Jan 25 Old Cartagena with Hotel Cartagena in background

This picture captures my experience of Cartagena. The little bit of the wall embodies the history. Yet the massive development behind embodies how much tourism simply overwhelms everything else. There are also the cruise ships not seen in the photo.

As Cartagena is pretty hot with humidity, I was busy enjoying the breeze from up on the wall. I could see a vendor keep referring to white tourists that would pass by in German. I asked him why everyone seemed to be German. He pulled out an official looking list of all the cruise ships scheduled to come in and where they are from. Smart guy!