The day would begin in the steamy tropical heart of Caribbean Cartagena and it would end with my cat screaming at me for abandoning her to the occasional catsitter for a week-plus.
My final tourist stop in Cartagena was to the Museo del Oro, the Gold Museum. Cartagena's Gold Museum is something of a companion to the much larger, much more extensive Museo del Oro in Bogotá. While smaller, it does bring the gold:
It was a Sunday morning, so admission was "gratis".
The collection emphasized the gold owned by the Caribbean-oriented Colombian indigenous tribes.
Some pottery, too.
The mammal-bird hybrid was a popular subject for the golden arts:
Caimans, too.
But I'm not sure what this one is:
It has a vaguely "Chinese New Year" look to it, no? And that would be weird since the goldwork in here is over a 1000 years old and, as we know, Chinese New Year was invented by Las Vegas casinos in the 1990's to lure inveterate gamblers from China and Taiwan to the Las Vegas Strip.
And these anthropomorphic pots were too weird.
Weird aside, apropos of nothing, that I will slip in here because I am running out of space to insert this anecdote anywhere else. Twice in Cartagena, I had people mistake me for being -- of all things -- Brazilian! I knew that studying Portuguese had affected my Spanish pronunciation, but I did not know the degree. Apparently, the answer is: muito.
So how would I rate Cartagena's Museo del Oro?
Two thumbs up, just like the security guard said.
And how would I rate Cartagena de Indias, Colombia? It's a little too romantic for my tastes. It's a lot more touristy (and touristed) than the rest of Colombia. But, what the heck:
Two thumbs up.
And with that, another vacation blogging spree comes to end. See you in Barcelona in September.
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