Cartagena: A Cleaned-up Act

When you hear the name "Cartagena," what do you think? Drugs, killings, filth, "Romancing the Stone," the movie with Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner? Okay, the last thing is a good thing. But when we heard the port talk on Cartagena, we were not surprised when John Lawrence, the expert on the ship, told us that Cartagena could be a little scary with drugs, drug-sniffing dogs, taxi drivers that took you for a ride in fares, so-called guides who jumped in your cab and demanded payment, a litany of security guidelines and the warning to say in the tourist areas, along with the advice to take a ship's tour. (We did follow the last one and signed up for a tour of the "Best of Cartagena," now wondering what the best could possibly be.)

Other wise tidbits of advice were the following:
o Be up at 6 a.m. to watch the sail into the port because it is one of the most impressive of the trip. (TRUE)
o The real problem is the street vendors who see you as a source of money. Don't make eye contact, don't give money to beggars, and just say "No, gracias." (Somewhat true, but Judy, these vendors and beggars are nothing like the ones in Egypt. They are really tame!)
o Bargain with vendors and get the price down to 50 percent or less.
o Don't pay the taxi driver or guide until they bring you back.
o Don't buy Cuban cigars because they are not from Cuba.
o Don't buy the coffee. When you brew it, someone will tell you it tastes like mud. Be sure to retort, "But it was just GROUND this morning!"
o Be careful of the emeralds. They may be made from Heiniken beer bottles.
o Take water because it is so hot and people pass out in the streets. (It is no hotter than southern Florida.)

Now for the real Cartagena. Our tour guide Sergio works as a tour guide and a teacher of English for 6th, 7th and 8th grade students (the dreaded middle schools students) in a government school (70 percent of the schools are run by the government while 30 percent are private schools). His English is fantastic (except for some of his pronunciations), and he learned it by talking to tourists and listening to Bill O'Reilly. He told us that Columbia is the fourth largest country in South America with a population of 45 million people. We are in the Manga area, named after the mangos that are an aphrodesiac, which means you don't need Viagra. In fact, he picked a mango and gave it to Sara so that she would always be sexy. Also, the city is very clean, and no one has been bothered by drug dealers in the recent past.

Sergio is a member of the working class. The three classes in Cartagena are the RICH (5 percent who make $7,000 or more a month), the MIDDLE (25 percent who make several thousand dollars a month), and the WORKING (70 percent who make much less and do all the work). Sergio makes about $800 from teaching and $800 from being a tour guide each month. His goal is to become a member of the MIDDLE class.

Our first stop was the San Felipe Fortress that took 20,000 Spaniards to build to defend the old walled city. Our battle cry was "Let's lose weight!" so we keep walking upward to the top. The walls of the fortress are slanted because the engineers studies at universities in Rome and Egypt, so the walls look like pyramids. The stripes on the Columbian flag at the top are yellow (for gold), blue (for the sky and the ocean) and red (for the blood of the heroes who fought for independence). These three colors were ordered by Simon Bolivar, who was the liberator of five countries in Central America.

Next, we toured the Inquisition Palace, better known for its torture rooms. On the Witch Scale, women who were thought to be witches were weighed. Women who survived weighed more than 40 kilos. If they weighed less, they must be witches. Any woman who weighed more than 40 kilos could not fly away on her broom! We also saw the rack, the head screw, the noose and the guillotine. Citizens would party with champagne on Bolivar Square when a person was put to death. Actually, only six people were killed. The rest were imprisoned and tortured. However, the threat of torture and/or death made many people stop doing wrong.

In Columbia, there is no welfare. If you don't work, you simply die of hunger. Also, 90 percent of the houses in the old city are owned by foreigners because they are too expensive for the natives.

We then stopped at the Church of San Pedro Claver, where the bells rung in 1811 and 1821 for both of the independence declarations. The church houses a very impressive religious art museum. At the Naval Museum, we had a drink on the house, with Ken getting the national beer of Columbia, and watched a performance by Columbian dancers.

Our last stops were at the dungeons, or prisons, which are now shops (quite fitting, because Ken thinks that shopping is torture), and emerald shops in the new city with its high-rise buildings (where we saw at least 10 stores in a row with "emerald" or something similar in their names.)

Our souvenir: a replica of the statue that is a pair of old shoes because a Columbian poet wrote that he loved Cartagena like an old pair of shoes. (Was that a compliment or complaint?)

Oh, yes, Punxsutawney Phil has started touring with us. Because February 2 is Groundhog Day, he told everyone that he would do his duty to God, his country and Punxsutawney by looking for his shadow and then return to go through the Panama Canal with us.