Cartagena City Tour
So far so good, and we have managed to enjoy ourselves so far, an 11th anniversary, a second honeymoon, however you want to look at it - life is better when you look on the bright side.
We climbed the historic 16th century stone walles, built in the first half of the 1500s to repel the nasty british naval invasions, Cartegena has been a prize since it has existed. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Colombia's Nobel Laureate in literature remarked that he felt reborn walking these walls at 6pm, which is the time of the sunset.
So this we did, but not until after spending the day driving around the city. We made a new friend, a tour guide who showed us some of the main sites.
From modern to historic, from the legendary to the surreal; Cartegena has a lot to see.
I'm not even sure what to say about the Zapatos Viejos, seems like an inside joke that got made into a monument, but the locals swear its really good luck and that anyone who gets inside the shoe will lose 2 kilograms of weight.
We decided just in case that I would get in the shoe for the picture.
Some of the fruits are different too, we really liked the tamarind fruit, and went looking for different tamarind candies and items. By some stoke of luck, in one park we found a tamarind tree and even got some seeds to take back home to the farm. According to the internet, it grows up to 600 meters above sea level, so we think we should be able to grow it down in Padilla.
After a while we started wanting to understand how everything fit together, Cartegena seemed like a complicated city to navigate so we went up to the Cerro de la Popa, to get the layout.
From here, "Lookout Hill", they could see ships coming from many miles off, and get word to the fort if anything was about to happen.
Imagine some menacing english galleons lurking out there off the coast!
Boom! There are really cool old things inside the walled city, we just kept walking around and taking pictures as sunset slowly approached, but I am getting ahead of myself again.
After coming down from the 'popa', we were getting hungry, and we had heard really good things about a particular dish, the Pargo Rojo. Now I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but the legend was that this fish lived in the deep sea and ate only shrimp, which is why it is red.
Well, we tried it out, with some Tamarind Juice :)
Red Snapper! That I had heard of before, although I don't think I've ever tried it until Cartegena.
It was around this point, if I'm remembering correctly, that @ecoinstante said to me -
"Happy Anniversary"
So its official now, not because of the "vacation", but we have been married now 11 years, since about 1 week ago. As a rural hermit, I normally would not do something like this, but I look at how happy my wife looks in these pictures (and me too), I think that whatever the price, its probably worth it.
And that's the story of how we ended up enjoying a seaside sunset atop a 500 year old stone fortress. I wonder what we'll get up to tomorrow?
Very good @ecoinstant. Happy anniversary to you both!! 👍 May you enjoy many long years together, before your ... "time is up." 🫡
Have you ever considered posting on Pinmapple? And pinning to their map? This seems like great travel-related content, so ... Maybe something to think about, for the next time ...
I have heard about it many times, do you have a link for me? Just have to pull the trigger on something new....
Sure. In the "footer" of my last post ... 🫡 (And all my travel-related posts ...)
To see how powerful it is, check it out, etc., just click on some of the links I have provided there, as well as look at the Pinmapple comment made just this morning, with its step-by-step, along with its links ...
P.S. The latter is great news, as "ahead of schedule" it is demonstrating that the services of Hive SQL, upon which it is heavily dependent, are coming ... "back to life!" 👍
Happy Anniversary to you both!
Thank you so much!
WOOOOOT!
Love you both so much!!!
!PIZZA
$PIZZA slices delivered:
@edgerik(1/15) tipped @ecoinstant
Thanks for your interesting posts in classic blogging style! It almost inspires me to start doing the same again however the incited trend for self-surveillance makes me question if classic blogging and the popularization of it was also part of this agenda. Ultimately people like to share - but sharing potentially en-mass creates energetic shifts and imbalances within the group - I suppose it's like anything throughout history, people and things have became popularized and drew in a large energy of the group then became changed by that energy they drew in to become something different than what they started. The group then in a way 'owns' the image or idea and the person lives merely as the vessel or tool of the group. Seen in one way, this is service and part of our duty being here as humans is living this service unconditionally as long as it isn't done from a starting point of insecurity or 'making up for something'. The other possibility of course is that sharing in this way simply becomes a pattern and habit of the regular self.
I still have issues justifying a broadcast of an impression of self or an idea. Maybe I can work through this, maybe not, in the meantime I enjoy it when people share unconditionally without filters. If humans are going to find their way back to the garden of eden as it were - they would do well to learn to communicate directly again. The first direct communicators stand as headland in the wind - exposing parts of the self which would otherwise be perceived as not ok because it is showing vulnerability.
When I can share in this way without a need to direct or change a person's mind, but rather as an unconditional expression of myself - then I will do so. Blogging may not be this for me - as I have tried many things and quickly discovered my authenticity was like a tap and it drained away - especially if receiving no reciprocation. We hold ourselves within like a treasure, when treasures truly connect then it creates a regenerative force. Until then it is an island in the black etheric cloth of the entirety of everything.
Good luck in Cartageena! Tourism has never really been my thing either - I find I can engage with the energy of it when I do it with others. Otherwise, traveling the streets of the world as a homeless street musician - I care little for these things. The study of people in the many varied contexts through simple observation is enough to keep my mind occupied with a thousand theme parks worth of entertainment.
A big happy anniversary to you guys
You both are so cute and it's a good thing that you went to this beautiful town to celebrate.
Happy Anniversary @ecoinstant and @ecoinstante.🤗🤗🤗
A very beautiful outing to celebrate a very beautiful union. Happy anniversary to you both.