Today we had the amazing opportunity to see and learn more about the beautiful city of Cartagena 🇨🇴. I’m not going to lie… I’m a product of the U.S. school system, and like many Americans, I would say my knowledge of geography, culture and customs outside of my own country is often limited. But that is one of the reasons I travel, and we love learning new things and seeing new sights. All of this is my long way of explaining that pretty much my entire sum of knowledge on Colombia came from the character Gloria on Modern Family. 🤷‍♀️ 😂🤭 I am happy to personally report our excursion today taught us so much more.

The Chiva Party Bus!

So in true LeBeau style, the excursion we selected to take us around our first time in Colombia took place on the “Chiva Party Bus”. This consisted of a brightly colored, rustic open air bus used here to transport very happy (aka party) people. We knew we were in for a fun day when the first thing our guide Gary (pronounced Garr-ee, he made sure to inform us!) did was pass out soda and bottles of rum to make-your-own Cuba Libre. Never mind that it was 9 a.m. when we boarded the bus… do what Gary says!!

Right from the start, Gary had us all up dancing, singing, learning new songs and phrases in Spanish, playing games, and just ensuring we had a great time. And we did!! There are apparently no open container laws nor seatbelt laws on a Chiva bus, so we rolled through the city standing up and dancing, shouting at passing buses (Gary told us to point to every other bus we passed and yell “Aburrido”/“Boring” as we rolled by 🤭), and waving around the local beers or rum bottles that Gary distributed quite freely.

Our bus driver Nacho was absolutely amazing. He literally slithered the bus through some of the tightest alleyways and roads between parked cars I have EVER seen. You couldn’t fit a hand between the side of the bus and the areas he got us out of without ever scratching a single other vehicle. The man was LEGEND!

If you are looking at the Chiva bus pictures below, phito one requires some background explanation as to why it made the blog. Our ship strangely decided to schedule every single excursion into Colombia today to start out of the theater on the boat. This made for insane crowds at the theater this morning, where we all had to line up and walk across the stage to get our excursion tickets and information. I was lucky enough to snag some of the rare available seats in the theater, so I was sitting and waiting for him. For a reason only Rob and God know, he decided this morning was his moment to entertain the cruise ship masses, so when it was his turn to walk to the table and get our tickets, he turned around and waved and danced for the audience. Of course this led to thunderous applause from hundreds of bored passengers. And this was all before we got to the “bus bar.” I might or might not have hunched down in my seat in mortification… err, I meant pride… a little as he was returning to me 😂.

And for a taste of Chiva bus life…

Cartagena Fun Facts

As we get further south and closer to the equator, the temperatures have definitely been rising! It was in the upper 80s and sunny today, but it felt even hotter in our open air bus (aka no air conditioning!) and we were pretty much glued to each other by sweat at the end of this trip.

Between our port talk and today’s tour, we learned that Cartagena is the fifth-largest city in Colombia, with the largest being the capital city of Bogota. There are over a million people living here, and the walled city is a UNESCO world heritage site. The big Colombian exports are emeralds, coffee, petroleum and gold (which is NOT what Gloria said!). One of their cool local craftworks include the sombrero vueltiao (the “turned hat), which is a traditional Colombian hat handwoven by the indigenous Zenu people and made of arrow cane. They were so interesting and we saw them everywhere, but I only had the one so-so picture. So, I had to go to good old Wikipedia to show you the first image below, but yep… this is how they look. We have limited suitcase space as usual, so we didn’t buy anything today (but we have our eye on a few things for Panama tomorrow).

Cartagena is a super cool mix of old and new. It was founded by Pedro de Heredia in 1533, and was considered a very wealthy port city for hundreds of years. Unfortunately this made it very vulnerable to pirate attacks, so it kept getting conquered and re-conquered until the 1800s. It was also a slave trade center until the 1600s, and there is still a strong population of Afro-Caribbean people residing here. Some are called palenqueras, identifiable by their brightly colored dresses and fruit sales. We saw quite a few palenqueras in the city.

Blending the Old and the New

The old, historic district still has the walls built around the original city, and a well-preserved fort. The modern part of Cartagena is just across the water from the old city, and is full of skyscrapers, hotels, shops, and homes of the richest people in the city. Both are beautiful in completely different ways.

El Castillo de San Felipe de Barajas

This cool fort is built right into parts of the walls in the historic district.

Other Interesting Sights

Every city has its own unique style, and here are some more of the “flavors”’of Cartagena. Our final stop was at a craft market with tons of stores built into an old bull ring. We stopped there to shop and listened to local music from a band who was friends with our tour guide. Dancing and conga lines were part of the fun!

A Wonderful Surprise: Port Oasis Eco-Park

One of the most wonderful parts of our day came about at the end of our tour when we were dropped off at the entrance to the port. The wonderful people of Cartagena built a beautiful (free!) 10,000 square meter eco-park right at the entrance to the port, so tourists coming and going from cruise ships could walk right through it. The park wildlife includes parrots, macaws, sloths, flamingoes, monkeys, and more… we were in heaven! Rob even got to pet a friendly little bird.

A sloth in action!

After our fun (and hot) adventures ashore, the only reasonable course of action was ice cream, showers/pool, and a nap, so that’s what we did! Mellow on the ship here tonight, so we guess everyone is feeling tired out like we are! Tomorrow we are in Colon, Panama, and we have another fun-filled day planned, so stay tuned! Thanks for adventuring with us!