Cartagena, Columbia

Sir Francis Drake is a pirate! Our famous hero sacked Cartagena and was paid approximately US$200 million in today’s money to give the city back ( Bad boy). This is a fantastic city, hot and humid.

On our first night we watched as the dancers twirled and they swirled and danced hot salsa with bare brown feet their vivid red dresses flashing bright yellow petticoats while we sat and sipped our beers watching the vibrancy with envy. The hot humid night was a fantastic contrast to Edinburgh.

Cartagena has a wonderful history of pirates and sackings. It is a vibrant city with stunning white and yellow Colonial buildings. The sound of salsa and cumbia music blares out from pubs and clubs. We found it surprisingly hard to find actual dancing though but being enterprising Scottish lassies we managed. Shirley and I found great salsa so I danced with one arm and was very careful because importantly I wanted my arm to heal in time for tango in Argentina. However some of the guys could not dance with two feet!!

There is a big police presence in Cartagena old town and also foreign office warnings about going outside the city. We took the warnings to heart and stayed in the centre. Cartagena has marvellous sandy beaches and many expensive and enormous tower block hotels in the modern part. The beaches are on the Caribbean on one side and the other side is Cartagena Bay. There are also stunning Islands with pristine beaches about an hours boat ride which are called the Rosario Islands. The old city has wonderful ancient Spanish style sandstone buildings and many museums and churches. It has good pre Columbian history museums, a fabulous Naval museum which tells the stories of the many attempts to take the city from the Spanish, a Gold museum and a museum of the Spanish Inquisition. There is also a strong history of the slave trade here. The Colonial buildings are gorgeous blues, yellows, pink and there is a big emphasis on art here with some wonderful metal constructions. There are also many forts in very good condition which the Spanish had to build to protect the city from the English, French, Dutch and Portuguese invasions. The most enjoyed piece of art is a brass painted black women with a big backside and everyone wants to put their hand on her bottom.