DAY 5---CARTAGENA, COLOMBIA

                                   

We are docked in Cartagena, Colombia, today.  It was 84 very humid degrees.

BACKGROUND INFO

Cartagena is a port city on the northern coast of Columbia. It was founded in 1553 by the Spanish who built a wall around the old part of the city with cobblestone streets, squares, and colorful colonial buildings. During the colonial period it was the main port for exporting Peruvian silver to Spain and for importing African slaves. Now at one million people it is the 5th largest city in Columbia. Outside the old city it is a vibrant, modern city. Tourism, commerce, and industry make up its economy. Columbia is the world’s largest producer of cocaine unfortunately.

LAST NIGHT

CLICK ON PHOTOS TO ENLARGE FOR BETTER VIEWING

                                                All the starters that comes without ordering.

                                                    My veal parmesan is huge as always.

                            As usual, I could only eat half of it.  It was sooooo good however.

     Rebecca had this veal limone.        

This is Jeanette.

                                                   The show featured "The Jersey Tenors".

Packed house for their show.  We were on the front row left side.

Their show was one of the best we have ever seen on a Regent ship.

TODAY

        We were up earlier this morning as yesterday I decided to book a tour for today that departed the ship at 7:45.

                                                Our view from our balcony this morning.

        We have been to Cartagena several times and done tours here.  I decided to book this 4 hour tour as had not seen the navy museum.  Rebecca did not go on the tour.  There were only 17 of us on the big tour bus today.  Our guide was Roberto Jr.  He talked the entire 4 hours and drove me crazy with TMI (to much information).  The tour mostly involved walking around in "old town" so everyone got tired of standing and it was soooo hot & humid.  The streets were very rough so bounced around in the bus.

                                   Statue of Spanish explorer, Balboa, who founded Cartagena.

Our first short photo stop was at the base of the huge San Felipe Fortress.  This castle was built in 1536 by the Spanish.  It was built by African slave laborers.

        

We next drove to the "old town" of Cartagena.  It has 11 kilometers of stone walls around it that took nearly 200 years to complete so as to protect the Spanish inside from invasion by pirates and others.  We got off the bus and walked around inside it.

                                                          Roberto Jr, our talkative guide.

                                            The fruit at the fruit stands looked so good.

The streets in Old Town were very narrow and traffic not allowed after 4pm as there are so many tourists visiting.

                                                  Another of several plazas in Old Town.

                                                                    Old artillery piece.

                          Next stop on our walk was at the Historic Museum of Cartagena.

                                                           You could lose you head here.

                                                                Another statue of Bolivar

                                                                          Sun dial.

As an Australian friend on our 2012 South America cruise used to say, "ABC--Another Bloody Church"

                         Largest plaza in Old Town with some Christmas decorations still up.

                                                                Hard Rock Cafe

                                                                       Clock tower

                                   Heading to the San Pedro Claver Church & Cloister.

                                                            San Pedro Claver square

                                                   This priest took care of the African slaves.

                            Never witnessed a guide eating lunch in the middle of a tour.

Colombia is famous for its emeralds, so of course, there was a stop at this emerald store.  No one bought anything.

The naval museum was the main reason I wanted to do this tour today.  What a waste of time!  Not much of a museum in my opinion.

We were entertained with three songs with dancing inside the museum.  It was old African slave dances with African instruments.  Not bad.

                              Replica of part of an old Spanish war ship.  Not much of a museum.

        We finally headed back to the port and arrived shortly after noon.  I was very hungry so headed to the suite to wash my hands and pick up Rebecca.  We had a nice lunch up in La Veranda then headed back to the suite so I could add photos and write today's blog post.  While at lunch a rain shower passed over so I made it back to the nice "airconditioned" ship just in time.  

        The ship sailed at 1pm for our trip to the Panama Canal.  We are to begin our transit of the canal at 7:30am tomorrow.  This will be our 11th transit of the canal but I love it.  I would HIGHLY recommend to you to do a Panama Canal transit cruise.

        Rebecca did not bring finger nail polish remover as though she would get it at the ship's boutique.  Well, they stopped carrying it on board.  The ship's boutique is pretty worthless in our opinion.  They try selling high end jewelry and clothes.  So I had my guide today to pop in a pharmacy and buy some remover.  Well, Rebecca still not happy as bottle is too small.  I told her not to worry as we have many more ports.

        Plan for this evening is cocktails in Mariner Lounge at 6pm.  We have requested "pigs in a blanket" for our canape there.  Following cocktails we will have dinner in Compass Rose.  

        Nothing on the entree menu grabbed us so we have requested panko coated shrimp this evening for our entrees.  No entertainment tonight but they are showing a movie in the theater.

DAY 4---AT SEA IN CARIBBEAN OCEAN

This was our noon position.  It is mostly sunny and 80 degrees again today with 78% humidity.  We are scheduled to be docked in Cartagena, Colombia, by 7am tomorrow.

 LAST NIGHT

        The evening kicked off at 6pm with the Block Party as I described in yesterday's post.  The neighbors on both sides of us were on our 2022 world cruise also.  It was fun as usual.

                          Here comes Captain Aivo Palm down our hallway to greet us.

Paul, our Cruise Director, (on left) and Nino, our Food & Beverage Director, accompanied him.  They had been down every hallway on the ship to greet the passengers.  Ours was their last stop.

        We wanted to head down to Compass Rose for dinner shortly after it opened at 6:30 because we wanted to watch the Georgia vs TCU championship game on our suite tv later.  While dining the Restaurant Manager stopped by our table and said a lot of folks were having room service dinner so as to watch the game.  

We started with black mussels in a wine /cream sauce.  We LOVE them and I had TWO double orders.  OINK!!!

Rebecca had farfalle pasta with tomatoes, shrimp, pesto, and mozzarella.  I asked for the above which was not really on the night's menu--panko coated tiger prawns with a spicy mayo.

     For dessert I had malva pudding cake with a butterscotch sauce.  It is another of my favorites.

We got back to the suite to watch the game which was already in the second quarter.  Unfortunately, TCU got killed 65 to 7.

TODAY

        Up at 7 again and I ran down to get our coffees from Rommel.  Putu, from Bali, delivered Rebecca's cereal at 8am.  I brought back a chocolate chip muffin from Coffee Connection with the coffees.  I was making good progress with today's blog post when my laptop dropped the internet.  So down to have Kus get me back online.  After he worked for probably 15 minutes, he asked if I had rebooted it.  I hadn't so he did and that fixed it.

        By the way, the ship's internet is working MUCH better today.  I can even get the internet signal on my laptops in the suite today.

        We both headed to the treadmills at 9:30.  So far all 4 are working and we have not had to wait to get on them.  Back in the suite and cleaned up and ready for lunch in an hour.

These portable clothes chests are lifesavers for us getting all our clothes put away.  We have two larger blue ones and two tan ones.  The blue ones are new.  We have one tan and one blue in the closet and the other two in the room.  

This shoe storage we bought at Walmart for less than $10.  I ordered magnetic hooks from Amazon to hang it with as the door is metal with covering.  The magnets hold 50 pounds each and work much better than the hangers that came with the plastic shoe holder.

        We were joined for lunch in Compass Rose by our long time friend from the LA area, Marge Goddard.  We visited for 1 1/2 hours over lunch.  Marge will be one of those joining us on our safari in South Africa.

                  I enjoyed this seafood bouillabaisse (fish stew).  It's one of my favorites.

        Relaxing in our suite this afternoon and watching this morning's guest speaker, Terry Bishop, that was in the theater at 10am.  They tape the lecture and show it later on our tv.  Terry is a great speaker and adds some humor to his lectures.

        At 6pm the Captain's Welcome and Reception will take place in the theater.  Cocktails and canapes followed by the cruise officer's introductions.  We shall be dining up in Sette Mari (Italian restaurant during the evenings).  I have requested that Chef Seigfied prepare his fantastic veal parmesan for me.

After dinner we definitely want to see tonight's show featuring, "The Jersey Tenors".  This show should be great.