Feb. 18 - Day 3

Travellers in front of the fort.

Feb. 18 Day 3
 At 7 we went up to the rooftop patio for breakfast.  There was the fruit, cereal and eggs that you would expect but interestingly they had rice, chicken stew and lentils.  Everything was nice and luxurious.
 At 8:30 we hopped on our bus and met Elvaro, our guide for the day.  He was the master of the dramatic pause and answered all questions with a flourish.  We started at the huge fort that defended the city from British pirates.  It was made of a mixture of limestone and coral, which could be seen in all of the walls.  Our guide went through all of the design features that confounded the Cartagenian enemies.  He credited the fort's success to the Italian designers as they had fought off the Ottomans and so knew how to put together a solid fort.

A typical aisle of the market.

Next we headed to an actual local market, which was haphazard and buzzing with activity.  There were tons of fresh fish, fruit and vegetables from stall that were all built of their own design.  Men were running around pushing shopping carts with bumpers to shift merchandise.  Some stalls had huge pots of bubbling food and the concrete floor was strewn with garbage and discarded bit of produce.  Our guide informed us that the whole place was going to be torn down in a few years to make way for a resort and so many stalls were closed down while the owners waited for the expected government settlement upon demolition rather than sell their unwanted stall to someone else.  There were no other tourists here and it was by far the most authentic-feeling place we have seen in Cartagena.
We got on the bus to head back to the old city.  Every time we boarded everyone sighed at being back in the air conditioning as Cartagena is very hot and humid pretty much always.  We had a walking tour through Getsemani, which was the working class area of the old city but has now gentrified but with smaller houses.  He talked about the various battles for freedom and the significant slave trade.  Apparently much Peruvian and Mexican gold was held here before heading back to Spain and was used to build major structures in town, so someone quipped, "so the Mexicans really did pay for this wall to be built."
 After the tour we tipped and said goodbye to our city guide.  Meg cornered him to find out where to buy a raincoat and was given an address a short ride from the old city.  We stocked up on cash at an ATM as Filipe warned us that at all of our other stops in Columbia ATMs and restaurants accepting Visa would be hard to find.  We had a nice lunch of filled pastries with mango and corozo juice.  We then hailed a cab and headed to the address the guide had given Meg.
 The cab let us off at a large market filled with various tables.  We wandered around for awhile with all of the vendors hailing us and showing off their wares.  when we asked about raincoats they frowned and sometimes gave a name to ask for but nothing really worked.  we crossed the street to a fancy mall but they just suggested that we go back to the market.  Finally we found a place that had one plastic poncho under a covered rack, perhaps the last one in Columbia.  Meg got talking to the girl who found it for us and she has just been working there for a month with her aunt after she left Venezuela, where she had been studying law.  Meg gave her our contact info and we left with the poncho and a pair of flip-flops for Wendy.
 The market was about a block away from the large, sandy beach that outlines modern Cartagena.  It was a near-endless line of umbrellas and lounging chairs occasionally broken by lava boulder breakwaters.  We were offered chairs, drinks and water toys but the most persistent vendors were the massage women who would come around and grab you hand, feeling the muscles of your arm and rubbing some cream into your skin.
 We took a cab back to the old city and hit the museum of modern art again.  It was not opening from siesta until 3pm which gave us 45 minutes to hang out in the square.  Meg got brave and bought some fruit from a colourfully dressed woman who let us take her photo with the fruit purchase.  When we first entered the city  we saw some of these traditionally dressed women nd one yelled at the car ahead of us and walked away from it, probably because the passengers were taking her picture without paying or asking.  These women were all very tough looking and could probably take most tourists in a fair fight if they didn't pay for their photos.
 Finally the museum was open and we saw modernist, cubist stuff in the first room.  The next featured a local artist who was more quirky in his art and had a lot of carvings of large women doing everyday tasks.  Upstairs was a wild diorama with lots of toys babies falling out of the sky and Mandrake the Magician showing a book to upset-looking women with strings coming out of their heads and connecting to plastic bugs at the bottom of the work.  There was some other nice stuff too and the building was a wonderful old something or other that opened onto the city wall overlooking the harbour.
 We walked back to the hotel and grabbed some gelato along the way.  Meg pined over a chess set at a local vendor but decided to wait before purchasing it.  Back in the room I found that the unlock code for our phone didn't work for the SIM card Meg had purchased in the market but I was able to message Freedom and get it fixed.  Then Meg napped and  I typed this.
 We went out to a pricey but tasty restaurant with inattentive waiters with bluetooth clips on their ears.  Meg had to ask three times for hot water for her tea until I asked once and she got it.  We also had a good talk with our fellow traveller Andrea who had just spent two weeks in Patagonia on a trip similar to the one we were planning and so got some good advice and saw some nice pictures.  Meg was definitely into the idea of frolicking with penguins on an island close to the bottom of Argentina.
 On the way back from dinner Meg decided to buy her chess set but all the shops on that street had closed for the night.  As we got ready for bed we found an old episode of Game of Thrones on the tv and so were in good spirits when we went to sleep.