Cartagena: a Taste of Colonial History
After a restful but hot night, we got up to a huge and delicious breakfast served outside in the lovely garden/courtyard. At breakfast, we spoke more with our supernice señora (hotel owner) who offered to reserve a tour of the city for us for the afternoon. We also met a couple from Mexico with whom we ended up spending the rest of the afternoon and evening. Before the tour we walked around the city taking pictures of the beautiful streets and balconies. To the dismay of the museum geek inside of me, most of the museums were closed since it was Sunday. The only one open was the museum of Naval history, which turned out to be an interesting exposition of the history of all the forts in Cartagena, insights on all the other colonial powers that tried to attach this main gateway to the South American riches (among them Sir Francis Drake and Edward Vernon, a relative of George Washington…see Mount Vernon in Alexandria). It also offered an interesting exhibit of different types of ships starting from the Vikings and the Roman Empire and up to the present day.
We had lunch at a typical comedor-type restaurant with a very nice owner who got very excited to know our countries of origin, especially Stephan’s (Germany) and brought us a free appetizer and a huge plate of fish (the fish was served in its entirety with head, tail, and bones). Turns out that don Armando is from Medellin, or Paisa country, as the area is called, where people are very hospitable and friendly (I saw proof of it when Don Armando took a huge plate of soup to a homeless lady that was begging outside of the restaurant).
The tour of the city was done in a trolley-style bus…however, while the same type of buses in DC comfortable accommodate passengers, this was latin-style bus where people had to squish tightly (they kept putting more and more people on the bus). Our guide, Rafa, was a jolly fellow who knew a lot and explained everything in both Spanish and English (for a gringo on our bus).
We first saw a former Augustinian monastery located on mountain called La Popa (since it is located at the end of the mountain range that looks like a ship, with this particular part resembling the end-tail of a ship). It had an interesting history: once, it was a place where the indigenous and black slaves hid from the Spaniards. They set up an alter with a golden goat. Once the Augustin Frey came there, he threw the goat down the back end of the mountain and had the leader of the group burnt at stake (Turns out that Cartagena has a long history of the Inquisition presence). From the top, we were also able to get a full view of Cartagena, realizing that there is a lot more to the city that just the historic center that we are staying in: there is a business center that almost looks like any big city in the US with skyscrapers towering in the horizon, a residential area with historic houses called Getsemani, and, of course, a slum area.
Our next stop was a former military fort called San Felipe. It was built on the highest hill in the city and was strategically crafted to give a good view of all the other fortifications. It consisted of different towers of various heights so that if one was attacked by the enemy, it could be destroyed by the cannons from the others. It also had tunnels that could be used by the soldiers to move around without being seen by the enemies, and passageways that allowed one to see what was going on at the bottom of the stairs, but not the other way around.
Exhausted and full of various historical facts, we ate dinner outside on one of the main plazas and enjoyed the relative coolness of the night air and the company of our new Mexican friends.
We had lunch at a typical comedor-type restaurant with a very nice owner who got very excited to know our countries of origin, especially Stephan’s (Germany) and brought us a free appetizer and a huge plate of fish (the fish was served in its entirety with head, tail, and bones). Turns out that don Armando is from Medellin, or Paisa country, as the area is called, where people are very hospitable and friendly (I saw proof of it when Don Armando took a huge plate of soup to a homeless lady that was begging outside of the restaurant).
The tour of the city was done in a trolley-style bus…however, while the same type of buses in DC comfortable accommodate passengers, this was latin-style bus where people had to squish tightly (they kept putting more and more people on the bus). Our guide, Rafa, was a jolly fellow who knew a lot and explained everything in both Spanish and English (for a gringo on our bus).
We first saw a former Augustinian monastery located on mountain called La Popa (since it is located at the end of the mountain range that looks like a ship, with this particular part resembling the end-tail of a ship). It had an interesting history: once, it was a place where the indigenous and black slaves hid from the Spaniards. They set up an alter with a golden goat. Once the Augustin Frey came there, he threw the goat down the back end of the mountain and had the leader of the group burnt at stake (Turns out that Cartagena has a long history of the Inquisition presence). From the top, we were also able to get a full view of Cartagena, realizing that there is a lot more to the city that just the historic center that we are staying in: there is a business center that almost looks like any big city in the US with skyscrapers towering in the horizon, a residential area with historic houses called Getsemani, and, of course, a slum area.
Our next stop was a former military fort called San Felipe. It was built on the highest hill in the city and was strategically crafted to give a good view of all the other fortifications. It consisted of different towers of various heights so that if one was attacked by the enemy, it could be destroyed by the cannons from the others. It also had tunnels that could be used by the soldiers to move around without being seen by the enemies, and passageways that allowed one to see what was going on at the bottom of the stairs, but not the other way around.
Exhausted and full of various historical facts, we ate dinner outside on one of the main plazas and enjoyed the relative coolness of the night air and the company of our new Mexican friends.
posted by HM at
11:03 AM
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