Storming the Castillo

 The Hop & Jaunt crew explore the largest fortress of the Spanish Main.
Its been nearly a month since we left Colombia.  Alyson and I are really missing the tropically warm climates and bustling city life.  So today we are blogging about one of our favorite afternoons in Cartagena when we visited the “Castillo de San Felipe De Barajas:  The largest Spanish Fortress in the World!”

Castillo de San Felipe De Barajas

The fortress is really an impressive structure.  It can be seen towering on its hill looming over the old city and water front.  It’s a massive construction, but it needed to be.  In the days of Spanish Conquisition in the New World, Cartagena was THE major port for exporting gold back to Spain.  That meant that nearly all the gold in South America had to come through Cartagena to make the jump to Europe.  As anyone can imagine, this made Cartagena the jackpot for pirating.  Pirates plundered and attacked the city numerous times.  Most notoriously was Sir Francis Drake, the famed English privateer.  Eventually after numerous attacks and ship loads of stolen gold King Ferdinand of Spain ordered the fortress to be built.

It took over 200 years to build it.

Although you can see the castle from anywhere in town we did have some trouble getting to it.  First off, we didn’t know the actual name of Castillo de San Felipe De Barajas.  We just called it the Big Fort.  So when we got into a taxi cab we had trouble giving directions to the driver.  Neither of us knew the Spanish word for “Fort”.  We drove around in circles for nearly 15 minutes babbling to the driver about how we wanted to go to the “Big, Old, Building”.  The poor guy was so confused.  He kept staring at us through the rear view mirror asking, “Que?”  Finally, I remembered the word Castillo and he instantly knew what we were talking about.  He had a pretty good sense of humor about it.

Entry into the fort is about $5 US dollars and its definitely worth it.  One great way to spend an afternoon in Cartagena is just walking around taking pictures, and the Castillo is a pretty awesome place to explore. 

Alyson camera ready at Castillo de San Felipe. Our photo tour begins.

Guard tower at the corner of the wall.

At the top of the wall, there are several entrances into the fortress.

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Christmas Time in Cartagena

The Old Walled City of Cartagena at Night

One of our favorite Christmas time traditions is to go for a ride and look at the Christmas lights and decorations. This year we continued the tradition in Cartagena by taking a horse drawn carriage ride through the old walled city. We picked a nice warm night, grabbed the cameras and hit the streets.

For me its different to be in such a warm climate during the holiday season. Its odd to be sweating in the mid-day heat while listening to “White Christmas” (although I suppose there is plenty of “snow” here).  Despite the heat, Christmas season is celebrated in Colombia just as enthusiastically as in the United States.  The city becomes decorated with an array of vividly colored lights and ornaments.  Nativity scenes are especially prominent in front of the gigantic, ominous cathedrals. 

A Large Illuminated Nativity Scene

Cherry blossom Christmas lights are set in trees throughout the city

The old city is safe enough to stroll through during the nights and evenings.  In fact, it was one of our favorite activities to aimlessly meander around town in the cool of night.  But if you want to view the city in style, you can’t beat a horse drawn carriage.  The clip-clop of the horse’s shoes on the cobblestone streets really add to the charm of the city.  A fair price for a coach ride is around 25,000 Pesos ($12.50 US).

We hire a coche for a ride around town.

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Teatro Heredia

The Crew of Hop & Jaunt

When you’re traveling abroad knowing the native tongue is a handy asset (obviously), and since Alyson is well versed in Espanol it saves me alot of  time with complex translations.  However, I do like the challenge of being able to do things myself.  Living in Colombia has definitely helped my Spanish to improve.  Alyson also has been a good tutor and often gives me the opportunity to take the lead in some conversations.  The practice has helped me come a long way from my first failed attempt at trying to rent a computer at a Colombian internet cafe.  As we approached the counter I was so surprised and unprepared when Alyson told me, “You try this time” that the only Spanish word I could muster was “Senor”.  As in ” uhh…I’d like to use a computer…Senor.”  That didn’t really get me anything but a blank stare.

Luckily though I’ve gotten much better.  Now its absolutely no problem for me to go out in the city to do things on my own.  But on occassion I do find myself in conversational situations that exhaust my basic knowledge of the language, and I’m forced to resort to awkward charade-like gestures.  Today it happened again when I attempted to purchase tickets to tour Cartagena’s World Famous Teatro Heredia.

Relaxing on the Balcony

We woke up midmorning today with nothing in particular to do.  The day was warm and the skies were clear.  While enjoying the view from the balcony of our new hostel room we decided it would be a good day to take the cameras around the city and take some photographs.

View from our suite.

Nice warm weather here with cool December breezes.

Hitting the streets in search of coffee.

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Los Testigos Video

First time trying to add video but once we get it working we’ll be adding more video so everyone can get a better sense of where we are and what we’re doing!

This is the view from a top of the hill by the turtle beach at Los Testigos!

Here is a couple of videos of us doing what we do best–being silly! Here we are perfecting our new sport-Dunejumping! Enjoy!