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Colombia 2006
This was a super quick one-day visit to
Barranquilla and Cartagena, Colombia. I was pleased to be invited on
this trip, and it seemed like the perfect opportunity to buy the new Nikon
D200 I wanted ever since I had a chance to try my friend Greg's. So,
I took the plunge, ordered my D200 from Camera World of Oregon, and I
received it just before we left. The photos on this page are some of the
very first I shot with this great new product from Nikon. Nearly all
of the photos on this page were created using
the Tokina 12-24 lens. I used my 28mm 2.8 Nikon for just a few of
the shots at the beginning. Both are great lenses.
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The obligatory airport departure
photo.
That's our Avianca jet at Miami
International.
Miami to Barranquilla is about a 2 1/2 hour
flight.
Avianca still serves real food (not like
the muffins American Airlines sells for $2). The Avianca meals
were great.
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| We ate well in Barranquilla,
too. Our hosts treated us to dinner at a high class Italian
restaurant our first night. Dinner was superb. The Chilean and
Argentinian wines were outstanding.
This is an after dinner photo. |
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Looking out from my hotel room
the next morning. That's the Caribbean on the horizon. |
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Elkin on the Magdalena River the
next morning.
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A roadside shrine along the highway between Barranquilla and
Cartagena. Catholicism is Colombia's dominant religion.
I
didn't use flash on this shot. The D200 metered it well.
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| Our driver was stopped by these two officers at a checkpoint
and fined for having out of date "documentos."
These
Colombian National Police officers came across as pretty tough characters
until I asked if I could take their picture. Then they were all
smiles, but they adopted a sterner look for this photo.
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A huge Spanish fort guarding Cartegena, the Castillo San
Felipe. I've been to El Morro in San Juan, Puerto Rico. This
is much, much larger. We were only in Cartagena for an afternoon, so
I didn't get to go inside. Someday I'll be back. |
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My friend Paul at one of the fort's entrances. |
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A typical street in Cartagena.
The climate was mild due to our being near
the equator. It was about 75 or 80 degrees, not too humid, and quite
pleasant.
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A shopkeeper in downtown Cartagena. |
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This lady was selling fruit in one of Cartagena's downtown
squares. |
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I'm not sure what this sculpture is, but I think it is
famous. Several of the shops were selling souvenir-sized
replicas.
Judging from the wear patterns, I'd say this is a fairly common pose
for a lot of snapshots. |
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Three friendly ladies in Cartagena. |
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Mimi, in downtown Cartagena. She was happy to pose for
this photo and she gave me her e-mail address. I
sent her a copy. |
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A mask for sale in Cartagena. |
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The Colombian women were incredibly attractive.
That notwithstanding, the guys I was traveling with apparently found
these castings more interesting. It was nearly all they talked
about.
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Another one. |
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And another.
The city has magnifiicent wooden doors with ornate
cast knockers like the
ones shown here. |
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Another street in Cartegena.
The D200 was handling these mixed scenes well. Check
out the building in the background...I'll have more shots of it later. |
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Paul stopped dead in his tracks by one of the paintings. |
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Men playing chess in a Cartagena park. |
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Paul and I in a Cartegena park.
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Another Cartagena street shot. |
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Inside one of Cartagena's churches.
I steadied the D200 on one of the pews and shot at ISO 1600 for this shot. |
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A man selling fruit in Cartagena.
When he saw me pick up my camera, he politely stopped and posed. |
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Colorful bags for sale. |
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Another colorful shop.
Who would think to go on vacation in
Cartagena? It was beautiful.
I'll be back. |
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Lots and lots of colorful
scenes. This is a very interesting city. |
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This statue is in a Cartagena square
where Africans were sold into slavery. Cartagena was one of two
cities in the Spanish Americas where slaves were sold (the other was
Veracruz, Mexico).
Our guide told us an estimated three
million slaves passed through this square. |
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Here's another view of the
square where slaves were sold. |
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I should know but I don't. This is apparently a famous
building in Cartagena. It is beautiful.
Cartagena was founded in 1533. It is
nearly 500 years old.
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| I took another shot of the same
building from a different location. As mentioned earlier, I used the
12-24 Tokina lens for nearly all of these shots. It is a very sharp
lens. |
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where people sold food. I couldn't tell what many of the items were,
but they all looked good. |
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I don't know what this was, either, but it
looked tasty. Some form of tamales, maybe? |
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Trinkets for sale on one of Cartagena's streets. |
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Cartagena is a very colorful city. |
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Steve, Robert, and Paul.
These guys were a lot of fun to travel with. |
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Robert in a Cartagena restaurant. |
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A wine room in a Cartagena restaurant. The dining in
Colombia was impressive. |
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Here's another Cartagena church.
You can't really see it in this photo, but
bright green parrots were perched on
different parts of the church just like you'd see pigeons in other parts
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| Here's the same church shown above, shot about 10 minutes after the first
shot. The D200 metered this scene well, too. The f/4 12-24
Tokina did well (it's a constant aperture f/4). |
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I shot this scene three or four times, playing with the exposure until I
had the shot I wanted. That instant feedback is an enormous digital
camera advantage. I'm looking due west at this point, with the sun
setting in the background. |
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| At the end of the day, we drove
back to Barranquilla, had another great dinner, and then we flew home the next
morning. Colombia is a wonderful place to visit and photo opportunities
are everywhere. Safety is an issue, as our hosts advised us not to
be on the road at night, and our guide in Colombia cautioned me at one
point not to lean out of the car with my camera. We heard that the drug issue has
severely adversely impacted tourism in Colombia, which is a
shame. I felt quite safe in the areas shown in the photos above, but
I suppose there are some areas where more caution (or avoidance
altogether) makes sense. In that sense, it's no different than the
U.S. or any other country I've ever visited. I will visit this area again, though, just
because it is so beautiful and I want to spend more time there.
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