On Sunday morning, we headed for the "Castillo San Felipe de Barajas," called "the fort." It is a huge structure began in 1656. It was finally completed in 1798 and was quite an engineering feat. The fort had 63 cannons and protected the city of Cartagena from Spanish and British invasions. There is a remarkable web of underground tunnels throughout the fort - and the design allowed footsteps to be heard in them long before any approach by enemy soldiers. The thick walls have sand in between them to absorb canon fire from the enemy. The huge statue in the front of the fort honors Don Blas de Lezo. He commanded a successful defense against the biggest attack of all from Edward Vernon in 1741. With only 2500 poorly trained and badly equipped young men, he took on Vernon's 25,000 English soldiers and 186 ships. The best part of the story is that Don Blas had already lost an eye, a leg and an arm in previous battles! In this Vernon battle - he lost his last leg and died soon after. But he's credited with saving Cartagena.
The fort is a busy place - even on an early Sunday morning. It seems to be the hangout for many young people who sit along the walls, making out and goofing around. The walk up to the fort is also lined with vendors selling straw hats, t-shirts, jewelry, carvings etc. It was a good walk and the views from the fort are incredible. It really shows the old and new in contrast.
On Monday, at 0650, we ferried our friends Friedl and Angelika ashore for their adventure to the Lost City. We considered this six day hike but were ill-prepared with backpacks, sleeping bags or good hiking shoes. So instead, we got an early start and "walked the wall." This is supposedly an eight mile walk around the outer perimeter of the city's wall from Manga, where our boat is anchored. It was really a great walk as we watched the city wake up. We walked on the wall, next to the wall, up and down stairs and ramps - through a bit of town where the wall was broken down by some badly conceived urban renewal project, and then back to Manga. We stopped for some Tintos, fruit and vendor food along the way. It was a good walk and we saw parts of the city we had previously not explored.
On Tuesday morning, another early start - but this time we went to the "locals" market. This is an area where you can buy anything and everything - from freshly caught fish to watermelons to plastic shoes and rebuilt blender motors. It is blocks and blocks of open stores, small booths and stalls. The sounds of the market place are loud and raucous from all the booths selling pirated CDs and DVDs. Plus, each store seems to have a DJ with a huge sound system playing music and yelling "deals." Of course the stores are side-by-side so the dueling DJs can get quite noisy! We can't understand who buys all these shoes - there were rows and rows of shoe kiosks and stores filled with flip-flops, plastic shoes, sneakers of every type and high heels. Everything is negotiable. We FINALLY found our popcorn pan (after looking since the Bahamas!). Michael found another pair of shorts (since a nail on the dinghy dock tore his last pair of khaki ones) for a bargain ($8) and Barbara found a swimsuit. We negotiated for a whole watermelon ($1) and bought some other veggies and fruit (30 small limes for 50 cents). The enterprise of some folks is also interesting. You can hire these men with carts to carry your stuff if you purchase a lot. We may do this if we decide this is a good place to provision prior to leaving for the San Blas.
Between all these morning adventures, we've managed to get some projects done as well. Michael spent a few hours with Lorenzo and his cab to hunt down hydraulic hose to fit the old fittings (success) and look for a fishing store, a foundry (to make new zincs) and get the rebuilt propane valve replaced on the tank. Only one success after much riding around. Oh well. It's always adventure especially when our Spanish isn't very good.
Barbara's been getting some cooking done to load the freezer (meatballs and meatloaf) prior to departure. This is the last "shopping" spot for several months- other than what a little dugout canoe can deliver!
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