For fun Tom and I are keeping a list of the things we like better about the Colombian ways of doing things that we have seen so far:
Paying later. Everywhere you go, every service you receive, except in the places most reminiscent of things at home, e.g. the Oma bakery and coffee chain that reminds us of any such chain at home (the reader might be surprised to know that we have not seen a single Starbucks - or may not be considering Colombia has enough of its own coffee, and its own chain, Juan Valdez), we pay last. We hop on buses first, pay once we're settled in and have our bearings. We stay at a hostel for a couple of weeks, pay the whole sum as we leave. We like the laidbackness of it.
Fruits. We have been exposed to a whole range of fruits here that we were disappointed to find we could find no translation for, we've never heard of them. We have tried maracuyá, guanábana, tomate de árbol, lulo, and more I can't remember because the names are still so unfamiliar. They also have a lot of fruits that are not so common at home, such as carambola and mulberry. As far as familiar fruits go, I've seen most of them but I haven't seen apples yet, except as a soda flavor, it's very popular here.
Fruit juices. It seems that absolutely everyone here owns a blender. Anywhere we go for about a dollar we can get a glass of freshly blended juice and they will mix whatever fruits we want for us. A few of the stands we have discovered blend Oreo cookies with bananas. We were worried that would ruin the health aspect of having so many juices available, but we've been pretty moderate.
Coffee. When I was at home I always threw a lot of milk into my coffee, here that is standard procedure. I can't taste anything remarkable about the coffee itself, then again we import so much of our coffee from Colombia that there is really no reason to expect to.
Hammocks. I read in a book lying around the other day (as I was lying around in a hammock) that the Tayrona Indians invented the hammock. They are everywhere, for sale and in most of the hostels we have stayed in. Bolívar's deathbed was a modified hammock.
That is all I can think of for now, though the list is incomplete I've proven at least that we are trying harder to update often.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Saturday, June 27, 2009
June 27
I see we didn't exactly come through on our promise to update more often. Sorry about that, we're having a great time, and losing track of it.
We have a few pictures to upload for viewing; we are looking to buy a camera that doesn't eat batteries, it's really sad to me that we can't find anything. The closest we came to success was in a Walmart-type store attached to a mall that sold everything, but cameras were outrageously expensive, it was really disappointing. It cost around $200 for the same Kodak easyshare I have. A standard mouse costs $25. It's crazy. Meantime more than a third of our trip has slipped away and I'm thinking maybe it's about time we relied on batteries (though I'm getting nervous about funds as it is - I think they are about right when they say bring twice as much money as you think you need) so we'll have the memories.
We are spending a lot of time out on the beach, because the beaches are so nice here, sometimes crowded but not too crowded and secluded by mountains. We are both tanning. Tom is a lot darker than me because he refuses to put on sunscreen except to cover the parts that are already very dark to even himself out. I've been telling him this is preposterous, but he's a lot darker than me by nature, so he's only burned once or twice, same as me when we realized after we went to the beach the first time in Cartagena that the sunscreen I brought along wasn't actually waterproof. Anyway, when we get back we expect we'll be surprisingly tanned, especially me where just about any tan is surprising.
We have taken a couple of day trips to Santa Marta. We didn't really do much research on Santa Marta, we just hopped on a buseta (mini bus) and went. We didn't consult a guidebook on it...it may surprise our readers to know that we don't have a guidebook, we've been relying on word of mouth from fellow travelers, asking around (a lot of asking around, we figure locals know best), and internet information. Most of the time it works fine for us, but maybe we should have done a little more research this time.
We set out looking for the Quinta de San Pedro Alejandrino, the house where Simon Bolivar died a beat up old hated man (he fought for independence from the Spanish and established Gran Colombia, which consisted of Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. He really fought hard to maintain a union between these countries but they had already split up some years before he died. And he was a dictator so that didn't help his image any; even though he'd done great things for Latin America, people were through with him).
On our way, first we got confused about where to catch the bus. Our hostel owner told me to wait at the corner two blocks over, we waited there a while and then decided it was an unlikely bus stop, and we'd seen lots of busetas along the beach, so we went down to the beach, only to not see any busetas on the route we needed, come back and ask for directions, and go back to the spot two blocks from our hostel. Then somehow when we rode the bus we ended up at the end of the line, took another bus back to the centro (downtown), got dropped off in the middle of a shopping district which the driver announced was the centro but didn't look very downtownlike and definitely didn't look like it had a historic museum very close by. We found our way to the beach and asked how to get to the museum and the lady told us to walk back the same way we came a little and then take a bus. So we got to see a lot of the city. Even though we paid four bus fares apiece that day each ride is about 60 cents so it wasn't a big deal.
The museum was really cool, we saw a huge laurel tree that we took some pictures of because our guide told us it was only about 60 or 70 years old, but it looked ancient. Then he took us around Bolivar's last house and showed us his deathbed and medical instruments (he was really sick at the end of his life with a laundry list of diseases) and a replica of Bolivar for some reason that showed us he was only about 5'4". We ended up in an art museum with a watercolor exhibit that was pretty cool; I've been wanting to work on some watercolor painting while we're here (though it's really hard when we're still looking for watercolor paper) and I got some ideas. One of the rooms was named after our "favorite" artist from the Cartagena museum of modern art, Enrique Grau, who if you'll recall filled a museum of his own founding with his own art. We almost skipped the room but then decided it was OK when we realized it was just named for him, and it didn't contain any more of his artwork.
When we were leaving the museum we noticed a huge movie theater across the street, so a couple of days later we went back. All of the movies shown there were American dubbed in Spanish. That was all right, I'd been wanting to see "Up" since the spring, and it was easy enough for Tom to follow along without understanding much of the dialogue. It was patently ridiculous, and it's funny to me that we saw an American movie dubbed in Spanish about Americans in South America in a South American movie theater. The cast of characters included an old man, a boy scout, a rogue American explorer, a pack of talking dogs, and a dodo bird. Yes, the only representative of South America in the film is actually extinct. Still, it was fun and got me thinking about how much watching movies in Spanish will help me maintain my Spanish when we get back, because there are lots of visual cues to help me with the meaning, and teach me new words, e.g., cuervo, which means dodo bird.
We finally have a verdict on the Panamanian/Ecuadorian/renew our tourist visasian dilemma: we are flying to Panama. We bought our tickets on Thursday and we are flying out of Barranquilla on Tuesday. The cheapest round trip tickets we could find were $320, only $60 less than what it cost to fly round trip from Chicago. We actually thought it would cost us more, that's why we've hesitated about going to another country for so long, but when we booked it on the site it turned out to be less.
Having such a short amount of time between deciding to go to another country, and going to another country, was only a shock when I realized we had to figure out a place to stay right away because we only had 4 days. We already have a booking in a hostel taken care of, though. We are delighted to find that the place has AC, because Panama City is hot. We will be back in Colombia for our last 2-3 weeks (it might sound like an odd itinerary but we thought it through and it works out best this way), spending more time than just a night in Medellin, and doing whatever we decide we don't want to leave the country without doing.
What I think is crazy about our flight is that on our way back to Barranquilla we lay over in Bogota. There's no (cheap) way to fly back without this layover, we checked. So we are thinking about asking the airline on the way back to just let us "miss" our flight and leave our baggage in Bogota, because we want to spend more time in Medellin and it is much closer to Bogota than Barranquilla. Sometimes, less often than at the start of the trip, I order something at a restaurant and what I get is a little different than what I expected...so asking an airline to redirect our baggage feels a bit risky. But presumably my Spanish will be better by then so we will see.
We have a few pictures to upload for viewing; we are looking to buy a camera that doesn't eat batteries, it's really sad to me that we can't find anything. The closest we came to success was in a Walmart-type store attached to a mall that sold everything, but cameras were outrageously expensive, it was really disappointing. It cost around $200 for the same Kodak easyshare I have. A standard mouse costs $25. It's crazy. Meantime more than a third of our trip has slipped away and I'm thinking maybe it's about time we relied on batteries (though I'm getting nervous about funds as it is - I think they are about right when they say bring twice as much money as you think you need) so we'll have the memories.
We are spending a lot of time out on the beach, because the beaches are so nice here, sometimes crowded but not too crowded and secluded by mountains. We are both tanning. Tom is a lot darker than me because he refuses to put on sunscreen except to cover the parts that are already very dark to even himself out. I've been telling him this is preposterous, but he's a lot darker than me by nature, so he's only burned once or twice, same as me when we realized after we went to the beach the first time in Cartagena that the sunscreen I brought along wasn't actually waterproof. Anyway, when we get back we expect we'll be surprisingly tanned, especially me where just about any tan is surprising.
We have taken a couple of day trips to Santa Marta. We didn't really do much research on Santa Marta, we just hopped on a buseta (mini bus) and went. We didn't consult a guidebook on it...it may surprise our readers to know that we don't have a guidebook, we've been relying on word of mouth from fellow travelers, asking around (a lot of asking around, we figure locals know best), and internet information. Most of the time it works fine for us, but maybe we should have done a little more research this time.
We set out looking for the Quinta de San Pedro Alejandrino, the house where Simon Bolivar died a beat up old hated man (he fought for independence from the Spanish and established Gran Colombia, which consisted of Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. He really fought hard to maintain a union between these countries but they had already split up some years before he died. And he was a dictator so that didn't help his image any; even though he'd done great things for Latin America, people were through with him).
On our way, first we got confused about where to catch the bus. Our hostel owner told me to wait at the corner two blocks over, we waited there a while and then decided it was an unlikely bus stop, and we'd seen lots of busetas along the beach, so we went down to the beach, only to not see any busetas on the route we needed, come back and ask for directions, and go back to the spot two blocks from our hostel. Then somehow when we rode the bus we ended up at the end of the line, took another bus back to the centro (downtown), got dropped off in the middle of a shopping district which the driver announced was the centro but didn't look very downtownlike and definitely didn't look like it had a historic museum very close by. We found our way to the beach and asked how to get to the museum and the lady told us to walk back the same way we came a little and then take a bus. So we got to see a lot of the city. Even though we paid four bus fares apiece that day each ride is about 60 cents so it wasn't a big deal.
The museum was really cool, we saw a huge laurel tree that we took some pictures of because our guide told us it was only about 60 or 70 years old, but it looked ancient. Then he took us around Bolivar's last house and showed us his deathbed and medical instruments (he was really sick at the end of his life with a laundry list of diseases) and a replica of Bolivar for some reason that showed us he was only about 5'4". We ended up in an art museum with a watercolor exhibit that was pretty cool; I've been wanting to work on some watercolor painting while we're here (though it's really hard when we're still looking for watercolor paper) and I got some ideas. One of the rooms was named after our "favorite" artist from the Cartagena museum of modern art, Enrique Grau, who if you'll recall filled a museum of his own founding with his own art. We almost skipped the room but then decided it was OK when we realized it was just named for him, and it didn't contain any more of his artwork.
When we were leaving the museum we noticed a huge movie theater across the street, so a couple of days later we went back. All of the movies shown there were American dubbed in Spanish. That was all right, I'd been wanting to see "Up" since the spring, and it was easy enough for Tom to follow along without understanding much of the dialogue. It was patently ridiculous, and it's funny to me that we saw an American movie dubbed in Spanish about Americans in South America in a South American movie theater. The cast of characters included an old man, a boy scout, a rogue American explorer, a pack of talking dogs, and a dodo bird. Yes, the only representative of South America in the film is actually extinct. Still, it was fun and got me thinking about how much watching movies in Spanish will help me maintain my Spanish when we get back, because there are lots of visual cues to help me with the meaning, and teach me new words, e.g., cuervo, which means dodo bird.
We finally have a verdict on the Panamanian/Ecuadorian/renew our tourist visasian dilemma: we are flying to Panama. We bought our tickets on Thursday and we are flying out of Barranquilla on Tuesday. The cheapest round trip tickets we could find were $320, only $60 less than what it cost to fly round trip from Chicago. We actually thought it would cost us more, that's why we've hesitated about going to another country for so long, but when we booked it on the site it turned out to be less.
Having such a short amount of time between deciding to go to another country, and going to another country, was only a shock when I realized we had to figure out a place to stay right away because we only had 4 days. We already have a booking in a hostel taken care of, though. We are delighted to find that the place has AC, because Panama City is hot. We will be back in Colombia for our last 2-3 weeks (it might sound like an odd itinerary but we thought it through and it works out best this way), spending more time than just a night in Medellin, and doing whatever we decide we don't want to leave the country without doing.
What I think is crazy about our flight is that on our way back to Barranquilla we lay over in Bogota. There's no (cheap) way to fly back without this layover, we checked. So we are thinking about asking the airline on the way back to just let us "miss" our flight and leave our baggage in Bogota, because we want to spend more time in Medellin and it is much closer to Bogota than Barranquilla. Sometimes, less often than at the start of the trip, I order something at a restaurant and what I get is a little different than what I expected...so asking an airline to redirect our baggage feels a bit risky. But presumably my Spanish will be better by then so we will see.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
June 18
It's been a while since this was updated, and much longer since I (Tom) did the updating. We are now in Taganga, a little town over the mountain from Santa Marta. It's a slow paced town that makes its living on tourism. The weather is perfect (warmer than Bogota, less humid than Cartagena), the water is cool, the food is cheap, and vibe is quite chill. I'm considering staying a while. We'll take some pictures tomorrow to show you what I mean.
It's Melissa now; Tom made his points but doesn't know what else to write. So I am going to give this post more substance. [This is really me now.] We promised at least an entry a week and are falling short, so here's our promise we won't do that again and a longer post. We were in Cartagena for about two and a half weeks total. We spent most of our time there just relaxing, visiting the beach and seeing museums (we went to the Gold museum too which was mostly a showcasing of pre-Colombian artifacts make of gold, it was pretty cool and we learned some things about indigenous cultures in Colombia) and taking walks inside the walled city (the historic colonial part) and along the scenic seaside. We thought about taking a boat tour of the Rosario Islands and Playa Blanca, supposedly the best beach in Cartagena, but we decided this is too much of a budget trip for that. If the idea of something expensive really sweeps us off our feet, we'll do it, though, knowing the odds of us finding ourselves in Colombia again someday are slim (though Tom says he is ready to immigrate permanently to Taganga and make a living selling trinkets to gringo tourists, but that's probably just stardust).
Yesterday we took a mini bus through Barranquilla and Santa Marta to Taganga. Santa Marta is about 15 minutes from here by car, just on the other side of the mountains that lock in Taganga on one side. Taganga is on a bay and the mountains come right up around the beach. (Just on the other side of the mountains that lock in Taganga on the OTHER side, after a fun 20-minute hike, is another nice beach. I'm excited because hiking is one of my favorite things, and...we're finally getting some exercise!) It's nice to have a city with an airport and grocery stores close by while also having the seclusion of a small town. We were going to stay in a different hostel, but it was full so we ended up here; we thought we'd move into the other or another as soon as we could but this one grew on us. The owner is really sweet if a little intense, and she's full of recommendations and is always interested in a conversation about what we're doing and how our day was, and if her tips helped. She has a cute chihuahua which Tom describes as jumpy and neurotic, but I think it's endearing how she barks when she hears a ruckus, as if someone couldn't step on her and that would be that.
The dirt roads and spread out feel of Taganga are welcome, we didn't think we'd go to a small town when we started our trip, but came by popular recommendation. I didn't think we'd get as many recommendations to go to small towns as we have - people are suggesting we go to San Gil, Villa de Leyva, Pasto, Ipiales, etc. There is lots of tourism here, more than I thought, but not enough that I can default to English whenever I want because so few people speak it. About 99 percent of the English I've heard has been from wares-peddlers who I think only know a few professionally relevant words. Someone shouted at us today, "Hey! Hey you!" and then proceeded to try to sell us on something in Spanish. I guess that works.
There are a few more health hazards in Taganga than there were in Cartagena, though none of them are really a big deal most likely: 1) loads of stray dogs, 2) absolutely having to buy our water for the first time (tap water is fine to drink in Bogota, Medellin, and Cartagena), and diseases from mosquitos, though we're both protected against most of the ones we can do anything about, anyway. The stray dogs make me nervous but the ones we've seen have only been a little bit aggressive with each other. There are stray goats, too - we petted a goat couple (literally, a male and pregnant female) at the beach today. It was around sunset and the people were clearing out so I guess the goats were comfortable moving in.
We've been to a couple of restaurants and so far they're all open-air and cats and dogs and maybe even goats come and go freely. It's amazing how the Taganga bay beach could be the site of an MTV reality show for all the twenty-somethings that dominate it, but there are plenty of kids and natives too. The food here is healthier than it has been in the last few cities and it's really good. Today at lunch we sat at a table for four with three people (one more from our hostel) and because sides are served on whole separate platters, we almost had more things on the table than fit. A standard main dish is a good cut of meat or chicken or fish, and standard sides are potatoes and rice and a salad with a really good acidic dressing. I should ask what's in the dressing before we leave so I can reproduce it. We agree that so far this is our favorite place and we could be pretty content staying a while.
Two really close sites of interest are Ciudad Perdida and Parque Tayrona...Ciudad Perdida, the Lost City, is something like Macchu Picchu but only the foundations of the indigenous architecture remain there. We've asked around a bit and the standard price for a guide through the park is something like 550,000 Colombian pesos per person, about $250+ US dollars. So we asked around if we really needed a guide and the consensus is that going solo would be pretty intense. Apparently there are a lot of paramilitaries in the area and the guide has to interact with the paramilitaries to get through the park. A guy even told us that you can tour a cocaine lab while you're there. Um, no thank you. Parque Tayrona is still in the running though. I'm not clear on all of what's there though my understanding is it's mostly beaches and natural beauty and it is supposed to be very relaxing. If either of us were into scuba diving this would be a great place...so, if you're into scuba diving (and are willing to tolerate beaches with very few people over the age of 29) consider it!
After deciding that we would fly to Panama, and then that we wouldn't, and then that we would fly to Ecuador, and then that we wouldn't, and then that we would sail to Panama, and then that it was too expensive, and then that we would just renew our tourist visas in Colombia and see the Cali/Pasto/Ipiales area in the southwest, and then that that was more adventurous than we wanted to be, we have decided (we think) that we are going to go ahead and fly to Panama in a couple of weeks. We have to fly out of Bogota and we can't afford a Cartagena-Panama-Bogota flight because for some reason Panama-Bogota is really expensive...I can't think of why, there is literally no way to drive/bus into Panama from Colombia...so we think we'll fly round trip from Cartagena and then take the bus from Cartagena to Medellin. We want to spend at least a few days there because so many people say they wish they'd spent more time in Medellin. It really seemed like a nice clean and modern city. Anyway we'll see what we decide when we absolutely have to make a decision about how we'll allowed to go back to the states without a hefty fine.
It's Melissa now; Tom made his points but doesn't know what else to write. So I am going to give this post more substance. [This is really me now.] We promised at least an entry a week and are falling short, so here's our promise we won't do that again and a longer post. We were in Cartagena for about two and a half weeks total. We spent most of our time there just relaxing, visiting the beach and seeing museums (we went to the Gold museum too which was mostly a showcasing of pre-Colombian artifacts make of gold, it was pretty cool and we learned some things about indigenous cultures in Colombia) and taking walks inside the walled city (the historic colonial part) and along the scenic seaside. We thought about taking a boat tour of the Rosario Islands and Playa Blanca, supposedly the best beach in Cartagena, but we decided this is too much of a budget trip for that. If the idea of something expensive really sweeps us off our feet, we'll do it, though, knowing the odds of us finding ourselves in Colombia again someday are slim (though Tom says he is ready to immigrate permanently to Taganga and make a living selling trinkets to gringo tourists, but that's probably just stardust).
Yesterday we took a mini bus through Barranquilla and Santa Marta to Taganga. Santa Marta is about 15 minutes from here by car, just on the other side of the mountains that lock in Taganga on one side. Taganga is on a bay and the mountains come right up around the beach. (Just on the other side of the mountains that lock in Taganga on the OTHER side, after a fun 20-minute hike, is another nice beach. I'm excited because hiking is one of my favorite things, and...we're finally getting some exercise!) It's nice to have a city with an airport and grocery stores close by while also having the seclusion of a small town. We were going to stay in a different hostel, but it was full so we ended up here; we thought we'd move into the other or another as soon as we could but this one grew on us. The owner is really sweet if a little intense, and she's full of recommendations and is always interested in a conversation about what we're doing and how our day was, and if her tips helped. She has a cute chihuahua which Tom describes as jumpy and neurotic, but I think it's endearing how she barks when she hears a ruckus, as if someone couldn't step on her and that would be that.
The dirt roads and spread out feel of Taganga are welcome, we didn't think we'd go to a small town when we started our trip, but came by popular recommendation. I didn't think we'd get as many recommendations to go to small towns as we have - people are suggesting we go to San Gil, Villa de Leyva, Pasto, Ipiales, etc. There is lots of tourism here, more than I thought, but not enough that I can default to English whenever I want because so few people speak it. About 99 percent of the English I've heard has been from wares-peddlers who I think only know a few professionally relevant words. Someone shouted at us today, "Hey! Hey you!" and then proceeded to try to sell us on something in Spanish. I guess that works.
There are a few more health hazards in Taganga than there were in Cartagena, though none of them are really a big deal most likely: 1) loads of stray dogs, 2) absolutely having to buy our water for the first time (tap water is fine to drink in Bogota, Medellin, and Cartagena), and diseases from mosquitos, though we're both protected against most of the ones we can do anything about, anyway. The stray dogs make me nervous but the ones we've seen have only been a little bit aggressive with each other. There are stray goats, too - we petted a goat couple (literally, a male and pregnant female) at the beach today. It was around sunset and the people were clearing out so I guess the goats were comfortable moving in.
We've been to a couple of restaurants and so far they're all open-air and cats and dogs and maybe even goats come and go freely. It's amazing how the Taganga bay beach could be the site of an MTV reality show for all the twenty-somethings that dominate it, but there are plenty of kids and natives too. The food here is healthier than it has been in the last few cities and it's really good. Today at lunch we sat at a table for four with three people (one more from our hostel) and because sides are served on whole separate platters, we almost had more things on the table than fit. A standard main dish is a good cut of meat or chicken or fish, and standard sides are potatoes and rice and a salad with a really good acidic dressing. I should ask what's in the dressing before we leave so I can reproduce it. We agree that so far this is our favorite place and we could be pretty content staying a while.
Two really close sites of interest are Ciudad Perdida and Parque Tayrona...Ciudad Perdida, the Lost City, is something like Macchu Picchu but only the foundations of the indigenous architecture remain there. We've asked around a bit and the standard price for a guide through the park is something like 550,000 Colombian pesos per person, about $250+ US dollars. So we asked around if we really needed a guide and the consensus is that going solo would be pretty intense. Apparently there are a lot of paramilitaries in the area and the guide has to interact with the paramilitaries to get through the park. A guy even told us that you can tour a cocaine lab while you're there. Um, no thank you. Parque Tayrona is still in the running though. I'm not clear on all of what's there though my understanding is it's mostly beaches and natural beauty and it is supposed to be very relaxing. If either of us were into scuba diving this would be a great place...so, if you're into scuba diving (and are willing to tolerate beaches with very few people over the age of 29) consider it!
After deciding that we would fly to Panama, and then that we wouldn't, and then that we would fly to Ecuador, and then that we wouldn't, and then that we would sail to Panama, and then that it was too expensive, and then that we would just renew our tourist visas in Colombia and see the Cali/Pasto/Ipiales area in the southwest, and then that that was more adventurous than we wanted to be, we have decided (we think) that we are going to go ahead and fly to Panama in a couple of weeks. We have to fly out of Bogota and we can't afford a Cartagena-Panama-Bogota flight because for some reason Panama-Bogota is really expensive...I can't think of why, there is literally no way to drive/bus into Panama from Colombia...so we think we'll fly round trip from Cartagena and then take the bus from Cartagena to Medellin. We want to spend at least a few days there because so many people say they wish they'd spent more time in Medellin. It really seemed like a nice clean and modern city. Anyway we'll see what we decide when we absolutely have to make a decision about how we'll allowed to go back to the states without a hefty fine.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
June 10
I read last night in Garcia Marquez's autobiography that when he was young he noticed that adults would complain about the heat on the Colombian coast every day as though it were a surprise. That is what Tom and I find ourselves doing even though the weather is basically the same thing every single day. It's funny.
We have gotten to know our part of the city pretty well in the two weeks or so we have been here. We have explored most of the walled city now. The day before yesterday we visited the Museum of Modern Art, which would more aptly be titled the Enrique Grau museum for its not particularly modest founder, who decided it was fitting for his own work to dominate the collection. Actually, he's a pretty good artist. We were impressed that even in an art museum there was no air conditioning. It was small and contained only one artist whose name I recognized, Alvaro Obregon. Some of the pieces had tears and whatnot, and either bits of a collage were peeling from their backing or they'd never been carefully applied. We were not altogether impressed but it was worth our $1.50 admission at least. Enrique Grau's tryptich panorama of Cartagena was pretty cool.
Yesterday we went to the Palacio de la Inquisicion, a history of Cartagena/torture instrument museum, which a website I've been relying upon for tourist information said would cost about $0.90 per person but cost more like $5.50 a person. It's really not very much but because it's pretty expensive by Colombian standards we were annoyed by it. I think we were mostly paying for the air conditioning to preserve the paintings on the top floor. We decided it was pretty much worth the money for that.
We've both found ourselves kind of longing for familiar things. The closest we've come to anything familiar were the McDonald's and Dunkin' Donuts in Bogota and those are 24 hours by bus away from us now, not that we went to McDonald's or Dunkin' Donuts when we were at home. But we have both been craving of all things frozen pizza and a glass of chocolate milk.
The local restaurant fare is pretty good, but it could use the salsa on every table in Bogota, and I found too many unfamiliar looking chicken parts and hairy dumplings in my soup last night to eat it. I think maybe we just need to be willing to explore the eateries beyond a couple of blocks of our hostel and trust that we're not limited to the fine dining establishments and the Hard Rock Cafe inside the walled city.
We have gotten to know our part of the city pretty well in the two weeks or so we have been here. We have explored most of the walled city now. The day before yesterday we visited the Museum of Modern Art, which would more aptly be titled the Enrique Grau museum for its not particularly modest founder, who decided it was fitting for his own work to dominate the collection. Actually, he's a pretty good artist. We were impressed that even in an art museum there was no air conditioning. It was small and contained only one artist whose name I recognized, Alvaro Obregon. Some of the pieces had tears and whatnot, and either bits of a collage were peeling from their backing or they'd never been carefully applied. We were not altogether impressed but it was worth our $1.50 admission at least. Enrique Grau's tryptich panorama of Cartagena was pretty cool.
Yesterday we went to the Palacio de la Inquisicion, a history of Cartagena/torture instrument museum, which a website I've been relying upon for tourist information said would cost about $0.90 per person but cost more like $5.50 a person. It's really not very much but because it's pretty expensive by Colombian standards we were annoyed by it. I think we were mostly paying for the air conditioning to preserve the paintings on the top floor. We decided it was pretty much worth the money for that.
We've both found ourselves kind of longing for familiar things. The closest we've come to anything familiar were the McDonald's and Dunkin' Donuts in Bogota and those are 24 hours by bus away from us now, not that we went to McDonald's or Dunkin' Donuts when we were at home. But we have both been craving of all things frozen pizza and a glass of chocolate milk.
The local restaurant fare is pretty good, but it could use the salsa on every table in Bogota, and I found too many unfamiliar looking chicken parts and hairy dumplings in my soup last night to eat it. I think maybe we just need to be willing to explore the eateries beyond a couple of blocks of our hostel and trust that we're not limited to the fine dining establishments and the Hard Rock Cafe inside the walled city.
Friday, June 5, 2009
June 4
We have been in Cartagena for almost a week now. The city's a lot more geared to tourists than Bogota, but that has its advantages and its drawbacks. Advantages include: there is plenty to do, lots of places to eat, good beaches to go, many museums and historical sites, etc. Cartagena is surrounded by a stone wall built in colonial times and inside is a lot of well-preserved colonial architecture. We're disappointed at the overabundance of expensive boutiques we could visit at home (and jewelry stores we can't possibly afford to shop at) but we are finding lots of charming places too. Our hostel is definitely not located in the resort district though it's only a few doors away from several restaurants and cafes and a short walk from a couple of supermarkets. We are really pleased with our hostel too because we have a huge room with cable tv in Spanish, daily cleaning service, a private bathroom, lots of closet space, pretty windows, etc. for the same price we paid in Bogota for none of these things. We wish we had air conditioning because it's in the 90's every day, but a fan suffices. So far we've spent a lot of time at the beach and have explored the city inside the wall on a few self-directed walking tours. Our hostel arranges a lot of excursions (including sailing to Panama, but for nearly $400 each way we've decided that's too expensive), and some like the Rosario Islands, a chain of 27 islands, look pretty appealing. I've seen a lot of ads and business cards in the hostels we've stayed in for a hostel in Mompós, the supposed "heart of García Márquez land", but I looked on a map and it's actually further from where García Márquez was born and raised than Santa Marta, which we may skip because the cost of living is high. García Márquez did study and work as a journalist in Cartagena, so I think I'm getting a good enough literary experience where we are right now.
Drawbacks include: everyone suspects that we're loaded and wants our money, and is not afraid to pursue us doggedly for it. Yesterday we trekked out to a nice beach near several big resorts, after stopping at smaller beaches that were not as nice on other days because they were closer. There were some open tents with chairs underneath on the bench and you had to pay people to sit down. Some ladies pursued us a few seconds later with a massage cream. Come to think of it I'm not sure if they were trying to sell us the cream or force a massage on us that we'd have to pay for. We're thinking we should start taking a little money with us to the beach, but yesterday we didn't have anything but towels, water and sunscreen for fear of someone robbing us while we're in the water. So it's a good thing we escaped them because there's no way we could have paid for their services. They attacked us as we were drying off on the beach as well. I was resting on a chair putting my sandals back on when one walked up and started putting lotion on me. I told her over and over that we weren't interested and we didn't have money. I tried to get up and she tried to force me back down. It's madness. Most people are friendly, though. It seems that most people who are only in search of our money are pretty friendly and forthcoming with useful information on topics other than what they're selling. If Tom weren't here I could spend all day talking to them though I'd have to get over the guilt of not buying their services after leading them on.
Drawbacks include: everyone suspects that we're loaded and wants our money, and is not afraid to pursue us doggedly for it. Yesterday we trekked out to a nice beach near several big resorts, after stopping at smaller beaches that were not as nice on other days because they were closer. There were some open tents with chairs underneath on the bench and you had to pay people to sit down. Some ladies pursued us a few seconds later with a massage cream. Come to think of it I'm not sure if they were trying to sell us the cream or force a massage on us that we'd have to pay for. We're thinking we should start taking a little money with us to the beach, but yesterday we didn't have anything but towels, water and sunscreen for fear of someone robbing us while we're in the water. So it's a good thing we escaped them because there's no way we could have paid for their services. They attacked us as we were drying off on the beach as well. I was resting on a chair putting my sandals back on when one walked up and started putting lotion on me. I told her over and over that we weren't interested and we didn't have money. I tried to get up and she tried to force me back down. It's madness. Most people are friendly, though. It seems that most people who are only in search of our money are pretty friendly and forthcoming with useful information on topics other than what they're selling. If Tom weren't here I could spend all day talking to them though I'd have to get over the guilt of not buying their services after leading them on.
Monday, June 1, 2009
June 1
We spent the entire day on Thursday and Friday getting to know the Colombian intercity bus system very well. Some observations are: the buses are very nice, as comfortable as the ones I've taken between Madison and Chicago, with built in television screens and DVD players. The ride between Bogota and Medellin was 10 hours and the one between Medellin and Cartagena was 13, and movies were played almost constantly, so we ended up watching a lot of movies. Only one of them was actually made in Latin America, and Tom says that one was almost a word for word rip off of Ocean's Eleven. The rest were American with Spanish dubbing. We think that the ride from Bogota to Medellin would be about six hours if it weren't for all the winding mountain roads. Unfortunately you won't see pictures of the beautiful scenery because it also made me fear for my life and I was afraid to look out the window for most of the ride. The frequent peligro (danger) and avalanche road signs didn't help me. I imagined that I saw a kidnapping road sign but it was just a standard school crossing sign.
When we came to Cartagena pretty late at night on Friday, the hostel we were hoping to stay in was full so they referred us to another hostel down the street. Tom compared it to a hotel pool room but I was just glad to find someplace to stay so close. We woke up in the middle of the night to what we thought could be gunshots but they turned out to be fireworks.
The next day we moved into the original hostel which is a million times nicer. We have a big room with a private bathroom, lots of nice windows, and cable. We don't have air conditioning, though, which is too bad since I think it's in the 90's all the time and it's very humid. The only other problem with it is the insect life. Tom was trapped in the bathroom for a while two nights ago because there was a bug on the door frame and "bugs shouldn't be that big" and he refused to come out or let me get help. He wanted me to kill it but if he was afraid to pass through the door frame so was I. Finally it creeped through the door frame and I recognized it as a cockroach. I don't know much about cockroaches except what they look like and that you're not supposed to step on them, so I went to the front desk for help. I should have done that in the first place since Tom was not coming out of the bathroom to stop me. They gave me a massive thing to shoot poison at it. That worked pretty well, though it left the bug twitching on the floor for a couple of hours. I couldn't dispose of it after seeing that so Tom had to do it maybe a day later. I don't think we are meant for this climate.
We spent some time at the beach on Saturday. We did a short walk and found a small beach that wasn't very nice, so we'll have to venture further to find the good ones. Now that we know it's possible we may sail to Panama instead of flying to Ecuador to renew our tourist visas, especially since everyone we've met describes Quito as everything from "sketchy" to "shit hole". The hostel we're staying at provides the service of sailing to Panama or at least information on it.
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