Beautiful Cartegena
Arrived at first light, catching a Spanish mackerel on the way in (he wasn't going for the lure; we just caught his fin!) Not huge, but enough for dinner. As we arrived in the bay, there was a torrential downpour, so we hung about a bit waiting for enough visibility to see the channel markers. Having re-fueled, we asked about customs and immigration. It seems you need an agent here and the diesel man set us up with 'his man' who we spoke to on the phone and who was reluctant to come out because it was a Sunday. Thus keeping up the tradition of always arriving in a country on a Sunday in the rain! However, he reassured us that if we left within 24 hours, we needn't check in, we could go to the supermarkets and then head off.
After getting the directions of the nearest supermarket from a fellow yachtie, he told us we couldn't go without seeing the old town, so off we trooped in the taxi (costing 5000 peso - I think about US$2). I'm really pleased we went. There are very few cars inside the wall, but lots of horse drawn carriages. Given that the kids had just been on a boat for 7 days straight, we treated them to a little horse drawn carriage tour of the city. A beautiful beautiful place. I could have stayed for hours longer soaking in the atmosphere had Lochy not been hankering to get back to the boat and if I didn't have a banging headache. Unfortunately my camera batteries died as we arrived, so didn't get many shots. However, many beautiful buildings with arches, balconies, shutters, loads of statues everywhere (traditional and modern) and musicians, may favourite being the lone trumpeter making the most of the acoustics in the city square.
Oh, I almost forgot, just in case people were wondering about the scantily dressed men on the tower on my facebook page, the local yacht club were taking photos for their 2012 calendar - couldn't resist snapping 'January!!'