Exploring el Centro

This past Sunday, a fellow teacher, Elizabeth, and I met up to walk around el Centro.  Most of the restaurants inside the city walls are quite pricey, but we found where many of the locals hang out.  For $4.50, we got a full meal: fish soup, rice, beans, stewed beef, patacones, salad with avocado, and iced tea.  The iced tea was desperately needed because the day was a steamer, and the diner didn't have A/C.  

We walked around for several hours enjoying the life of the place.  Notice the beautiful colonial architecture.  I'm standing in front of Pedro de Heredia's statue, the founder of Cartagena de Indies.  He wasn't a very nice guy.  

Of course, one can only go so long without ice cream, so we stopped in this cute gelateria.  The best part was the ice cream was made of real fruits and had only natural ingredients in it.  I guess you could say it was a healthy snack.  At least, that was my reasoning for getting three scoops.