Columbia Part One: Cartagena

I just want to start off by saying this trip was amazing!!! A once in a lifetime experience for sure. We both had the time of our life. Our trip started off with a slight detour which turned out to be really fun. Our flight (the 16 of us) from SLC to LAX was delayed, then it took 45 minutes to get to the gate once we landed, then it took 50 minutes for our luggage to come. (We had to get our luggage because we where switching airlines.) With all these delays we ended up missing our flight by 20 minutes.

By this time it was midnight pacific time. We spent the next three hours waking up the travel agency folks who were already in Columbia, finding a hotel, and walking three terminals over to find that the only food at LAX at 2am is McDonalds. 16 Bottles of water, 17 cheeseburgers, 3 cokes, 1 coffee and 1 salad later we were all held over until we could get a shuttle to the hotel.

The next morning we found out that we wouldn't be flying out until that night. Since we had a long wait, it was arranged for us to go to the Staples Center and see a hockey game and then out for a nice dinner. Then we went back to the airport and headed out for Fort Lauderdale, FL. We reached Florida at 7:30 am East Coast time. At this point we had to divide into two groups to get us to Columbia. Five of us were bussed to the Miami Airport to wait for a flight directly to Cartagena. The other 11 stayed in Fort Lauderdale and flew to Bogota then to Cartagena.

Finally after two days of travel we all arrived and started the next part of our journey in Cartagena and the Hotel Santa Clara Sofitel.
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The Sofitel was a beautiful luxury resort. "Originally built as a monastery in 1621, the Sofitel Santa Clara Hotel is a reference point in the heart of Cartagena de Indias, where its walls, which acted as a shield in ancient times, combine with colonial balconies and republican structures to evokethe splendor of days gone by."

There were toucans around the hotel. This is one helping himself to some breakfast in the courtyard. Breakfast at the hotel was pastries, fresh fruit and wonderful breads.

Our second night in Cartagena, after dinner, we took a carriage ride through the city.

We took a bus tour the morning after arriving. This is the courtyard inside the monastery on the highest point in Cartagena.

This is a Fort we visited on our bus tour. It has tunnels running throughout it. We walked down into one tunnel that is about two stories deep. It got pretty tight the further down we went.

In the walled city where we were staying there are squares like this every few blocks. Most restaurants have the majority of their seating outside in a square like this.

This is a square where we had dinner on the second night. The food was amazing, sushi, shrimp, beef tenderloin and coconut pie. All the food we had in Columbia was delicious.

This is a typical street in the walled city. Cartagena was very clean every where we went, even outside of the walled city.

These next pictures are a few of the beautiful doorways that where every where in the city.





After a few days in Cartagena our vacation continued a two hour boat ride away on a island in the Caribbean at a resort called Punta Faro. This will be my next post.