We know its been over a month since Mardi Gras, but its taken us just that long to recover and work up the nerve to tackle the project of going through all our random video clips. For those of you who couldn’t make it down, here is a little peek at the parades from the historic Garden District.

 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!”

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.

After climbing the long pathway to the top of the fortress you are free to explore as you like.  There are several door ways which will lead you into the different tunnels and passageways of the castle.  Some tunnels lead to other entry points on the top wall.  Others lead deep, deep down into the dark, damp recesses of the castle’s underground.  Definitely, make sure you bring a flash light.

This place would make a great hideout in the event of a zombie uprising.

Ain't no zombies gonna get me in here.

Down we go into the inner passages.

Into the depths we descend. Notice how steep is the stairway.

The cool dark tunnels are a great escape from the midday heat.

Its fun to explore the ghosty old tunnels.

Alyson has the camera, but I'm taking all the pictures.

The tunnels were designed so that rain water would run down into them via brick gutters along the top wall.  The water in the tunnels increased the acoustics of the passages so that the footsteps of approaching persons can be heard from great distances.  Also so that military orders could be yelled from one end of a tunnel and easily heard at the opposite end.

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The tunnels lead us out onto a large open expanse of the wall over looking the city.  The view was incredible.  I have to say that I really miss that Caribbean winter weather.

Overlooking the city

A nice view of the city.

Cannons, like this one, surrounded the fort's top wall giving them a near 360 degree area of fire.

The soldiers' barracks...or something like that.

The mighty fortress

Alyson checking the map.

Eventually, we found our way back inside. We decided to explore the deepest depths of the tunnel.  Its rumored that the underground tunnels run all beneath the city.  Hidden passageways, so people could flee a burning city during a pirate attack, lead from the old town to the fort and possibly up into the hills.  I believe they recently discovered an new hidden passage beneath one of the cathedrals within the old city.  We wanted to see what we could find.  I expected the interior of the fort to contain some giant rooms.  Its what I expected from its enormous size, but the most we found were a maze work of tunnels aligned with storage rooms for ammunition and soldiers.  

We sneak away from the crowds to explore some unlit tunnels on our own.

The passages go down, down, down. The air gets stuffy and the temperature drops dramatically.

The underground network of tunnels.

Leading the way.

These ducts for air and water show how far down we've gone.

Eventually, we reached a level that wasn’t intended for tour use.  There were no more electric lights installed and the passage ways were as dark as pitch.  We couldn’t see anything.  We had to maneuver our way through by feeling the wall and flashing our camera every few feet.  It was pretty erie.  We kept wondering if something startling would appear before us when we next flashed our camera.  Definitely, if I go back I will take a flash light. 

One dark tunnel way came to this dead end with some ray of sun light. We literally followed the light at the end of the tunnel.

Eventually, we had to give up our exploration and return to the above world.  The floors of the tunnel were flooded with water up to our ankles and brick work in the floor was less and less stable.  Plus, not being able to see anything was starting to freak us out.  It was kind of a thrill though.

When we re-emerged above we noticed that people were setting up for a dinner party.  The whole fort was being decorated for what must surely be one of the most expensive weddings ever.  A good choice on location though.  Cartagena is reknowned worldwide for its beautiful wedding scenery, and people from all over the world come here to tie the knot.

Wedding Feast

and concert...it must be incredible to party up here at night.

That’s all for now. Hope you enjoyed.

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.

Our Faithful Stead

We're Off

Cartagena is in a very tropical climate.  Therefore, evergreens are not really common.  You can, however, see plenty of lighted palm trees, flower bushes, and water fountains. 

Lighted Fountain in Plaza Bolivar

Christmas Palm Tree

Alyson Walking Through a Decorated Plaza

Fireworks burst above an old tower.

An Old Pirate Ship

Here are a few more photos from our night out:

Balcony at Night

The Govenor's Palace

Christmas Trumpeter

White Horse

Marriage Carriage

The was a wedding going on in a large church and the bride and groom arrived in the white horse drawn carriage and this white Cadillac.

Decorated Balconies

San Pedro Cathedral

Next time we will post some more Christmas photos from Bogota, the capitol city of Colombia.  Its located higher in the mountains which gives a chilling and colder climate.  Very european-esque with amazing graffiti art.  Plus we meet a ghost & a llama.  Check back soon!

Happy New Year & Ciao,

Aly & John

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.

more doors

Cafe Havana: a cuban club on the corner

While walking along we noticed a long line outside of Teatro Heredia.  This is a beautiful 100 year old theater that we’ve been dying to go inside.  While Alyson was busy taking photographs, I decided to approach the ticket window and buy our admission for the theater tour.  Tickets can be purchased for 11,000 Pesos (roughly $5.50 US) per adult.

Teatro Heredia

I’m not quiet sure where I went wrong in the conversation.  I thought I was doing pretty well, but instead of the tour I accidentaly purchased tickets for a school performance of The Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.  Its strange that no matter where you are at Christmas you end up going to watch someone’s kids in some type of holiday play.  It wasn’t what we were expecting but it got us into the theater anyhow.

Our box seats

View of the interior

Not a bad place to have a school play

Lights dimming...

the Stage

Indian Princess

Ceiling of the theater

The play was good.  Apparently, Colombian schools are not broken down into Elementary, Junior High and High School.  All ages attend the same school and participated in the performance.  It was very well done, and since it was a familar story the dialogue was easy to follow.  We were surprised that the school performances are held in such an elaborate and historic theater, but I suppose if you’ve got it…use it.  We wanted to post some video from the show, but a slow internet connection is preventing us from uploading any.  So instead here is a little holiday play of our own. 

After the play we spent the rest of the evening playing darts and listening to music in a British pub.  I really love the variety of things to do in this city.  Check our photos page for more images and have a Merry Christmas or uhh Feliz Navidad!

Feliz Navidad

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!