The captain has announced that the approach to Cartagena is spectacular, and so there are more people up on deck at 5:30am today than normal. A fiery sunrise to the east and a complementary rainbow to the west do their best to enhance an already beautiful approach to the city.

My cousin Stevie, an inveterate cruiser, has warned us about Cartagena. Someone he knows, he told us urgently, witnessed a murder from the window of his tour bus in Cartagena. It’s not safe, he insisted. He would not rest until he made me promise we would not go out on our own in Cartagena.

But we can’t resist. We are going out on our own in Cartagena.

Once we make it past the gauntlet of independent tour operators and negotiate a taxi fare to the city center of the old walled World Heritage city, things get easier. Our taxi driver Fernando talks his way past two guard posts, pointing out the elderly mothers in the rear of the taxi. He drops us off right at Bolivar Square, and we arrange to meet up again at the same place at an agreed time for the return trip.

Bolivar Square is not as pleasant as the guide descriptions make it sound. Yes, it is a beautiful park with a great statue of Simon Bolivar, but the tours all come here. And where there are tourists, there are hustlers. The place is not comfortable. We head out, Dan and me and our 90-year-old mothers.

I believe there may be unsafe areas in Cartagena. And I believe that the tour busses may drive through them. But the World Heritage walled city is—at least during the daylight hours we visit—as safe as any place we’ve ever been. True, there are police on almost every street corner where a tourist might wander, sweet-faced serious young men hardly more than boys. But once away from the hustlers at the tourist spots, the people are friendly, helpful, and courteous. The city is clean and beautiful. We wander until the mothers need to rest, which they do in a gracious old hotel, where a solicitous young man provides coffee and juice. And then Dan and I wander some more through narrow streets balconied with bougainvillea.

We don’t see our taxi driver Fernando when we get back to the place he dropped us off. But strangers help us. “I’m the person who told you where to find a coffee shop, do you remember? If your driver doesn’t come, I can help you find another.” “I’m the person who helped you negotiate your return trip, do you remember? Your driver is just a little further up the block.”

And so he was.

Fernando leaves us at the port, clasping our hands warmly. Across the language barrier we wish each other the best, old friends who will never meet again.