We saw some giant knockers!
The time we saw some giant Colombian knockers
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| The Old City |
Our last Colombian destination Cartagena was definitely
a welcome break from the city life. Apparently this is THE honeymoon spot for
Colombians. It is simply idyllic we stayed somewhere along the beach front
between the airport and the old town, but so close we could walk to either.
Our accommodation was right on the sea front and contained a very friendly dog called Dante. At least he seemed friendly but he growled at you and wagged his tail whenever you stroked him, very mixed messages! But he was good company for our time there, most mornings greeting us with a wag of his tail and then following us around, he even tried licking the sand of our legs from the windswept beach outside.
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| Dante the Dog |
Our accommodation was right on the sea front and contained a very friendly dog called Dante. At least he seemed friendly but he growled at you and wagged his tail whenever you stroked him, very mixed messages! But he was good company for our time there, most mornings greeting us with a wag of his tail and then following us around, he even tried licking the sand of our legs from the windswept beach outside.
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| Colourful houses of Cartagena |
The town is an old fortress from the 1600s made
from aquatic fossil stones from the surrounding area. It was originally a
Spanish colony and later became a huge place for trade in South America, and
the Caribbean. It sold a lot of raw materials from this area and also was known
for the selling of slaves of both African and Hispanic descent. During its
history it saw the fall of the Incan empire that was one of the largest Empires
in the world, larger than European empires (at the time) and even Chinese
empires. The Incan empire spanned across Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile, and
Peru and was brutally taken down by Spanish Colonization. 60-70% of the empires
inhabitants died not just in battle but due to the spread of disease. It has
been described as the largest and most effective use of germ warfare ever seen;
it goes as far as to state that no battle was won, where the germs had not
taken hold of the population. Of those who remained many were enslaved or
killed or sent back to Europe, on trials to see whether they were deemed human,
or whether they had a soul. Robert De Nero did a film called 'The Missionary'
which really highlights the declassification of these people despite them
actually having very significant advancements and societies for the time.
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| The Sea Fossil Wall |
Following this colonization most of the
treasures of the ancient kingdoms were stolen and melted into gold coins which
kept Spain and Europe afloat and wealthy throughout the ages (and also helped
fund that pesky war with Napolean). This is possibly why it took us to Bogota
till we actually saw some ancient Incan gold. There is however a gold museum
here in Cartagena and an emerald one. Having visited one recently we didn't
feel the need to go to another gold museum.
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| A flowery house next to the Inquisition Palace |
We did however visit the Spanish Inquisition
museum, for crime and punishment of anything Popey, but particularly those
crimes that offended the church and usurped nuggets of its power. Such as
sorcery, witchcraft, Heresy, solicitation, being Jewish and practicing it,
sodomy and having a varied book shelf. (Sound familiar..? Cough cough Nazis...
Cough cough.)
They had a few pain inflicting instruments, a
hangman's noose, a French Revolution head chopper and a couple of cannons. All
in all a bit sad really, in the 200 years of The Spanish reign here, with the
court of the inquisition set up there, 900 people died at the hands of the
state and particularly the church. This museum is quite interesting, there are
a few floors of it, my particular favorite room was the LGBTQ+ room, where
rainbows and colourful outfits abounded in a Carnival-esque way. It did seem a
bit out of place in a museum that punished people for being against the status
quo..... But on reflection perhaps it's the best place for it. One of the outfits the model was wearing was
a skirt completely made of thorns (and the odd Pom Pom), one wouldn't want to
sit down wearing that.
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| Silly move? |
So one of the best places we went was the
chocolate shop, the museum upstairs was a bit basic, but in this chocolate shop
you got to try all the chocolate you wanted. I willingly obliged, and 20mins
later had definitely had my fill of this lovely chocolate. Most of it was
pretty pricey, way more than you would pay in the UK for a leading brand, but it
was yummy. They even did chocolate spreads with random fillings like peanut
butter, passion fruit and dried tangerine (eww).
Now we also visited this place on our last day, we were happily sat in the park by the inquisition palace when I looked at Andrew, smiled and said 'Chocolate museum?' It didn't take a lot of convincing. Now thankfully Wednesday appears to be tourist invasion from the cruise ships day. It makes the street sellers and taxi drivers a little more eager to hassle, but it provides the perfect cover to scoff our body weight in chocolate, not that we held back on the first day. But the best part was that we even got a free drink of iced chocolate! It was a little like an ice coffee but with chocolate instead and was really chocolatey (Their hot chocolate samples were a bit naff and milky) so this was very welcome, especially with the heat outside. I would recommend that you visit it, but unfortunately after our visit they went bankrupt... nothing to do with me...
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| The street down to the Chocolate Museum |
Now we also visited this place on our last day, we were happily sat in the park by the inquisition palace when I looked at Andrew, smiled and said 'Chocolate museum?' It didn't take a lot of convincing. Now thankfully Wednesday appears to be tourist invasion from the cruise ships day. It makes the street sellers and taxi drivers a little more eager to hassle, but it provides the perfect cover to scoff our body weight in chocolate, not that we held back on the first day. But the best part was that we even got a free drink of iced chocolate! It was a little like an ice coffee but with chocolate instead and was really chocolatey (Their hot chocolate samples were a bit naff and milky) so this was very welcome, especially with the heat outside. I would recommend that you visit it, but unfortunately after our visit they went bankrupt... nothing to do with me...
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| Iced Chocolate! Win! |
One particularly interesting part of this
colourful town is its knockers. Yes you read right, giant knockers.......
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| Knockers...? |
...door knockers. Why what were you thinking?
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| A Lizard's knockers... I mean Lizard Knocker |
This town has an array of large door knockers
from giant heads, crabs, fish and Lizards some as big as my arm, we enjoyed
looking at these knockers. Apparently (originally) the door knockers were used to denote the residents Lizards for Royalty, Lions for Teachers and Fish for Merchants or sea people (people who worked on the sea, not mermaids...). Unfortunately we couldn't find anywhere to purchase
some knockers so we shall return home knockerless.
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| One of the colourful houses here |
We looked in some of the churches and cathedrals
in the area, these were, despite the colourful exterior, unremarkable, other
than they had a lot of fans:
This helped us defeat,
the hellish heat,
That nearly knocked us to our seat,
It was no mean feat,
We were nearly beat,
By the thirty five degree heat.
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| The City wall leading to the sea |
Anywhoo, later on in the history of this area,
Cartagena decided to leave Spain, gain independence, because they wanted people
of all classes and races and origins to be accepted as citizens. Spain didn't
really wanna to accept them as real or equal people so said 'no you can't.'
Then sent a large army to beat up everybody, 6000 everybodies, and kept them
under Spanish rule for another 5 years. Until they finally gained their
independence and actually became a safe haven for people who had been enslaved
whilst there was continued turmoil in the more southerly kingdoms. Good news. They even built the largest fortress outside of Spain in Cartagena, today it is just a massive hill with a castle on it dwarfed by skyscrappers all around. It is also one of the most expensive attractions in Colombia where you pay even more for a guide to tell you what it is. So we gave it a miss as it didn't seem worth it.
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| San Felipe Castle |
Cartagena is definitely up an coming on the food
front, there are many great restaurants and
coffee shops around. A particularly interesting thing about the area is
that due to the aforementioned safe haven status, it contains quite the medley
of flavors and styles.
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| The Clock Tower |
One of which we frequented was a coffee book
shop with air conditioning woo! Where they did a range of things including a
cold coffee that looked like a science experiment! In was made in science
beakers and dripped through a series of IV lines until you got a cup of cold
coffee. See the picture below. I wouldn't have thought you could even make one
on your lunch break it was so slow. Thankfully, they did hot and quick coffee
too. The bookshop was called Abaco, if you want to take a look.
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| This makes coffee? |
We oddly had some fish
that tasted like Stilton, we have no idea what fish it was...? There was no sauce on it just an overwhelming
stilton taste. But these came with Patacones (or fried plantain) and coconut
rice, which could have been more coconutty. They were pretty good overall. The best meal by far was a kebab place called Novo Grill. We had Pita breads with Grilled Kebab Pork and was amazing! It came with amazing salads of different varieties and sauces such as Harissa, Garlic and Tzatziki.
Another particularly interesting place we went
to was called Beer and Laundry, and yes, they do laundry and beer and pretty
good pizza too! It was very thin and crispy.
On our final day we headed to a place called Quero Arepa. Now sadly after our Arepa experience in Ecuador we were a little disappointed by the Arepas we'd had in Medellin and Bogota. They were kind of lumpy and gritty and often served cold which didn't work as well. Admittedly Bogota we bought them from the supermarket and heated them up in our awkward kitchen in the studio flat we were staying in. Thankfully Cartagena did not disappoint, I had shredded beef arepa with cheese which was incredibly flavorsome with nice herbs on it. Andrew's was fried onions and Cuban style pork which was amazingly tasty and smoky. These came with two local beers and we were content. But despite saying let's take photos before tucking in, we forgot (the curse of Wellington!) and so here is all that was left...
The rest of our day included looking around a few shops at all of their colourful wares and then a repeat visit to the Novo Grill for dinner. Colombia has been really good, the food has been great from Tamales and Hot Chocolate in Bogota, Cake, Lechona and waffles in Medellin and Kebabs, coffee and arepas in Cartagena. I think it's fair to say we've eaten well. The attractions have been pretty good too, we enjoyed all the Botero stuff (even though if we'd stayed longer we'd look like one of them) We also enjoyed Las Lajas and the Salt Cathedral too. Although Medellin was not quite what we expected Cartagena certainly delivered. But alas all good things must come to an end. Tomorrow we fly off to Mexico, our final destination. We are visiting a few places and so may be writing a little more often as we pass through, take a sneak peek of our itinerary here. Have a nice day!
Love Olivia and Andrew
See some more of our posts
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| This might have been from our second visit... |
On our final day we headed to a place called Quero Arepa. Now sadly after our Arepa experience in Ecuador we were a little disappointed by the Arepas we'd had in Medellin and Bogota. They were kind of lumpy and gritty and often served cold which didn't work as well. Admittedly Bogota we bought them from the supermarket and heated them up in our awkward kitchen in the studio flat we were staying in. Thankfully Cartagena did not disappoint, I had shredded beef arepa with cheese which was incredibly flavorsome with nice herbs on it. Andrew's was fried onions and Cuban style pork which was amazingly tasty and smoky. These came with two local beers and we were content. But despite saying let's take photos before tucking in, we forgot (the curse of Wellington!) and so here is all that was left...
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| They were good though |
The rest of our day included looking around a few shops at all of their colourful wares and then a repeat visit to the Novo Grill for dinner. Colombia has been really good, the food has been great from Tamales and Hot Chocolate in Bogota, Cake, Lechona and waffles in Medellin and Kebabs, coffee and arepas in Cartagena. I think it's fair to say we've eaten well. The attractions have been pretty good too, we enjoyed all the Botero stuff (even though if we'd stayed longer we'd look like one of them) We also enjoyed Las Lajas and the Salt Cathedral too. Although Medellin was not quite what we expected Cartagena certainly delivered. But alas all good things must come to an end. Tomorrow we fly off to Mexico, our final destination. We are visiting a few places and so may be writing a little more often as we pass through, take a sneak peek of our itinerary here. Have a nice day!
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| View from the Marina |
Love Olivia and Andrew
See some more of our posts
- Overview
- European Ecstasy
- Adventures in Asia
- Pacific Paradise
- Southern South American Splendour
- Central Celestial Scenes
- Incan Delights
- Heading North
- Mexican Madness
Check out some more of our pictures here and what we're up to currently.
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