Romancing the Stone, Part 1

A view from the fort, above Cartegena, Columbia, showing a part of that city not seen in the film we've all come to associate with Cartegena.

Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner have been long gone from this area, and our time ashore was limited to a walking tour of the old city, the fort, and a traffic jam of massive proportion.

This is progress, South American style - gridlock and more body shops than one might imagine. Every car we saw had battle scars, yet drivers seemed immune to using caution - which if applied probably meant they'd never leave the driveway. The traffic however seemed to follow one rule - survival of the fittest, and if you could fit, you'd survive. Tour buses were the kings of this jungle, and every single one I saw had scuff marks on their outside mirrors. Drivers apparently were hired on the basis of their testosterone count and display of "machisimo". Motorcycles were abundant, and interestingly the riders all had the license plate numbers displayed prominently on their helmets. Same went for taxi cabs, with their plate numbers, in large print, on the roof of each vehicle. When I think back, I recall an absence of convertibles - apparently the authorities didn't like vehicles they could not monitor from above. Our tour guide said the presence of security bars on windows was one of the prices of becoming a cosmopolitan city. Crime apparently is one of the bigger industries, after tourism, and the Categena of today was nothing like that scribed by romance writer Joan Wilder. We also didn't see any alligators, but did see some alligator boots. Oh, and yes, we bought the obligatory T-shirt, so now we could say "been there, done that, bought the T-shirt".