Beauty and The Beast

The old city of Cartagena is absolutely beautiful, with its flower strewn balconies and brightly painted houses, it truly is a city of color.  There are many emerald stores, all offering a “special promotion” today. The streets are overflowing with vendors selling everything from fruit and vegetables, to designer knock off sunglasses and watches.  It’s a fun city to explore, and eat in, there is an abundance of restaurants to suit every taste and pocket, we found all the food to be really good.

The one thing that upset me was all the horse drawn carriages, I have never seen so many poor, starved, sad, emaciated horses, it made me cry to look at them, you could see every rib, and the poor things looked so dejected, most of them were lame and covered with sores from the harsh ropes used to harness them. We saw them whipped mercilessly while pulling heavy carriages filled with overweight tourist’s that probably didn’t give the poor creature a second glance, as they jumped in to take their horse drawn carriage ride”.

If any of these people had an ounce of compassion they would be unable to condone this cruelty, their selfish ignorance insures the continued abuse of these animals.

Who is worse, the guys who abuse and starve the horses, or the ignorant tourists who fund the abuse by taking the carriage rides, keeping the demand high. 

Would you take a pleasure ride in a carriage with a horse that looked like this?
Notice the poor starved horse and the fat, overweight carriage driver!

I’m sorry to preach from my soapbox, but animal cruelty is something I simply can’t stand.