Annie & Safe Go West

Day 55.  Seven hours walking for just two hours on the beach!  Admittedly we were walking through unspoilt rainforest and the beaches were beautiful, especially if you ignore the fact that the current is too strong for swimming in most of the beaches.  (Some 200 people have been lost to the undertow at Arecifes, the first beach we reached).  What we should have done is hiked in, spent the night in a hammock (one of the most expensive hammock rentals in the world) then hiked out again.  Parque Tayrona is mainly privately owned protected coastal area of natural beauty.  You’re charged a fortune to enter and you’re made to wear a bracelet to prove it.  The park is picturesque but is slightly contrived as the only other souls you see are tourists.  We almost didn’t make it home as we missed the last minibus out of the park and as the evening light dwindled, we thought we might be sleeping in the park after all.  Luckily a passing MotoTaxi picked us up and we bunked to the nearest town.

A beach at Parque Tayrona

Ants cross the road with leaves at Tayrona

P.S. Happy Birthday to Aunty Audrey.  You might get a postcard.  Then again, you might not!

P.P.S. Happy Mothers’ Day to Didi and Aunty Audrey!

Day 54.  Today we say goodbye to Cartagena and headed for Santa Marta Eastwaard along the coast.  Here are some goodbyes we said to people and places we’ve seen every day and grown attached to while we were here:

Spanish lessons with Amaury

The residents at Casa Mara

Bird bath at Casa Mara

We had our Spanish lessons here

Our tinto lady

And no blog mentioning Cartagena would be complete without mentioning Catalina, the iconic statue of a indigenous girl watching over the entrance to the walled city.

Catalina

Day 53. We’ve been looking forward to visiting Helene all day. We headed out of town in the evening rush hour as crowded buses sped out of town and pelicans sat calmly above the hubub watching the world go by.

Pelicans

Helena’s house is a lovely colonial style building off the main street.  We were warmly welcomed by her and all her pets.  (Their names are already fading away, but one of the cats is definitely called Adolf on account of a dark patch under its nose).  We were also introduced to a couple of one week old additions to the family:

Kittens!

We sat down to a meal of chicharon (pork crackling), patacon (squashed fried plantain) and papitas (breaded egg, meat and potato balls) washed down with a glass of guava juice.  We chatted about life in Europe versus Columbia (her children still live in Europe), how Columbia had changed over the years (for better and for worse), and what the elections taking place this Sunday might mean for the country.  We also exchanged recipes and agreed that a kebab shop, non-existent in Cartagena, would do very well here!

Day 52.  We’ve lived in Cartegena for the best part of two weeks and have developed a bit of a morning routine.  At 8am we have our Spanish lesson then from 10am-12am we “do the rounds”.  First, we head to our juice shop for a couple of fresh juices (a different juice every day).  Then we head to our coconut man for a couple of fresh coconuts.  Finally we head to the Torre del Reloj for a couple of tintos, always from the same lady, and have a natter with her using the Spanish we learnt earlier that day.  She seems to “know a man who can” in town and helped Safe find someone to fix his glasses.

This morning while sipping on our juices (today’s offerings were Guanabana and Borojó) we happened to sit next to a smiley old Columbian lady called Helene who’d lived in Germany for 30 years but now lives alone in a district of Cartagena just outside the centre.  We talked about life and politics in an interesting spaghetti of German and Spanish words in the same sentence.  It turns out that she doesn’t quite live alone … she has 18 cats and three dogs to keep her company!  We’re invited round for dinner tomorrow to say hello to them!

Here are some interesting items we saw for sale today whilst doing the rounds:

Why buy popcorn loose when you can have it in balls?

Rat poison seller - direct and to the point

Sometimes you need a letter typing or a form filling in.  These guys are happy to oblige:

Professional form fillers

And the fruit of the day is … Caimito!  A strange fruit which looks like a large passion fruit from the outside but on the inside has a squidgy blancmange like purple flesh which oozes pearls of white liquid when you press on it.  If you scrape your spoon too close to the skin, however, you end up eating a mouthful of glue!

Caimito

P.S. Isn’t it strange how you learn a new word in a foreign language then all of a sudden everyone you speak to uses that very word in every other sentence?

Day 51.  Sometimes you wish you’d listened to other people’s advice.  Especially when they’re right.  Before we left, we poo-pooed RJohn’s (Annie’s eldest bro’) suggestion that Safe might consider taking along a spare pair of glasses.  Once we had decided this wasn’t necessary, it was only a matter of time before one of the lenses fell out of Safe’s glasses on a beach in Nicaragua.  We’ve now managed to lose or break most items of value that we were carrying, including:

• Two pairs of sunglasses
• One hat
• One salty camera
• One designer pair of specs that Safe is (was) very attached to

We’ve tried several times to find someone who’ll fix the glasses and it’s only in Cartagena that someone has been willing to give it a shot.  We’ve now learnt that titanium cannot be soldered with iron!  Here is the evidence:

Attempted soldering followed by attempted wiring!

After several attempts at resuscitation, our friendly mender of glasses threw in the towel and suggested we try an alternative remedy of the old lenses in a new frame.  This required a bit of jiggery pokery, namely lens-filing and some double-sided sticky tape, but the result was worth it.  Safe said farewell to his faithful old pair and said hello to his new pair.

Suddenly I see!

We tried to be semi-prepared for Aunty Audrey’s Birthday by sending her a postcard a week in advance, not that we expect her to get it soon, if at all!  We were a bit shocked by our encounter with the Post Office, though we should have been prepared for this as Safe had to give his fingerprint, occupation and what he had for dinner last week just to change money at the airport!  We had to give our names to buy a stamp and send a postcard, and we received a formal proof of purchase just to show that we really did try to send a card!

Stamp and proof of stamp

In the evening we visited San Felipe Fort just outside the city walls.  We turned up at sunset just as it was closing but miraculously the guards decided it wasn’t quite ready for closing once we’d paid them directly.  We had the entire fort all to ourselves and got some great views of the city at sunset.

San Felipe Fort

Boca Grande from a distance

Day 50.  Last night it rained cats and dogs.  A tropical storm hit Cartagena and flooded the roads.  Our teacher arrived late because the transport had come to a standstill.  It’s good to know that it’s not just the UK which comes to a halt when the weather changes.

After class we tried to find a launderette.  We were convinced that the laundry was expensive at our casa (it seemed expensive for the three items of clothing we possess between us) so we went in search of a cheaper option.  This wasn’t as easy as it sounds.  We stopped to ask directions every 100m or so, and although we found a dry cleaners, we wandered for the best part of two hours through a maze of backstreet markets looking for a common or garden launderette.  We eventually found the tourist trap laundry only to find that it charged more than our casa!  Annie was not happy with all this walking.  Even though we’d left when it was cool, the rain had cleared the air so that the sun was bright and strong such that both Annie and her nylon top started to melt.  Our clothing is being washed back at the casa as we write.

Restaurants here are either cheap or expensive with not much in between.  We decided to go upmarket for lunch today because we felt we’d eaten enough chicken and rice for the time being.  Annie ordered the Hawaiian Special and ended up with chicken and rice with ham and pineapple.  We might go back to the cheaper option tomorrow!

Safe has been on the lookout for Michael Douglas in Romancing the Stone since he got here.  We think we’re getting close at this emerald jewellers:

Emerald Jeweller

On the way home from our evening jaunt, we checked out the main park, Parque Centenario, and found a girls speed roller-blading team practising in a purpose-built outdoor venue.  They must have been going pretty fast because our camera struggled to keep with them.  We tried to take a picture of the girls racing towards us but all we got was a picture of some ghostly bums!

Faster than the speed of light!

Day 49.  Colombians have a sweet tooth.  Specialities include Dulce de Leche, sweet caramelly fudginess fashioned into the shape of various objects including coins, wheels, pigs and most famously, baby dolls.  There is a street dedicated to the sale of all kinds of sweet things called Calle Lugar Pozo Dulce (street of the place with the sweet well).  Old and crumbly Colombian ladies sit beside their stalls rolling and preparing fresh sweets between sales.

Sweeties

Sweet doll, scary but tasty. Annie likes biting its feet whereas Safe goes straight for the head!

An interesting concept here in Cartagena is that of the “phone call seller” who usually has the word Llamadas written on the back of his or her jacket.  The streets are filled with mobile phones chained to small tables, or just as common, the phone call seller will wear a hunting jacket full of various mobile phones.  When you want to make a phone call, you use the correct phone according to the network you’re calling then pay the appropriate fee depending on how long your call was.

Phone call sellers

Day 48.  Sunday.  Today should have been a day of rest but luckily the bells woke us up for church at 7:30am just in time for an 8am Spanish lesson.  We’ve arranged to continue to have private Spanish lessons with Señor Amaury at 8am every day.  We now know how to say:

• Chevere! – Cool!
• Sin azucar – Without sugar (otherwise every drink you order comes with a wheelbarrow of sugar)
• Mas barato? – Any cheaper?

You can get away with guessing many Spanish words, for example, rapido, electronico, possiblemente, programa.  However, there are some words where you can get caught out, for example, nudo means knot, pie means foot and constipación refers to a cold and not your bowel habit!!!

We also learnt that ancient Colombian proverb say:

Casa de herrero, cuchillo de palo!

Blacksmith’s house, wooden knife!

… and …

El que andar con la miel, algo se le pegar!

He who travels with honey will have things stick to him!

We spent much of the day trying local delicacies which mainly involves eating vast quantities of fat as most savoury street foods are fried in a vat of grease by the side of the road.

Lady fries empanadas

Annie eats another patacon! Deep fried plantain is then squashed under a piece of wood. Delicious!

Day 47. Today we went to the beach with Alex and Billy. We met at the clock tower (aka El Torre del Reloj) at midday. El Torre del Reloj is where everyone meets everyone as it’s pretty central and hard to miss.

We initially headed out of town to Bocilla but were disappointed to find ourselved mobbed by sellers before we’d even stepped out of our taxi. Also, the sea didn’t look to inviting so we ended up at Boca Grande instead.

Mob of friendly street sellers at the beach

Cartagena is a walled city. In the evening, after our arroz con pollo (chicken and rice), we walked all the way around the substantial wall which surrounds the Centro Historico, a rite of passage for all who visit. As we circled the wall, we stopped to sample some of the fruits on offer from street vendors.

City walls

The standout food to beat all foods in Cartagena is the truly amazing array of fresh fruits for sale from fruit sellers which litter the streets, and a meal would not be complete without a fruit juice, either with milk or with water depending on the fruit. If you’re hot and thirsty, stop at one of the coconut stalls and have someone with a scary machete open a coconut for you.

Man with large knife opens fresh caribbean coconut

The list of fruits found here is endless, but a selecion of fruits familiar in the UK and popular here include papaya, watermelon, melon, pineapple. Fruits which we’ve never seen before include:

Granadilla

Tomate de arbol (tree tomato)

Lulo

Curuba - doesn't look sweet, but it is!

Day 46.  In less than a month we’re going to be in Sydney for a single day en route from New Zealand to Japan.  Australia is very strict about prohibiting the import of most items of plant or animal origin into the country.  We’re pretty sure this includes cocoa beans.  We’ve been carrying a stash of cocoa beans with us all the way from Antigua, Guatemala (mainly in our hand luggage so they don’t get squished) so we could feed the raw beans to friends and family in the UK as a treat.  We’ve had to change our plans so the cute beagles at immigration in Sydney don’t bark at our handbags.

Every morning before we brush our teeth, each of us is going to eat one cocoa bean.  Raw cocoa beans are tremendously high in antioxidants and might just offset the copious amounts of fried plantain we’re getting through in Cartangena.

Medicinal cocoa beans

This evening we met up with our new found school friends, Alex and Billy, from Switzerland and USA.  After a fish meal we went for a couple of Aguila beers outside Dondo Fidel.  Inside Donde Fidel is where old men get drunk at the bar and intermittently stand to dance the rhumba for no more than 30 seconds at a time with passing belles.  It is also mandatory at Donde Fidel to dance the rhumba while queuing for the toilets.  We’re not sure if the men (or even the women) continue to dance once inside the toilet, but it’s very likely.