We came here to recover a bit from sunburn. Wonder what that was due to?
Cartagena is a big sprawling city nowadays. It is a series of islands linked together and as is often the case globally with these historic places, it is in the process of gentrification. Do the tourists who flock here want the bars, restaurants and coffee shops or do they want to walk around and see people living in their homes in what some people would describe as a zoo? And let's not mention AirBnB. Gentrification is cleary happening and our City walking tour guide, yes another one, confirmed this. But we did enjoy our juice and also our coffee and cake and evening meal at restaurants in the historic centre. And the liquids were very necessary as it's very hot and humid here.
We walked around the historic centre in the evening as well, not making eye contact with the improvising street rappers who work in threes - beware of the two not rapping said the guide. Low level policing again, nothing like Buenos Aires or Cusco. According to our guide the police and military were deployed elsewhere in the country. There was also a lot less homeless in the streets here but there will be other areas of Cartagena where it might be different. There are lots of plazas in the historic centre of Cartagena and everyone had a dance troupe doing its thing. Very nightlife place. The plazas also had their obligatory churches. Equally obligatory is the Botero sculpture, donated by the artist (again), of a nude reclining woman in front of the doors to one of those obligatory churches.
Colombia is racially a mixing pot. There were the indigenous people. Then the Spaniards arrived. And they brought African slaves with them. And everything since then has got mixed up. One of the stories we found really interesting was that of slaves who escaped Cartagena in the early 17th Century. They moved about 50km inland where they could not be found. Women slaves braided their hair in a way that could be used to both communicate directions and hide seeds for future use. The community they formed, San Basilio de Palenque, became the first free African town in the Americas. The pueblo exists today and has maintained its community. It's definitely an important story; we visited Palenque but unfortunately the story is not well told in-situ. One wonders what would happen if the investment was put in to tell the story properly, would that eventually lead to gentrification of the village and the death of the community?
To fly to Panama we need to get to Bogota. Our mantra has to change - we now need to head South. First stop was Santa Cruz de Mompox which is a small, forgotten, inland town that was an important river port for the development of the interior of Colombia by the Spaniards. It was forgotten first by the river itself, which changed direction and then silted up locally. But all the colonial houses had been built by then and still exist today, almost en-masse with the only sign of modernity being the electric meters attached to the facades. In the colonial times the town was full of smiths; black, gold and silver. All the houses, which although they are only single storey, albeit a high storey which probably helps with the heat, have wrought iron railings to the windows, magnificent doors, and lots of bentwood and wicker furniture inside. The windows behind the railings are all open; there were jewelry workshops in many of the houses maintaining the gold and silversmith traditions.
The town is also famous for its Holy Week celebrations, a bit like Popayan was. Practice was underway. Colombia is an extremely Catholic country and religious tourism is a big thing. The hotels are full for a couple of weeks and then, they are pretty good value when they are not, as we found out! We benefited with some pretty decent accommodation - it was ridiculously hot when we arrived, 38° but feeling like 41° due to the humidity. At least the washing dries quickly...
