Around 6:30am today, January 18th, the Pacific Princess entered Cartagena Bay between the two forts of San Fernando and San Jose with their bastions and hewn rock walls. We traversed the narrow Bocachica Channel until reaching our berth in the Cartagena Port. On the left were white colored high rise apartment buildings in the newer part of the city. Just northwest of our pier was the Old Walled City which we had previously visited. This Old City was very important to the Spanish Empire during the 16th through the 18th Century. Outside of this old area lies another Cartagena which is new and modern.
Today we decided to do a little nature viewing and of course find some good Columbian coffee.
After a fun time watching all the animals we reboarded the Pacific Princess to cool off. The temperature hit 86 degrees under perfectly clear skies. The humidity was very high and returning to the ship was great…especially the air conditioning.
Later in the afternoon, Brett Siborne, Cruise Director held a 2011 Pacific Princess World Cruise Reunion. He said there were about 50 returning world cruise passengers.
We departed shortly after 1:00pm and headed out to the open waters of the Caribbean Sea. Tomorrow at around 5:45am we will approach the Panama Canal. The ship should be entering the first of the locks of the Panama Canal sometime around 7:30am.
