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Can you
find all the caches in THE SILVER TRAIN series? Find them
all, and you're half way to finding
X MARKS THE SPOT, a fine achievement
for a budding buccaneer!
This
series is based on a map of the Spanish Main in the Caribbean, with
the caches being named after the main cities that pirates plundered
on their travels! The location of the caches is intended to relate
to the location of the cities on the map, so you are actually
walking on the Spanish Main!
Read
more about the real Silver Train here.
Cartagena
East of
Panama on the northwest coast of South America lies the citadel of
Cartagena. Built into a deep sheltered harbor, Cartagena is home to
the largest fortification in the New World at the time.
Cartagena lies 250 miles to the East of Panama and can be reached
from there by land or sea.
Cartagena is part of the colony of New Granada and is answerable to
the viceroyalty in Panama. It was settled in 1533 and has never
been completely taken, although a number of raids on the fortress
and the harbor have resulted in the city becoming very heavily
defended.
Cartagena is the departure point for the flota, the Spanish 'plate
fleet,' or treasure fleet. The flota carries the riches of The
South American tribes to Europe late every summer. The treasure
fleet sails for Cartagena west to the coast of New Spain and then
north along the coast to Cape Catoche (The extreme northeast of the
Yucatan), where it turns to east by northeast and sails for Havana,
where it waits for the winds to change to favor sailing to
Spain.
Cartagena is extremely wealthy and is home to a great many Spanish
noblemen living in the New World.
Cartagena is under the press of the Spanish tax known as the
averia, which is levied on imports and exports by the throne of
Spain to pay for escort ships on convoys leaving New Granada and
New Spain. The averia results in many prices being greatly inflated
and profits being very low for many captains.
This situation leads to a common opportunity at Spanish ports: the
noblemen want the luxury goods that they are accustomed to at home
in Spain. The goods are heavily taxed for import, making them cost
more for the nobles to purchase. The nobles, however, are
responsible for collecting and enforcing this tax. Because of this,
corruption runs rampant through the nobility and bureaucracy and
smugglers can make a fortune in
Cartagena. |