Day 9 -- Wandering El Centro and taking a carriage ride

Today was out last full day in Cartagena so Carlos and I decided to take our time to wander around the walled city, visit some of our favorite spots there, and shop for souvenirs. We made another stop at Brianzola and I tried a new flavor of gelato: veteado de agraz (vanilla with veins of agraz berries running throughout). This gelato was delicious, but I liked pistachio a tad more.

In our wanderings we made our way to Las Bóvedas (former dungeons-turned-souvenir shops that I’ve mentioned before). I found a few things for my family and myself here, but there really wasn’t much of an interesting selection of souvenirs as I’d hoped. Most stores in Cartagena seem more interested in selling emeralds to people rather than little handicrafts. While in the neighborhood we stopped at Exito (the big grocery store here) to purchase snacks for lunch. I made gouda and tomato sandwiches on baguettes while Carlos made his own shrimp ceviche with frozen shrimp, limes, onion, and ketchup -- it was really good!

We escaped the heat of midday by napping in our hotel room (he he he, we are like old folks!) and watching some TV -- such a luxury since we don’t have a TV at home. For our final dinner in Cartagena, Carlos and I decided to take it back to where we started -- to Crepes & Waffles of course! I had another delicious strawberry waffle with ice cream and Carlos ate a tasty crepe with crab.

After dinner, we decided to take a horse-drawn carriage ride through the walled city. We looked for a well-fed and well-cared for horse and happened to get one with a huge carriage bedecked with white flowers -- it looked like a “just-married” carriage. So...we drew lots of attention to ourselves with this carriage, but the ride was really nice and definitely a highlight of the trip. We started off in a little plaza near Crepes & Waffles then we rode through the center of town to Barrio San Deigo. From there we rode near the city walls until we ended up back where we started. The ride lasted about 30 minutes and our “driver” pointed out all the landmarks along the way. It was really nice and fun to take a slow horse-carriage ride through the old city -- it really made me feel as if I was transported back in history. Our horse was named El Abuelito (the little grandpa) and he was nice enough to let me pet him.

The carriage ride was an extremely nice note to end our vacation on -- the perfect way to revisit all of our favorite landmarks in El Centro!