Cartagena, Colombia

 We wake up and sit out on our balcony while the ship is pulling into Cartagena.

This is the only time we have ever been to South America, so this is exciting! It doesn't look how I imagined. It actually has quite a large "new city" with many skyscrapers. I later find out that over a million people live in Cartagena.

We eat breakfast and then meet Monica and Bob outside at 10. We decide that Bob will negotiate the cab because he can speak a little Spanish. Bob has managed to find a hand-fan for Monica and I, which I thank him for, but don’t think I’ll need. Holy was I wrong! We were barely out of the pier and I was already dripping with sweat. I don’t remember ever feeling this hot! Bob negotiates with the cabbie and he drops us off at some market in the old town.

It is just regular tourist junk so we decide to find the Inquisition Palace, which is one of the places I had read about in my research. I’m feeling a little nervous because we appear to be off the beaten track, but my super Steve manages to figure out where we are and how to get to where I want to be using our map (which is in Spanish).

We go through the Inquisition Palace, which is a medieval torture museum and see a lot of interesting things.

Steve demonstrating how being tortured looks!

All the explanations are in Spanish, which is tricky, but between Steve and I we manage to figure out what most of the stuff is. I am certainly glad I’m not living back in medieval times, let’s just say that!

No thank you!!!

The only thing I can find in English is the 25 questions they asked witches, and those made me laugh🤣 One of my favourites was something like, “Which people and demons attended your wedding?”. I’m sure many women admitted they had demons at their wedding…

In case you need to check if someone is a witch, here are some questions to get you started!

We wander through the streets some more taking pictures of the gorgeous buildings… there are some amazing and beautiful looking buildings, but the city needs some serious cleaning up. We decide to go check out the fortress and then head back to the ship.

We find a guy who we think is a cabbie that says he will take us to the fortress for $15 bucks. We’re hot so we just agree. He passes us off to some other guy, who takes us out to some other guy and puts us in his cab. They talk in Spanish and the cabbie slips guy number two some money. Steve says San Felipe Fortress and the guy says what I think is “barca?”. This exchange repeats a few times and the cabbie calls guy number two back. He gets in the cab they talk in Spanish some more, we drive a little bit, and then guy number two says $15 to the fort, and then another $15 to the boat. We say sure, the cabbie slips him some more money and then guy #2 turns around and says how about a few more dollars for me to get a Coca Cola? I laugh at him and say you already got your money… he laughs, shakes our hands and gets out.

We go check out the fortress which has a great view, but a steep climb.

We take some photos and I am getting REALLY HOT.

Don't go into the light!

So I convince Steve to go back to the boat. Our trusty cabbie is waiting and drives us a long way back to the boat.

Now, here is a little travel tip from Lisa Marta. When I researched Cartagena online people said you could walk to the old town from the ship, and you could walk from the old town to the fort. I am here to tell you to take a cab. It is hot, far, and doesn’t look that safe. This is not the place to save on cab fare!

We get back on the boat. I am dying of heat… I say to one of the guys as we get on “it’s hot!” he jokes back “do you mean me?” I tell him that’s exactly what I meant! 😉

We go back to the room and I have a cold shower. I think of Neil, and am reminded that Neil does this all the time. Neil… this is the only time a cold shower is a good idea!!!! My wonderful Steve gets me some ice cream with marshmallows and chocolate chips and we also share a little bowl of M&M’s and sour candies. (This could get dangerous!) We decide to laze around and watch a movie. They have tons of choices of free on-demand movies. We start watching one, but we both fall asleep.

Luckily, Steve manages to wake up to make his dance practice appointment with Adele, and I stay back in the room to “relax and enjoy”. Well really, I had to… the Captain made an announcement that said “it’s time to relax and enjoy”… being the rule-follower that I am, I decide to do exactly that!

We head to dinner to find out that the heat kicked a lot of people’s butts today. The dining room has a lot of empty chairs and 4 of our 6 table mates don’t show up. Dinner is excellent again! I am trying to drink a truckload of water to rehydrate (this is how you know it’s hot… I really don’t like water).

After dinner we dance a little bit to the live band in the grand foyer, then go to the show. It was a variety show with some singing and some comedy. It was pretty good. Just when you were starting to get bored of someone, someone else would come on.

Then we headed to the disco. No one was there. Steve chatted up the disc jockey (who happens to be from Montreal) and he started playing some music we liked. We did a little dancing and then sat at the bar talking to our new friend Hector, the bartender.

My new friend, Hector

Hector tells us about all the places he’s been with the cruise ship and a little about his family. He is learning to throw the bottles around, so we watch him do that a bit, drink a few mudslides and do a bit more dancing.

Here is Hector throwing the bottles around!

We were there about two hours, and literally 10 other people came in all night and perhaps 4 of them danced for about 1 song only. The dance instructor (who is also the assistant cruise director) comes in and we talk to him for a bit (he lived in Esquimalt for a month). Then the cruise director comes in (he’s from Vancouver) to talk to him, and we all chat for a bit. We find out that tomorrow is 80’s night in the disco and the staff are going to teach us all a “Thriller” dance. (Ah, if only Lee was here, this night is for him!) We head to bed after midnight and have to actually set the alarm so we don’t miss our Panama excursion in the morning.