November 26, 2016
We started our second day in Cartagena with a thorough tour of the massive fort, Castillo San Felipe de Barajas. Shira gave me a treat and let me get the hour plus audio tour, which went into detail not only about how the fort was constructed, but the various attempts to take the fort.
As forts go, San Felipe is a beast. It's got overlapping defenses, fake points of weakness and a crazy system of tunnels. Looking at it, you notice various wooden constructions - like a set of stairs leading to one of the main sections of the fort. Those are wood by design, allowing for easy destruction, which would make taking the fort even harder.
Like the Salt Cathedral we toured earlier, this too is among the most amazing pieces of architecture I've ever encountered.
And then we walked. And walked. We made it from the old city to Bocagrande, and what do you know, we found ourselves at the "Emerald Museum." The 'museum' was actually pretty cool, giving you a 15 minute tour of everything emerald and ending up in a large showroom. Our tour guide and emerald salesman couldn't have been nicer and there was no pressure to buy. We headed back towards home, once again catching the sunset from atop the wall of the Old City.
We finished the evening at the eclectic Kokoa Sushi Wok restaurant. The Mozzarella Tempura Roll (with mushrooms on top!) and Caprese Roll were both different and delicious. I know they'd be a hit here in the US. After all, who wouldn't like sneaking mozzarella sticks into their sushi dinner? Yum!
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