Bumpy a Ride to Cartagena

February 13
Some group members return to Chupundun with Nevada to photograph in the first light of day, but I pass, having felt a bit uncomfortable in our first visit to that village. Mid-morning, after breakfast, we return to Cartagena via private boat, a very bumpy two-hour ride.   Here’s Patti, relaxing on the boat, and a view of Cartagena from the water.

   
Lunch at the same hotel we stayed at the first time, then we pan out for shopping and exploring.  As we’ve been told that there will be shopping opportunities in local towns, I pretty-much just look. 

 
We return to the hotel and walk to where Nevada has arranged for some women all dressed up with fruit baskets on their heads to pose for us.  These women, called Palenqueras, are in fact part of the local culture and are actually selling fruit to people.  But, in general, I don’t find this kind of posed session much fun.  Here are a few (not necessarily the best) of many I took. 

I find the photos of group members (below, Stan) taking photos or photos of passers by with the Palenqueras in the background more interesting than the posed photos. 
    
 After that, I Went with Rich and Barbara, to the Cartegena Hard Rock Cafe, the first Hard Rock Cafe I’ve ever been to, for drinks.  Then we go to watch the last light fall on horse drawn carriages, one of the characteristic sights of Cartagena, in one of the squares. 

 
The group has an excellent dinner at Alma Restaurant.  A measure of how popular Cartagena has become: a group of more than twenty MBA students from Columbia University in New York, is having dinner in an adjoining room of the restaurant, having flown down for the weekend.