the Commodore's Bulletin of the Seven Seas Cruising Organization.
I already have had a positive response from CW (email is a wonderful
thing) and they're the ones that pay!)
 Although
these efforts tied up our first days in Cartagena, they did not
stop us from indulging in the one area Cartagena excels: restaurants.
Whether little neighborhood joints a few blocks from the marina
or beautifully detailed places in the Old Town, eating out is a
great deal. We have barely eaten a handful of meals on the boat
since we got here! Highlights have been an all day brunch at Hotel
Santa Clara (afternoon in their fresh water pool), Café San
Pedro (Thai and sushi), Enotecha (Italian), Donde Orlano (French/Creole),
Crepes & Waffles (salads, crepes, & ice cream) plus the
side-by-side but nameless Mexican and Arab cafes a five-minute walk
away. Most days we do breakfast at Club Nautico with eggs, bacon,
toast, a plate of papaya & cantaloupe plus a papaya batido (smoothie)
for $2.
  We
finally tackled tourism properly this weekend. Saturday we did museums,
three in fact: The Gold Museum, The Inquisition Museum, and, what
else, the Maritime Museum. The most interesting part of the Gold
Museum was a display depicting the economical diversification of
the early Indians that permitted them to support the their gold
craftmanship. This had nothing directly to do with gold at all.
It was a huge hydrographical endeavor covering 500,000 hectares
of regularly-flooding land in inland Colombia. The Indians constructed
a system of canals and banks to allow the floodwater to drain. They
lived on and farmed the ridges between the canals, and apparently
cultivated a huge inland fishery in the waterways! It has all been
abandoned in modern times! There were some examples of pre-Columbian
gold in one room in the Museum but the fact is there is not much
of it left. It was all melted down and sent to Spain. The most interesting
things in the gold display room proved to be us...at least to the
school group visiting at the same time. (Have I mentioned that Americans
are very popular right now? Have I mentioned that nearly every Colombian
we meet thinks Don look like Bill Clinton?)
 The
Inquisition Museum was a no-holds barred collection of the atrocities
committed upon people who were accused of being in the grip of the
devil. Not only was there a torture chamber complete with the "rack,"
there was a whole room dedicated to the "proofs" women
accused of witchcraft were submitted to, and as you might guess
they were all no win situations. If you lived/survived, you were
a witch. If not, oops, sorry. I don't even want to touch what they
did to homosexuals. Let's hear no more complaints about television;
obviously these people had too much time on their hands.
 We
finished the day at the Maritime Museum, which had some delightful
models. On the first floor were models of old time ships, almost
none of which were labeled, plus some really great models of the
undersea terrain in not just the Bay of Cartagena, but the Caribbean
Sea and nearby Pacific. There were also models of every fort and
or battery that was ever constructed anywhere near the city. Upstairs,
there were more models depicting all the major sieges by sea the
city endured in its history. Pretty neat stuff.
Tourism 102,
an all-day guided tour with Hernando, a chubby, one-eyed English-speaking
guide, took place on Sunday. Six of us partook. We started at Convento
de La Popa, the monastery né convent that sits atop the city.
It has a longer formal name, but is called La Popa because it is
said to resemble the stern of an old time ship...only our guide
said "bow". None of us sailors saw the similarity, however
the two-story courtyard was of gorgeous stonework with dripping
bougainvillea and hibiscus, and the 360-degree view was irresistible.
  From
La Popa we drove 36k north of the city to Volcán de Lodo
el Totumo. This is a 45' high mud volcano rising from the shore
of a gorgeous lake, and according to the guidebook it is one of
the largest mud volcanoes in the world. The locals have quite a
little operation going giving mud baths and mud massages. You strip
down to your bathing suit (an old one is good - but not too old,
as it turned out), climb the mud cone via mud and stick steps, and
at the top lower yourself gently into the 10x10' crater. Imagine
lowering yourself into a giant tub of slightly-gritty, room temperature
chocolate pudding and you're there! Oh, by the way, there is no
bottom, but the mud buoys you up with no risk of heading for China.
Three young guys awaited us. Once immersed, they "float"
you and move you around like dead wood! It takes a little while
to really lie back and relax - indeed the giggling went on for some
time, but the massage gets you there pretty quickly. All in all
we were in there for an hour! Getting out proved half the fun. Our
friend Sam had made the bad call of that too-old bathing suit, and
it hung to her knees, the aged elastic no match for the weight of
the mud.  We
all about died laughing, but the guys were discrete and restrained
.... Relatively. From the crater, you mince carefully down another
"ladder" from which you are led to the lakeshore by a
team of ladies, who sluice you down with bowlfuls of water. At a
certain point the water, with water hyacinth pads floating all about,
becomes muddy enough that you remove your suit entirely which they
then scrub free of its mud load. For a simple set up, it's all amazingly
civilized! All this for 2000 pesos per person ($1).
From Totumo
we drove back south to "La Hacienda". This is a working
farm for raising bulls for the bull ring. Evidently, if you don't
make the cut for the ring, you end up as lunch in the restaurant.
They served us a great luncheon of beef and chicken done on a great
big grill, complete with salad, potatoes and guacamole. Just to
be different I opted for Sancocho, a traditional Sunday soup/stew
with a chunk of brisket, provision and a well-seasoned broth.
 Some
tour groups get to partake in bull training or horseback riding,
but not us. From the "Hacienda" we were driven back to
the city and straight into the heart of Boca Grande to the obligatory
Emerald Factory. Emeralds, along with coffee, are Colombia's other
well-known exports, and you can't take ten steps down a street without
someone offering you their special deal on emeralds. The fact is
that the best emeralds, along with the best coffee beans, are sent
out of the country for export. Indeed, it wasn't long ago that it
was illegal to keep premium examples of either in the country! The
Emerald Factory we were ushered to turned out to be fairly interesting
as we were shown the shop area with samples of the gem from rock
to finished product. It took ten whole dispassionate minutes before
we were ushered into the sales area! Don and I were fairly immune
as not only do neither of us wear any jewelry...but I'd already
indulged in a rather nice pair of emerald studs! I mean, after all,
we ARE in Colombia! Souvenirs, you know. I mean we've got our coffee
beans, we've got our emeralds, we're done!.......... Right? RIGHT!
One cruiser bought, so the rest of us were let off the hook, else
we might still be there today!
 After
a stop for ice cream, our reward for being good sports about the
sales pitch, we drove back to the Old Town to tour the Castillo
de San Felipe de Barajas, aka "the Fort". San Felipe is
a marvelous construction of sloping walls, turrets and tunnels.
Hernando, being a chubby, one-eyed, claustrophobic with high blood
pressure, does not do the Fort personally. He passed us off to a
"friend" who shortly passed us off to another rather rabbitty
fellow. Although this last guide struck us initially as being hyper/frenetic
with possibly an underlying disability, we were quickly won over
by his solid grasp of and passion for the history, including the
humor and the ironies of some of it, not to mention his determination
to get it all out in good English. This meant some sentences were
uttered about ten times to get it right. After exploring some of
the tunnels we left the San Felipe right at sunset. It was a great
day.
Although not
strictly Cartagena tourism, today's highlight was an afternoon tour
of the British Frigate Sutherland, the most modern frigate in the
British Navy. The Sutherland pulled into the dock east of our anchorage
yesterday, and a gala reception kept her lit up all night last night.
On the tour we found out that the honored guests included all the
Miss Colombia contestants! The Sutherland is finishing up a worldwide
deployment, circumnavigating east-about, the purpose of which was
essentially to remind everybody that the British Navy can get there
if it wants to! Our opportunity was arranged by Aussie cruisers
Peter & Margaret of Swarra II, who are to be commended for gamely
taking a whole pack of potentially disrespectful Americans along
with them. All I can say is we enjoyed the tour...and we got out
alive.
 And
so, just in the nick of time it would seem, we have got our touring
in, because we are RTG(ready to go).. It's kind of like Cinderella...when
the clock strikes, the clock strikes. The boat is fueled, the laundry
is done, I'll finish provisioning for the next two months tomorrow,
and our papers go to the officials first thing in hopes of getting
cleared out before the Independence holiday gets into full swing.
Given their fondness for firecrackers on an average night, I don't
think I want to be nearby for the Independence Day itself. Especially
with an armed frigate at close range. The Brits might think they
are under attack! I know we've thought so a couple of times!
So, on Thursday,
we hope to head out for a day or two in the Rosarios, an island
cluster just south of Cartagena, where there is clear water for
cleaning the growths off TIIs bottom. Then we'll depart on the 140-mile
passage to San Blas. Until then....
[MID: 1429_WP2AIL
Sent Via: K4CJX Date: 2000/11/07 23:20:25]
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