Make Good Choices

1/8/26

We are blessed to absolutely adore our two sons-in-law. The older one has been part of our family for 15 years. He's as much our son as his wife is our daughter. When we leave after a visit or even to run out for milk, he says, tongue in cheek, "Make good choices". I laugh every time.

Today we were in Cartagena, Colombia

As we recapped the day, we agreed we made good choices today.  I woke up early at my usual 5am and busied myself on Facebook and reading the news. I decided at 6:30 to go to the fitness center thinking I could be the first in at 7am when it opened. Turns out, you can get in early so I was able to finish my workout earlier than expected. Good Choice. That will likely be the case for the remainder of the cruise.

After a quick breakfast, we headed up on deck to watch the approach into Cartagena, Colombia. When we were here in 2023, we had docked at 6am, in the dark. It was a disadvantage from the perspective of experiencing the approach, which is stellar.  But it was an advantage for the temperature, which was pleasant early in the am.  We walked and walked and walked that day after a HOHO (Hop on hop off).  Today we didn't dock till 10am. It was significantly hotter and more humid by the time we disembarked.  That caused us to adjust our plans, but more on that later.

Once docked, we hurried off the ship to begin our adventure.  Cartegena welcomes all cruise ships by channeling you thru an animal rescue and nature preserve.  It houses parrots, flamingos, pelicans, monkeys, iguanas, turtles and our favorite, peacocks.  There are no cages and the animals are very docile and accustomed to humans.  Having been here before, I really could have spent the entire day interacting with the animals.  But I also love walking around cities and experiencing the locals.

So we exited the preserve and began walking to town.  The taxis are a rip off at $20 each way for a 1 mile ride to/from the old town.  But as I mentioned earlier, it was hot and crowded so we decided that maybe a taxi tour would be a better option.   So we re-entered the preserve and followed the maze back to where the taxi vultures were.  (sorry, I call it like I see it).  On the way, we ran into Rich and Rose, folks from Utah we met in line at embarkation.  They remembered our names, impressive!  We asked their plans and similar to us, they really didn’t have one.  We agreed to split a taxi tour.

We found a driver who seemed like he would treat us well.  I began negotiating down from $40 pp ultimately to $25 pp for a 4-hour tour, switching from English to Spanish mid-way.  He wasn’t standing by his car during this exchange and I’m a stickler for a decent car, limited fender benders and good tires.  You can tell a lot about a driver by their tires.  Trust me.  We were pleasantly surprised when we reached the car.  A late model, mid-sized SUV (big by their standards) with good tires.  And off we went.

First stop was the fortress, which we could spend an hour at but the lines to enter were seriously long and slow; so instead we stopped in a Chocolate Museum.  It was interesting and they provided some samples, but “Museum” was a stretch.  Apparently, if you rearrange the letters of MUSEUM, it spells STORE.  We then sat in the square outside the fortress and got to know our new friends a bit better. 

The time passed quickly and our driver returned for the next leg of our journey, which was Getsemeni, a new area that didn’t exist in 2023.  It is an artsy area, very pedestrian, with restaurants and galleries.  You could tell it was quite the hangout in the evenings.  But it was just about 1pm at this point. The temperature was in the mid 80’s by now and extremely humid.  The original plan was to walk around the old city, but decided being driven around and through it in an air conditioned SUV sounded better.

Lastly, we drove up to the monastery.  Convento de Santa Cruz de la Popa is a religious complex dating back to 1607, when the original wooden chapel and palm of the Popa was erected, thanks to the preaching of the Discalced Augustinian friar Vicente Mallol.  A year later, the convent was built, initially called Santa Cruz, and afterwards it was given the name of la Popa, to have the shape of a galley, whose stern is the extremity where the church currently stands.

This was definitely the highlight of the day.  The views were outstanding perched almost ceremoniously on the only peak; and since we had leftover time we didn’t spend in the old town, we decided to tour the monastery, for a modest $5 pp.  While small, it was impressive.  Beautiful artifacts, coupled with wise sayings (in Spanish) peppered in along the walls.  It was quiet and serene, especially out on the many loggias that also offered fantastic views.  We then headed back to the ship after a very well spent time in Cartagena that hardly repeated anything we did in 2023.  Including the tip, it was $60 for both of us.  Taxi tour….Good Choice.

We headed up to the pizza outlet where a slice of pepperoni pizza and a beer really hit the spot.  It was 3:30 by this point and the heat had taken its toll.  By 4pm, I decided a power nap was in order.  We headed to our stateroom for a nice respite.  Before napping, we checked the menu for dinner and seeing that it wasn’t anything special, we agreed to eat dinner at the buffet a bit later than our normal 5pm. I awakened about 5:45 refreshed and ready for the evening.  Power nap…good choice. 

Since we weren’t going to the dining room, shorts and flip flops were fine.  We rarely choose the buffet over the dining room for dinner.  So I can’t really say if the buffet was crowded or not but it seemed a bit crowded.  Nonetheless, we found a nice table where we could watch the sail away and headed to the buffet.  There was a separate station of mussels and clams in the most delicious garlic broth.  Further down the buffet were large shrimp in a light tomato and butter sauce.  2 large helpings of shrimp were added to my mussels and clams.  A bit further down the buffet was spaghetti a la aglio olio, which is in a light garlic and oil sauce.  That too made its way into my concoction.  It was one of the most delicious meals I’ve ever had on board any ship.  I wish I’d had room to try the osso bucco and the porchetta, which I heard were outstanding, but I just couldn’t manage it.  I’m sure they’ll have it again.  Buffet…good choice.

We headed to the show, which featured an alumni of America’s Got Talent.  A good singer but I understand why he didn’t win the $1M.  His show was part singing, part sermon, part revival.  For me, it was too much talking from someone 30 years younger than the average audience member imparting his wisdom earned from bad choices along his journey.  Hollywood seems to think they've cornered the market on wisdom.

We then decided it was time to indulge in a specialty dessert.  To give you a frame of reference, these desserts run $16-$19 a la carte, but they’re included in our Premier Package…..unlimited.  But alas, it was 8:15 when we arrived and they close that outlet at 8pm.  So off we went to the International Café, which is a 24hr operation. 

There they have slices of luxurious cakes that you might see on lifestyles of the rich and famous.  My wife selected the chocolate ganache cake, which was 8 layers high.  It was decadent and I’m not really a chocolate fan.  But I was of this.  The mini cheesecake off to the side was my planned dessert, but the chocolate cake won, hands down.  Good Choice.

All in all, it was a good day.  My concern of how we’d fare in the “redux” ports was alleviated on our first port.  Yeah!  Till tomorrow, the sea day prior to entering the Panama Canal.