Day 12-Island Princess-Cartagena, Columbia

My first-born’s BD today. I hope the flowers I ordered before we left actually get delivered today. I was able to call her on Skype from the ship internet, Viber would not work, not sure why. She didn’t pick up so all my effort was in vain. I was so flustered by the time I finally got through I said “Happy Anniversary” at first in the phone message. Of course I realized my mistake immediately…but… It didn’t work out to call my Mom the other day either. Soooo - Off we go for our excursion. We were immediately loaded on busses, I will say they seem very organized about excursions. First we drove through town on the “island” of Manga up to the La Popa Monastery built in the 17th century. We had excellent views over many portions of the city due to strategic location of the monastery. On the way up there were stations of the cross and I am sure at Easter there is a great pilgrimage here. 50% of the country is Catholic with a total of 75% Christian including the Catholic from what the guide said. From this point we went back down the mountain and saw a few significant buildings along the way, old churches domes, the clock tower, symbol of the city and various ocean views along the way to the Columbian Navy Museum. We saw various artifacts there and then in a building right next to it we watched a folklore show and were offered ice cold bottled water. Leaving this area we proceeded along the modern residential area of Bocagrande, famous for shops, restaurants and hotels. Along the coastline the shore actually crosses the road at some points. I didn’t quite understand and when he mentioned sewage I really didn’t want to know details. The places we went were mostly pretty clean whereas there were areas we drove by that were covered with litter and several areas where it was washed up into corners of the water flow. Our guide warned us the peddlers are aggressive but a firm NO GRACIAS will stop them. If you are at all interested, they really don’t give up. Braulio, our guide, also warned us they expect to bargain to about 50% of the initial asking price. I thought some cute “silver” earrings were nice but not for $20 since surely they are not silver. I got them for $5.  Our final photo opportunity was the largest Spanish fort in the New World, Fort of San Felipe de Barajas, originally built in the 17th century. It was pretty amazing as we viewed it from the Monastery as well. It was quite warm by this point in time so we were really glad we didn’t have the time option of hiking up to the top. I’m sure it was impressive. For us it was back to the ship by noon. We had lunch in the dining room, watched sail away and then watched a movie on TV. It was the Monuments Men, which is a movie I wanted to see when it came out a few years ago. It was based on a book, a true story, about the recovery of art at the end of WWII, we enjoyed that. Dinner rounded out the evening as we head toward Aruba.