Cartagena was hot, beautiful, kind, and oh so tasty.
After spending a long night in the Medellin airport, we finally arrived to the beautiful historic district where we would be staying in Cartagena. Our noses and rumbling bellies quickly led us to a corner bakery where we were all too pleased to learn that the local people are especially skilled in baking delicious, mouth-watering delicacies. The only way we were able to choose between the cheesy breads, overstuffed empanadas, sweet croissants, and unidentifiable rolls of beauty was by promising ourselves we would get something new each day (or in our case, multiple times a day...) As we were waiting on the staff to make our freshly squeezed juices, I couldn´t help but ask the man sitting beside us what he had chosen. Not only did he explain some of the local specialties to us, he even offered to split half of his breakfast with me so that I could try it! Little did we realize that that man was just the beginning in an incredible show of hospitality (and amazing food) that we would experience in Colombia.
We spent a decent majority of our time wandering the streets of Cartagena´s historic district, which is filled with boutique shops, restaurants, and artisan vendors. Despite being an obvious tourist spot, most of the prices were extremely reasonable- another welcome surprise!
Once we felt like we had had our fill of shopping and street food, we ventured over to Convento de la Popa, a Catholic convent on the edge of town dating back to the early 1600´s. It was the perfect place to watch the sunset over the city and a perfect ending to the first half of our trip.
Good morning, how are you?
ReplyDeleteMy name is Emilio, I am a Spanish boy and I live in a town near to Madrid. I am a very interested person in knowing things so different as the culture, the way of life of the inhabitants of our planet, the fauna, the flora, and the landscapes of all the countries of the world etc. in summary, I am a person that enjoys traveling, learning and respecting people's diversity from all over the world.
I would love to travel and meet in person all the aspects above mentioned, but unfortunately as this is very expensive and my purchasing power is quite small, so I devised a way to travel with the imagination in every corner of our planet. A few years ago I started a collection of used stamps because through them, you can see pictures about fauna, flora, monuments, landscapes etc. from all the countries. As every day is more and more difficult to get stamps, some years ago I started a new collection in order to get traditional letters addressed to me in which my goal was to get at least 1 letter from each country in the world. This modest goal is feasible to reach in the most part of countries, but unfortunately, it is impossible to achieve in other various territories for several reasons, either because they are very small countries with very few population, either because they are countries at war, either because they are countries with extreme poverty or because for whatever reason the postal system is not functioning properly.
For all this, I would ask you one small favor:
Would you be so kind as to send me a letter by traditional mail from Panama? I understand perfectly that you think that your blog is not the appropriate place to ask this, and even, is very probably that you ignore my letter, but I would call your attention to the difficulty involved in getting a letter from that country, and also I don’t know anyone neither where to write in Panama in order to increase my collection. a letter for me is like a little souvenir, like if I have had visited that territory with my imagination and at same time, the arrival of the letters from a country is a sign of peace and normality and an original way to promote a country in the world. My postal address is the following one:
Emilio Fernandez Esteban
Calle Valencia, 39
28903 Getafe (Madrid)
Spain
If you wish, you can visit my blog www.cartasenmibuzon.blogspot.com where you can see the pictures of all the letters that I have received from whole World.
Finally, I would like to thank the attention given to this letter, and whether you can help me or not, I send my best wishes for peace, health and happiness for you, your family and all your dear beings.
Yours Sincerely
Emilio Fernandez