We spent the morning on rented bikes navigating the busy
streets of Bocagrande’s beaches. Later in the afternoon after the Bear's nap (he is now sleeping outside of his tent because it is too hot in there), we went on a bike tour
of the historic city and learned random facts such as...
- 30 years ago, homes cost $80,000 but after the drug warlords and politicians invested in Cartagena to make it the tourist destination that it now is, these homes are now worth $10-30 million US dollars.
- Cartagena was the first city that Simon Bolivar liberated (followed by a host of countries including Panama, Bolivia, etc.) – but it wasn’t a liberation in the romantic sense. It was more a transfer from the Spanish elite in Spain to the Spanish elite residing in South America.
- The Indios were too weak to act as slaves building the massive city walls and fort, so the Spanish got thousands of slaves from Africa who were stuffed in drawers on ships and were chained to lay there for 2 months straight.
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