Cartagena, Colombia

Cartagena, Colombia

Yes I am in Colombia, no danger, no drugs, just a beautiful town called Cartagena. I didn’t read anything about the place so had no expectations, but what I saw truly blew me away. It is a town with over 450 years of history, the old town is really well preserved and just invites to sit and have a drink. People are very relaxed here and very friendly. I just got a nice feel about this town.
The Spanish built huge fortifications and still now one can see the walls all the way around the old town of Cartagena. There are still 11 km of wall preserved. Of course there are plenty of museums, art galleries and shops, especially for the Colombian Emerald, a lovely and glitzy green gem stone.

They say as well that Cartagena is the town of mangoes as every house has their own mango tree and yes, when one arrives at the cruise terminal, there is an absolutely humongous Mango tree.

I just took a taxi driver and he drove me around town, telling me all sorts of stories, trying to get me into some special jeweler stores, asking if I wanted to go so “special” bars for a drink…..no thank you! And I am sure ripped me off for the tour, but after all it was worth it as I really had about 2 hours to explore and one needs to take a taxi to town anyway. He was also able to give me a lot of history and back ground information, which was really nice. A bit more than an hour later he earned 25$ and I was able to see a lot of the town, stop and go and he even walked with me like a tour guide through town, so I think it was not a bad deal after all.

Opposite the old town is the new part of Catagena, high rise buildings, then beaches with huge hotel complexes. It was nice to stand on the walls of the old town and look over the bay to the new side. When walking in the streets of the old town, one easily forgets that Cartagena is actually a big and bustling city.

At one place I just couldn’t resist buying a couple of sweet from one of the many sweet stalls. They are all very, very sweet, caramel based and some of them with coconut. I tried them together with Denton, the Executive Chef on board and with Thierry; he is the Senior Corporate Traveling Pastry Chef. The sweets are not very refined, but they were tasty and were reason for some more animated discussions. Especially with Thierry who was not overly impressed and actually didn't want to taste them, chicken!!!

So today it is more about town and travel, rather than recipes, but no worries, there are still plenty more recipes to follow.