Good morning Cartagena!
What did I know about Colombia? Other than there are lots of drug lords there...yeah, that's about it. Oh, and Gloria from Modern Family is from Colombia. The end. Literally.
But I liked Colombia (at least Cartegena) so much more than I thought I would! Cartagena was built by the Spaniards, so it had a very European flavor, yet the city outside the old walls was incredibly modern. We booked the 90 minute historic tour through Segway Cartagena for $70/pp, and because we love segways, and I love history, I was excited about this excursion. Grace and Ed had never been on segways before, and my mama was excited to introduce them to the joys of being lazy on a machine.
We met in the buffet for breakfast, and as we dined, we could see the city pass by on our way to the port.
The port at Cartagena took forever to get through! After getting off the ship, you board a little shuttle that like, takes you 1/4 of a mile. Then you walk through a long ass maze of animal exhibits and shops and all sorts of stuff before you actually exit the port. It probably takes a slower walker about 30 minutes to get OUT. Cesar (from Segway Cartagena) had arranged for a driver to pick us up at the port and to drop us off (I think it ended up being $5/pp each way) and he waited outside the port. Once we exited, we looked for him, and we were INUNDATED by drivers and guides trying to pimp their businesses. They were actually pretty aggressive and were following us, but I told my people to just ignore them, say no thank you, and keep moving. The driver finally found us (we rolled over with 2 other parties) and had my name typed out big on his tablet as his "sign" and we got going. The ride over to the office was short, and soon, we were outfitted with helmets and were being given lessons on the segway.
Because the three of us have already been on segways multiple times, we went last. Grace was apprehensive getting on one at first, but she did great. So did Ed.
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Then we got going. I actually really liked the tour - Cesar (went to school in the States and travels during low tourist season in Colombia) spoke excellent English, was easygoing and friendly, and gave really good historical and cultural information. I think I was the only one in our party really appreciating the info as my mom just likes to ride segways.
We went to the historical center of Cartagena and saw the Teatro Heredia, as well as a fantastic (and classic - apparently) view down the street towards the Cartagena Cathedral (officially the Metropolitan Cathedral Basilica of Saint Catherine of Alexandria).
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| Teatro Heredia |
Zipping around a city is always fun - and though this was the old walled city, there were still cars - but I thought they did a pretty good job of directing traffic and keeping the cars from hitting us. Cesar's assistant (I can't remember his name, and he smiled and nodded a lot because he couldn't speak English) rode this unicycle segway (really!) and zipped around to make sure we were okay.
We headed to Proclamation Square where we saw street performers, and stood outside the Cathedral because it was in the middle of a multi-year renovation/preservation. Apparently most of Plaza de la Proclamacion is under renovation. The building across from the church was also behind walls.
So we turn and look at the outside of the Cathedral!
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| Something fascinating about the construction? It's made of coral limestone! You can see the imprints of coral! |
We move across the (small) street to the Plaza Bolivar.
Where we need to take an awesomely bad selfie. Because that's what we do on vacation!
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| Cesar saw our bad selfie, and came over and took a photo of us. But not before Ed wandered off! |
And we rode around the city more.
And we visited the Santo Domingo Church, the oldest church in Colombia and we went inside for a bit.
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| dad was very hot and tired. It was SOOO hot and humid! |
Then we looked at the nekkid lady sculpture (La Gordita de Botero) in Plaza Santo Domingo, because everyone else was.
After Plaza Santo Domingo, we rode up to the old city walls.
We had to ride our segways up a ramp, so you had to accelerate going up. That was the easy part. Going down the same steep ramp was harder, because you had to learn to control your speed. I was cautious, but we all got off the ramp without hurting ourselves.
From the walls we head over to the Plaza de San Pedro Claver.
The church is beautiful, though we didn't have time to go inside.
We then rode to the old port, where we saw the Customs Door.
This was the direct connect to the port - the trade gate, and it was through this door all the slaves (and other imports) were walked off the ships onto land. 😔
I think this was the old administrative center of the city - where the old harbor and the customs house was and it's now where the mayor's office is located. Now it's pretty much just a huge plaza for city events. They call it Plaza de la Aduana, in English it's Customs Plaza.
So, a bad thing happened in Colombia. My mom fell off her segway. And when I say fell off, I mean she hit the tire of the car with her segway and she flew into the air and landed on her back on the ground. It was a no bueno way to end a lovely day on a fun and interesting tour.
Here's the thing about my mom: she can't multi-task. She has problems with divided attention. And when we were being assigned segways, she made my dad switch with her because his segway looked newer, but it was definitely bigger. Even though she's been on segways multiple times and has never fallen, I honestly don't know if it's because it was city streets and she was distracted or she's just getting older - but she clipped the tires of a car TWICE. The first time she just stumbled off her segway and my dad jumped off his to help her. She was fine, but I told her to be more careful. About 20 minutes later she DID THE SAME THING AGAIN, but at a much higher speed - and she flew off of her segway. I was right behind her and when I saw she was getting too close to the parked car on her left, I was yelling at her to be careful. It was too late, she hit the tire and flew.
I was both scared and annoyed and mad at her - she had already clipped a car tire and I told her she needed to watch where she was going, but she still didn't. She considered flying on a segway the equivalent of walking - where she didn't have to be as cautious about the space around her. A segway is a MOTOR VEHICLE, and must be handled as such - you treat it the way you would when driving a car. She landed on her back, which thankfully had a backpack on it. She was also wearing a helmet. She hurt her arm (the one she broke 5 months before), scraped up that same arm pretty badly, and knocked the wind out of herself. She ended up being in pain for the next week or so, and had icy hots and other pain relief patches slapped on her back, arm and chest - but praise the Lord, she ended up being fine. Bruised, scraped up, hurt her arm again - but it could've been so much worse.
She sucked it up though, and rode the segway back to the offices where they put a bandage on her arm where it was bleeding. On the way back, another guy fell off his segway, but it wasn't a bad fall and he just scraped up his leg.
After paying for the tour, we boarded the taxi van back to the port. We had anticipated spending time looking at all the animals and exhibits when we returned, but my mom was in pain and none of us were in the mood for that. We did take a few pictures though.
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| she's smiling, but you can tell by how she's holding her wrist that her arm is hurting her. |
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| a view of our ship on the walk back |
And of course, once we get back on the ship, we go to the buffet to eat. But first, we ALL showered and got rid of our deet and sweat drenched clothes. Oh, did I not go into our mosquito protocol? Because none of use wanted to get malaria or yellow fever or the zika virus, we full on deeted. I purchased outdoors deet wipes for hunters or something from Amazon. We went to TOWN, AND we wore mosquito repellent bracelets/anklets. After spending hours in the city sweating, we were a crazy stinky hot mess. On the bright side? None of us got bitten!
But mom was in pain, and after showering, we gave her some pain killers and slapped bandages, antibiotic creams and pain patches on her while she rested in bed. Dad and I ate and brought her a plate with soup, bread rolls and fruit. She needed to eat, but she didn't want anything heavy, so bread and soup it was.
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| hello neighbor! |
We were all exhausted from the day's endeavors, and it was Sunday, which meant they broadcasted THREE NFL games. While mom rested, dad and I watched NFL games ALL DAY. Grace and Ed were tired too, so we all spent the day just lazing away. Dad and I shuffled up to the buffet at dinner time for a quick meal, and brought another plate of food down for mom. Grace gave us some of her pain patches for mom.
After mom and dad went to bed I put up my little curtain and continued to watch TV. Then, because I'm retarded like that, I took a bunch of photos of my space. So I can remember it? I don't care, I'm sharing it so the 3 minutes I spent taking photos were not in vain!
We all went to bed relatively early because the highlight, and purpose, of the trip was the next day! We were going to go through the Panama Canal, and I had read that you had to get up hella early to grab a spot at the front of the ship to watch us enter the locks. So I set my alarm to 6 am and went to sleep.
Next: the Panama Canal!
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