Cartagena

 Last night’s entertainment was comedian Lenny Schmidt.

I think I may have seen him on Cimedy Central, some of his material sounded familiar.

There was also a late night adult show called Elyria, featuring the production cast.  

It’s presented as a fable about an island where everyone was happy until the evil Morgan Le Fey came along.  Our narrator is in drag and spends a lot of time talking about sex.

Today’s excursion took us to the Old City of Cartagena.  The city was founded as a hub to transport the riches of the New World back to Spain.  After the city was briefly captured by Sir Francis Drake, the Spanish built heavy walls and fortifications.

Our first stop was the fortress of San Felipe.

The entrance to the fortress is up a steep ramp.  I must confess that the ramp did me in! I only got halfway to the top.  

Here’s a cannon.

The views are amazing,

Next stop was the dungeons, now an artist colony where we could shop.  Then we strolled through the Old City, where we saw a church dedicated to Peter Claver, who ministered to the African slave population.

We also saw the Palace of the Inquisition.  The Inwuistion had all but died down in Europe when it was started in the Americas.

And, of course, we had to see the statue of Simon Bolivar, who liberated the region from Spain.

When the bus dropped us off at the port, we saw the cutest monkey at the aviary, trying to steal a drink from one of the tourists.

More to come …