Cartagena

Our first experience of the South American continent came about yesterday with our arrival into Cartagena de Indias, the fifth largest city in the Republic of Colombia. Although Colombia was already populated by indigenous peoples, the 'discovery' of this new land by the Spanish led to the construction of Cartagena. The city was founded in 1533 by the explorer, Don Pedro de Heredia, and was used as a shipping gateway for exporting emeralds and gold back to Spain.

Despite evolving into a modern city with contemporary sky scrapers, condominiums and a thriving oil industry, Cartagena has fortunately managed to preserve its colonial old town, complete with city walls and fortress. Due to the historical significance of the buildings, architecture and monuments, the area has been designated as a UNESCO world heritage site.

The ship berthed in at the commercial docks around 0700hrs and a fleet of coaches was waiting to whisk us and other passengers off on the various shore excursions.  We opted for a horse and carriage tour of the old town as we felt this would be the best way to see the buildings and streets, in the strong morning sunshine.

A coach transfer was used to get us from the docks to the old town, and on the way, we spent a few minutes at the San Felipe fortress, built to defend the city from attack during the 17th century. Although the city had fallen to several siege attacks during this era, a strengthening of the defences meant that the last major invasion in 1741 led by British and American colonial forces, was unsuccessful.  With fewer than 6000 men, the city successfully defended itself from an invading force of over 23000.

We arrived in the old town area and transferred onto the horse-drawn carriage for a 50 minute tour of the old city streets. It was hot, very hot, in the town, and we passed several other tour groups on guided walking tours, who looked like they were starting to suffer from the intense, stifling heat.  The carriage proceeded at a leisurely pace through the streets, and with its open top, allowed us to easily photograph the area as we passed. Many of the buildings were painted in vibrant colours, and we learned that those with wooden balconies were predominantly from the colonial era, whereas those with stone or concrete balconies dated from the republican era - after Colombian independence from Spain was recognised in 1819.

At the end, we had about 30 minutes to explore on our own. There are a lot of street vendors in this area, who try to sell fake goods (cigars, perfumes etc) and other tat. They are neither aggressive nor persistent, although the sheer number of them does get a little annoying after a while.  Thirty minutes was quite sufficient, and  after purchasing some local souvenirs, we headed back to the coach for the transfer to the ship.

We left Cartagena shortly before 1400hrs yesterday and set an easterly course for the overnight journey to Aruba. We are due to arrive in the island's capital, Oranjestad, at about 1300hrs today.