The next two photos are of the side of Cartagena Cathedral; begun in 1575, blown up by the (heroic Sir {British version}/pirate {Spanish version}) Francis Drake in 1586, collapsed on its own due to heavy rains and lack of proper cover while rebuilding in 1600, finished in 1612.
The next photos are San Toribio church, followed by La Popa monastery and some of their bells.
The next photos are of the warning bell at the highest point of Castillo de San Felipe de Barajas, one of the strongest Spanish Colonial forts, begun around 1640, expanded around 1760.
The next two photos are from the Cartagena Gold Museum, with an extraordinary collection of pre-Columbian gold and pottery artefacts of the Zenú Nation. The first is a gold crotal, about one inch high, dated somewhere in the period 500 B.C. to 600 A.D. Sorry for the quality of the picture, but it was shot through a thick glass case. This ain't the Baghdad museum, this ain't the Cairo museum, and these boys ain't screwing around with their gold treasures. You first pass through a metal detector and then into a large bank vault, with armed and watchful police everywhere. The second photo is of ceramic crotals, dated around 1500 A.D.
Don't snicker, sneer, nor be so impolite as to refer to my previous rants about the inherent superiority of real (i.e., metal) bells. I despise inferior grade brass metal bells even more and, those being the only metal bells available, I did break down and purchase one ceramic (shudder) object (which some may refer to as a "bell").
All good things must end, and back home again seems little different. 80F when I left Colombia, 8F when I returned to Columbia. Apparently not much melting, more like the snow collapsing under its own weight, with one lonely black trash bag (placed there before they cancelled pickup) poking its nose through the snow.
