We settle into our new hotel down south in Cartagena called Hotel Dann. The Boca Grande part of Cartagena is a little peninsula along the beach and is lined with hotels. The hotel offers an oceanfront pool and access to the beach and ocean. My son and I change quickly and take a quick swim before needing to be ready to meet up with our biking guide. We meet up after lunch out front of the hotel and hop on our bikes with helmets to go bike around the city. We bike all around the Boca Grande peninsula and then back north towards Old Town Cartagena, one of the oldest cities in the Americas founded in 1533. We ride on the Old Town City walls and learn a bit about the history of the Fortress built to patrol the seas and defend the city against frequent pirate attacks. The most famous pirate to have pillaged Cartagena was Sir Francis Drake in 1572. We bike around the walls and admire the old cannons, still nestled atop in their turrets, then we bike through the streets of Cartagena, stopping for some fresh sliced mango from a fruit vendor. The city of Cartagena is old and quaint. The streets are narrow, built in the pre-car era, and the buildings have patios that in some places are sagging and appear to be original colonial construction from the 1600s. I could people-watch and wander for hours in this city, but my son is not as fascinated by it as I am, nor is he interested in shopping. We are hot and sweating as well, as the humidity and heat in Cartagena is quite a bit worse than any heat experience in Medellín at a higher altitude in the mountains. So we decide to head back to the hotel for the evening. We enjoy dinner at the hotel, take another dip in the pool and settle in for the night.
