Author: John Cruse

After our detour off Route 66 to Monument Valley, we were rejoining Route 66 at Winslow, Arizona. Winslow is probably best know due to the 1972 Eagles classic, “Take it Easy” co-written by the late Glen Frey and Jackson Browne.

There was not much to see in the 225 miles between Monument Valley and Winslow but all the land was part of the Navajo Nation with towns like Kayenta and Tuba city on the route.

The town of Winslow today makes it living from being a historic Route 66 town and the fame and attention brought by the Eagles song. The Eagles song has had such an impact that the “Standin’ on the Corner” park has been built on the corner of 2nd and Kinsley Avenue. They have even put a flatbed Ford truck there as mentioned in the song.

Very close to the Standin’ on the Corner Park is the Old Trails Museum which gives the history of Winslow that is closely connected to the railway, early air travel and a man called Fred Harvey.

Entrepreneur Fred Harvey opened a series of eating houses along the Santa Fe Railway that evolved into America’s first restaurant chain, the Harvey Houses. The company, which operated from 1876 through the 1960s, introduced innovations such as the refinement of dining in the West and the widespread employment of women known as “Harvey Girls.” One of those hotels was the one we were staying in called La Posada and was positioned right next to an active 24-hour railway line mainly used for extremely long freight trains.

With the advent of more efficient trains and the explosion of automobiles, railroad travel began its decline and Fred Harvey started closing trackside restaurants and hotels in the 1930s. World War II temporarily reversed the trend, and La Posada hired more Harvey Girls to serve meals to 3,000 soldiers riding through town daily on “troop trains”. The hotel finally closed in 1957 but escaped the wrecking ball when the Santa Fe converted it into division offices in the early 1960s. Winslow locals organized the La Posada Foundation in the early 1990s and secured grant funds to help save the building. In 1997, Allan Affeldt and his wife, artist Tina Mion, purchased La Posada and reopened it as a premier hotel and gardens.

The aviation history of Winslow is also interesting. In 1929, aviator and Transcontinental Air Transport (TAT) technical chairman Charles A Lindbergh chose Winslow as one of twelve critical refueling stops for the nation’s first coast-to-coast passenger service. He chose the location for the terrain, weather patterns, and access to the Santa Fe line. Passengers taking the 48-hour, New York-to-Los Angeles trip would fly during the day and ride the train at night. Lindbergh’s TAT colleagues chose the flat, open landscape south of town for a terminal, hangar, parking apron, and three long asphalt runways. TAT flew a fleet of Ford Tri-Motor planes that held ten passengers and had small kitchens for in-flight meals. In 1930, TAT and Western Air Express merged as Transcontinental & Western Air (TWA).

When the United States entered World War II in 1941, the US military converted Winslow’s airport into a refueling and repair stop, and more than 350 military flights passed through Winslow daily. TWA resumed commercial flights after World War II and became Trans World Airways in 1950, though service to Winslow Municipal Airport ended in 1953. Frontier Airlines provided regional flights from 1950 to 1974, when it discontinued service to Winslow due to high costs and lack of passengers.

After our overnight stop in Winslow, we move on to Kingman, Arizona and will visit towns like Williams (which is on the histroic Route 66) and will drive on the longest remaining stretches of the historic road being the last 82 miles from Seligman to Kingman.

Copyright: Words and pictures John Cruse 2022

As the chorus of the 1988 Prefab Sprout song King of Rock n Roll said “hot dog, jumping frog, Albuquerque”, I was wondering as we drove into Albuquerque whether the chorus had any relevance or was just poetic licence. Time would tell.

It was Memorial weekend when we arrived in Albuquerque and the receptionist at the historic El Vado Motel told us that most restaurants and shops would be closed including those that were part of the motel. This seemed rather strange by current day standards as businesses normally take advantage of the extra available consumers to make money on public holidays. Not in Albuquerque where we only found one pizza restaurant open that day. The El Vado Motel is situated on the historic Route 66, opened in 1937 and was one of New Mexico’s first motels to greet Route 66 travellers. Although updated, the buildings still have that retro feel.

The next day dawned and, as Albuquerque is not a walking city like Santa Fe, after some research we decided to take their equivalent of the Big Bus tour. This tour goes around the three principle areas of the city being the old town, downtown and Nob Hill.

The old town is the principle area where tourists congregate as it is a mixture of shops and restaurants with a few strategically placed local First Nations people selling their knick knacks. It has a plaza at its centre and is a nice area particularly when the sun is shining as it does for 300 plus days a year in Albuquerque. Being in the desert, Albuquerque cools down over night and can be chilly in the morning, but at this time of year gets up to 31 degrees Centigrade by the time the sun starts setting in the evening. Our tour bus guide pointed out the new developments around the old town, many of which were still feeling the effects of the Covid lockdown, and the museums that were in the area. We decided to visit one of the museums later that day being the Rattlesnake Museum and would have looked in at America’s only nuclear museum if it hadn’t been 12 miles out of town. One of New Mexico’s claims to fame is that the scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project to produce the atomic bombs dropped on Japan in WW2, Little Boy and Fat Man, did so in the state at Los Alamos and Albuquerque.

The Rattlesnake Museum was very interesting and opened our eyes to how many different types of rattlesnakes there are and just how poisonous some of them can be.

Between the old town and downtown was an area called ‘country club’ (see photos below) where there were some very nice houses. This area if often used by film companies for big budget productions and many film stars have lived in, or stayed, during filming in the area. One of the claims to fame was the Breaking Bad series which was filmed in the area and around locations in Albuquerque.

The downtown area was less interesting and seemed to be only populated by homeless people, as very few people were walking on the streets. One interesting thing about downtown Albuquerque is that it has the only crossroads where Route 66 crosses itself.

How could this be you ask? It seems to stem from a political controversy in the 1920s between politicians in Albuquerque and Santa Fe. There was an attempt in 1927 to move Route 66 out of Santa Fe which had to do with the gubernatorial election held in 1927. Then Governor Arthur T Hannett lost his bid for re-election and he directly blamed the Republican politicians in Santa Fe for his defeat. In one of his last acts in office, before the new governor would be sworn in on January 1st, Hannett ordered construction to begin immediately on a bypass taking Route 66 to Albuquerque by bypassing Santa Fe altogether. That bypass cut circa 100 miles off the original route via Santa Fe and cut all the business that Santa Fe gained from the Route 66 traffic. So the crossroads in Albuquerque are where the old route via Santa Fe and new route now meet in Albuquerque.

Nob Hill was more interesting and, we understand the area is named after its namesake in San Francisco. We were shown some very strange houses built by architect, Bart Prince. Make up your own mind as to whether you would like one next door to you.

We also visited the Aquarium and Botanical Gardens which were opposite the El Vado Motel and both were interesting although not really Route 66 related.

Next we go to Monument Valley at the heart of the Navajo Nation which is a 6 hour journey and a divergence from Route 66.

Copyright: Words and photos John Cruse 2022

Whereas the Inn of the Five Graces was a fabulous place to stay, Santa Fe was a bit too touristy for our liking and was full of arty shops selling over priced knick knacks. Santa Fe is not too big so most attractions are within walking distance except for some of the museums which are on the outskirts some 1.5 to 2 miles away.

We boarded the open-sided bus that is Santa Fe’s version of the Big Bus Company taking tourists around cities all over the World. The guide was very entertaining and the tour was worthwhile, but what he did say about his city was that much of the good looking adobe brick buildings were fake. Rather than being built in the traditional style, they had just been rendered to look authentic.That said, they did look nice, and close to our hotel was the oldest house in Santa Fe that was built in the mid 1600s and is now a small museum.

The oldest house is next to the oldest church structure in the USA, built in 1610 by the Tlaxcalan Indians from Mexico under the direction of Franciscian pardres.

One thing worth seeing outside of town, in the museum area, is the sculpture called ‘Journey’s End’ by Reynaldo ‘Sonny’ Rivera portraying the lead wagon of a trail caravan as it makes its final approach into Santa Fe.

The Santa Fe Trail was an historic 19th century transportation route across southwestern North America connecting Missouri with New Mexico. First used in 1821 by William Becknell, it served a a vital commercial and military highway until the arrival of the railroad to Santa Fe in 1880. Initially it was an international trade route between the United States and Mexico and served as the 1846 US invasion route of New Mexico during the Mexican-American war. The old Santa Fe trail is the city street that roughly follows the wagon path.

The next morning we left Santa Fe for the short drive (only 63 miles) to Albuquerque and on the advice of the hotel concierge, took the pretty route which went via small towns off the interstate. As it is currently Memorial weekend in the USA, many Americans were enjoying the extra day off so the scenic route was full of Harley Davidson’s, Dodge Vipers and more ordinary holiday traffic. When we got to the small but nice town of Madrid, about half way to Albuquerque, many of the travellers had parked up and were enjoying the food and drink on offer.

Madrid had some ‘antique’ shops just like Santa Fe, selling all those things you never knew you wanted but a bit less polished and it even has its own cannabis shop, as it’s legal in New Mexico.

After enjoying the delights of Madrid, we drove on to the El Vado Motel in Albuquerque which is situated on the old US66 historic road close to the old town. Tomorrow we see what delights Albuerque has to offer.

Copyright: Words and photos John Cruse 2022

After our day visiting the Amish we left Springfield to drive the comparatively short 100 miles to St Louis, Missouri. On the way we intended to visit the famous Chain of Rocks Bridge which is just down the river (approx 12 miles) from St Louis and was part of the original Route 66.

The Chain of Rocks Bridge is no longer open to traffic but is a cycling and walking route across the Mississippi river. The state border between Illinois and Missouri runs down the centre of the river so the bridge spans both states. We set the SatNav as best we could as the bridge did not come up as a point of interest but when we arrived we crossed the river on the new bridge and could see the old bridge but could not find how to access it at either end. After driving up and down the riverside road a couple of times on the Missouri side we pulled into a gas station (as they call it in America) and asked some locals how we could access the bridge. Although helpful they seemed to have no idea, even though they worked in sight of the bridge, but one customer thought you could access it just before you crossed the new bridge. We drove off back towards the new bridge and found no such access so ended up again on the Illinois side of the bridge where we took a chance on taking the first right turn and again, by chance, found the way to Chouteau Island where the eastern end of the old bridge is. After all that effort it was disappointing to find that the bridge was closed (notwithstanding the sign below) which also seemed to surpise the local people who turned up to take a walk.

We drove the remaining 12 miles to our hotel in St Louis and thought we would check out the downtown area so went for a short walk to the Gateway Arch National Park (the smallest National Park in the USA and the only one in a city). This was a good move as we were able to book for the next day our tickets at the Arch visitor centre for a boat ride down the Mississippi river and a timed ticket to go up to the top of the Arch on what they call the “Tram”.

The next day dawned and we boarded the boat, the Tom Sawyer, for our 1 hour trip on the Mississippi river. The running commentary told us about the industrial history of the city and its waterside and how that had evolved over the years particularly since the railways came to St Louis in the mid 19th century due to the construction of the Eads Bridge which carries cars and trains, although now only local metro trains. The river is still heavily used to transport fuel, soya and corn in barges down to the Gulf of Mexico where it is transferred to bigger ships for export.

We then went up to the top of the Arch on the Tram. The Tram comprises 8 small pods that hold 4/5 people each and are specially designed to climb the Arch like a lift but have to deal with the curved shape of the Arch. It takes 4 minutes to get to the top and 3 minutes to get back down. The views from the top on a good day, that we were lucky enought to have, are worth the trip and it is estimated you can see for 30 miles.

After the top of the Arch we saw the 45 minute film put together by the National Park Services, which manages the Gateway Arch National Park, about the building of the Arch in the 1960s, which was designed by architect, Eero Saarinen. The film is worth seeing as it gives a concise view of the challenges of building a structure of its shape.

Next we leave for Springfield, Missouri and the next leg of Route 66.

Copyright: Words and pictures John Cruse 2022

An early start this morning as we had to pick up the car by 9am at O’Hare airport which was a good one hour in the traffic. It is worth mentioning that the conventional taxi is not easy to get in downtown Chicago these days, as many just don’t want to get stuck in airport traffic, and therfore Uber or Lyft are the best options. The valet parking man at the front of our hotel very kindly got us a Lyft cab on his account for which I paid him cash.

Another post Covid change that has occurred with hire cars in the United States is that the rental companies will now not rent you a Satnav so either you take your own or use Google maps. Luckily we found this out before going so took our own Garmin loaded with the North American maps.

Even with the Satnav we eventually found our way out of the airport and onto Interstate 55 South that goes towards St Louis with Springfield being the first major city on the way. It was roughly 200 miles to Springfield. Our guide book told us that we could go off the Interstate and drive on parts of the old Route 66 going through towns like Joliet and Wilmington, which we did, but this only proved to be partially successful as we hit a diversion and due to lack of road signs could not find the old road so reverted to the Satnav and found the I55 again.

For those who have not driven in the US, they have some very nice rest areas on the side of the Interstate roads where travellers can use the rest rooms (as they are called in the US), buy snacks from vending machines or picnic at tables and chairs provided (photos below). The one we stopped at even had a small Route 66 display and it was nice to have a break and sit in the sunshine. It was up to 31 degrees centigrade today so the weather has taken a turn for the better.

We reached Springfield at about 2.30pm and found the Abraham Lincoln Doubletree hotel. For those who may not be aware, Springfield’s claim to fame is that 16th US President Abraham Lincoln lived in Springfield and bought his one and only house here in 1844 which he left in 1861 when he becane President. He never returned as he was assinated in 1865 by John Wilkes Booth, a southern confederacy sympathiser.

A few minutes walk from our hotel was the site managed by the National Park Service where the house of Abraham Lincoln and the houses of his neighbours have been restored to thier correct periodical condition and can be visited.

We then rounded the day off with a meal and, of course for the driver, a beer.

Tomorrow we are driving to Arthur, Illinois, to vist one of the oldest Amish communities in the United States.

Copyright: words and photos John Cruse 2022

We have finally arrived and resume our travels after a two year hiatus.

As the United States currently requires those entering the country to declare their Covid vaccination staus and have a negative result from a PCR test, we had to get tested and complete the attestation required by the US Authorities on the day before flying. This was fairly painless, once you get the hang of what’s required, but of course comes with a finacial cost that was not part of travelling pre the pandemnic. When we got to the airport, Terminal 5 at Heathrow was busy but not back to pre pandemnic levels as far as I could see.

After a good flight, we got a taxi to our hotel and then set out to find our bearings in Chicago. Chicago is located on the banks of one of the great lakes, Lake Michigan, which is the only great lake that is entirely within the United States. The other lakes, of course, stradle the border with Canada. Chicago is known for its skyscrapers that line the Chicago River which runs through the centre of town and originally ran into Lake Michigan until the flow was reversed to help deal with the sewage pollution problems in the 1880s. The waters from the river now finally empty into the Gulf of Mexico via many rivers including the Mississippi.

The river is crossed by many drawbridges, some of which are double deckers, the current ones were built in the first part of the 20th century for traffic and pedestrians to cross from the north to the south side of the city and, notwithstanding their age, these bridges are opened on Saturdays and Wednesdays to allow yachts and other vessels with tall masts to pass through and into Lake Michigan. We were lucky enough to witness this event and it did play havoc with the traffic but delighted the tourists. There had been bridges across the river prior to these current ones as far back as the 1830s which had been made of timber.

To get a different perspective on the river and buildings that sit along its banks, we went on an Architectural Boat Tour. The guide pointed out the various buildings, who designed and built them and for whom they were built, and gave some history on what was there before. This tour lasted 75 minutes and seemed to be very popular apart from the day we went on it when it rained heavily.

Luckily the sun came out the next day and we went on a Chicago Favourites Ultimate Food and Walking Tour that lasted for 3 hours. Along the way, our guide pointed out many of the tourist highlights of the city, like the Chicago Theatre and Millenium Park with the Anish Kapoor “Cloud Gate” (or as the local’s called it, the bean) and we made four food stops for Chicago deep pan pizza, hot dog, beef sandwich and brownie. They all tasted very nice, surprisingly.

That’s all we had time for in Chicago so we pick up the car now for the first leg of our Route 66 journey.

Copyright: Words and photos John Cruse 2022

Our second day in Sydney dawned and, after the excitment of the bridge climb, we were taking a backstage tour of the famous and much photographed UNESCO World Heritage listed Sydney Opera House in the morning with a Harbour Story Cruise in the afternoon.

The backstage tour starts at 7am as many areas visited are restricted later in the day when the performers and technical crews are at work. Performances had been cancelled and the Opera House had recently been closed due to the Coronavirus situation but lucklily for us, the backstage tour was still going ahead.

We were told on many ocassions since getting to Sydney that there were far fewer tourists than normal and only four of us took the backstage tour with two others who started the tour leaving after five minutes due to feeling unwell. Rather worrying in light of the current situation that they considered joining the tour if they felt unwell, particularly as one was a health professional.

The Opera House is on Bennelong Point, a former tram depot in the 1950s, and has an interesting history. There were times when the whole project to build it looked doomed. Bennelong Point, which is named after an aboriginal man and has significance to the Gadigal people, was an island in Sydney Harbour and in the early 19th century was made into a peninsula.

The Opera House was designed by Danish architect Jorn Utzon but was finally completed by an Australian architectural team headed up by Peter Hall and formally opened on 20 October 1973. Utzon won an international design competition in 1957 and the work commenced on 2 March 1959 with Utzon directing construction. The decision to build Utzon’s iconic design is often overshadowed by the circumstances that followed such as the time it took to complete the building, the spiralling cost and the resignation of Utzon before completion. Utzon has never returned to Australia to see the completed building.

The building comprises multiple venues and the roof structure, often referred to as “shells”, is made from precast concrete panels. The shells appear white from a distance but, up close, you can see that they have many tiles, apparently over 1 million, some white and other matt cream.

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We visited all of the venues, the Concert Hall, the Joan Sutherland Theatre, Drama Theatre, Playhouse, Studio and Utzon Room, which are different sizes and used for different types of events. The Concert Hall was designed for orchestras and is home to the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. It contains the 10,000 pipes Grand Organ and now also hosts other events such as comedy and the likes of Ed Sheeran. The Joan Sutherland Theatre is home to Opera Australia and the Australian Ballet.

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As the Opera House was closed for performances there were no sets on the stages but we did get to stand on each stage and get the performers’ view. There were a miriad of lifts, trap doors, lighting rigs, revolving stages some which were still used and other that had been built as part of the original design but not ever employed. In addition there were rehearsal rooms many with a Grand Piano.

We understood from our guide that the original intention of Utzon was for the opera and ballet to be in what is now the Concert Hall and the orchestral concerts to be in the Joan Sutherland Theatre but the acoustics worked better with opera in the Joan Sutherland and orchestral in the Concert Hall so Utzon original idea was changed.

It was a very interesting visit and definitely worth doing with the final section of the visit being a very nice breakfast in the Green Room.

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Unfortunately that was our last holiday event as we had been advised by our travel agent the night before to get the first flight home. It was evident that Sydney was closing down as businesses and restaurant closed, people worked from home and Tasmania, our next stop, was requiring all new non-essential persons entering the state to self isolate.

A real shame as we were looking forward to the Sydney Harbour Story Cruise and the Blue Mountains, and then Tasmania and Melbourne in coming days, but it does give us a strong reason to return to Australia, a country we liked a lot.

Copyright: Words and photos John Cruse 2020

We stepped off the train in Adelaide at 7.30 in the morning to very unseasonal weather for this time of year. Having experienced some unseasonal weather in Perth, we were hoping for wall to wall sunshine in Adelaide. We were told it had been +30 degrees centigrade the week before but had changed and was cold in the mornings and only around 23 degrees as best.

Not the best start, but after dropping our bags at the hotel, we went on an orientation tour with the Adelaide tourist board. This was free and was a 90 minutes walk around the CBD (commercial business district) of Adelaide. It was helpful as we were given information on such things as the free buses that do a loop around Adelaide and the main sights.

We learned that the city was built using a grid system of roads. The centre vertical axis road was named after our King William IV, and still is today. Each road either side of this main street has a different name as nobody should ‘cross the king’. The town is named after the King’s wife Adelaide.

The guide also threw in a bit of history of Adelaide advising that it was not a city founded on convict labour from England but populated, after its foundation by the British, by Lutherans escaping religious persecution in Europe.

When the British were looking to found the new British colony of South Australia in the mid 1830s, a Captain William Light was appointed Surveyor General of South Australia and was responsible for the positioning of Adelaide. One reason for its location spanning the River Torrens is the Adelaide hills to the north which ensured rainfall and the location not being prone to drought.

It is is small but nice city and we were particularly impressed by the suburbs north of the River Torrens with their pleasant housing, restaurants and quite clean streets. There is an interesting museum, botanical garden and the Adelaide Fringe was on which we understood to be popular.

After our first day exploring Adelaide we left early the next morning for the much publicised (due to the recent fires) Kangaroo Island and we will cover this in a separate post.

After spending two days at Kangaroo Island we spent our last day in Adelaide visiting the famous wine making region of the Barossa Valley which is north of the city on the other side of the Adelaide hills. The day consisted of visiting a dam, a typical Barossa Valley town and four wineries.

The Barossa Reservoir dam was not spectacular compared to today’s standards but was completed in 1902 and has surprising acoustic properties. Sounds at one end of the dam can be heard at the other end due to its curved shape with the sound waves reflecting off the wall as they travel 140 metres. A bit like the whispering gallery at St Paul’s Cathedral.

The wine tasting was very enjoyable with roughly five wines being tasted at each winery.

At the second winery we had a very nice cheese board lunch to complement the wines. The only disappointing factor with visiting smaller wineries is that they often do not sell abroad and the cost of shipping would make the wines uneconomical. That said, it was still a nice day and a chance to see the countryside whilst enjoying one of Australia’s biggest exports.

Tomorrow we leave for a very early flight to Ayers Rock.

Our last full day dawned and we decided to visit an area outside the Old Town of Cartagena, called Getsemani.

It was a very hot day, 32 degrees centigrade with 86% humidity, so after a hour or so walking around Getsemani, we decided to go back to the Old Town and retreat to the air conditioned atmosphere of the Fokelore Colombian Cafe that we had visited the previous day. The lady behind the counter, Maye, remembered us and, apart from discussing our travels in Colombia, wanted to practice her English which was very good.

After refreshment we moved on to the Cartegena Gold Museum (Museo del Oro), a smaller version of the one in Bogota, that was further reduced due to refurbishment but is still worth a visit. It contained items from Colombia’s indigenous peoples prior to Europeans arriving and the map shows that the gold items were found in many different parts of Colombia. Most of the artifacts in the Cartegena museum are from the Zenú people who inhabited the costal inland plains to the south of Cartegena and it was their elaborate work that attracted the Spanish conquistadores. The Spanish, including Cartegena’s founder Pedro de Heredia, led countless expedetions into Zenu territory to steal the gold by rading the villages and robbing the graves.

Cartegena is so different to the rest of Colombia, not just being at sea level and therefore having generally better weather, but it feels more like being in the Caribbean. The people generally have darker skin and our guide said that this was the natural influence of the West African slaves that were brought to the area many hundreds of years ago.

The old town of Cartegena has many good restaurants to suit all budgets and it was nice to be able to sit outside in the evening at one of the many small squares and enjoy the buzz of the town with a nice 28 degrees centigrade.

That said, if you only visited Cartegena, as the cruise ship people do, you would get an unrealistic view of Colombia as the other parts are very different. The tourist industry has no doubt suffered from the many years of internal conflict. Consequently, the people in the hotels and restaurants often do not speak English, as in other countries we have visited. This presented a good opportunity to test my Spanish which surprisingly came back quickly when I started using it again. That said do not be put off going to Colombia as the people are very friendly, the sights are worth seeing and the food is good.

We then went back to the hotel and got ready for the long trip home which started with a flight back to Bogota and then to London Heathrow.

Adiós Cartegena and Colombia.

Copyright: Words and photos John Cruse 2019

Arriving in Cartagena was a culture shock. We thought our plane had taken a detour and landed on a Caribbean island. It could not have been more different to the Colombia we have got to know. The temperature was much higher (29 degrees C) and the humidity was an oppressive 86%. When we got off the aeroplane it was like opening an oven. But of greatest surprise was the different culture.

This side of the country has a Caribbean feel, lots of bright colours, fun, music and dancing. Above all, the facial features of the people are different to the Spanish or indigenous tribal characteristics we have become familiar with during our journey, and the skin colour is darker. When I enquired of the guide about these obvious differences, he said: “It’s the result of slavery. The community is formed largely from the descendants of slaves.”

Further reading has revealed this is an aspect often avoided or glossed over, but it is a fundamental part of the area’s history and makes Cartagena what it is today. The town was a major slave trade port. Some sources consider at least a million African slaves entered the town and were sold at its Plaza de Los Coches. The slaves were to work in the gold and silver mines, ship building, churches, convents, the docks and in domestic work. Owning slaves was considered a symbol of wealth for the rich.

One person on their side, however, was a Spanish Jesuit priest named Pedro Claver (1580-1654). He dedicated his life to helping the slaves, particularly those in the worst condition, when they arrived at port having suffered dreadful conditions during their transportation.

A third of those transported are estimated to have died in transit. Claver would board the ships and tend the sick. There are mixed messages as to the further role he played. One resident I asked said he freed many slaves and asked families to welcome them into their homes as long as they were not treated as slaves. Other sources say there is no evidence of him freeing anyone and that Claver’s role was to convert as many to Christianity as he could. Maybe we will never know, but it is said he baptised 300,000 in his lifetime.

However, his role must have been a worthy one as he became the Patron Saint of Slaves. His skeletal remains are (somewhat surprisingly) on view at the Iglesia San Pedro Claver, in Cartagena.

We also visited the Museum of the Inquisition. The Inquisition ran for 201 years in Cartagena. The stories are too grim to report, but something we can thank Pope Francis for during his visit to Cartagena in 2017 was his insistence of removing much of the museum’s items of torture. Some people might be critical of this as it is a part of the history of this site, but the museum was a destination for primary school children, many of whom were badly affected by the contents. Probably many adults too. Words and images were certainly enough to tell the stories.

On a far brighter note, the port of Cartagena continues to be important today, especially financially. At least 2,500 day trippers pour into the old city each morning from a steady stream of cruise liners, keen to barter for cheap handicrafts or splash out for top quality emeralds. Colombia claims to have the finest in the world. As they do so the town’s colourful streets will not go unnoticed. Many of the houses are beautifully painted and form a photographer’s dream.

Each year the town has a flower competition. The winning building is exempt from paying tax for one year. We assumed this was probably a council tax rather than income tax, and think it would be a nice idea for the UK too.

Interesting doorways with their many different door knockers reveal inner courtyards of running water, fountains and plantings.

A trip to Colombia would have been incomplete without seeing Cartagena. It provided a very different view of the country, its people, climate and culture.

Copyright: Words and photos Sue Barnard 2019