Our days run together under the sweltering skies. Every morning here at Casa Marta we sit at a black iron table laid with red and white linens and white china. Marta's gracious helpers, Albi and Miguel serve us coffee and tea, fresh juice, fresh fruit and whatever strikes their fancy as breakfast. Sometimes it's eggs, more often it's a local dish of arepa-something. Arepa stuffed with egg or cheese or served with a dry crumbly white cheese or made in...

We roamed around the old walled city this afternoon looking for interesting balconies. It wasn't hard. 

Built in the mid 1600s and expanded a couple of times, this fort became Spain's largest in any of her colonies. It's humungous and entirely takes up the top of a 130' hill with a perfect location to protect the rich port from marauders by land or by sea. Cartagena was South America's first port. Imagine it. All the wealth from Peru's silver, Colombia's emeralds, and rich plantations everywhere -- it all had to come through Cartagena. This...

We took off to find pizza but the pizzaría we found didn't open until 6pm so we strolled the beach. As long as we were on the beach it was quite comfortable because it was a breezy afternoon, but walk one block away and it gets sweltering. When we got back to the house I jumped in the shower and then changed into my 3rd set of clothes for the day. Reminds me me of Puerto Lopez in Ecuador--same equator ya 'spouse?

Our guide picked us up at 8:30 am for a tour through the city in her car. No being shoe horned into a tiny van this time, we were going in style. Unfortunately, her idea of speaking English was only slightly better than my Spanish. I'm constantly reminded of what passes for English in other parts of the world. But on we went with our half sort-of English and half spanish.