Closing the tour and return home - On the road with photo enthusiasts - Colombia 2025 - 12
2025-02-24/25 - Closing the tour and return home
The alarm clock rings at 5:30am. I want to take a few photos of Cartagena in the early morning today. There won't be a beautiful sunrise, it's too overcast for that. But the clouds have some structure, what should be good enough.
The streets are already surprisingly busy. It's not just the street cleaners and the first suppliers who are around, but also a number of others. At 6:30am there is even a first mass, which is incredibly well attended by German standards. I am back at the hotel shortly before 7am.
While the rest of the group have their swimming day today, I walk to the fortress and take a look around. I leave at 9am. The sun is slowly breaking through the clouds. It's almost 30 °C again and within 5 minutes I'm sweating all over.
The fortress costs the equivalent of 9 euros to enter. Is it worth it? Not really. But all the tour groups are driven here and so they can obviously allow to ask for it. There's not much to see. The underground passages are quite nice, but that's about it. I'm out again after 45 minutes at most.
I passed a mall on the way here and that's where I walk through now. There are international chains here as well as local stores. So far, we haven't seen any apart from IKEA. I didn't buy anything, but before I leave, I get a mocha Frappuccino at Starbucks. Pretty much the only reason I go there from time to time.
I'm back at the hotel at 11:30am, which is probably the end of my exploration of the city. The farewell dinner in a rooftop restaurant is planned for 5:30pm and I don't think I'll go anywhere else after that.
I also take it easy the next morning. We have to leave our rooms at noon and leave for the airport at 3:30pm. I get myself a bottle of water and unpack and repack my suitcase. The rest of the morning I spend editing pictures.
The transfer to the airport is once again different than planned. We had ordered 2 large vans so that we would have enough space for our luggage. What arrives is a medium-sized van that could load the suitcases of 4 people and a Renault Duster 😠. Thomas then orders an additional cab and doesn't come to the airport. He has a connecting trip with friends and acquaintances anyway.
At the airport, everything goes as usual, even though I have to answer more questions when leaving the country than when entering.
We leave Colombia on time and even make up some time on the way. At the online check-in yesterday, I managed to get a reasonable upgrade to Business Class. So, I even manage to get some sleep.
Amsterdam is one of the larger airports. Unlike other airports of this size, however, there is no train between the terminals, so I have to walk. 2 hours later my flight leaves for Stuttgart and from there I take the car home.
