Cartagena, Columbia

Situated between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, Cartagena is a beautiful city, with a rich and colorful history and a HOT! HOT! climate! There are a total of seven forts built outside the walls of the city to protect it from its enemies – pirates and enemies of Spain. We visited the larges of these forts -the Castillo San Filipe. This massive structure took nearly 95 years to complete. It contains 13 cannon batteries, each with multiple positions for cannons, and a sophisticated tunnel system with more than 1500 tunnels. In between each cannon position is a platform. Each time a cannon fired it would take approximately 30 minutes to clean and reload it. While that was happening, soldiers would stand on the platform and defend the fort. Cartagena is surrounded by water – the Atlantic Ocean on one side and the Atlantic on the other. To better protect themselves from the threat of water invasion, they built a wall under the water in the main bay. The wall could not be seen above water, but when the bottom of the boats hit the wall it was dead in its tracks. This forced invaders to use the shallower, more narrow canal on the opposite side of the city. That canal was not only more difficult to navigate, it was infested with mosquitos carrying malaria and yellow fever. Even if a ship successfully navigated the canal, many on board would die of disease. These Spaniards were very clever people. That underwater wall I mentioned remains in place to this day!

The streets of Cartagna are lined with colorful window baskets and beautiful trees with massive branches. Some of the branches look like totally separate trees themselves, they’re so big! We visited a Spanish Inquisition museum, where we found a hangman’s gallows and a guillotine. During the Inquisition a number of women were tried for witchcraft. One of the ways the church determined if a woman was a witch was to weigh her. Less than 50 kilos (110 lbs.) she must be a witch because she was so light she could fly away; more than 50 kilos she must be a witch because she was filled with sin.

Sixty-seven percent of all the world’s emeralds are mined from Cartagena. Among the pictures here you will see an emerald in its natural state. Pretty cool! We also learned that the doors on the homes the walled city of Cartagena tell their own story. During colonial times the doors were adorned with nails and knockers. The size and number of the nails told you how wealthy the homes inhabitants were (the larger and more numerous the nails the wealthier the family), and the knockers told you their profession: lion = government; hand = church; iguana = sea.

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