Cartagena City Tour

Before I get started with the City Tour blog. We'd like to thank Sandra Vidal for hooking us up with this gentleman. His name is Rafas con las Gafas. Rafael is his real name but they identify him with glasses. I never knew gafas meant glasses in Spanish. But I think it's a slang word here in Colombia. He was a fantastic recommendation for us. We booked all our tours with him and he was fabulous. If any of you ever travel to Cartagena....find this man! Everybody knows him but go to DeCameron All Inclusive Hotel in the BocasGrande area. Ask anyone there at the hotel or on the street. They will get you to him. Rafael was punctual, very thorough on the descriptions of the tours and check on us several times to make sure we had a good time. He spoke English very well and was extremely helpful.

Thanks,

Rafael!

NOW.....Cartagena has one of the most beautiful colonial towns we have seen so far. What's very different about Cartagena is the layout of the city. It's the 5th largest city in Colombia and peninsulas out which surrounds a large part of the city by water. The Colonial part is in the El Centro area but it's behind thick walls which were built in the 1600's. The wall around the city is 7 miles around and extremely thick used to protect against pirates back in the day. There was only one entrance into the "Walled Colonial City" and this entrance is called the Clock Tower. Now they have several entrances into this beautiful area.

Once inside the Walled Colonial City it was absolutely beautiful. So, clean and so many fancy restaurants, shopping, galleries, upscale hotels, and bars. This area is also known as an exclusive neighborhood. Most of the buildings have been restored and the streets are immaculate. We walked this area several times and loved it. If you don't want to walk; no problem....Chariots await you on every corner.

Bob's favorite time to visit this area was at night. It was very safe and tons of people everywhere. Just had a great vibe.

The church Cathedral

BocaGrande was the next largest tourist area. Here we enjoyed the beach,

the scenery of large hotels and condos, casinos, shopping and restaurants.

Aerial View

We also visited the Castillo de San Felipe Fort

built in 1657

This fort was so cool. There were narrow passageways. Cannons on all

the walls. Spectacular views of the city

We did do the City tour by an open air bus.

View from La Popa Hill

and

Home to the 17th Century

Santa Cruz Monastery

Which has been beautifully restored

Cartagena has water all around this city.

We had a very good time in this city. Lots to do, very cheap, safe and the people were very nice. The city was very easy to get around which we used the taxis ($3.00 USD all the time) or we walked everywhere.

The only disappointment we had was the water wasn't as blue as we've seen in the Caribbean. It was almost like lake water in Texas. About 4ft. visibility

We miss you guys!

Bob & Bonnie