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Cartagena: Miss Colombia
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With just under 1 million inhabitants, Cartagena is the most popular tourist resort town in Colombia. It is divided into two main parts: the Ciudad Antigua (Old City) and the Ciudad Nueva (New City). Cartagena used to be a popular place for the privateers of the Caribbean (the most famous being Sir Francis Drake). Accordingly, the Spanish invested heavily in thick walls to protect this important harbour from attacks. The walls are over 10km long and enclose the pleasant Ciudad Antigua (old city), built in 1533 along a beautiful Caribbean harbor. It's very pleasant to stroll down the narrow streets and take in the stylish colonial architecture.
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The "Fiestas de la Independencia de Cartagena" is an local event, not no be mixed with the national beauty competition, "Concurso Nacional de Belleza". Both events are held at the same time. While the first is an popular event held as a tribute to the independence of Cartagena, the second is an commercial event which ends in the most important national TV show on monday night, when international stars accompany the coronation of next Miss Colombia. - The popular "Indepence Queen" of Cartagena will be crowned already one day before in an mass event on Plazas de los Coches.
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As Colombia's international showcase city, Cartagena routinely sees international festivals and congresses swallowing up hotel rooms. Last year, all of Latin America's heads of state converged here for an Ibero-American summit meeting. Next week, dozens of world leaders are to converge here for a meeting of the Nonaligned Movement. Regularly scheduled festivals in the city include the International Film Festival in early March, the Festival of Caribbean Music in late March, the Miss Colombia beauty pageant in November and the Moonlit Jazz Festival in December.
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In Cartagena, the players take the roles of 17th-century pirates escaping from a Spanish prison at Cartagena on the Spanish Main (modern Colombia). The cards in the game show various objects vaguely associated with pirates: daggers, old-style hats, pistols, bottles (presumably of rum), skulls and skeleton keys. There is a sloop waiting to carry the escaping pirates to freedom. At that point, any relationship to the theme ends and it becomes an abstract game.
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In recent decades, Cartagena has expanded dramatically and is now surrounded by vast suburbs and high-rise buildings. It is Colombia's largest port and an important industrial center specializing in petrochemicals. Despite increasing urban sprawl, the walled Old Town has remained virtually unchanged. Cartagena's bayside location has ... seen huge tourist development, with the resort strip of Bocagrande (Big Mouth) particularly booming as a holiday destination.
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With high temperatures ranging from 86 to 93 degrees, Cartagena's weather is a little drier and marginally cooler during high season, from mid-December to mid-April. Water pollution limits activity on the urban beaches to sun-bathing. For swimming, most visitors take excursion boats to the crystalline waters of Baru Island. Although every former Colombian president now seems to own an oceanfront apartment here, informality prevails during all seasons, with shorts acceptable day and night.
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