Panama Canal Day 5

Today we arrived in Cartagena, Columbia (pronounced Carta-hay-na). I’ve been waiting since September to do an awesome jewelry making tour here! Emeralds are found in many places in the world but Columbia produces some of the finest in terms of color and clarity.

Cartagena is a city of almost one million people, settled in the early 1500’s. The ‘old city’ is walled and gun ramparts are still in place. The newer part is filled with tall office buildings and apartments. Our guide told us it is one of the most expensive places to rent or buy in South America.

Our tour began at the Caribbean School of Jewelry where we were met by our instructors. They are students themselves, learning the trade of jewelry design and manufacture. There were about 15 of us in the group and we each had an instructor to ourselves! My teacher was a lovely young lady named Wendy and she was 19.

Her English was as good as my Spanish so we didn’t converse as much as I would like to have. She guided me through the making of a pendant, earrings, a bracelet, then a ring. Although I had some previous jewelry experience, I was no match for Wendy’s expertise and she fixed a few of my boo-boos. We were also shown how the silver is melted down, then flattened, and finally made into strands of the thin wire we were using. It took about 2 hours to complete our projects. Our emerald jewelry was made from less valuable student grade stones, but I learned a lot of techniques and it was a worthwhile experience.

On the way to our stop, we had a tour of the city and saw the old walls, magnificent churches, beautiful old buildings and crowded beaches. Some places were decorated a bit for Christmas and we even saw Santa Clauses.

The next stop on our tour was to an Emerald Museum where we saw what emeralds look like after coming out of the mines. They had displays of emeralds from various countries in the world to illustrate the superiority of the Columbian stones. Of course there was a gift store connected with the museum and they had many gorgeous pieces.

After being dropped off back at the ship, I went over to the cruise ship port shopping area for a few souvenirs of Columbia. The heat and humidity were unbelievable and I realized how lucky we were to have had air conditioning for most of our morning.

The ship left Cartagena at 3 PM. I grabbed a quick bite to eat then watched a film presentation on the making of the Panama Canal. I had read about the history of the canal before the trip and appreciated the visual information on this massive undertaking.

Supper, emails, writing and walking around the ship completed my great day.

Or so I thought....

I had been hiding out in a quiet nook upstairs to avoid the noisy cabin of ours. When I returned to the room, Dawn told me the front desk had called with news of a new cabin for us to look at and move to if we were interested. I was! We hurriedly packed, got moved, and unpacked. The room is on the 8^th floor instead of the 4^th, it is slightly wider, and we have a nice window. But best of all, no loud whooshing noises and no loud ship’s motor noises. Yee haw!