Cartagena

This was our day to see the less touristic parts of Cartagena -- the places that the cruise ship passengers don't get to during their seven hours in port.

First stop was inside the old city walls, in the neighborhood of "Getsemaní" (Spanish for the Garden of Gethsemane in the New Testament). This was a very low class neighborhood, known for poverty, drugs, prostitution, and violence during the period of civil unrest and drug cartels.

Now that peace and tourism are coming back to Colombia, these old, Colonial homes are selling for huge prices and are being restored as hotels and other attractions. This gentrification of the neighborhood is a two edged sword. On the one hand, the neighborhood is now safe, much cleaner, and getting fixed up with colorful murals and other decor.

On the other hand, property values are now high that poor residents can't afford to keep living in their own homes. Renovation costs and taxes are running them out. 

As an exercise, our local guide, Vicki, took us into an old traditional tienda (we'd probably call it a convenience store or old-time neighborhood grocery) and gave us a set amount of money to buy lunch for a family of four. Even limiting the menu to rice and plantains, plus a couple of eggs, we went over budget.

In a very narrow street we encountered an old fruit seller, pushing his cart. Vicki stopped him for an interview in Spanish, and provided translation for us. He's been selling fruit, six days a week, in this neighborhood for 57 years. He makes a pretty good living, but there's no retirement plan, so he'll probably have to keep doing it until death.

Getsemani is becoming something of an art community. Several artists have galleries here, with art displays spilling out into the streets.

Our walk ended in a very nice park, where another man was making a living by locating all of the animals living in the park, and then pointing them out to tour guides and/or to people who wanted to feed them. Today he had found three small monkeys and a couple of sloths.

The monkeys were anxious to be fed. The sloths couldn't be bothered.

From the park we boarded a "chicken bus." These are trucks with benches bolted to their beds, usually with some sort of roof overhead. We saw them all over Central America a few years ago, being used as public transportation.

Here, they are no longer used for that purpose, but rent out as party buses. Three old guys were on board our bus as our party band, and Vicki was singing along. At one stoplight, a woman began dancing to the music beside the bus as she was waiting to cross the street. Some people waved and smiled. Most just looked at us like we were idiot tourists. If the shoe fits....

The party went on for a while, as we were transported out of the city toward the town known as La Boquella (lah boy-KAY-jah). When slavery was ended in Colombia (it happened gradually from the 1850s to the 1880s), former slaves were given marshland along the seashore that no one else wanted. Here they created a town, which now has more than 18,000 residents, almost all of African descent.

The first residents made their living primarily from fishing, but now many commute to work in the city. There is a stark contrast between the modern high rise apartments and tourist hotels that stand adjacent to the shacks of the descendants of enslaved people.

There is now an effort to reclaim and preserve the African cultural heritage of La Boquella. One organization doing this is Tambours de Cabildo, a center for traditional music, drumming, and dancing. Three elegant and obviously very talented dancers greeted us at the entry to a thatched roofed, dirt floor building near the beach.

Inside, we met musicians and drummers who explained their instruments, which have both indigenous and African origins. Then it was our turn. They tried to teach us both some basic drumming and the most often seen traditional dance, the Cumbia. Almost everyone in the group took part, but we were all pretty awful.

They must have thought we worked hard enough in the heat to need refreshment, so they passed out bottles or water and local beer. We took the beer, of course. Then the three real dancers, after a costume change, came out to show us all up. They were quite good.

We had a few minutes on the beach to see fishing activity and some folks enjoying a horseback ride. Then it was back onto the bus for return to the hotel. Lunch was "on our own" today, but we weren't particularly hungry.

We walked several blocks to an area that housed a craft market. It's all supposed to be genuine, Colombian-made crafts. We looked in several of the shops, but found mostly the same junk we see in all of the tourist shops.

We walked a couple more blocks to the former bullfighting ring of Cartagena. Bullfighting is no longer practiced here, but the ring has been turned into a modern, high-end shopping mall. However, the main bull ring has been preserved, and is sometimes used as a theater in the round.

We bought ice cream. It was our lunch, and it was delicious.

After some down time back at the hotel, including dangling our feet in the hotel pool for a bit to cool off, we met for our end-of-tour briefing. Alejo, our tour director, put together a nice, quick & dirty video of some highlights of our time in Colombia. Find it at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzKYCP1pm3o

Then we were put onto horse carriages for a ride to our farewell dinner. It was a very nice place, with live music, and the meal was good.

On the way back to the hotel we got to see some of the nightlife of the city. It's a hot Friday night in Cartagena! And it seems like we can hear it all in our hotel room.

Tomorrow, after a late breakfast, we head for the airport. We have a tight connection in Miami, so we hope we make it home on time.

San Felipe

This morning we met our local guide, Vicki, who is both knowledgeable and funny. She took us on a tour of San Felipe, the fortress built by the Spanish to guard the city of Cartagena.

Construction of the fortress began in 1536 and continued for more that 130 years. It was built, as Vicki said, so that the Spanish could keep people from stealing what they had stolen from other people. Much of the gold and other treasures of South America made its way here before being shipped off to Spain.

Most of the wall is reconstruction because, after the fortress was no longer of military value, local people queried stone from the walls to build homes and businesses. Sadly, this sort of thing is typical for antiquities all over the world. The thick walls were designed to repel cannonballs, and sloped in a way that would deflect them back toward attackers.

There are no living quarters in the fort. Soldiers lived in the walled city, and except for a small guard on watch, only came when summoned by the emergency bell. The defenses were state-of-the-art for their day.

The fort was only taken once, by the French in 1697. They only remained about a month, before the heat and diseases wiped out most of the invaders, allowing the Spanish to retake the fort once again.

Heat threatened to wipe us out, as well, as the bus brought us back into the walled city once again and Vicki took us on a walk to examine some of the colonial architecture. 

There are still many big, old, Spanish houses here (like our hotel). They cost millions to buy, and even more to maintain in period style, as required by the government. Unique door knockers often symbolize how the home's original owner achieved their wealth.

Along the way, we encountered the usual "welcoming committee" of street vendors, who can be very persistent, but who are more polite than those in Egypt or some other countries. We also met some Palanqueras, the famous fruit basket ladies.

Originally, these women came from the town of San Basilio de Palenque, which was created in the mountains by the escaped slaves. They would come to Cartagena, carrying on their heads produce to sell in the city, wearing bright clothing to be visible, and singing the list of what they had for sale. They soon discovered they could make more money charging tourists for the privilege of taking their photo than they could make selling fruit.

Vicki also showed us the Dominican church and monastery, and discussed at length the role of the Spanish Inquisition in Colombia. The zealots pursued their cause in a particularly brutal manner here, primarily as a tool for stripping wealth from Jews, Protestants, or those insufficiently loyal to the Catholic hierarchy.

We also got a glimpse of the Cathedral and a house where Sir Francis Drake once lived while passing through Cartagena (Drake also once tried  to plunder the city with the help of buccaneers he had recruited as British mercenaries).

Hot from walking in the sun, we returned to the bus for a visit to an "Emerald Museum." Colombia is known for producing emeralds, and there are jewelry shops all over Cartagena. Supposedly, this "museum" houses a program to train underprivileged teens as jewelers.

We got a tour, with lengthy explanation of emerald mining and jewelry making, but we saw no teens. There was, however, a large sales floor with a lot of "assistants" ready to sell us jewelry.

Mary and I were having none of that, so we walked a couple blocks down to the beach to see what was going on there. There were folks who wanted desperately to rent us umbrellas or chairs, and even more who wanted to sell us cold water, Coke, or beer. And there was at least one woman sunning herself without the aid of her bikini top. Otherwise, it was just a nice, sandy beach.

Finally, the jewelry buyers were finished and we got on the bus to go to lunch. It was a seafood place popular with locals. Even though we had ordered ahead, service was slow. But the food was OK and the ice cream dessert was really good.

The group returned to the hotel. But in need of a haircut, I set out to find the barbershop we had passed the previous evening. Mary accompanied me. My Spanish was almost good enough, but broke down a bit in the bargaining process. With a little help from Google Translate, the price came down from 50,000 Pesos to 30,000 Pesos (about $6.50 U.S.)

Then I had to describe, in what little Spanish I have, how I wanted my hair to be cut. I must have done OK, because it's the best haircut I've had in quite a while. He took his time and was very careful, even if I was a little nervous when he trimmed my neck and around my ears with a straight razor.

In the evening, we joined some other members of our group for drinks at an outdoor restaurant in the square, just half a block from our hotel. It's a loud and boisterous place! Lots of activity, lots of night life on the streets. Great people-watching.

Flight Time

This was a rather uneventful travel day. But it was good to have a light schedule and to be able to catch our breath a bit. We didn't have to leave the eco-lodge until 10 a.m., which gave people time to sleep in or to eat a leisurely breakfast.

At 10, we drove a little over one hour to the airport at Pereira. We were still plenty early, but the plane was on time, so the wait wasn't terrible. Neither was the flight.

When the cabin door was opened at Cartagena (Car-teh-HAY-nah), there was so much humidity in the air that the plane's air conditioning vents began blasting water vapor. It looked like smoke. Temperature at our arrival was near 90 degrees.

We are at sea level here, on the Caribbean coast of Colombia -- the only country in South America to have coasts on both the Pacific and on the Caribbean.

Looking toward our room from the lobby

The drive from the airport was not long. Our hotel is an old, colonial-era, Spanish mansion that has been expanded into a very nice hotel. Our room is not one of the fanciest, but still nice. However, since in overlooks the lobby, it's a little noisy.

After settling in, our tour leader took us for a brief orientation walk around the neighborhood. This is definitely a tourist town! The place is crawling with them, as well as with all of the street vendors, performers, hustlers, pick-pockets, and souvenir shops that prey on them.

We walked through the old city to the 17th century city wall. We were a little too early to see the sunset, but the crowds had gathered to wait for it.

Our walk ended at the restaurant for our evening meal, which was quite good. Walking back, we stopped in a few shops, as well as in a supermarket, just to look around.

Ceviche served in a cocktail glass with fried plantain

Tomorrow we'll begin to really see the city.

More Coffee

This morning we drove by bus for a couple hours to reach the village of Salento. Along the way, we passed another burned out and destroyed mansion of a former drug lord. In this case, the local population had vandalized the building, looking for hidden drug money or other treasures after the drug lord's demise.

Jesús Martín, the coffee plantation farmer we visited yesterday, has his roasting facility near here. He is unusual, because most coffee growers in the region simply bring their dried coffee beans to a central market and sell them to a broker who roasts, packages, and exports them.

Jesús Martín, on the other hand, processes his beans completely, and sells both the beans and brewed coffee to customers inside Colombia, as well as exporting them. The roasting operation is surprisingly small, but uses state-of-the-art equipment imported from Germany, and a trained coffee taster to run the operation.

Carlos, the taster, demonstrated for us by roasting a small batch of medium roast coffee as we watched. He monitors temperature and pressure continuously, and has a way to pull out a small number of beans frequently to check their color, and then to return them to the batch. Near the end of the roasting, he was checking color about once every 20-30 seconds to get it just right.

After the roasting is complete, the beans must be cooled quickly and uniformly, so attached to the roaster is a machine that stirs the batch over a screen through which cool air is blown. Only 20-24 pounds of coffee can be roasted in each batch, so in peak seasons Carlos must run 25-20 batches per day. In those times, he has only two or three additional employees to assist him.

We drove on through beautiful hill country, with the Andes in the background, to Corcora National Park. In these hills grow an endangered species of palm tree that grows at high altitude. We climbed from 8000 to 8500 feet elevation among these very tall trees. Views were spectacular!

After the hike, we went to lunch at a very charming indoor/outdoor restaurant. Because the climate here is so mild, many buildings are roofed areas with only two or three walls. The rest is open to the fresh air. Most of the group selected trout from the menu choices, and it was quite good.

The restaurant is open to fresh air -- even the urinals!

After lunch, we finally made it to Salento. This is a special little town because so much traditional architecture has been preserved here. While many towns have taken down traditional buildings -- or have lost them to earthquakes -- replacing them with brick and concrete structures, Salento has blocks and blocks of traditional homes and storefronts.

One of those storefronts is a Jesús Martín coffee shop. Here, one of the baristos demonstrated for us some "latte art," the decorative patterns made in the foam tops of espresso drinks. These aren't simple heart shapes as we often see in U.S. coffee shops.

He made various animals and designs. Then he instructed us in how to make designs in our own drinks. They turned out better than we might have imagined, but not as artistic as his work.

After enjoying our cappuccinos or mochaccinos, many in the group bought little bags of coffee to take home. But these were not a bargain, and we opted to buy our coffee in the supermarket back home.

We did walk the streets of Salento and visit several shops. We tried to visit the little church on the town square, but decided not to try to crash a very large funeral, currently in progress. We did, however, enjoy the herse parked in front, built on a pickup truck chassis, and painted with the words, "always hope" in Spanish.

Before leaving the little town, Alejo, our tour director, asked if we could spend another 20 minutes or so to learn about Colombia's "national game." He walked us around the corner to a large pool hall, with several tables and various games underway. But pool is not "the national game."

He led us toward the back of the pool hall to a stairway we would never have found on our own. In the basement were courts for Tejo (TAY-hoe). This game has pre-Columbian origins, but the Spanish modified it to give it more of a "bang."

The game is sort of like "corn hole," in that one stands and pitches at a target. However, what one is pitching is a heavy steel puck. And the target is in the middle of a bed of soft clay. The puck doesn't bounce, but splats into the clay. Closest to center wins a point.

But in the center are charges of gunpowder attached to a metal ring. If the steel puck hits center, it creates a spark against the metal ring, and the powder explodes with a bang!

Playing tejo here is free, but the drinks are not. Whoever loses the game has to buy the round. So tejo is really a drinking game, and to get us into the spirit, Alejo bought us each a shot of Colombian rum. It did little to improve our aim, and none of us set off the powder. But people in the next lane made the bang.

Back on the bus once more, we retraced our route back to the eco-lodge, where we enjoyed another good meal. Tomorrow we check out and fly to the coast, where the weather will be warmer still.