Cartagena Columbia

Last we left off we were in Quito trying to decide whether we should take a 30 hour bus ride to Bogota or fly. While the real distances aren't that great (its mostly the mountains that make it 30 hours), the flights were pretty expensive. In the end we decided on the plane trip but used our newly discovered trick to get an extra flight out of it for very little. We arrived on Thursday the 2^nd and have been here since. Cartagena is a beautiful city! It was the place where the Spanish took all their gold they plundered and stored it until the Galleons could take it back to Spain. It therefore became very rich. That richness is shown through the wonderful colonial architecture of the historic center. However its richness was its curse. Everyone wanted a piece of the action and Cartagena became a target of pirates and other nations. Sir Francis Drake sacked the place (before he became a “sir”) and so did a french guy. In response the Spanish set about fortifying the bejeezus out of the place. The old city has very thick walls around it and there are numerous large forts protecting every angle of attack. In the end the fortifications were effective, repelling a huge English invasion that kept Columbia a Spanish colony until they lost it to independence. As I said before all this history and riches truly make Cartagena one of the most beautiful cities we've seen. It's kind of like Venice but with a Spanish-colonial twist. It's really fun just to walk around the old city and marvel at the pretty buildings with their balconies filled with bougainvilleas (we think that's what they are). Pictures to be shown in next post...

Cartagena is also on the Caribbean sea so that makes it hot! This woke us up to an important fact. In all our travels we have very rarely been in any kind of hot climate! Since we've pretty much traveled up the spine of the Andes mountains, we've always been at some altitude or away from the equator far enough for it not to be hot. Not so anymore! We're here and for the first time in months have longed for an air conditioned room!

Mud Volcano

Just a couple miles outside of Cartagena is something I never would have guessed. They call it a Mud Volcano. It's exactly what it sounds like. Apparently its some heat below the earth is mixing with water and dead organic material and pushing up this stuff in one spot. The result is a big cone of mud. Since the heat is pretty far removed, the mud is a nice lukewarm temperature and now a tourist attraction! How many times have you climbed into a mud volcano? I bet its a big fat 0! It was really cool. The mud is thick but very liquid at the same time. It's very dense so you just float in it. If you lay on your back you just float and you can stand straight up in it and you just float there. I tried to push myself down as deep as I could but the most I could get to was my neck. Overall really fun.

From MUD Volcano

From MUD Volcano

It was just a little crowded. :)

Next up we're going to be heading to the most beautiful beach in the area called Playa Blanca. The plan is to stay a night but I'm slightly torn about that because Notre Dame will be playing Michigan on Saturday and I'm pretty sure this beach won't have a high speed internet connection. :) I know, Notre dame plays every year and how often are you going to be on a beautiful beach on the carribean? But I still have a strong desire to watch it! We'll see if we can find some way to do both. Nothing like having your cake and eating it too!

~Mike

ps.  Posted this after our disappointing loss to Michigan.  Stupid Michigan...