We finally made it to Cartagena (only 9 months later than our first plan)!
It's a beautiful city, with a skyline reminiscent of Miami Beach (big tall buildings).
We are anchored off Club Nautico, with reservations to go into the marina on Tuesday, for a month. We hadn't had the anchor down for 10 minutes before some friends-of-friends (Sonny and Kay on s/v Valentina) came by in their dinghy and invited us ashore for lunch. We ended up hanging around the marina bar/internet cafe all afternoon, and went out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant with a group of friends. And of course, we had to stop after dinner at Mimo's, with the best ice cream in the SW Caribbean.
None of this group of 10 had we actually physically met before--we had 'met' them via the cruisers nets (both VHF and SSB and Ham) that we've been participating in.
But this is one of the truly GREAT things about cruising... instant friendships with people 'out doing it' just like us.
Dave has already started working on his list of 'fix and improve' in Cartagena, including fire extinguisher recharging, a new dinghy cover, some re-chroming.
And I've been non-stop on the internet, trying to catch up with bills and news. We also have a fairly long list of things we want to order and have waiting for us in the States when we fly back. And I need to spend a couple of days going back over old blog posts, correcting spelling, categorizing, and posting a few pictures.
We can get wifi out on the hook from the marina ($15/week), but the marina internet is sometimes incredibly slow. There is an internet cafe up the street that some people use when they have to do Skype or big downloads.
There is a really really nice grocery store right up the street. It rivals any Publix. We went in to sight-see but have yet to actually buy anything (eating out is almost as cheap as fixing it yourself). We don't want to buy too much right now, because we will want to leave our freezer empty when we fly home.
There is lots of sightseeing around the town... old forts and things like that. We'll have to block out a week in our schedule to play tourist. Dave has also been looking at the Lonely Planet, and we might do some inland travel. (I think he's finally gotten the idea that I'm not wild about doing the 6 day hike to the Lost City, so he's looking for something else).
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