The Fortress

My grandparents, my aunt and my great uncle, came to visit for an early Christmas celebration and one day we decided to show them one of the great attractions of Cartegena, The Fort.  The Fortress looks like a man-made mountain, made entirely from stone and it slopes up continually until it reaches a flat-topped peak with artillery storing and sentry houses at the corners to watch for enemies.  Now you might be wondering why this massive,impatrenable fortres just to watch over one small town.  Well Cartegena was a major stopping place for the gold and precious jewels that circled through the continent, especially emeralds, one of the rarest stones in the world.  In all of the big churches and temples gold is more common than marble that would be but a fraction of the cost of a small amount of gold in other places, as a result one of the only places you will find a full marble floor is in the Popa, the biggest and oldest monostary in town.

                                          

The Fort had no inside except for a labyrinth of tunnels that acted as a last line of defense in the context of a battle.  Each tunnel had cubby holes on each side so that if enemies did venture down there it would be an easy matter to pick them off.  We explored the tunels to an extent but I have the feeling we didn't even get to see half of it.