I was feeling under the weather and I should have stayed in bed but I wanted to see something of this city Layne had told me she was enjoying a great deal. We were still waiting for GANNET2 to be released from the port and our agent had screwed up my insurance application so the scheduled release was a day late. So I went for a walk.
My first goal was the Castillo de San Felipe named in honor of the Spanish king at the time, Philip IV, overlooking what was at the time a small walled city set between the fort on the hill and the beach. I thought the positioning was slightly odd compared to St Augustine in Florida and San Juan in Puerto Rico where the defenses typically overlook the harbor. Think of Fort Zachary in Key West…but this fort with a garrison of just 200 soldiers was built to protect the sole gate into the walled city as well as the narrow entrance to the anchorage in the lagoon between the fort and the city.
Here the fort is set on a hill, Cerro de San Lázaro, which gives it a view of the harbor mouth and the lagoon, or did before the era of skyscrapers and electric power lines.
It’s an imposing lump but unlike most of these vast monoliths to war from another era this one was involved in two important battles, losing one and winning the other and thus ended up protecting Spain’s possessions on the Spanish Main. The castle was built in 1536 and attacked by a major force of French raiders in 1697 who tore parts of it down. The man with the eyepiece below is Blas de Leto who died at 52 but who was shot to pieces during his life losing an eye and a leg and defeated the English here in 1741.
Historians describe Admiral de Leto as one of the greatest naval strategists of his time as proved in the War of Jenkin’s Ear, a decade long struggle in the Caribbean as England tried to force Spain to open its colonies to trade. Admiral Edward Vernon attacked Cartagena with force of 20,000 and de Leto with only 2300 trounced his ass.
Aside from the history this rather peculiar fort with no apparent living spaces was a great place to wander at will, enjoying the breezes and the cool interior passages.
Wander at your own risk, there are no warning signs, handrails or closed areas.
Food delivery and moto taxi. Fancy a helmet-less ride in this chaos? Me neither; I can afford Uber lucky me.
A few shots of the harbor.
Rusty navigating the artistic undulating sidewalk.
Harbor ride:
GANNET2’s approximate landing point:
Cruising sailors below. I was one once and now I love my land yacht. I am fickle. 
Colombia really does need to get its tourist promotion together as cousin Lyn remarked. However at the moment I am quite enjoying being ahead of the curve.
Cruise ships have it figured out. One day last week there were four in town while I was in bending my cold. Layne said Old Town was a nightmare with the crowds.
We celebrated our restored GANNET2 with a night out in the hip Getsemaní neighborhood, still full of crowds of drunks and sidewalk artists, beggars, noise and confusion.
Layne found a weird Chinese/Cuban/Caribbean fusion restaurant which was founded in Bogota but also has a place in Miami. It’s called Calle Dragones and we have it a mixed review.
The chef in charge is called Luis Pous and weirdly enough 20 years ago he was the chef at Little Palm Island so I guess we are familiar with his cooking, completely by accident. They do live music and the cocktails were good but when we ordered a bottle of wine (thank you Uber for driving us) they took the bottle away to chill it or something. I hate waiters who pour my wine for me, but I’ve never had them spirit the bottle away before. I had to ask for a goddamned refill from my own bottle! Forget this place.
The bao buns were okay but the dumplings were flaccid and flavor free.
The seafood risotto was okay but I’ve had more seafood in the street risottos at cheap eateries. It seemed weird to fill up with rice in this place.
Layne didn’t like the Catalan crème brulée as she thought it was like rice pudding but that sort of thing suits me just fine.
Well that was $150 we won’t be spending there again I guess!
Rusty can handle living here quite well.
I think overall so could we if we weren’t nomads. I’m nowhere near ready to settle down and neither is Layne. Rusty I’m not so sure…
Let’s see what the rest of Colombia has to offer!
