Cartagena, Colombia

[justinr77]

Hi, Has anyone ever been here and do you have any advise on things to do or how safe this port is? I think we are only going to do an excursion off of the ship because of Colombia not being safe. I don't think its such a good idea for us to walk around town by ourself. We will be in port for like 12 hours but all the excursions are like 3-4 hours. That is a bummer because I don't want to get on the ship 8 hours before we pull out. Any info on this port would be great! Thanks

[RichC]

We were just there last week & having been there before we didn't see anything of interest to tour. The port only has 1 building with some shopping & unless you do a tour there's not much else. Once you walk through the building there are a bunch of cabs waiting to load people. I walked off to take a few photo's of the trees & there were cab drivers on the road willing to negotiate for business. I don't know if their any cheaper or not but 1 guy wanted $40 for 2 people for the whole day. Again there isn't much of anything at the port to see & we weren't interested in seeing the city again.
There's a large bird cage with parrots & a few other birds behind the shopping terminal & you can walk by & feed the parrots but watch out for the Toucan because he's a biter. [IMG:left] [/IMG]
He'll let you get close to feed him through the fence but he'll grab you finger & his beak is sharp. I found out the hard way. The parrots were gentle & would eat out of your hand.

[LHT28]

Depends on what you are interested in
There is the Fort, El Popa (monestary) with a great view, the old town, and of course the emerald shopping.

I would do a ship's tour, there was some shopping at the dock but not a lot there
If you like coffee buy some beans/ground coffee to take home ..go past the Juan Valdez stand to the shops for better prices or if you go to town shop there.