Most of the work on Seahike was done while she was on the hard. She was splashed after two weeks. Here are some pictures of Seahike and her new parts.

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I’ve said before that Cartagena is beautiful. It is. It is also uber historical. Today I want to share some of their beautiful architecture with you, as well as two museums, a lovely beach, and a castle that is dangerous to bikers.

These pictures have no descriptors as they are just things that entertained me in one way or another as we strolled the streets of Cartagena.

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May 13 was the day we visited the home of Licor 43. I had never heard of Licor 43 prior to going to Cartagena. It is now officially one of my favorite adult beverages.

Licor 43 is a secret family recipe (Really! Only three family members know the entire recipe) made with 43 (hence the name) natural ingredients. It is the best selling Spanish liqueur in the world.

Legend has it that 2,000 years ago in Cartagena, Spain, a version of Licor 43 known as “Liquor Mirabilis,” was first produced and enjoyed by the Romans, who conquered the city of Qart Hadasht (Cartagena) in 209 B.C. The drink we know today was inspired by this elixir. It began in 1946 when the secret recipe was bought by three members of the Zamora family. Licor 43 is still produced exclusively in Cartagena following the family recipe.

Only five ingredients are known publicly. The other 38 remain hidden in the brains of the three family members (I hope they never travel together!). Those known to the rest of us are:

— Coriander
— Vanilla
— Green Tea
— Lemons
— Oranges

We tasted the original 43, chocolate, crème brulée, and horchata. And we tasted two mixed drinks. We bought three bottles. It was such a fun experience!! I should note that we took a bus there, but it didn’t really go there. She dropped us off about a quarter of a mile away and only after some prompting. Weird. The return bus never showed up so we took a taxi home. 🙂 🙂

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This post is mostly about Murcia. But first, just a few more pictures of Cartagena and one of our new puzzles.

The sculpture below is called The Marine. This was Spain’s first monument to the Spanish Marine. It is made with pieces of bronze provided by the Navy. The aim is to pay tribute to the Marine Corps, one of the older units that exists in Cartagena. As you can see, it resides across the street from the Arsenal.

The picture on the right is street art. The picture on the left is . . . a tomato! I’d noticed that it had started to rot. I had other tomatoes I could use, so I just kept this one to, you know, watch it rot. I thought it was rather artistic. When I posted it on my Facebook page, one of my friends told me she was worried about me and suggested that I had spent too much time on the boat. Another friend agreed that she had a point. 🙂 🙂 🙂

I threw out the tomato after this picture was taken. Michael was afraid of it. What a wimp. 😉 😉

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As you learned in our last post, we’d just finished a puzzle. But we didn’t have any more on Seahike!

Tragedy! What to do? Google “toy stores near me,” of course! And who’d thunk, there is a Toys (backwards R) Us within walking distance (4.8 km). Google Maps took me on a rather strange route. I quickly ended up on a dusty dirt road. . . with a chain link fence blocking the path.

But wait! Some determined soul had cut a hole in the fence just big enough to get through if you crouched down and weren’t super-sized. My first thought was that I should turn around and go another way. But then I told myself, “Cindy, someone took the time to vandalize this fence and it would not be fair to them if you didn’t take advantage of their handiwork.” So I did.

Here are a few pictures of the route.

After the dirt road, then the dirt path ended, I walked along a street with no sidewalk for a time until I reached a small shopping mall. Behold: Toys (backwards R) Us and Spanish puzzle heaven! I bought two.

We visited the Spanish Civil War Museum a couple of days later. The museum is situated in a tunnel built on the slope of Concepción hill. This tunnel was one of the many air-raid shelters constructed in the city during the civil war, as a response to the bombings from the rebel side. Built in 2001, the museum gives an insight into the daily lives of the people who lived through this period, and how they survived.

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