Tuesday, January 6, 2009

city tour of Cartagena

We did a nice city tour of Cartagena today. The walled city is really nice from what we saw, and I can't wait to see more of it just by strolling around.
The tour was in a chiva, which is a typical, colorful Colombian bus used in the country to transport animals, fruit and vegetables on the roof and people inside. Today, they've become a big part of tourism in cities.
We went up a large hill outside the city to a monastery. It had an amazing view of the city. We also went to a fort and traveled through the narrow hallways deep down into the fort. It was somewhat steep and at points slippery and wet, and I just kept hoping I wouldn't fall on my ankle that has finally healed from the fracture just over a year ago.
We also went to an emerald factory in the town after. That was just for the gringoes on the tour. I guess they figured we would buy emeralds. There were a lot of beautiful ones, but we didn't buy anything.
We met a nice Canadian couple on the tour. They live along Lake Ontario a couple of hours east of Toronto. We're going to go to a restaurant with them tomorrow night.
So glad that we've settled into a new hotel.

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