The Panama Canal Epic # 2: The Queen of the Spanish Main

After two sea days of sailing south from Florida, our first port call of this cruise was the port city of Cartagena, on the northern (Caribbean) coast of Colombia. On the way south, we spent hours sailing through endless rows of sargassum weed, more or less parallel, their direction marking out the direction of the ocean current slowly sweeping these colonial organisms towards land.

 

 

This is expected to be a bumper crop year for sargassum washing up on beaches. It's already begun coming ashore in vast, smelly mats on the Florida Keys. These strips which I've seen down in the Caribbean Sea are likely to wind up on the shores of Yucatan, Cancun, Cozumel, and Belize.

 

While I studied the sargassum from my balcony, I was also studying (as I always do) what first appears to be another colonial organism, albeit a much more orderly one.

 

 

That's the drainable matting which Princess puts on the private balconies of all its ships. The geometric order and complexity of the pattern always fascinates me.

 

For me, this visit to Cartagena marked not only a new port and a new country but my first-ever landing on the continent of South America. Actually, this was my first landing on the mainland of the Americas south of Mexico.

I take the trouble to refer to it in that detail for an interesting reason. From its use in fiction and films, I had always thought that the phrase "the Spanish Main" referred to the oceans controlled by Spain around its colonies in the Americas. Just to prove that even lifelong teachers of history are always learning new lessons, I have now learned that the term refers to the "mainland" areas of Spanish America as opposed to the islands, called the "Spanish West Indies." 

If you already knew that before I did, you are now allowed to look smug, at least until the next test!

 

The city of Cartagena was founded in 1533 to take advantage of a strategically placed harbour, and grew slowly under successive Spanish governors. Eventually, it became the key port for the export of the silver from the Royal Mint in Potosí (Bolivia), and for other valuable products of the Spanish Main (like coffee and chocolate), to be shipped to Spain. This made it a desirable target for pirates and corsairs funded by various other European powers, especially France and England, and the city fell prey to a number of raids through the years -- raids which ended, not in occupation by other colonial powers, but in the payment of substantial ransoms.

 

Base map attribution:     https://freevectormaps.com/colombia/CO-EPS-02-0001?ref=atr

As time went by, the fortifications in and around the bay grew larger, more massive, and more daunting. Today, Cartagena boasts a modern city with the expected amenities, surrounding the walled, historic, old town district which is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

 

With that, let's get to looking into Cartagena in detail. 

At first light on April 30, we glided slowly into the bay of Cartagena, and docked at 7:00 am. The first tours left the ship at 7:30. Thus, the buffet was already packed with the early breakfast shift by 6:15. This might seem like a barbaric hour, but we are fully into the tropics. Here, it pays to be early and try to beat both the heat and the likelihood of rain coming on later in the day because of daytime heating.

We did neither.

On a steamy, cloudy morning, we boarded buses to be driven off and around the town. Our first stop was at a small theatre where we saw a 40-minute folkloric dance show. My efforts to photograph the performance failed due to the extensive use of black light (ultraviolet) which highlighted the colourful, swirling costumes, but didn't do much for the remainder. No matter. The energy of the performers was especially notable at 8:30 in the morning, and the applause from the audience was well-earned.

Across the street from the show venue was the massive hilltop fortress of San Felipe, the largest such fortification in all of Spanish America and the West Indies. I was just as glad I didn't visit it, as the ramp up the hill looked like it would reduce me to a melted puddle on the ground in 3 minutes. ("I'm melting, melting.... Ohhh, what a world, what a world....")

From there, we drove into the Old Town district, a walled city which is designated in its entirety as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, primarily for its fortifications. 

 

 

But the government has gone further, protecting all buildings in the district as heritage buildings, whose exteriors cannot be altered. The result, as we saw on our walking tour, is a fascinating time capsule of various periods of Iberian and colonial architecture, leavened with a generous dose of vibrant Caribbean colour. Imagine how much more spectacular it would look on a sunny day!

This house especially caught my attention, not only for the vivid blue colour, but also for the inset shrine to the Virgin Mary, similar to ones I saw in Genoa (Italy) and which doubtless can be found in other Mediterranean countries.

Many street corners display these lovely old tiled street signs, inlaid into the walls of houses.

Just down the street from here, we came to a square where we again could see the city walls, and where this ornate lamp standard caught my eye. I'm pretty sure it dates back to the age of the gas lamp because it's been brought into the electrical age by a wire strung through the air!

 

Another short walk brought us to a monastery church which we might possibly be allowed to enter (since it was Sunday, we'd have to dodge in between the numerous scheduled services).  And just then, while our guide was inside checking to see if a visit was possible, the heavens opened. 

Eventually, we were allowed to enter, but we all got thoroughly soaked just crossing that narrow street. Inside, we met an interior which was cooler and far less ornate than I expected. An unusual touch was the row of stained glass windows around the interior of the dome which is a smaller version modelled on Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome.

We also visited a small museum attached to the monastery, where I was taken with this little shrine or reliquary. I think the figures inside were portraying a Nativity scene. The whole thing would sit neatly on my laptop with room to spare all around.

Eventually we staggered back to our bus and crawled aboard, thoroughly wet and bedraggled. The rain had eased off a bit during that last leg, but then it poured down full force again as we arrived at an emerald "museum" -- really, a kitschy little dioramic recreation of traditional emerald mining, followed by a large jewellery store (surprise, surprise). Thank goodness we were only stuck there for half an hour. By this time I was thoroughly done with standing, with sightseeing, with humidity, with heat, with rain, you name it. At last we got on the bus and made our way back to the pier. That gave us a chance to view at first hand the results of this torrential monsoon downpour.

Great fun for our bus driver! Here, as we crossed a bridge over the river channel from the island holding the old city to the mainland, we could see the hope of drier skies ahead.

By the time we got back to the cruise pier, the rain had stopped, and the air was a good deal cooler and not nearly as crushingly humid. The expected dockside souvenir store was a good deal more imaginative than many of its kind, being approached through a tropical jungle and aviary.

The five-minute walk down the pier from there gave me a chance to see the Island Princess from a different angle.

And a chance to pose with the ship -- still soaked to the skin, but at least my hair was starting to dry out!

As we sailed out of Cartagena Bay after 3:00 pm, I had a chance from my balcony to photograph one of the two fortresses which guard either side of the entrance to the bay (there are half a dozen more on various islands inside the bay).

And with that, off we sailed to the west, heading for our next destination where we are expected to arrive at the crack of dawn tomorrow. Another early morning get-up-and-go!