Pirate town: Cartagena, Colombia

We had a 1.5 hr gap in between trainings in Cartagena, Colombia, and paid a taxi driver to drive us into and around “old town”. It turned out that our driver, Tony, had a wealth of knowledge about the history of the city and its pirate history. It is a walled city, with cannons and forts protecting its Caribbean coast.

On entering via the cruise shop port, parrots, flamingos, toucans and iguanas were easy to find and wandering around taking advantage of the tourists’ interest and food!

 The streets were narrow and the architecture was very Spanish in the old town, balconies with cascading red blooms just above our heads. We could see the new city across the water; a skyline full of off-white high-rise buildings. The open gated doorways of the Spanish-style houses opened onto garden courtyards and patios.

 These are the dungeons that pirates were held in.

The main plaza in old town.

 We visited the street and house where explorer Francis Drake lived. It was a rush to get back to the ship in time for our afternoon training session.

The Caribbean Coast.

 View of new town.