Cartagena, Columbia

Cartagena Old Town was about 2 miles from the cruise termiinal. We took a good walk along the waterfront. We revisited our old anchorage off of Club Nautica and got run off the docks at Club de Pesca for trying to sneak into the "banos" without owning one of the rather large expensive motor yachts on display there. The Old Town was worth it though as the little streets were coming alive as we got there right about the time everything was starting to open up. After a little confusion in the coffee shop where we hadn't ordered enough to use a credit card and had no pesos we finally ate enough that they let us pay with the "tarjeto de credito" and left with several waters more then we really needed but the heat was serious and we were sweating pretty good on arrival back at the ship.
The town was interesting in that the tourist area was fairly quite but just a few blocks away the local people were swarming a neat little area of town doing all their last minute Christmas shopping. I say last minute but I suspect Christmas doesn't start in October down here so this may have just been a good day to shop.
Everywhere we passed they were having a Christmas party (the dock workers, the police station, etc) We only stayed until 1PM but I suspect that things closed down pretty early so that people could get ready for the night time festivities that, if the amount of decorations on everything was a sign, looked to be quite a party.
We sailed early to meet our schedule at the Panama Canal on Christmas Day. We are transiting early in the morning so Santa will have to find us at sea.Read more