Starting another adventure in Cartegena, Columbia an excursion by land and sea.
We started our adventure on the bus and headed to Bastille San Felipe Fortress
Cartagena has an old part of the city or they call it the Walled City. El Centro, as it is know is the Old City. It was the heavily fortified Spanish town that was the key strongpoint of the Spanish Empire on the north coast of South America, or the Spanish Main, as it was called.
This city is protected by thick stone walls that took almost 100 years to complete. This town is beautiful with its plazas, churches, narrow streets lots of balconied houses with bogainvillea plants hanging from the balconies. They used to have contest here on which house that the best flowered balonies.
Colombia is famous for their emeralds and colombian coffee. I bought 2 bags of medium roast coffee.
After we took our land tour we went to Pierino Gallo Plaza where this guy had a sloth you could take pictures with and the ladies who carry fruit on their heads (Cartagena Fruit Ladies). It was interesting and a guy called Mr. Emerald who was an American who owned an emerald shop. We all could use his restroom and they gave us a ticket to get free water. Then we took another bus to the water taxi boat where we continued our adventure on the sea part of our excursion.
The Andes Mountains of Colombia with their mild temperatures, fertile soils and heavy rainfall are ideal for the cultivation of Arabica the most flavorful and automatic variety of coffee.
Here I am at the Bastille San Felipe Fortress it is pretty impressing.
Ross overlooking the city of Cartegena, Columbia on the Bastille San Felipe Fortress
This local guy was imitating the soldiers of that time period pretty funny actually.
The castle is located on the Hill of San Lázaro in a strategic location, dominating approaches to the city by land or sea. It was built by the Spanish during the colonial era. Construction began in the year 1536, and it was originally known as the Castillo de San Lázaro, It was expanded in 1657.
The Cartegena flag the colors have a significant symbols, the yellow was the gold they took, the blue are the two oceans, Atlantic and Pacific and the red is the blood shed that happened during the war.
The fortress showcases three distinct periods of artillery evolution. In the 18th century, cannons were placed in gun openings or embrasures. Starting in the late 19th century, a semi-circular track of ground bricks was used to support the cannons. Under Spanish rule, cannons were fired at the English, the Dutch, the British and the Americans. During World War II, anti-aircraft guns were positioned on slabs of concrete.
In 1984, UNESCO listed the castle, with the historic centre of the city of Cartagena, as a World Heritage Site. Since 1990, the castle has served as a location for social and cultural events offered by the Colombian government in honour of foreign delegations at presidential summits, ministerial meetings, the Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (1995) and the Summit of the Rio Group(2000), among others.
An escape route, the Spanish people were short so they could escape through the tunnels. It was truly impregnable and was never taken despite numerous attempts to storm it. A complex system of tunnels connected strategic points of the fortress to distribute provisions and to facilitate evacuation. The tunnels were constructed in such a way that any noise reverberated all the way along them, making it possible to hear the slightest sound of the approaching enemies feet, and also making it easy for internal communication.
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