Destination: CARTAGENA, Colombia

City steeped in history

The mighty fortress of San Felipe was begun in 1536 and took 121 years to build.

 So there! I risked my wallet and my life, or at least a lengthy jail term, just by visiting Colombia!

 Isn't that where all the drug traffickers are? Where they shoot people first and never ask questions later?

 Was I crazy in going to Cartagena, as my friends and neighbors thought?

 Well, Colombia does have a reputation for being a drug supplier and a drug haven and for murders arising from bad blood between drug clans.

 But Cartagena, the Colombian city where I was going, is on that country's northwest coast, facing the Caribbean Sea - a beach resort kind of city, although its beaches aren't that great.

 It's also more than 400 km from Medellin, the drug capital of Colombia, and even farther from Bogota, this South American country's capital.

 I had been in those places before, but I wanted to get back to Cartagena because it's a city steeped in Spanish colonial history, and one of the most interesting towns in South America.

 With 800,000 inhabitants, it's slightly larger than Edmonton, but has it all over us when it comes to color and history - not to mention traffic on vehicle-packed narrow streets.

 I wish I could report some interesting drug-related stories, but the truth is the closest I got to drugs in Cartagena was the Cuban cigars that street vendors insistently kept trying to sell me. At $25 US a box, it would have been a good deal if I hadn't been warned they could be fake, or if I thought they had been properly kept in a humidor instead of in the hot Colombian sun or a vendor's sweaty hands.

 I passed on the cigars. American cigarettes, which don't need a humidor, were $10 US a carton on the streets.

 I went sightseeing instead in the old walled city started by the Spaniards in 1533 behind four-metre-high stone walls and still basically intact.

 In the middle is Plaza Bolivar, with a cathedral, a Palace of the Inquisition and a good Gold Museum. All around, there are great examples of Spanish-colonial architecture.

 Cartagena was a major storage point for goods sent from Spain to the New World, and for treasures sent from there to Spain. So defence, from marauding pirates and hostile European navies, was important. Hence the walled city and several fortresses, the most imposing of which, on a hilltop, is San Felipe, its thick walls still studded with cannons.

 Shopping in Cartagena is good. There are emeralds and there's coffee, of course, plus leather goods and pre-Colombian ceramics. Not to mention cigars and T-shirts everywhere.

 The best way to visit Cartagena is off a cruise ship. But you can also fly there. Check with a travel agent.

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