dashing through cartagena

Some cruise ship stops are baffling.

Take Cartagena. The star attraction of this cruise is the Panama Canal. Even though Cartagena is about on the same latitude as the entrance to the canal, it is hundreds of miles to its east. On my last cruise, we left San Juan in Puerto Rico and headed straight to the Atlantic entrance.

There is probably some technical answer. Fuel bargains or supply in Cartagena. Getting the equivalent of a Baskin-Robbins number to slip through the canal. Or just offering up a slight taste of Colombia.

I like to think it is the last option. But it was a very small taste, indeed. But worth it.

You may recall I was last in Colombia in June of 2017 with my cousins Patty (who is Colombian) and Dan (who is not). But that was in the south and the west where mountains predominate.

Cartagena is in the east on the Caribbean (or the Atlantic as some Colombians would have it -- after all, the Caribbean is merely an extension of the Atlantic). It has a completely different feel. Like Mexico's Yucatan, Cartagena  has looked to the Caribbean for a lot of its cultural influences.

The city is old by colonial standards -- founded in 1533. Right from the start, it was an important port. Not only because it has a utilitarian, protected harbor, but because it was the port where Inca silver and Colombian gold were shipped to Spain.

And galleons of gold were loot magnets to pirates. Cartagena succumbed to several pirate raids, including one by the English brigand, Francis Drake.

The name holds its own interest. It was named Cartagena de Indias to distinguish it from its namesake in Murcia, Spain. Cartagena, Spain in turn was named in honor of its imperial founders. A tiny town in modern Tunisia known as Carthage.

I knew most of Cartagena's history, but I was rather oblivious to its current importance.

It is not a small town. Almost one million people live there. Probably far more now that Colombia has offered humanitarian aid to their neighbor Venezuelans who have sought refuge in the hundreds of thousands.

Colombia's liberal refugee policy is reciprocal for Venezuela's offer of refuge to Colombians when leftist guerrillas terrorized the Colombians. It is one of history's ironies that Venezuela is now providing the left-wing terrorism.

The port is still one of the largest on the Caribbean. But it is also an industrial center for chemicals, cement, and refining Colombia's petroleum. Cartagena is extremely proud of one of its celebrity businesses -- the home of Miss Colombia. Miss Colombia has won two of the last six Miss Universe titles.

But we did not come to see industry, though I would not have minded running across a few beauty queens. We effectively had only three hours on shore. The best we could do was a brief walk through the old town region.

And like most preserved colonial era architecture, Cartagena old town feels a bit like an amusement park. There were plenty of Colombians going about their daily business. But the few blocks that have been preserved have the distinct feel that they would have long ago been bulldozed if they were not so valuable as tourist catchers.

Fortress walls. Cathedral. Plazas. Churches. A Botero statue. They were all there. Interesting, but not that much different than the legacy Spain left Colombia in its other cities before Bolivar kicked them out in 1821.

Oh, yes, there is a statute of the Great Liberator -- as there is in every Colombian city (it all started with bolivar). This one is particularly heroic.

Because it is a tourist town, Cartagena has more than its fair share of street vendors selling little bits of plastic that no one was buying. That is too bad because most of the vendors are Venezuelan refugees trying to eke out a meager existence while they wait for the Maduro dictatorship to collapse back home. Even though I had some interesting conversations with them (perhaps the high point of my visit), I did not buy anything, either.

Cruise ship stops are the tourist equivalent of a Whitman sampler. Sometimes you get the chocolate-covered caramel; other times you get the disgusting nougat. When you find a winner, it goes on the "come back" list.

And that is what Cartagena deserves. The visit was far too short. But I would like to return. And to include a trip to a free Venezuela.

Unfortunately, my re-visit list is getting so long, I better have another 70 travel years left in me.