A Walking Tour of Cartagena

The free walking tour of Old Town takes about two hours and highlights most of the town's historic sites.

We started the New Year on an austere note with a free walking tour of the Old Town. It was actually an excellent tour (and we did tip well) that showed us all the main attractions of Cartegena’s historical district. We’ll let the pictures do most of the talking.

After several sackings in the 1500's, the Spanish heavily fortified Cartagena (that held much of the gold from the New World awaiting shipment to Spain). From that point on, Cartagena was considered impregnable. 

The Cathedral of San Pedro.

A Jesuit priest, Father Pedro Claver, ministered to the slaves arriving on ships from Africa. Sculptures in the plaza depict the various trades performed by the slaves.

Slaves who escaped eventually migrated to the village of Palenque, just north of Cartagena. Today you can find them dressed in traditional costumes, they are a fixture (and photo opportunity) in Old Town.

Joining us on the tour were a bubbly cowgirl from Calgary and her boyfriend, from Bogota, she had met while studying at University in Calgary. He spoke excellent English and was a great source of information not covered by the tour guide.  He told be about the crazy days when Pablo Escobar was in charge and the country was essentially run by the narco cartels. We also talked about FARC.

According to Wikipedia:  The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia—People's Army are a guerrilla organization involved in the continuing Colombian armed conflict since 1964. It has been known to employ a variety of military tactics in addition to more unconventional methods including terrorism. The FARC-EP claim to be an army of peasant Marxist–Leninists with a political platform of agrarianism and anti-imperialism. The operations of the FARC–EP are funded by kidnap to ransom, illegal mining, extortion and/or taxation of various forms of economic activity and the production and distribution of illegal drugs.

He said when he was younger many of the younger people believed in FARC as a kind of Che Guevara organization helping the downtrodden. He said over the years they became more involved in drug trafficking and lost the support of the people. He also spoke with great pride of his country and what it is becoming; we found that theme resonate with lots of Columbians with whom we spoke.

Behind the street facades are beautiful interior courtyards such as this one at a classy hotel.

The house on the left belongs to Garcia Marques, author of Love in the Time of Cholera and 100 Years of Solitude. Many wealthy Columbians from Medellin and Bogota live in the million dollar houses in the Old Town. Cartagenian's,  however, prefer to live in the high rise condos along the beaches of Boca Grande.