Cartagena, Colombia

Don't let the fact its Columbia scare you like it originally did me. The people are friendly, the little sanctuary near the port is amazing. Saw tons of rescues. A baby sloth, baby ant eater, around 50 parrots, tiny monkeys if you can spot them, peacocks, peahens and even a flamingo chick with its flock! Theres even more if you can find them, if they fly or climb they are not in cages so they can freely crawl or fly around you, the ground walkers such as the ant eaters are in a fenced in area for their safety from us. I highly recommend once out of the main port in old town, ask locals for their favorite food stop. We were walked to a little hole in the wall restaurant with some of the BEST bolognese sauce I've ever had in my life, it was like a sweet pork sauce. My parents had the best chicken and beef. Even the soda is better than in the us as it's full of carbonation and tastes good.

This is a great place. The old town with its magnificent wall is beautiful and charming. Nice colonial style architecture, very colorful buildings with balconies full of flowers. The churches are lovely. Nice squares and quaint small streets. Lots of great history. Vendors may be pushy but just ignore them. Truly enjoyed it.

Beautiful city skyline rising ot of the water. Weather was warm but nice in late March. Took the emerald jewelry making excursion. A short bus ride through a nice part of town. Super clean streets. Didn't see any trash and only one graffiti. Jewlry making class was fun. You make five pieces of jewelry with rough emeralds and silver wire. Pretty easy. You keep one piece and can buy the others for $30 each... Next you tour the emerald museum which shows how they mine the stones and lots of interesting examples of emeralds. At the end you go through a high end jewelry store. Watch the gem cutters through an open door in the store. Great experience... Back at the port you walk through an amazing Avery with hundreds of exotic birds and some animals. Saw dozens of large parrots and macaws, lots of toucans, peacocks, etc. Even saw an anteater! Kind of expensive gift shop but ok since the Avery is free.

This port caught us totally by surprise because it wasn't what we were expecting at all. It's a little Miami in the new town - all white condo buildings and sky scrapers. And in the old town, the walled city is a must see! There was so much history to hear about see. The only downfall was the unrelenting vendors trying to sell us hats and everything else, they never stopped! But upon return to the cruise ship terminal, there's a free small zoo and Juan Valdez store and they were so nice to go through before getting back on the ship - macaws, peacocks, black swans, pink flamingos!

Visited: Apr 08, 2018

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We did not take tour because we heard that the locals were extremely harassing and the tours were expensive. We did leave ship and went to the terminals where they had a great free wild animal sanctuary where there all kinds of birds, peacocks, deer and different kinds of monkeys. It was really great! The store there also had a great variety of items for sale and very reasonable.

Visited: Apr 19, 2018

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