A mid-morning arrival in Cartagena found things a bit wet. A small rain shower had passed through just before we docked. Bob was convinced we wouldn't need umbrellas. He's a great believer in Weatherbug. After an interdenominational church service led by a pastor who was supposed to be on sabbatical, we readied for our time ashore.
While Bob believed in the Weatherbug being right, I was a great believer in GPS My City and I downloaded the walking tours for Cartagena. The app failed me. It kept telling me we were out of the area it covered. The upside to the failure was that it allowed us to enjoy some surprises we otherwise might not have.
It all started as we left the ship and walked on the nice boardwalk that led from the dock to the city. As we followed it, we saw that we were on the main street. It said so in gold letters, Calle Mayor, right in the middle of all the lovely marble tiles that made up the sidewalk.
Only a few steps past the first building we could hear a band playing and could see a group of people with instruments walking right toward us. It turned out to be a student marching band dressed in proper black clothes for a Sunday. They went a little past us and dispersed.
A little farther on and we found a group all dressed in green and white doing Tai Chi. The best we could figure out since they seemed to keep at it for a half hour at a time and then took a break, was that it was some sort of marathon Tai Chi to raise money for cancer. It continued for the whole time we were exploring and they were still at it when we left.
The best surprise though was all the kids and even some adults dressed in traditional costume. We discovered it was some kind of festival (later we learned from our Captain it was to welcome summer) and on the other side of what I believe was the town hall, a state was set up along with some food booths. We waited for quite a while but eventually an announcer explained enough in Spanish that I could catch the word festival.
And when the people dressed in costume began to perform in groups, I caught the word "academia" when he introduced a group. It must have been dance schools or groups from different dance schools performing. We stood behind parents and grandparents straining to catch the performance of their children. So fun to be a part of it.
In Belgium there was the waffle, in Paris, the crepe. When in Spain it's churros. All these delectables came with chocolate.
We hadn't a chance to get our churros in Barcelona and since this would be our last stop in Spain for now, we found a sidewalk cafe and indulged. The advertising said homemade churros. They weren't the usual you see back home and oh, the chocolate!
There were several types to choose from, cinnamon flavored, orange flavored, regular dark, and white. Thankfully there was a sampler and we didn't have to choose. I was surprised to find that my favorite was actually the white although the dark chocolate was great as well. The other two were hard to discern. The flavorings were very light.
Churros, a festival and a marching band and a surprise car show on the way back to the ship. It wasn't the tour we'd planned but we found the city quite pleasant and amazing for two exploring foreigners.
(By the way, Weatherbug messed up a little. It spritzed just a bit as we walked around.)
No comments:
Post a Comment