Cartagena

Cartagena is the third largest city in Colombia, with lots of poverty.  It was also the main port for Spain's American colonies during the 1500s.  Cartagena has the look of the Old World.  I love Spanish colonial architecture and art, and Cartagena was filled with both.

The first stop on our shore excursion was La Popa Monastery, on the top of a hill overlooking the city.  Colombia has a mix of races.  Our guide was dark, like the many Africans brought as slaves for the Spaniards.

Cartagena has both industrial and port areas, and high rise apartments and office buildings.

La Popa is an Augustinian monastery, so the bookstore sold copies of St. Augustine's "Confessions," and there were many St. Augustine statues.  I read part of the "Confessions" in my college humanities class, and so was interested to see St. Augustine venerated by common people, as well as scholars.

I loved the chapel, filled with gold leaf, and the paintings and statues of Christ crucified.  It was so very Catholic.   

Cartagena is also close to the equator, so the bougainvillea was vibrant and the dogs lazy.

We drove past San Felipe, the fortress built by the Spanish to protect the harbor from pirates.  There was a market by the side of the fortress, with local tourist buses painted in bright colors and patterns.

The most common goods for sale were fruit and jewelry.

We walked through the Old City, behind the old town wall. It was filled with churches, hotels, museums, government buildings, and winding streets.

We visited Cartagena on the Thursday before Easter, and the shopkeepers advertised special Easter cookies and candies.

Spanish cities are full of monuments with heroic figures in the middle of town squares.  Cartagena has the monument, the heroic figure, and the town square.

The town hall had arches and a tiled sign announcing that the mayor worked there.

Among all the antiques, there were some whimsical, new, metal sculptures of city workers.

We stopped by the Peter Claver Church, named for an early Spanish friar who ministered to slaves in the days when Cartagena held slave auctions.  It had a museum with dark religious paintings and large wood carvings of saints and of Jesus carrying his cross.

The Church had a Spanish Baroque nave and a niche holding the bones of Peter Claver, himself.

We walked further into the Old City.  Hats were everywhere.  Panama used to be part of Colombia, and the Colombians consider their straw hats even more authentic than a "Panamanian hat."

 

 We passed a group of young men, who did break dancing for tips.

 There were tiles on the sidewalk with photographs of Miss Colombia from years past.

 And, of course, there was a statue of Bolivar, who wrested Colombia from the Spanish in 1823. Bolivar is the symbol of political freedom for all of South America, and his statue is everywhere.

 Our tour was originally scheduled to visit the Gold Museum, but it was closed on this Easter holiday.   Instead, we visited the Museum of Torture.  The Spanish Inquisition was enforced harshly in Colombia, as in Spain.

 The museum included instruments of torture and paintings of people terrorized by torturers.

 Below is a "rack," where prisoners were stretched.