{"id":53768,"date":"2025-12-30T17:20:54","date_gmt":"2025-12-30T23:20:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/?page_id=53768"},"modified":"2025-12-30T23:06:23","modified_gmt":"2025-12-31T05:06:23","slug":"cartagena-day-3-part-1","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/?page_id=53768","title":{"rendered":"Cartagena Day 3 Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continued from Cartagena Day 2<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Illness continues in this household. Little KL showed up on this trip at the tail end of his cold, and it seems to have been passed onto CL. She woke up this morning with a fever and just general lethargy. Sigh. I guess the good news is that since we bought along all the cold meds from Austin for Little KL, we at least have all the meds available now for CL. We have a whole gauntlet of meds to throw at her to make her feel better.<\/p>\n

With that said, we do have a driver scheduled to pick us up at 10am today to do some sightseeing. Hopefully her meds would kick in by then and she\u2019ll feel well enough to want to tag along and one of us won\u2019t need to stay behind with her. Such is 3 kid life, someone always gets sicks at some point.<\/p>\n

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\nBreakfast made by our two housekeepers again. Yum. The food is genuinely delicious, and it\u2019s been different each day. I wonder if it\u2019ll be different tomorrow as well. Though, as nice as it is to have breakfast be made for us, because my room is right next to the kitchen, the when ladies show up an hour and a half before breakfast start time, I get woken up when they arrive. I guess its a small price to pay.<\/p>\n

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\nReminds me of the GIANT avocados that we also saw in Costa Rica.<\/p>\n

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\nNestle, Milo. It\u2019s some sort of fortified chocolate shake that the two housekeepers made for the kids yesterday. The kids loved them and the ladies made them again this morning but handed the third to CH this morning since CL was in a bedroom recovering. CH didn\u2019t understand what Jelly said when she handed it to her so she just started drinking it\u2026hahaha. Once CL started feeling better and came out for breakfast, we asked if we could have one more Milo. So, a 4th Milo was made for CL.<\/p>\n

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\nMeds kicked in. Seems like she\u2019ll be ready to rock and roll as long as we stay on top of her meds.<\/p>\n

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\nThinking.<\/p>\n

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\nFeeling better and better\u2026slowly.<\/p>\n

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\nOur driver is here. The streets are so narrow, there\u2019s no room to pass. So when the drivers show up, they honk, we all get in as fast as we can and try to block traffic as little as possible. We\u2019ve also realized that our Airbnb is in a slightly quieter section of Old Town, so that\u2019s nice. There\u2019s quite the party atmosphere here, lots of noises and music going on into late night.<\/p>\n

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\nHeading out of Old Town this morning. Let\u2019s hope it\u2019s a little bit less hot today than yesterday since we\u2019ll be outdoors most of the day.<\/p>\n

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\nFirst stop is San Felipe de Barajas Fort, a short drive from Old Town.<\/p>\n

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\nLots of white tourist vans here, took a photo of the plate so I can find ours when we are done here. Immediately after getting out of our van, we were MOBBED by hat sellers. RL wanted to buy some hats for the kids, and next thing you know, there were like 5 hat sellers all pressuring us to buy hats\u2026I need to get a hat just to keep off the hat sellers.<\/p>\n

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\nLine for getting tickets. Line wasn\u2019t long, but it was slow moving. At least it\u2019s shaded over here. It\u2019s hot out here,<\/p>\n

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\nThe hat sellers got us, almost everyone came away with a hat, even me. And I didn\u2019t even want a hat, but panicked and bought one. Boo.<\/p>\n

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\nMore hat sellers, but none of them bothered us. Probably because we all had hats already. It\u2019s also breezy up here, so despite the sun and the heat, it was bearable. CL asked why there were so many hat sellers and no ice cream sellers. Great question.<\/p>\n

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\nOld Town in the distance.<\/p>\n

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\nAll those taller buildings is in a newer area called Boca Grande.<\/p>\n

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\nBathrooms here are situated in the tunnel system inside the fort. Neat.<\/p>\n

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\nI can\u2019t decide which photo I like better, so I\u2019m putting both of them up.<\/p>\n

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\nRemovable bridges as defense.<\/p>\n

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\nHere\u2019s one of the bridges.<\/p>\n

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\nCL isn\u2019t 100% but she\u2019s being a trooper.<\/p>\n

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\nAt the top of that small mountain is Convento de Santa Cruz de la Popa, where we\u2019ll be headed to after the fort.<\/p>\n

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\nCome on children, let\u2019s sit on the cannon and get another \u201call sitting on cannon\u201d photo. Yes, I know it\u2019s hot and bright, but let\u2019s rally.<\/p>\n

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\nThere we go, was that so hard?<\/p>\n

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\nDown we go into the tunnels.<\/p>\n

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\nWe found a cat just chilling down here in the cooler tunnels.<\/p>\n

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\nBelieve these were barracks for the soldiers stationed at the fort.<\/p>\n

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\nPopped up above ground.<\/p>\n

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\nKids wanted to explore more tunnels, so down again we go.<\/p>\n

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\nLittle KL points.<\/p>\n

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\nOverheating a little in this heat.<\/p>\n

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\nThinking.<\/p>\n

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\nAlright, let\u2019s make the summit push for this fort on the other side. Then we can call it done and head to the convent next.<\/p>\n

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\nOh, there\u2019s a souvenir shop at the top and they sell ice cream!<\/p>\n

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\nTrying to find some shade.<\/p>\n

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\nIt\u2019s hot, our popsicles are immediately melting, even in the shade. But a cold popsicle really hit the spot here.<\/p>\n

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\nPL took too long to eat her popsicle, it dripped on her shirt.<\/p>\n

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\nI guess this is another one of those moveable bridges.<\/p>\n

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\nTook this photo of all of us cooling off in the shade. Just happened to get a photo of this guy in purple with his shorts all pulled up, looks like a diaper. Not a good look, nope, not at all.<\/p>\n

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\nLots of hawks here, probably due to the updrafts of the breeze against the fort.<\/p>\n

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\nWe came, we conquered the fort, time to head back down.<\/p>\n

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\nThe ticket line has gotten much much longer when we left. Good thing we showed up earlier.<\/p>\n

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\nDestination, top of the mountain.<\/p>\n

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\nSome shanty towns over here along the base of the mountain.<\/p>\n

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\nWe are here, after a pretty short drive from the fort.<\/p>\n

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\nMore hat sellers, but armed with our hats, they didn\u2019t really bother us too much.<\/p>\n

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\nGood thing I got some cash from the ATM yesterday. This ticket booth only took cash. Almost everywhere else here in Cartagena they\u2019ve taken Amex or Visa without any issues.<\/p>\n

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\nJust had ice cream, otherwise we\u2019d be all over this.<\/p>\n

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\nWhat a nice vantage point. Imagine being here a few centuries ago watching the battles unfold at the fort.<\/p>\n

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\nVery beautiful courtyard.<\/p>\n

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\nOh, seems like they\u2019ve been having erosion issues and have had to stabilize the foundation on the backside.<\/p>\n

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\nSure enough, came back outside and looked down.<\/p>\n

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\nI\u2019d like to go visit that street with all those umbrellas and street side restaurants\/shops.<\/p>\n

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\nEasy peasy, short visit, let\u2019s go back home now.<\/p>\n

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\nOur driver told us that all these motorcycles with a passenger are mostly motorcycle taxis. They weave in and out of traffic, and it\u2019s pretty cheap for many people to take a ride from the burbs into central Cartagena. Imagine the trust of getting onto a motorcycle with a complete stranger. We see both men and women getting onto random moto taxis.<\/p>\n

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\nAt a stoplight, there\u2019s a panhandler painted all in gold singing.<\/p>\n

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\nOur driver calls him over and gives him money.<\/p>\n

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\nHe says this is a well known singer, and they seem to know each other.<\/p>\n

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\nBack inside old town.<\/p>\n

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\nA well deserved cold beer after our sightseeing this morning.<\/p>\n

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\nBreakfast has been so filling, for lunch we are just eating all the leftover food that we’ve been bringing back from the restaurants in the past couple of days. Leftover squid ink paella, yes please. Yum.<\/p>\n

To be continued at Cartagena Day 3 Part 2<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Cartagena Day 2. Illness continues in this household. Little KL showed up on this trip at the tail end of his cold, and it seems to have been passed onto CL. She woke up this morning with a … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":53622,"menu_order":3,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-53768","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/53768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=53768"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/53768\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54493,"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/53768\/revisions\/54493"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/53622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=53768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}