Cartagena, Colombia: Descansando en Cartagena

I’ve been relaxing in beautiful Cartagena de Indias for about 2 weeks now and I’m down to my last couple of days before I take off to Medellin. What a beautiful place! Even though it’s been really hot here, Cartagena has been nothing short of fantastic.

For those of you who don’t know Cartagena, here’s a little background…

Cartagena de Indias is an old colonial city founded in 1533 that sits on Caribbean along the northern coast of Colombia. Cartagena had served as main South American port for the Spanish Empire from the 1500's to the 1800's, and hence held all of the gold that was extracted from Peru and some of the other South American countries during that time. Since there was a massive amount of gold here, Cartagena was subject to some crazy, and famous pirate attacks. Being the site of many great battles as well as one of the 3 seats of the Spanish Inquisition in the Americas, the city has a TON of history.

A few hundred years ago a wall was constructed as a fortification around the city, full of cannons and everything to fend off all the sieges that were laid to the city, and the wall is still standing today. One of the great attacks on Cartagena occurred in March of 1741 led by British Admiral Edward Vernon who arrived at Cartagena with a massive fleet of 186 ships and 23,600 men, including 12,000 infantry, against only six Spanish ships and fewer than 6,000 men (gracias a Wikipedia for the details). The attack by the British was eventually repelled after a few weeks of heavy fighting, as well as the British exposure to diseases such as yellow fever. Coincidentally though, one of the invading troops along side Vernon’s fleet was the brother of our very own George Washington. Washington’s brother returned home so impressed with Admiral Vernon during the Battle of Cartagena de Indias, that he decided to name his estate after him and hence, we have…”Mount Vernon” which was George Washington’s home in the Untied States. I thought that was a really cool piece of history, and it was a really amazing experience to sit up on that wall and look out over the city imagining all that had happened here.

I also managed to make it out to Playa Blanca during my stay and in between all the relaxing that I’ve been doing here. Playa Blanca is located on a tiny island about 30 minutes outside Cartagena and is only accessible by boat, or water taxi, and the only real infrastructure on the island consists of several straw “huts” that have been built up along the beach. It was definitely a great experience, and I got a nice tan in the process!

I’ve uploaded some of my best pictures over the last two weeks…

So sit back, grab a glass of wine, and enjoy beautiful Cartagena!