Cartagena Review and Onwards

We’re now trying to put memories of Cartagena behind us, a city of horrendous, honking traffic, unbearable traffic fumes, people everywhere and street hawkers at every turn.

Part of the cruise terminal!

Mind you, having been to places we wouldn’t necessarily be bothered to go to again can have its advantages.  Seasoned cruisers can find it hard to find cruises where all the stops are new.  That doesn’t necessarily mean you don’t get off because you’ve been there before, but it does give you the opportunity to give some places a miss that you’ve seen before and weren’t captivated by, but also a chance to go to places for a second or third time.

Staying on board at some stops does have two distinct advantages – you don’t spend money on shore excursions or on drinks ashore when you get free drinks on board plus the fact that, to some extent you have the ship to yourself while all those keen cruise explorers are ashore getting a taste of their destination.  Yes, you’ll always get the infirm and the walking wounded who will stay on board for the whole voyage but most of the staff are still on board and a lot of the ship’s bars and eating places are open as normal.  So there can be advantages to cruising to places you’ve been to before.

Extra long selfie stick strikes again this was a talking US version!

After our interesting experience of yesterday, trying to save the odd few bob by doing our own thing and ending up slightly worse off for that, we decided this morning to book ship’s excursions for the rest of the cruise.  In Aruba we have time on arrival to explore the shops in the capital, Oranjestad this evening, then we’ll go on a tour tomorrow.  In Curacao and Bonaire we’re there for just a normal cruise stop day, so we’ve booked an early tour at each place.  That should give us some time to explore the local shops in each place and also some time on board before the crowds return.

One thing that does seem fairly certain about cruising round these parts is that there’s a good deal of rocking and rolling.  Some of that seems to come from a sea swell, but some is also clearly from the wind as it’s extremely windy most of the time and that buffets the ship a lot.  Once again the wind is now officially gale force (and we’re sailing against it) while the sky is clear blue, white horses are out in numbers and there’s a quick rocking back and forth as the wind hits the ship like wind in a sail.

Peacocks everywhere!

One thing I haven’t mentioned so far is the demographics of our fellow passengers.  The average age is probably around ours and there are almost no children on board.  The vast majority of the passengers are from the USA with quite a contingent from Canada, both English- and French-speaking.

Who in L is that lurking there?!

Still in the cruise terminal!  Free to fly, but would you when you're all found for free?

There’s a smattering of other nations on board including Brits and Irish, but a north American/Canadian accent is all around us.  And while cruiseland is normally the land of the massive corporation and the mighty backside, their numbers are not represented as well as they have been on other cruises we've been on.  There’s the usual ration of walking wounded and a few of the deadly motorised wheelchairs about, but neither of us has been run down just yet or been clocked with a walking stick.

We're getting to Aruba - Oranjestad in just over an hour now ....

Some photos of Cartagena later ....

and here they are - 

I gave up after taking these as most of the others would have included a mug shot of some guy putting things in my face that I didn't want to buy - a t-shirt, cigars, some netting, a rosary, a sun hat, when I was already wearing one, some sun glasses, again when I was wearing some etc, etc.

When we finally made it to the sanctuary of the shuttle bus to take us back to the ship we stopped at some traffic lights.  A man was working his way down the queue of drivers holding up a tiny plastic bag for sale.  It looked the size of a guitar plectrum or similar.  Now why on earth would he be selling that, I wondered.  Then the penny dropped - drugs for sale at the traffic lights in full view of everyone!