Thursday, Aug. 31, 2017--Villa de Leyva to Tunja to Bogota
My guides had said it would be a 3 1/2 to 4 hour trip from Tunja to Bogota, and it is an hour from Villa de Leyva to Tunja. No direct buses run from VdL except very early in the morning--before time for breakfast to be served at my hotel. I didn't want to get up that early, and I didn't want to miss breakfast. But I didn't want to delay too much. My plan called for getting up at 6:45 to shower and get ready, to go to the front desk to pay my bill at 7:15, and to head up to breakfast when it opened at 7:30. I figured that would allow me to get on a bus around 8:30 for Tunja and get me to Bogota around 13:30 to 14:00. Then it would take another hour of combined walking and taking a local bus to get to the apartment. So I told the apartment owner that I would arrive at 15:00 or maybe a bit later.
Well, the hotel was dead when I went down at 7:15. I rang the dinging bell on the counter and waited with no response. I tried it again. After 5 minutes, I decided to walk to the front door and ring the doorbell. Well, standing outside visiting was the man who was supposed to be available for guests at the desk. I paid and walked upstairs for breakfast. It was dead there, but it was still 7 minutes before time to start the service. I went to the room and waited. At 7:30, I went back up and it was still dead. I looked up the man working downstairs, and he said in Spanish, "Breakfast doesn't start until 7:30." I pointed out that it was already 7:32. He started trying to explain, I think, that the lady would be there soon, but I wasn't sure. Anyway, I got the impression that breakfast would be when it would be which bothered me based on my plan and the long trip ahead. I said, "No desayuno? Nada?" Which means, "No breakfast. Nothing?" Then the man called the woman on the phone.
Anyway, it means that I did not get out of breakfast and away from the hotel until an hour later than I planned. I did manage to get the last seat (middle of the back row) on a mini-bus leaving for Tunja. Then, we arrived in Tunja in only an hour instead of the 1 hr. 15 min. it had taken going there. And as I walked into a terminal, a woman was urging me to rush for a bus for Bogota which was behind one other bus in line to pull out of the station. I got on it, paid my money, then waited. We just sat there. They were still trolling for more people to get on the bus as other buses pulled around us leaving, including another bus or two headed to Bogota! I knew that this was sometimes a problem at stations here; I even read a blog entry where a woman left a bus after paying and got on another one ready to leave because she wasn't sure when hers would ever leave. As I looked around ours, we only had about 7 passengers, so I began to worry we might sit there another 45 minutes or an hour until we were full or almost full. But 15 minutes later, with only 2-3 more passengers having boarded, he pulled out of the station.
The fact that we had waited so long there made me wonder if this was a "local" bus which would stop at every town and even along the highway to pick up passengers and take much longer to reach Bogota than the premier buses. My fare was also a factor in my wondering it, because it was half of what I thought it might be. But the bus moved along at a fast clip and only made two official stops. (It stopped a few more times, because all buses will stop anywhere to let people off where they want to get off.)
As we traveled along the highway not far out of Tunja, I saw a sign indicating 89 km to Bogota. An hour later, I saw another that said it was 42 km to Bogota. That didn't fit with what my guidebooks had said. But sure enough, within 2 hours we were in Bogota. And another 30 minutes later, I was off the bus at the terminal. We had made up more time than I had lost at the hotel. I stopped by the tourist office to ask the lady about the bus, because I got the impression from reading that only prepaid electronic slap cards are used now. She said that it's true, but I could just ask someone to pay for me and give them the cash.
I found the stop and waited. My bus 166 was supposed to pass every 6 minutes. Lots of buses were passing including several with the same route number. But about 6 minutes after I arrived, a 166 came. I just asked in English, "Will anyone pay for me and let me give you the money?" A man in a suit got up, slapped his card so I could get through the turnstile, and sat back down. I handed him 2200 COP and sat in the seat in front of him.
From then, all I had to do was use the GPS on my phone, watching the blue dot showing our location as we moved through the city. I knew where I was supposed to get off this bus. It took over half an hour because of heavy traffic at one major intersection. But I got off just where I expected and walked directly to the building where my apartment is located. It was 13:30 when I arrived--an hour and a half earlier than the owner expected me!
He was cleaning the apartment for me. He let me leave my bags, gave me, a key, showed me a few things I needed to see, and then asked me if I would mind coming back in an hour after he had finished cleaning.
I went out exploring. It's a great neighborhood. Enrique Olaya Herrera National Park is across the street. Also across the street and beside the park are main buildings of the National University of Colombia with other buildings scattered all around the neighborhood. Another university is off to one side, too. So there are small streets within 3-4 blocks of here filled with restaurants, copy shops, etc., frequented by students. I just wandered to see what I could find in all directions and returned two hours later. But I made a stop before coming into the building at a sandwich shop which had lines of students earlier. It was about the size of a large elevator inside with one woman working. She had pre-made sandwiches (3 kinds) on display. I bought a "regular" with ham, cheese, and tomato inside a baguette. She asked what sauce I wanted, and I took guacamole which she said was picante. She spread about 5 teaspoons of guacamole inside the sandwich and then put it inside a griddle to toast it panini-style. It cost about 67 cents! And it was delicious.
I've spent the rest of the day in the apartment. I did a load of laundry, I watched the first episode of Narco on Netflix, I made a couple of phone calls. The apartment is very nice--roomy, modern, and clean. It will be home for 5 nights/4 days.
Thursday, August 31, 2017
Wednesday, August 30, 2017
Another Day in Colombia's Wonderful Colonial City in the Mountains
Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2017--Villa de Leyva
Breakfast at my hotel is served on a covered rooftop deck with a view of the mountains. It included a glass of freshly made strawberry water, a plate of sliced papaya and banana, a plate of scrambled eggs, two rather sweet rolls, butter, and a cup of freshly made hot chocolate. (I could hear her grinding the chocolate beans with one of those wooden pestles like they use in Mexico.)
Speaking of chocolate, this town has a Museum of Chocolate. Actually, it is a commercial establishment with two locations--a very fancy lunchroom serving meals as well as selling all things chocolate and a small chocolate shop on the main square.
It was cool, so I zipped the legs onto my pants I had been wearing as shorts and put on a flannel long-sleeve shirt to go out exploring again. Today, I managed to find so much more in the city--THREE more squares I had not found yesterday (two cobbled and one with greenery), another church, and lots of shops, restaurants, and hotels. I found a wonderful bakery with a lady in the back working on fresh dough for something else to go into the oven. (Too often today bakeries everywhere buy their dough already made and formed and just pop it in the oven. Even in Paris the last couple of times I visited there, it was hard to find a bakery making their own breads!)
The day warmed enough for me to return to the hotel to zip off the legs again and change into a short sleeve shirt. Then I headed out of town. There are a number of things to see in the area, but without a car they are mostly too far out to reach. But one of the sights that interested me is the Gaudiesque La Casa de Terracota. It is a unique free form home made from stucco and ceramic tiles and is only 2km out of town. Although the roads right to the front of it are private, I could still get good views. It is not open to the public except for people taking classes that they teach there. That home and other indications I found (a doctor practicing Chinese medicine, a person with an herb garden who leads yoga classes, etc.) make VdL seem even more free-spirited and special.
There is a great place to hut for fossils and with exhibits of what has been found there and another place with pre-historic stone phallic sculptures and a stone circle, but they were too far down the road for walking. As it was, I discovered when I got back to the hotel that I had sunburned on the trip.
I spent the afternoon preparing for Bogota tomorrow. I figured out how to get from the bus station when I arrive to the apartment I have rented by taking one bus and then walking about 15 minutes. I also researched buses going from Bogota to Medellin, since it will be best for me to buy my ticket for next Tuesday when I arrive tomorrow rather than waiting until the last minute.
The room started feeling cooler, and I heard the wind. When I went back out, there were several people in the main square flying kites. It is a perfect place for it with plenty of room and no wires. I watched for a while, then I wandered some more streets I hadn't explored yet. I really love this city.
Eventually, I returned to where I had dinner last night. I ate an empanada for an appetizer, then I got another arepa "sandwich"--a sliced corn patty filled with cheese and seasoned shredded beef (tonight vs. the chicken I had last night), and toasted on a charcoal fire until the cheese was melted, the meat was warm, and the bread crispy. Finally, it was spread with butter and served hot with a big bowl of salsa!
I've organized things tonight for the trip tomorrow--putting away clothes from today and getting out clothes for tomorrow, plugging in my Kindle and my phone to charge, etc. I will need to get up earlier than usual so that I can try to arrive in Bogota in mid-afternoon instead of during rush hour.
________
I finished reading another book--The Best Man by Richard Peck. It is actually categorized as adolescent literature, but so much young adult fiction is now popular even with adults. I read a good review of it somewhere--probably in TIME or Entertainment Weekly where I read book reviews regularly and added it to my list of books to download from the library. It's been on a wait list for months, but it was available recently. I enjoyed the story which is told from the point of view of a young boy from the time he is 6 until he is about 14. I laughed a number of times. One of the first stories where he is dressed in too-tight blue velvet pants to be the ring-bearer for a wedding, splits the rear open trying to go down the first step and eventually has to go down the steps backwards with his rear showing through the tear is hilarious. Anyway, it is a quick read and seems pretty true to what life is like in elementary and middle schools today. I gave it 4 stars out of 5.
Breakfast at my hotel is served on a covered rooftop deck with a view of the mountains. It included a glass of freshly made strawberry water, a plate of sliced papaya and banana, a plate of scrambled eggs, two rather sweet rolls, butter, and a cup of freshly made hot chocolate. (I could hear her grinding the chocolate beans with one of those wooden pestles like they use in Mexico.)
Speaking of chocolate, this town has a Museum of Chocolate. Actually, it is a commercial establishment with two locations--a very fancy lunchroom serving meals as well as selling all things chocolate and a small chocolate shop on the main square.
It was cool, so I zipped the legs onto my pants I had been wearing as shorts and put on a flannel long-sleeve shirt to go out exploring again. Today, I managed to find so much more in the city--THREE more squares I had not found yesterday (two cobbled and one with greenery), another church, and lots of shops, restaurants, and hotels. I found a wonderful bakery with a lady in the back working on fresh dough for something else to go into the oven. (Too often today bakeries everywhere buy their dough already made and formed and just pop it in the oven. Even in Paris the last couple of times I visited there, it was hard to find a bakery making their own breads!)
The day warmed enough for me to return to the hotel to zip off the legs again and change into a short sleeve shirt. Then I headed out of town. There are a number of things to see in the area, but without a car they are mostly too far out to reach. But one of the sights that interested me is the Gaudiesque La Casa de Terracota. It is a unique free form home made from stucco and ceramic tiles and is only 2km out of town. Although the roads right to the front of it are private, I could still get good views. It is not open to the public except for people taking classes that they teach there. That home and other indications I found (a doctor practicing Chinese medicine, a person with an herb garden who leads yoga classes, etc.) make VdL seem even more free-spirited and special.
There is a great place to hut for fossils and with exhibits of what has been found there and another place with pre-historic stone phallic sculptures and a stone circle, but they were too far down the road for walking. As it was, I discovered when I got back to the hotel that I had sunburned on the trip.
I spent the afternoon preparing for Bogota tomorrow. I figured out how to get from the bus station when I arrive to the apartment I have rented by taking one bus and then walking about 15 minutes. I also researched buses going from Bogota to Medellin, since it will be best for me to buy my ticket for next Tuesday when I arrive tomorrow rather than waiting until the last minute.
The room started feeling cooler, and I heard the wind. When I went back out, there were several people in the main square flying kites. It is a perfect place for it with plenty of room and no wires. I watched for a while, then I wandered some more streets I hadn't explored yet. I really love this city.
Eventually, I returned to where I had dinner last night. I ate an empanada for an appetizer, then I got another arepa "sandwich"--a sliced corn patty filled with cheese and seasoned shredded beef (tonight vs. the chicken I had last night), and toasted on a charcoal fire until the cheese was melted, the meat was warm, and the bread crispy. Finally, it was spread with butter and served hot with a big bowl of salsa!
I've organized things tonight for the trip tomorrow--putting away clothes from today and getting out clothes for tomorrow, plugging in my Kindle and my phone to charge, etc. I will need to get up earlier than usual so that I can try to arrive in Bogota in mid-afternoon instead of during rush hour.
________
I finished reading another book--The Best Man by Richard Peck. It is actually categorized as adolescent literature, but so much young adult fiction is now popular even with adults. I read a good review of it somewhere--probably in TIME or Entertainment Weekly where I read book reviews regularly and added it to my list of books to download from the library. It's been on a wait list for months, but it was available recently. I enjoyed the story which is told from the point of view of a young boy from the time he is 6 until he is about 14. I laughed a number of times. One of the first stories where he is dressed in too-tight blue velvet pants to be the ring-bearer for a wedding, splits the rear open trying to go down the first step and eventually has to go down the steps backwards with his rear showing through the tear is hilarious. Anyway, it is a quick read and seems pretty true to what life is like in elementary and middle schools today. I gave it 4 stars out of 5.
Tuesday, August 29, 2017
Somewhat Like Santa Fe in the 1950s
Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2017--San Gil to Villa de Leyva
I never got to see the fried giant ants which are a favorite snack in San Gil. They are most popular on weekend nights at a park. But it sprinkled in the evenings starting around 19:00, and people went home for the night. I did see a big ant crawling around my shoe this morning at the bus station, so I wonder if that is the kind they eat. There's also a nouveau restaurant there in town with a chef who has been making ant sauce from the same ants to serve of meats.
It was another long bus day. I left the hotel at 8:00. The bus was supposed to leave at 9:00, but it didn't arrive until 9:25 and didn't leave until 9:45. That's Colombia!! Anyway, I got to my final destination (with a quick change of buses in nearby Tunja) around 15:30! But what interesting things I saw today--wonderful green mountains falling off into deep canyons, cowboys herding donkeys loaded with bundles of cut sugarcane, rural people dressed in panchos and narrow-brimmed felt hats (including the women), etc., (not the least of which includes the city I am not visiting).
Villa de Leyva (pronounced with each "v" having a "b" sound) is just unbelievably wonderful. It's a bit remote--on a side highway rather than a main one, but it is a colonial town that is big--not big as in it has grown big in recent years, but big from colonial times with little in the way of anything new having been added in centuries. It is a sophisticated town with galleries, atmospheric bars and restaurants, etc. It is surrounded by beautiful countryside with mountains that have plants similar to yuccas, pine and other trees, etc. It's setting and its beauty reminds me of Santa Fe back in the 1950s before it became overwhelmed by construction to handle new residents wanting to live there.
On weekends, Villa de Leyva is supposedly mobbed by people coming from Bogota. But I think it must be more magical in the middle of the week with only a few tourists here. A shower had just fallen before I got here and clouds were scattered all around the skies among the beautiful mountains, but that was not a problem. Every street in town is true, old cobblestones meaning that the water went around the stones leaving the rounded tops high and dry for walking anywhere, and the main streets have been pedestrianized to make it easy to walk in the street and enjoy the town. The skies were gorgeous with unique dark swirls of clouds. Anywhere in town, there is a view to the mountains and those clouds since nothing here has more than two floors to it and most buildings are only one floor.
The main plaza is huge. It is supposedly one of the largest in South America. I would guess it is about the size of the main plaza in Mexico City for those who have been there (but it looks bigger since the buildings here are not as majestic as the ones there). And it is all cobblestone. The main church is among the structures on one side of the square, but all four sides have a whole block of one-story buildings constructed long ago. It makes the main square in Santa Fe look tiny and "quaint" in terms of trying to look old and special.
I wandered the streets looking into restaurants and shops. I even went into the "regular" part of town serving the poorer local citizens which is also old, but lacks the cobblestone streets. I passed a place where a woman was cooking in front. She was making something that looked like two corn tortillas (they were actually thin arepas) with a filling inside. I returned around 18:30 and ordered one. It had a cheese and seasoned shredded chicken filling and was delicious, especially since there was a bowl of salsa to have with it!! (That was my SECOND salsa of the day!! When the bus stopped for lunch, I saw bowls of salsa on a counter in front of where a lady was selling empanadas, so I got one and poured the salsa on it for each bite!)
I got the salsa from a family inside who had finished eating. It was an older couple and their grown, but young daughter. The daughter spoke English, so we talked about several things. They have been here for over a week; they came for a kite festival that they have every year and was held last weekend. But they don't live too far away, she said. It was nice to have a conversation with someone knowing more than just a few words of English. They liked the fact I am seeing so much of Colombia.
After it got dark, I walked by a second church in town which is part of a convent had been closed earlier and was having mass. I got a peak inside and some photos including an exterior one with the half-moon in the sky just above the church. The priests looked like Franciscans in brown robes with rope belts.
After that, I stopped at a store on the way to the room and bought a beer to bring back and drink. It's only the third time I've done that on this trip, but I am so happy about being in this wonderful place I wanted to celebrate a bit.
My hotel, Hotel Casa Cantabria, is very nice. I have the nicest room in the place--on the second floor with windows opening out to a small balcony and having views of gardens across the street and the town and mountains beyond. The room has white marble floors with fancy tiles around the edges, a framed, vaulted ceiling, and a pretty white quilt as a bedspread. (It's cold up here in the mountains. It was 66 degrees F when I returned to my room must before 19:00.)
I never got to see the fried giant ants which are a favorite snack in San Gil. They are most popular on weekend nights at a park. But it sprinkled in the evenings starting around 19:00, and people went home for the night. I did see a big ant crawling around my shoe this morning at the bus station, so I wonder if that is the kind they eat. There's also a nouveau restaurant there in town with a chef who has been making ant sauce from the same ants to serve of meats.
It was another long bus day. I left the hotel at 8:00. The bus was supposed to leave at 9:00, but it didn't arrive until 9:25 and didn't leave until 9:45. That's Colombia!! Anyway, I got to my final destination (with a quick change of buses in nearby Tunja) around 15:30! But what interesting things I saw today--wonderful green mountains falling off into deep canyons, cowboys herding donkeys loaded with bundles of cut sugarcane, rural people dressed in panchos and narrow-brimmed felt hats (including the women), etc., (not the least of which includes the city I am not visiting).
Villa de Leyva (pronounced with each "v" having a "b" sound) is just unbelievably wonderful. It's a bit remote--on a side highway rather than a main one, but it is a colonial town that is big--not big as in it has grown big in recent years, but big from colonial times with little in the way of anything new having been added in centuries. It is a sophisticated town with galleries, atmospheric bars and restaurants, etc. It is surrounded by beautiful countryside with mountains that have plants similar to yuccas, pine and other trees, etc. It's setting and its beauty reminds me of Santa Fe back in the 1950s before it became overwhelmed by construction to handle new residents wanting to live there.
On weekends, Villa de Leyva is supposedly mobbed by people coming from Bogota. But I think it must be more magical in the middle of the week with only a few tourists here. A shower had just fallen before I got here and clouds were scattered all around the skies among the beautiful mountains, but that was not a problem. Every street in town is true, old cobblestones meaning that the water went around the stones leaving the rounded tops high and dry for walking anywhere, and the main streets have been pedestrianized to make it easy to walk in the street and enjoy the town. The skies were gorgeous with unique dark swirls of clouds. Anywhere in town, there is a view to the mountains and those clouds since nothing here has more than two floors to it and most buildings are only one floor.
The main plaza is huge. It is supposedly one of the largest in South America. I would guess it is about the size of the main plaza in Mexico City for those who have been there (but it looks bigger since the buildings here are not as majestic as the ones there). And it is all cobblestone. The main church is among the structures on one side of the square, but all four sides have a whole block of one-story buildings constructed long ago. It makes the main square in Santa Fe look tiny and "quaint" in terms of trying to look old and special.
I wandered the streets looking into restaurants and shops. I even went into the "regular" part of town serving the poorer local citizens which is also old, but lacks the cobblestone streets. I passed a place where a woman was cooking in front. She was making something that looked like two corn tortillas (they were actually thin arepas) with a filling inside. I returned around 18:30 and ordered one. It had a cheese and seasoned shredded chicken filling and was delicious, especially since there was a bowl of salsa to have with it!! (That was my SECOND salsa of the day!! When the bus stopped for lunch, I saw bowls of salsa on a counter in front of where a lady was selling empanadas, so I got one and poured the salsa on it for each bite!)
I got the salsa from a family inside who had finished eating. It was an older couple and their grown, but young daughter. The daughter spoke English, so we talked about several things. They have been here for over a week; they came for a kite festival that they have every year and was held last weekend. But they don't live too far away, she said. It was nice to have a conversation with someone knowing more than just a few words of English. They liked the fact I am seeing so much of Colombia.
After it got dark, I walked by a second church in town which is part of a convent had been closed earlier and was having mass. I got a peak inside and some photos including an exterior one with the half-moon in the sky just above the church. The priests looked like Franciscans in brown robes with rope belts.
After that, I stopped at a store on the way to the room and bought a beer to bring back and drink. It's only the third time I've done that on this trip, but I am so happy about being in this wonderful place I wanted to celebrate a bit.
My hotel, Hotel Casa Cantabria, is very nice. I have the nicest room in the place--on the second floor with windows opening out to a small balcony and having views of gardens across the street and the town and mountains beyond. The room has white marble floors with fancy tiles around the edges, a framed, vaulted ceiling, and a pretty white quilt as a bedspread. (It's cold up here in the mountains. It was 66 degrees F when I returned to my room must before 19:00.)
Monday, August 28, 2017
Making Travel Plans + A Day Trip to Socorro
Sunday and Monday, Aug. 27 and 28, 2017--San Gil and Socorro
I spent almost all of Sunday making travel plans. Most of the time was spent trying to find a place to stay in Medellin. It's frustrating. The mid-range hotels all seem to have bad reviews when you read the details, even though they have been given 4-5 ratings out of 5! The number of apartments available is quite limited, and even they tend to have bad reviews, too. I'm now hoping to get one of two possible apartments, since they are half the price of a mid-range hotel room. One has approved me, but the one I am most interested in booking has not responded back yet. I'll give them until tomorrow morning, then I must act before I lose the other one.
The other travel planning I did today was to walk to the bus station and buy my ticket for Tuesday. I wasn't sure when the buses would leave, so I needed that information. Then I could decide which company and what time I would go. I will leave around 9:00 with Omega bus for Tunja (4 1/2 hour trip meaning it will really be about 5 1/2 hours), then I will change for another bus for the 45 min. (meaning 1 hour) trip on to Villa de Leyva. (I am really getting tired of these long travel days! I hope once I move into Ecuador, the trips will be shorter since the country is smaller.)
Otherwise, I spent much of the afternoon at the plaza watching people and reading. And speaking of reading, I have been forgetting to report that I finished The Good Lord Bird by James McBride last week. I really enjoyed the book which won the 2013 National Book Award for Fiction. It is about John Brown of Harper's Ferry fame back in the mid-1800s just before the official beginning of the Civil War. It tells the story of his private efforts to free the slaves in the Missouri/Kansas border area through the observations of a slave he took with him when the father was accidentally killed and concludes with Harper's Ferry 5 years later. Although I enjoyed the story, I gave the book a rating of 4 out of 5 because the writing could have been a bit better.
__________
When I awoke Monday, I had heard nothing from the apartment I was hoping to get in Medellin, and there was a message that someone had already rented my backup apartment. So I had to start from scratch. I knew, however, I had to do it faster and not be so particular. In a way, I lucked out. I found one closer to the center of town while still being in a safe neighborhood and at a cheaper price (only $28 US per night). The photos make it look a bit dowdy, but all the reviews for it are very positive and say that it is a much nicer apartment than the photos make it look--that the owner must be a poor photographer. I requested to book it, and the owner responded immediately with approval. So I don't have to worry about staying in a hotel with a bad review, an apartment in a bad location, or any place overpriced. What a relief that is.
At breakfast, there was a group of young, idealistic Venezuelans who had spent the night here. They are walking from Venezuela to Bogota as a part of a human rights campaign. I didn't ask whether they were pro- or anti-Maduro who seems to be establishing himself as a dictator and has continued the efforts of his predecessor to spread the money among everyone which is an effort to raise the standard of living of the poor but has resulted in the country being essentially bankrupt with the highest inflation rate in the world. The group planned to hike 100 km today. That's about 62 miles--quite a distance to make in a day while going up and down hills.
After breakfast, I headed out on a day trip to Socorro, just down the road and the former capital of this region of Colombia. It's another old colonial city. It rises up a hillside and drops off the other direction into the canyon. That's probably why they abandoned it as the capital. They were drawing up plans for new government facilities back in the 1800s, and abruptly stopped and choose Bucamaranga as the capital. I imagine the buildings were going to be too big to fit easily on the slanted ground where Socorro is and that they also realized that it had no room to grow to become a large city. But is also famous as the city where a woman, Manuela Beldran, ripped up and stomped on a royal tax edict--a move that is considered to be the beginning of the Colombian Revolution for independence.
The city has a wonderful main church, Minor Basilica Our Lady of Socorro, on its main square. But there is an older church from the mid-1700s, Our Lady of Chiquinquira, with a unique timbered interior dome located on a smaller square about 4-5 blocks away. A newly reconstructed cobblestone pedestrian street between them is lined with some wonderful old buildings including a toll house (in the middle on the right) where people were charged to enter the city and some rather new ones such as the Teatro Manuela Beltran which was built in 1919.
I walked up and down the streets, I went into the churches, and I sat in the smaller square (the main one was closed for reconstruction) and read. It was a perfect partly-cloudy day in the mountains with pleasant temperatures. After about 2 1/2 hours, I returned to the bus station and caught a bus back to San Gil for my last evening here.
Tomorrow, I head to my next destination.
I spent almost all of Sunday making travel plans. Most of the time was spent trying to find a place to stay in Medellin. It's frustrating. The mid-range hotels all seem to have bad reviews when you read the details, even though they have been given 4-5 ratings out of 5! The number of apartments available is quite limited, and even they tend to have bad reviews, too. I'm now hoping to get one of two possible apartments, since they are half the price of a mid-range hotel room. One has approved me, but the one I am most interested in booking has not responded back yet. I'll give them until tomorrow morning, then I must act before I lose the other one.
The other travel planning I did today was to walk to the bus station and buy my ticket for Tuesday. I wasn't sure when the buses would leave, so I needed that information. Then I could decide which company and what time I would go. I will leave around 9:00 with Omega bus for Tunja (4 1/2 hour trip meaning it will really be about 5 1/2 hours), then I will change for another bus for the 45 min. (meaning 1 hour) trip on to Villa de Leyva. (I am really getting tired of these long travel days! I hope once I move into Ecuador, the trips will be shorter since the country is smaller.)
Otherwise, I spent much of the afternoon at the plaza watching people and reading. And speaking of reading, I have been forgetting to report that I finished The Good Lord Bird by James McBride last week. I really enjoyed the book which won the 2013 National Book Award for Fiction. It is about John Brown of Harper's Ferry fame back in the mid-1800s just before the official beginning of the Civil War. It tells the story of his private efforts to free the slaves in the Missouri/Kansas border area through the observations of a slave he took with him when the father was accidentally killed and concludes with Harper's Ferry 5 years later. Although I enjoyed the story, I gave the book a rating of 4 out of 5 because the writing could have been a bit better.
__________
When I awoke Monday, I had heard nothing from the apartment I was hoping to get in Medellin, and there was a message that someone had already rented my backup apartment. So I had to start from scratch. I knew, however, I had to do it faster and not be so particular. In a way, I lucked out. I found one closer to the center of town while still being in a safe neighborhood and at a cheaper price (only $28 US per night). The photos make it look a bit dowdy, but all the reviews for it are very positive and say that it is a much nicer apartment than the photos make it look--that the owner must be a poor photographer. I requested to book it, and the owner responded immediately with approval. So I don't have to worry about staying in a hotel with a bad review, an apartment in a bad location, or any place overpriced. What a relief that is.
At breakfast, there was a group of young, idealistic Venezuelans who had spent the night here. They are walking from Venezuela to Bogota as a part of a human rights campaign. I didn't ask whether they were pro- or anti-Maduro who seems to be establishing himself as a dictator and has continued the efforts of his predecessor to spread the money among everyone which is an effort to raise the standard of living of the poor but has resulted in the country being essentially bankrupt with the highest inflation rate in the world. The group planned to hike 100 km today. That's about 62 miles--quite a distance to make in a day while going up and down hills.
After breakfast, I headed out on a day trip to Socorro, just down the road and the former capital of this region of Colombia. It's another old colonial city. It rises up a hillside and drops off the other direction into the canyon. That's probably why they abandoned it as the capital. They were drawing up plans for new government facilities back in the 1800s, and abruptly stopped and choose Bucamaranga as the capital. I imagine the buildings were going to be too big to fit easily on the slanted ground where Socorro is and that they also realized that it had no room to grow to become a large city. But is also famous as the city where a woman, Manuela Beldran, ripped up and stomped on a royal tax edict--a move that is considered to be the beginning of the Colombian Revolution for independence.
The city has a wonderful main church, Minor Basilica Our Lady of Socorro, on its main square. But there is an older church from the mid-1700s, Our Lady of Chiquinquira, with a unique timbered interior dome located on a smaller square about 4-5 blocks away. A newly reconstructed cobblestone pedestrian street between them is lined with some wonderful old buildings including a toll house (in the middle on the right) where people were charged to enter the city and some rather new ones such as the Teatro Manuela Beltran which was built in 1919.
I walked up and down the streets, I went into the churches, and I sat in the smaller square (the main one was closed for reconstruction) and read. It was a perfect partly-cloudy day in the mountains with pleasant temperatures. After about 2 1/2 hours, I returned to the bus station and caught a bus back to San Gil for my last evening here.
Tomorrow, I head to my next destination.
Saturday, August 26, 2017
Hiking the Stone Trail of an Indigenous People
Saturday, Aug. 26, 2017--Day trip to Barichara and Guane
I pushed myself this morning--out of bed at 6:20, showed and shaved and leaving for the restaurant when it opened at 7:00. Breakfast finished and at the bus station at 7:25 to catch the 7:30 bus to Barichara. The reason for pushing myself was so that I could make a hike from one town on the edge of a canyon to another in the canyon down a trail used by the indigenous people of the area for hundreds of years.
Barichara is a beautiful town. It is so perfect in its architecture that it is surprising. The whole town consists of rows of one-story houses with tile roofs and stucco siding. The bottom portions of the outside (maybe the lower meter or yard) and the door and window frames are painted either in blue or green mainly with a few in aqua. The sidewalks are all redish-brown tiles. And the streets are all red sandstone flagstones. That's the WHOLE town that is like that except for the church which is built out of the red sandstone. All stops are still traditional looking from the outside, and almost all are still traditional looking inside with shelves of goods around the walls and a service counter. It all makes a perfectly picturesque town that doesn't seem to have changed since the mid-1700s when it was built. That's why it is frequently used to film scenes for movies and TV shows that are set in the colonial period. It's somewhat like a Colombian Santa Fe except that it is like Santa Fe was back in the 1950s before it grew and started having modernized versions of its style of architecture.
Besides wanting to see Barichara which has been called the most beautiful town in Colombia, I waned to take a hike that starts there. This area of the country has been the home for the Guane people. Their original capital, from before the Spanish arrived, was the community of Guane down in a canyon. The hike is over the trail that was used by these people to leave the canyon when traveling elsewhere. Apparently it was decided, maybe by the Spanish, to build a new town up at the edge of the canyon which became Barichara and the main city with Guane remaining like a small village. Eventually the walking path was paved with large coble stones for the traveling between the two. It is now a popular tourist hike (although not very popular since I only saw one couple of tourists other than myself on it).
The Barichara-Guane trail is mostly downhill from Barichara, and today there are buses that can be taken for the return trip. Still, it is supposed to be a 2-hour hike even going downhill. I stopped to take photos and thought I went at a normal pace, and I still finished it in less time than expected--about 1 hr. 45 min. I was passed by one local man who had been shopping and was returning home. And I passed a man with a herd of goats eating the grass beside the train and a woman using her machete to cut dead wood to take home for her cooking fire. There were droppings that looked like they were from foxes and beautiful views out over the canyon and the mountains on the other side. And there were birds that made a beautiful warbling sound with all joining in when one started.
Guane is less elegant than Barichara, but it is definitely older with a more "authentic" old age look. If Barichara is Santa Fe of the 1950s, then Guane is Taos. Guane has true cobble stone streets rather than flagstone ones. Guane's homes as if they were built one-by-one rather than by the block. There's not much to the town beyond the pretty church. The town square was mostly dead, there were a few shops open and a few with signs but not open even on this Saturday. It's just a quiet village.
A bus took me back to Barichara where I walked up and down the streets looking into businesses and homes, sat in the plaza, and went into the church. It is a very pleasant and successful small town. And a very beautiful one.
I was back in San Gil around 13:30, and I saw a restaurant with a luncheon menu that sounded good. After stopping by my room, I went back there around 14:00. I ordered the carne cerda (pork steak) as my main course. My soup was the best part of the meal, as usual. It was a bowl of pea soup made with chicken broth with chunks of potato and carrots and an occasional bean. (It also included a whole chicken heart with the aorta sticking out of it.) Along with the soup, she also brought a small bowl of shredded cabbage-carrot salad and a pitcher of a very nice red fruit juice. The main plate had the thin slice of pork steak, white rice, a grainy white root (looked a lot like a luffa), and a serving of garbanzo beans in a broth that looked like they could have been from a can. Everything was mostly tasteless on the main plate. Some garlic and maybe some sauce made from tomatoes would have really livened that plate up.
I tried to go back out around 18:30, but it started sprinkling. As I walked toward the main square, I saw everyone rushing to catch a bus. That mostly ended the night life, so I bought a cake and brought it to the room to eat for dessert.
I pushed myself this morning--out of bed at 6:20, showed and shaved and leaving for the restaurant when it opened at 7:00. Breakfast finished and at the bus station at 7:25 to catch the 7:30 bus to Barichara. The reason for pushing myself was so that I could make a hike from one town on the edge of a canyon to another in the canyon down a trail used by the indigenous people of the area for hundreds of years.
Barichara is a beautiful town. It is so perfect in its architecture that it is surprising. The whole town consists of rows of one-story houses with tile roofs and stucco siding. The bottom portions of the outside (maybe the lower meter or yard) and the door and window frames are painted either in blue or green mainly with a few in aqua. The sidewalks are all redish-brown tiles. And the streets are all red sandstone flagstones. That's the WHOLE town that is like that except for the church which is built out of the red sandstone. All stops are still traditional looking from the outside, and almost all are still traditional looking inside with shelves of goods around the walls and a service counter. It all makes a perfectly picturesque town that doesn't seem to have changed since the mid-1700s when it was built. That's why it is frequently used to film scenes for movies and TV shows that are set in the colonial period. It's somewhat like a Colombian Santa Fe except that it is like Santa Fe was back in the 1950s before it grew and started having modernized versions of its style of architecture.
Besides wanting to see Barichara which has been called the most beautiful town in Colombia, I waned to take a hike that starts there. This area of the country has been the home for the Guane people. Their original capital, from before the Spanish arrived, was the community of Guane down in a canyon. The hike is over the trail that was used by these people to leave the canyon when traveling elsewhere. Apparently it was decided, maybe by the Spanish, to build a new town up at the edge of the canyon which became Barichara and the main city with Guane remaining like a small village. Eventually the walking path was paved with large coble stones for the traveling between the two. It is now a popular tourist hike (although not very popular since I only saw one couple of tourists other than myself on it).
The Barichara-Guane trail is mostly downhill from Barichara, and today there are buses that can be taken for the return trip. Still, it is supposed to be a 2-hour hike even going downhill. I stopped to take photos and thought I went at a normal pace, and I still finished it in less time than expected--about 1 hr. 45 min. I was passed by one local man who had been shopping and was returning home. And I passed a man with a herd of goats eating the grass beside the train and a woman using her machete to cut dead wood to take home for her cooking fire. There were droppings that looked like they were from foxes and beautiful views out over the canyon and the mountains on the other side. And there were birds that made a beautiful warbling sound with all joining in when one started.
Guane is less elegant than Barichara, but it is definitely older with a more "authentic" old age look. If Barichara is Santa Fe of the 1950s, then Guane is Taos. Guane has true cobble stone streets rather than flagstone ones. Guane's homes as if they were built one-by-one rather than by the block. There's not much to the town beyond the pretty church. The town square was mostly dead, there were a few shops open and a few with signs but not open even on this Saturday. It's just a quiet village.
A bus took me back to Barichara where I walked up and down the streets looking into businesses and homes, sat in the plaza, and went into the church. It is a very pleasant and successful small town. And a very beautiful one.
I was back in San Gil around 13:30, and I saw a restaurant with a luncheon menu that sounded good. After stopping by my room, I went back there around 14:00. I ordered the carne cerda (pork steak) as my main course. My soup was the best part of the meal, as usual. It was a bowl of pea soup made with chicken broth with chunks of potato and carrots and an occasional bean. (It also included a whole chicken heart with the aorta sticking out of it.) Along with the soup, she also brought a small bowl of shredded cabbage-carrot salad and a pitcher of a very nice red fruit juice. The main plate had the thin slice of pork steak, white rice, a grainy white root (looked a lot like a luffa), and a serving of garbanzo beans in a broth that looked like they could have been from a can. Everything was mostly tasteless on the main plate. Some garlic and maybe some sauce made from tomatoes would have really livened that plate up.
I tried to go back out around 18:30, but it started sprinkling. As I walked toward the main square, I saw everyone rushing to catch a bus. That mostly ended the night life, so I bought a cake and brought it to the room to eat for dessert.
Friday, August 25, 2017
A 12 1/2-Hour Travel Day to Get into the Mountains
Thursday and Friday, Aug. 24-25, 2017--Mompox to San Gil
All the guidebooks warn about how long it takes to travel from place-to-place in this country. They also warn that the actual length of time is ALWAYS about 20% more than the scheduled/estimated length for the trip. So far, that is regularly proving to be true.
After getting up Thursday and having another nice visit with Javier over breakfast, I made one last walk around the city of Mompox. It is truly special--like walking back in time. I even saw the milk man delivering fresh milk on a push cart with a large milk can like we used back in the 40s and 50s. He was dipping milk from his can and pouring it into a container for a housewife. And there are many horse carts in the city--not for driving tourists around, but for poor laborers to move themselves and their wares about. Oh, and I saw an ice grinder in a shop where you took your block of ice you had bought and he would grind it for you. Several places I ran across a park or empty lot where a barber had a mirror hanging on a tree and was clipping people's hair. The list goes on and on. But there are modern touches to it all, also. On one of the squares, there are people set up with tables and soldering irons for repairing mobile phones. But it is the old colonial buildings lined up and down narrow streets and along the flowing river that give it the real feeling of being back in time.
My bus departed at 11:30. They had estimated I would be in San Gil at 22:00. There were many reasons it didn't work out that way. As soon as we left the city limits of Mompox, the "highway" became a very rough red clay road. We bobbled back and forth for 1 1/2 hours before we hit a paved road. Things really speeded up then, but that didn't last long. The bus needed fuel, and the gas station where they planned to get it didn't have any. We pulled over to the side of the road nearby where a man was selling bottles of fuel on the roadside. I guess they asked if he had more, because he went down the road and then came back with one more liter bottle. They put what he had in the tank and off we went again. We were supposed to LEAVE a major stop at 16:45, but we didn't get there until about 17:00, and we sat there for at least 40 minutes before leaving.
It was dark soon after we left, and we went off the good highway onto a twisting one in the mountains. We would climb and climb, and I would hope it was over and that Bacamaranga, the city were I would change buses, would be just ahead. But that climbing process occurred at least 4 times.
We finally pulled into the Bucamaranga station at 21:05. The driver was very nice. He helped me grab my suitcase and go up to the next floor of the station where I had to exchange my "open" ticket I had bought for San Gil for an assigned seat on a specific bus. Fortunately, a bus was leaving at 21:20!! If I had missed that, the next one would not have left until 23:30.
The ride was over another long, twisting road in the mountains. I've heard the scenery is beautiful and includes passing a famous canyon, but I couldn't see anything. All I could keep in my mind then was that my hotel lobby was supposed to close at midnight, so I was hoping again that each climb would be the last one and that I would see the lights of the city around the next curb. Well, it didn't work out that way. We pulled into the station at 00:05, just after midnight. I got a taxi and we headed downtown. It's just a short ride, so at 00:15 we had found the hotel (which is rather new and the driver didn't know existed because it was built inside an old building with just a regular front door outside leading down a hallway. The town was dead, but a bum was there and he rang the doorbell as I got out of the cab. I rang it again after I got there. Suddenly a phone went off in the bum's pocket. He was replying to the people inside saying it was 1 person with luggage. The owner later told me they pay him to be there at night to tell them who is there before they open the door.
I am staying at the Esmeralda del Fonce Hotel. It is new and clean, but also quite simple. All the other decent looking places were outside the old city, and I wanted to be here in the center of town. It's got everything one might need--an a/c unit that both heats and cools, although I haven't needed it at all yet; a TV with cable, but like all others in other countries now, there are usually only stations, including all the international ones, in the local language; a nice bed, good WiFi, and a nice bath with a large shower. The one problem there is that like many places in Colombia, it has only a cold-water shower. I thought there might be hot water up here in the mountains, but not in this hotel. The owners are nice and friendly, and the free breakfast is across the street in a restaurant.
I was totally exhausted after that long, winding trip. I went to bed and slept until 8:00, but I had to get up then, because breakfast service ends at 9:00. But it was better than usual. I am so tired of bland food which is all they seem to have here in Colombia. But after the lady confirmed I wanted scrambled eggs with arepas and hot chocolate, she asked if I wanted tomatoes on my eggs. I jumped at the chance, and the scrambled eggs came out scrambled with some tomatoes and onions. It added at least a bit of flavor. And the hot chocolate came with a sweet roll to dip into it.
Today was a day just to relax and explore San Gil. It is a small, colonial city built up a slanting mountainside. Because of that, it is much wider than it is long, since it is easier to walk on the streets parallel to the river than up the ones heading up the mountain. There are about 4-5 parallel streets and their connecting streets where the center of town exists. I've wondered all of those today--finding restaurants, bakeries, the central plaza, the main church, etc.
The main plaza is large and is constantly filled with people. I spent time there both this morning and late this afternoon just relaxing and watching people. This afternoon, some university students were practicing back flips and were teaching a couple of others to do them. One caught on very fast and was doing them well. The other was too scared--maybe rightfully so since it would be sad to break one's neck and die while still only a student.
I meant to eat a late afternoon snack and then go out for dinner. But my snack was so big and good that I never ate anything else. I got it from one of the more popular bakeries which is just half a block from my hotel. There were slices of pineapple-ham pizza, and I got one even though I don't normally like pineapple on my pizza. But they grow pineapple here, and it was a fresh, juicy one. That was a delicious piece of pizza that would have been like a dessert except for the salty cheese on it. I also bought a coconut cake that was ball-shaped. UMMM, it was so good. It was really two baked mounds of cake about 2 inches (5 m) in diameter. The bases were sealed together with some kind of fruit jam. Then the ball was covered in a creamy white frosting and rolled in shredded coconut. Coconut has always been one of my favorite tastes, and that ball didn't disappoint.
Speaking of coconut, one of the restaurants I passed had "coconut lemonade" on its drink list. Click here for a recipe. It sounds great to me.
I came home early to work on some travel planning and to get to bed early. I want to have breakfast around 7:00 tomorrow and have a day outing that will involve two other cities with a hike between them. There's a chance of rain in the forecast, so I'll have to check it again tomorrow, but it looks as if it is just for scattered showers in the afternoon. I hope my plans work out.
All the guidebooks warn about how long it takes to travel from place-to-place in this country. They also warn that the actual length of time is ALWAYS about 20% more than the scheduled/estimated length for the trip. So far, that is regularly proving to be true.
After getting up Thursday and having another nice visit with Javier over breakfast, I made one last walk around the city of Mompox. It is truly special--like walking back in time. I even saw the milk man delivering fresh milk on a push cart with a large milk can like we used back in the 40s and 50s. He was dipping milk from his can and pouring it into a container for a housewife. And there are many horse carts in the city--not for driving tourists around, but for poor laborers to move themselves and their wares about. Oh, and I saw an ice grinder in a shop where you took your block of ice you had bought and he would grind it for you. Several places I ran across a park or empty lot where a barber had a mirror hanging on a tree and was clipping people's hair. The list goes on and on. But there are modern touches to it all, also. On one of the squares, there are people set up with tables and soldering irons for repairing mobile phones. But it is the old colonial buildings lined up and down narrow streets and along the flowing river that give it the real feeling of being back in time.
My bus departed at 11:30. They had estimated I would be in San Gil at 22:00. There were many reasons it didn't work out that way. As soon as we left the city limits of Mompox, the "highway" became a very rough red clay road. We bobbled back and forth for 1 1/2 hours before we hit a paved road. Things really speeded up then, but that didn't last long. The bus needed fuel, and the gas station where they planned to get it didn't have any. We pulled over to the side of the road nearby where a man was selling bottles of fuel on the roadside. I guess they asked if he had more, because he went down the road and then came back with one more liter bottle. They put what he had in the tank and off we went again. We were supposed to LEAVE a major stop at 16:45, but we didn't get there until about 17:00, and we sat there for at least 40 minutes before leaving.
It was dark soon after we left, and we went off the good highway onto a twisting one in the mountains. We would climb and climb, and I would hope it was over and that Bacamaranga, the city were I would change buses, would be just ahead. But that climbing process occurred at least 4 times.
We finally pulled into the Bucamaranga station at 21:05. The driver was very nice. He helped me grab my suitcase and go up to the next floor of the station where I had to exchange my "open" ticket I had bought for San Gil for an assigned seat on a specific bus. Fortunately, a bus was leaving at 21:20!! If I had missed that, the next one would not have left until 23:30.
The ride was over another long, twisting road in the mountains. I've heard the scenery is beautiful and includes passing a famous canyon, but I couldn't see anything. All I could keep in my mind then was that my hotel lobby was supposed to close at midnight, so I was hoping again that each climb would be the last one and that I would see the lights of the city around the next curb. Well, it didn't work out that way. We pulled into the station at 00:05, just after midnight. I got a taxi and we headed downtown. It's just a short ride, so at 00:15 we had found the hotel (which is rather new and the driver didn't know existed because it was built inside an old building with just a regular front door outside leading down a hallway. The town was dead, but a bum was there and he rang the doorbell as I got out of the cab. I rang it again after I got there. Suddenly a phone went off in the bum's pocket. He was replying to the people inside saying it was 1 person with luggage. The owner later told me they pay him to be there at night to tell them who is there before they open the door.
I am staying at the Esmeralda del Fonce Hotel. It is new and clean, but also quite simple. All the other decent looking places were outside the old city, and I wanted to be here in the center of town. It's got everything one might need--an a/c unit that both heats and cools, although I haven't needed it at all yet; a TV with cable, but like all others in other countries now, there are usually only stations, including all the international ones, in the local language; a nice bed, good WiFi, and a nice bath with a large shower. The one problem there is that like many places in Colombia, it has only a cold-water shower. I thought there might be hot water up here in the mountains, but not in this hotel. The owners are nice and friendly, and the free breakfast is across the street in a restaurant.
I was totally exhausted after that long, winding trip. I went to bed and slept until 8:00, but I had to get up then, because breakfast service ends at 9:00. But it was better than usual. I am so tired of bland food which is all they seem to have here in Colombia. But after the lady confirmed I wanted scrambled eggs with arepas and hot chocolate, she asked if I wanted tomatoes on my eggs. I jumped at the chance, and the scrambled eggs came out scrambled with some tomatoes and onions. It added at least a bit of flavor. And the hot chocolate came with a sweet roll to dip into it.
Today was a day just to relax and explore San Gil. It is a small, colonial city built up a slanting mountainside. Because of that, it is much wider than it is long, since it is easier to walk on the streets parallel to the river than up the ones heading up the mountain. There are about 4-5 parallel streets and their connecting streets where the center of town exists. I've wondered all of those today--finding restaurants, bakeries, the central plaza, the main church, etc.
The main plaza is large and is constantly filled with people. I spent time there both this morning and late this afternoon just relaxing and watching people. This afternoon, some university students were practicing back flips and were teaching a couple of others to do them. One caught on very fast and was doing them well. The other was too scared--maybe rightfully so since it would be sad to break one's neck and die while still only a student.
I meant to eat a late afternoon snack and then go out for dinner. But my snack was so big and good that I never ate anything else. I got it from one of the more popular bakeries which is just half a block from my hotel. There were slices of pineapple-ham pizza, and I got one even though I don't normally like pineapple on my pizza. But they grow pineapple here, and it was a fresh, juicy one. That was a delicious piece of pizza that would have been like a dessert except for the salty cheese on it. I also bought a coconut cake that was ball-shaped. UMMM, it was so good. It was really two baked mounds of cake about 2 inches (5 m) in diameter. The bases were sealed together with some kind of fruit jam. Then the ball was covered in a creamy white frosting and rolled in shredded coconut. Coconut has always been one of my favorite tastes, and that ball didn't disappoint.
Speaking of coconut, one of the restaurants I passed had "coconut lemonade" on its drink list. Click here for a recipe. It sounds great to me.
I came home early to work on some travel planning and to get to bed early. I want to have breakfast around 7:00 tomorrow and have a day outing that will involve two other cities with a hike between them. There's a chance of rain in the forecast, so I'll have to check it again tomorrow, but it looks as if it is just for scattered showers in the afternoon. I hope my plans work out.
Wednesday, August 23, 2017
Off to Mompox
Tuesday and Wednesday, Aug. 23-24--Santa Marta to Mompox
I had booked a shuttle service to get me from Santa Marta to Mompox since there are no direct buses. Only one service was referenced anywhere I looked in guidebooks or on the Internet, so I booked it. All the references said it was a van service, that it would be a tight squeeze, that the a/c was turned up high so that it was cold, and that it didn't even stop to go to the bathroom unless they had to get more gas. (I later learned from my hotel that there are other similar van services that I could have booked.)
I stayed in the room all morning, since checkout was at 13:00 and that was also the time the shuttle service was supposed to come for me. Then at the front of the hotel I waited...and waited...and waited. The young man running the front desk asked me for the number for the shuttle serviced and called them. The lady who answered said she would call the driver wherever he was and make sure he had my name and hotel on his list of pickups. Finally, at 13:50, a pickup truck pulled up with two Colombian men in the front seat and two American tourists in the back seat. They loaded my luggage in the back, and I squeezed into the back seat with the American couple. The lady was bothered by the fact that it was so cramped, but I had already known to expect that. What made it so tight, however, wasn't the width but the narrow leg area.
Well our a/c worked, but we weren't frozen out. I had put a sweater in my small bag to put on if I needed it. We were fine temperature wise. But the trip seemed to take forever because of stops that everyone in the past has claimed not to get. We stopped at one gas station and left for another for some reason. At the second, we used the toilets while they got gas. (It was a hybrid vehicle running both on gasoline and natural gas, so they filled it with both.) Then we stopped briefly for the men to get a juice drink. Then, before they finished those, we stopped at a restaurant where they ordered food. Before the trip was over, I think we stopped at 3 more gas stations. At least we didn't have to worry about having to "try to hold it"!!
We came through some very heavy storms toward the end of the trip. It was difficult for the driver to see. And we were on a raised highway going through low countryside with no guardrails which made it a bit scary. But the skies died up before we got to Mompox and we made it here in about the same time that others had said it took--about 5 1/2 hours. I think that was because the highways most of the way seemed to be new ones making the trip easier and faster.
The best part of the trip was visiting with the other two passengers. Although they are now American and have lived in Brooklyn for many years, he is originally from Northern Ireland and she is originally from Poland. We talked about all kinds of things--traveling, the advantages being retired offers for people who like to travel, around-the-world tickets, San Antonio (which they both know), their neighborhood (which I have visited) in Brooklyn, politics, places we know in common, teaching, writing, etc. He will retire from teaching in two years, and they will probably move to somewhere in Europe while traveling more than they do now.
The pickup driver delivered me straight to my guesthouse, Casa Mebi. I booked it through AIRBNB. It's a family-operated place with 3 rooms for rent. It's not like having a room in a home; the family lives upstairs except for cooking/eating; downstairs are the guestrooms, lobby area, and entrance in addition to the kitchen/dining room. So I go in and out without having to really walk through their home. My room is large, clean, comfortable, has a good a/c, and has good WiFi. The owers are nice, and one of them who is a nurse and presently a graduate student without morning classes was here to greet me and offer me breakfast which their maid cooked--the best arepas I have had on the trip along with scrambled eggs and coffee. I'm only paying $13 per night; I couldn't believe that they offered me breakfast.
Mompox is a small, old colonial town on a river. It was established in the middle of a low area which indigenous people developed hundreds of years ago by building canal systems--digging out land and using the soil to build up the areas between the many canals. They built their homes on tops of the mounds where they were safe from flooding, and the canals filled during the rainy season allowing them to raise fish, and crops like rice where water is needed part of the time but not all of the time.
Anyway, today Mompox is a World Heritage Site because of its huge colonial center filled with old churches, plazas, and buildings. It's not a big tourist area because it is difficult to reach. But that keeps it quiet and quaint. This morning I wandered up and down the streets looking at the old buildings, watching the people, enjoying seeing the river flow by. There are beautiful small squares around town, and I sat at one of them and read for a while. And I saw two very nice colonial churches and their adjoining cloisters--Santa Barbara and San Augustin. They are just two of several beautiful colonial churches in the city.
After staying inside from the mid-afternoon heat, I went back out at 16:00 to buy my bus tickets for tomorrow. I am only going a little more than 200 miles, but it will take 3 buses and 10 hours! Anyway, tomorrow is moving day when I go from here to my next stop San Gil.
Near the bus station is one of the tourist sights I had not yet seen--the cemetery. It is on the list of things to see because of a number of rather grand tombs. Grand families have lived here. Mompox was the major city of the country back in the early Spanish days. Cartagena and Santa Marta were too exposed to pirates. Even as late as the fight for independence Mompox was a major city where Bolivar lived and led battles.
After that, I just wandered along the river and up and down the streets again to enjoy the atmosphere. It's a beautiful and peaceful place. For those who read or have seen the movie based on the book, Mompox is the setting for Gabriel Garcia Marquez' Chronicle of a Death Foretold, and the movie was filmed here. Here is a link to the film trailer, and here is one to the entire film (in Spanish without subtitles).
I had booked a shuttle service to get me from Santa Marta to Mompox since there are no direct buses. Only one service was referenced anywhere I looked in guidebooks or on the Internet, so I booked it. All the references said it was a van service, that it would be a tight squeeze, that the a/c was turned up high so that it was cold, and that it didn't even stop to go to the bathroom unless they had to get more gas. (I later learned from my hotel that there are other similar van services that I could have booked.)
I stayed in the room all morning, since checkout was at 13:00 and that was also the time the shuttle service was supposed to come for me. Then at the front of the hotel I waited...and waited...and waited. The young man running the front desk asked me for the number for the shuttle serviced and called them. The lady who answered said she would call the driver wherever he was and make sure he had my name and hotel on his list of pickups. Finally, at 13:50, a pickup truck pulled up with two Colombian men in the front seat and two American tourists in the back seat. They loaded my luggage in the back, and I squeezed into the back seat with the American couple. The lady was bothered by the fact that it was so cramped, but I had already known to expect that. What made it so tight, however, wasn't the width but the narrow leg area.
Well our a/c worked, but we weren't frozen out. I had put a sweater in my small bag to put on if I needed it. We were fine temperature wise. But the trip seemed to take forever because of stops that everyone in the past has claimed not to get. We stopped at one gas station and left for another for some reason. At the second, we used the toilets while they got gas. (It was a hybrid vehicle running both on gasoline and natural gas, so they filled it with both.) Then we stopped briefly for the men to get a juice drink. Then, before they finished those, we stopped at a restaurant where they ordered food. Before the trip was over, I think we stopped at 3 more gas stations. At least we didn't have to worry about having to "try to hold it"!!
We came through some very heavy storms toward the end of the trip. It was difficult for the driver to see. And we were on a raised highway going through low countryside with no guardrails which made it a bit scary. But the skies died up before we got to Mompox and we made it here in about the same time that others had said it took--about 5 1/2 hours. I think that was because the highways most of the way seemed to be new ones making the trip easier and faster.
The best part of the trip was visiting with the other two passengers. Although they are now American and have lived in Brooklyn for many years, he is originally from Northern Ireland and she is originally from Poland. We talked about all kinds of things--traveling, the advantages being retired offers for people who like to travel, around-the-world tickets, San Antonio (which they both know), their neighborhood (which I have visited) in Brooklyn, politics, places we know in common, teaching, writing, etc. He will retire from teaching in two years, and they will probably move to somewhere in Europe while traveling more than they do now.
The pickup driver delivered me straight to my guesthouse, Casa Mebi. I booked it through AIRBNB. It's a family-operated place with 3 rooms for rent. It's not like having a room in a home; the family lives upstairs except for cooking/eating; downstairs are the guestrooms, lobby area, and entrance in addition to the kitchen/dining room. So I go in and out without having to really walk through their home. My room is large, clean, comfortable, has a good a/c, and has good WiFi. The owers are nice, and one of them who is a nurse and presently a graduate student without morning classes was here to greet me and offer me breakfast which their maid cooked--the best arepas I have had on the trip along with scrambled eggs and coffee. I'm only paying $13 per night; I couldn't believe that they offered me breakfast.
Mompox is a small, old colonial town on a river. It was established in the middle of a low area which indigenous people developed hundreds of years ago by building canal systems--digging out land and using the soil to build up the areas between the many canals. They built their homes on tops of the mounds where they were safe from flooding, and the canals filled during the rainy season allowing them to raise fish, and crops like rice where water is needed part of the time but not all of the time.
Anyway, today Mompox is a World Heritage Site because of its huge colonial center filled with old churches, plazas, and buildings. It's not a big tourist area because it is difficult to reach. But that keeps it quiet and quaint. This morning I wandered up and down the streets looking at the old buildings, watching the people, enjoying seeing the river flow by. There are beautiful small squares around town, and I sat at one of them and read for a while. And I saw two very nice colonial churches and their adjoining cloisters--Santa Barbara and San Augustin. They are just two of several beautiful colonial churches in the city.
After staying inside from the mid-afternoon heat, I went back out at 16:00 to buy my bus tickets for tomorrow. I am only going a little more than 200 miles, but it will take 3 buses and 10 hours! Anyway, tomorrow is moving day when I go from here to my next stop San Gil.
Near the bus station is one of the tourist sights I had not yet seen--the cemetery. It is on the list of things to see because of a number of rather grand tombs. Grand families have lived here. Mompox was the major city of the country back in the early Spanish days. Cartagena and Santa Marta were too exposed to pirates. Even as late as the fight for independence Mompox was a major city where Bolivar lived and led battles.
After that, I just wandered along the river and up and down the streets again to enjoy the atmosphere. It's a beautiful and peaceful place. For those who read or have seen the movie based on the book, Mompox is the setting for Gabriel Garcia Marquez' Chronicle of a Death Foretold, and the movie was filmed here. Here is a link to the film trailer, and here is one to the entire film (in Spanish without subtitles).
Monday, August 21, 2017
I Saw Venezuela Today
Sunday and Monday, Aug. 20-21, 2017--Santa Marta and Side Trip to Palomino
Notice I said, "SAW." I did not go to Venezuela, but I was able to see the mountains in it about 67 miles away. More on that later.
The weather actually was fine yesterday morning, but I was in the room all morning. Sundays are slow days, plus I needed to check out late to minimize the time I would have been leaving one room and being able to get into the next at another hotel. Then Sunday afternoon was rainy. Apparently we got some remnants of Tropical Storm Harvey as it moved across just north of us headed for Central America. When I booked myself into the first hotel, I only booked for 2 of the 4 nights I planned to be in this area. I had thought I might go to Tayrona National Park and return here for a final night, or to Los Angeles, or to Palomino. But the more I read, I wasn't sure. Eventually, I decided to skip the park because it could not easily be made in a day trip (at least not guaranteed to be possible without rushing the whole day) and the only way to sleep was in a hammock or in a tent. In terms of sleeping, the same went for Los Angeles which is just outside the park. Palomino provided the choice of either staying there overnight one or two nights or making it as a day trip. So I eventually reserved another hotel in Santa Marta for the last two days in the area (since the one where I was already booked was not available for adjusting the reservation to 4 days).
It's good I didn't plan on going yesterday and staying overnight. It would have been miserable being in that rain without a good shelter. It consisted of thunderstorms that moved through several times from about 12:45 until about 16:00. So I was in the room at one hotel all morning and in the room at another all afternoon--reading, working on the computer, etc. When I went out to eat after the rain subsided, the streets were flooded in many places. Fortunately, the sidewalks were above the water.
My dinner started with a delicious soup. It had white beans and was thickened with some of them mashed. It also had a few bits of shredded chicken, grated carrots, onions, potatoes, pasta, peas, and spices. I tried to order the fish fillet, but they were sold out (probably because fishermen don't go out on Sunday). So I had the gallina--chicken that was the strangest I have had in some time. I was served a huge piece that was a long leg attached to a thigh. It was the darkest chicken I think I have ever eaten. All the meat was a dark brown. It was served with rice, fried potatoes, a salad, and a fruit drink (agua fresca).
Unfortunately, I am learning that Colombians seem to prefer their food rather bland. They never have a salsa or much seasoning. Omelettes are just folded fried eggs. There may be cheese hidden inside, but nothing that gives them any flavor. Scrambled eggs are just scrambled eggs. Roasted chicken is just a big piece of roasted chicken served with plain rice and plain fries (no sauces of any kind for any of it).
Today (Tuesday), it was still dry (although the forecast for tomorrow is back to the same 80% it was yesterday). Since there had been no more rain, I had my breakfast on the courtyard of my new hotel--Hotel Nueva Granada. It was more generous than the breakfasts at the other places even though they served it--a large portion of scrambled eggs, arepas, granola with yogurt, toast or rolls with jam, papaya or watermelon slices, coffee, and fresh juice. I made the mistake of saving the juice to have with my jam and rolls only to discover it was tomato juice and would have been much better with the eggs!
Anyway, I did not want to leave Santa Marta without a day trip into the forests and to the beach. So I rushed up the street about 7 blocks where the buses leave for Tayrona National Park, Los Angeles, and eventually Palomino. It's almost a 2 hour bus trip, but half an hour of that is getting out of Santa Marta.
There were huge crowds entering Tayrona National Park when we stopped there, and over half the people on the bus got off--all the tourists except me and maybe 1-2 others. We had been driving through the park for the past 30 minutes. It's a beautiful mountainous area that ends at the sea with a nice beach.
The bus didn't even stop at the road to Los Angeles. That means no one had said they wanted off there and no one was there to get on the bus. As I understand it, it is a very small private compound several miles off the highway right on the beach.
Palomino is the end of the bus line (although other buses from the main bus station continue to other towns and eventually to the Venezuelan border). For many years, it was just a small fishing village. But over the last decade or so, it has become the new hot spot for backpackers wanting to go to the "undiscovered" place. The town is on the highway, but an unpaved road (with lots of water-filled BIG potholes along it today) heads from the bus stop to the beach--about a 20-minute walk or a moto-taxi (motorcycle driver who will take you seated behind him) will take people for less than $1. I walked it because I wanted to explore what was along the road which turned out to be a good decision. The undiscovered hot spot is developing. The road is lined with restaurants, souvenir shops, hostels (ranging from very basic [sometimes just dormitory space and maybe tent space] to quite fantastic [with tropical gardens, pools, private rooms, dormitories, yoga lessons, etc.), and resorts [offering private rooms only along with pools, yoga, etc.].
The two most interesting looking places were Bikini Hostel and The Dreamer Hostel. They both have large compounds, pools, and an exotic look. The former is better in general, I think, but it isn't as close to the beach as the latter.
At the beach, I turned one way and walked all the way to the Palomino River which people come down in tubes, kayaks, and canoes. I met a young man walking on the beach carrying his tube with an attached Go-Pro Camera he had used to film his trip. But the river was a bit fast today due to the rainfall yesterday, so there were few people brave enough to try going down it. The beaches were full of people, both local and tourists, though. Turning back, I continued past where I entered and went as far as people started petering out. Then I returned to my starting point again and exited.
It's too hard to try to go swimming when there is only one of you. It's not wise to leave one's things unattended on the beach, and I had my passport, a camera, a cap, my eyeglasses, an umbrella, etc. But I was happy just to see the beautiful area--a very nice beach with a thick tropical forest starting right at its edge--and watch the people.
Back in town, I caught a bus leaving immediately. That got me back to Santa Marta around 16:00. I went immediately to eat at the same place as yesterday and got the fish fillet today. It was a big one and much better than the chicken--golden on the skin side with moist, flakey flesh. The soup was the same as the one yesterday. So were the accompanying rice, fried potatoes, and salad. The juice was a good one. The whole meal cost $3.70.
Some random observations:
1. One reason Americans may be fatter than ever before is because we don't have to "work" to eat our food. Today, my fillet was de-boned. But I had to work to get that chicken off the bones yesterday and to get the beef off my soup bones two days ago. That slows down the eating and gives the body time to say "You've had enough," before you are over-stuffed from eating boneless chicken breasts, boneless pork chops, boneless, steaks, etc.
2. I guess it is common now to to put growing fruit in protective bags. The first time I encountered that was probably in the 1980s in northern Mexico northwest of Chihuahua where the Mennonites had put bags on all the apples on their trees. But now I see bags on grapes in vineyards, bananas on palms, etc., as they grow to the right point for harvesting.
Notice I said, "SAW." I did not go to Venezuela, but I was able to see the mountains in it about 67 miles away. More on that later.
The weather actually was fine yesterday morning, but I was in the room all morning. Sundays are slow days, plus I needed to check out late to minimize the time I would have been leaving one room and being able to get into the next at another hotel. Then Sunday afternoon was rainy. Apparently we got some remnants of Tropical Storm Harvey as it moved across just north of us headed for Central America. When I booked myself into the first hotel, I only booked for 2 of the 4 nights I planned to be in this area. I had thought I might go to Tayrona National Park and return here for a final night, or to Los Angeles, or to Palomino. But the more I read, I wasn't sure. Eventually, I decided to skip the park because it could not easily be made in a day trip (at least not guaranteed to be possible without rushing the whole day) and the only way to sleep was in a hammock or in a tent. In terms of sleeping, the same went for Los Angeles which is just outside the park. Palomino provided the choice of either staying there overnight one or two nights or making it as a day trip. So I eventually reserved another hotel in Santa Marta for the last two days in the area (since the one where I was already booked was not available for adjusting the reservation to 4 days).
It's good I didn't plan on going yesterday and staying overnight. It would have been miserable being in that rain without a good shelter. It consisted of thunderstorms that moved through several times from about 12:45 until about 16:00. So I was in the room at one hotel all morning and in the room at another all afternoon--reading, working on the computer, etc. When I went out to eat after the rain subsided, the streets were flooded in many places. Fortunately, the sidewalks were above the water.
My dinner started with a delicious soup. It had white beans and was thickened with some of them mashed. It also had a few bits of shredded chicken, grated carrots, onions, potatoes, pasta, peas, and spices. I tried to order the fish fillet, but they were sold out (probably because fishermen don't go out on Sunday). So I had the gallina--chicken that was the strangest I have had in some time. I was served a huge piece that was a long leg attached to a thigh. It was the darkest chicken I think I have ever eaten. All the meat was a dark brown. It was served with rice, fried potatoes, a salad, and a fruit drink (agua fresca).
Unfortunately, I am learning that Colombians seem to prefer their food rather bland. They never have a salsa or much seasoning. Omelettes are just folded fried eggs. There may be cheese hidden inside, but nothing that gives them any flavor. Scrambled eggs are just scrambled eggs. Roasted chicken is just a big piece of roasted chicken served with plain rice and plain fries (no sauces of any kind for any of it).
Today (Tuesday), it was still dry (although the forecast for tomorrow is back to the same 80% it was yesterday). Since there had been no more rain, I had my breakfast on the courtyard of my new hotel--Hotel Nueva Granada. It was more generous than the breakfasts at the other places even though they served it--a large portion of scrambled eggs, arepas, granola with yogurt, toast or rolls with jam, papaya or watermelon slices, coffee, and fresh juice. I made the mistake of saving the juice to have with my jam and rolls only to discover it was tomato juice and would have been much better with the eggs!
Anyway, I did not want to leave Santa Marta without a day trip into the forests and to the beach. So I rushed up the street about 7 blocks where the buses leave for Tayrona National Park, Los Angeles, and eventually Palomino. It's almost a 2 hour bus trip, but half an hour of that is getting out of Santa Marta.
There were huge crowds entering Tayrona National Park when we stopped there, and over half the people on the bus got off--all the tourists except me and maybe 1-2 others. We had been driving through the park for the past 30 minutes. It's a beautiful mountainous area that ends at the sea with a nice beach.
The bus didn't even stop at the road to Los Angeles. That means no one had said they wanted off there and no one was there to get on the bus. As I understand it, it is a very small private compound several miles off the highway right on the beach.
Palomino is the end of the bus line (although other buses from the main bus station continue to other towns and eventually to the Venezuelan border). For many years, it was just a small fishing village. But over the last decade or so, it has become the new hot spot for backpackers wanting to go to the "undiscovered" place. The town is on the highway, but an unpaved road (with lots of water-filled BIG potholes along it today) heads from the bus stop to the beach--about a 20-minute walk or a moto-taxi (motorcycle driver who will take you seated behind him) will take people for less than $1. I walked it because I wanted to explore what was along the road which turned out to be a good decision. The undiscovered hot spot is developing. The road is lined with restaurants, souvenir shops, hostels (ranging from very basic [sometimes just dormitory space and maybe tent space] to quite fantastic [with tropical gardens, pools, private rooms, dormitories, yoga lessons, etc.), and resorts [offering private rooms only along with pools, yoga, etc.].
The two most interesting looking places were Bikini Hostel and The Dreamer Hostel. They both have large compounds, pools, and an exotic look. The former is better in general, I think, but it isn't as close to the beach as the latter.
At the beach, I turned one way and walked all the way to the Palomino River which people come down in tubes, kayaks, and canoes. I met a young man walking on the beach carrying his tube with an attached Go-Pro Camera he had used to film his trip. But the river was a bit fast today due to the rainfall yesterday, so there were few people brave enough to try going down it. The beaches were full of people, both local and tourists, though. Turning back, I continued past where I entered and went as far as people started petering out. Then I returned to my starting point again and exited.
It's too hard to try to go swimming when there is only one of you. It's not wise to leave one's things unattended on the beach, and I had my passport, a camera, a cap, my eyeglasses, an umbrella, etc. But I was happy just to see the beautiful area--a very nice beach with a thick tropical forest starting right at its edge--and watch the people.
Back in town, I caught a bus leaving immediately. That got me back to Santa Marta around 16:00. I went immediately to eat at the same place as yesterday and got the fish fillet today. It was a big one and much better than the chicken--golden on the skin side with moist, flakey flesh. The soup was the same as the one yesterday. So were the accompanying rice, fried potatoes, and salad. The juice was a good one. The whole meal cost $3.70.
Some random observations:
1. One reason Americans may be fatter than ever before is because we don't have to "work" to eat our food. Today, my fillet was de-boned. But I had to work to get that chicken off the bones yesterday and to get the beef off my soup bones two days ago. That slows down the eating and gives the body time to say "You've had enough," before you are over-stuffed from eating boneless chicken breasts, boneless pork chops, boneless, steaks, etc.
2. I guess it is common now to to put growing fruit in protective bags. The first time I encountered that was probably in the 1980s in northern Mexico northwest of Chihuahua where the Mennonites had put bags on all the apples on their trees. But now I see bags on grapes in vineyards, bananas on palms, etc., as they grow to the right point for harvesting.
Saturday, August 19, 2017
Steam Heat!
Saturday, Aug. 19, 2017--Santa Marta, Colombia
The coastal areas of Colombia are amazingly uncomfortable from the combination of heat and humidity. The temperatures here are only in the mid-80s (F)/low 30s (C). But the humidity is such that one becomes insufferably hot after less than an hour outside. This morning, I saw a woman carrying a small baby with the babies bare cheek against the mother's bare shoulder. I thought, "How miserable that must be for both of them." And not only does one's body and clothing get sticky and damp, but it is necessary to carry lots of water (or to buy lots of water from vendors on the street) to keep hydrated and to avoid feeling thirsty. There is so much about the situation that is miserable that I don't understand how people can stay out in it all day. I originally planned an overnight trip to a beach nearby where I would have had no escape--evening sleeping is outdoors on a hammock or in a tent. Now I am questioning if I want to make a day trip to a small village I wanted to see.
After searching for one yesterday, I found a barber shop today. The process yesterday was to keep watchful as I wandered the streets of the town. Today, I headed for the main shopping street. I asked a shop owner sitting on a stool outside looking into his store if he knew one. He walked me to the corner and pointed down the cross street to the middle of the next block. No one else was in the one chair, so after some Google Translate directions (from which he ended up indicating what I wanted as a normal cut), he went to work. It looks good--still not as close at the bottom edge at the back as I would like (which is the hardest thing for me to get barbers to understand--that I want it short enough I can't pinch it). The cost was 8000 COP--about $2.70 US! And I feel so much better with it cut. It had been bothering me for a month, but I was busy with travel planning, and it always is a pleasure for me to experience getting a haircut in another country. I've done it often--in Spain, Turkey, Egypt, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, the Philippines, India, Montenegro, etc. I usually get a haircut on any trip that lasts at least 2 months.
To partically get out of the heat after the haircut, I toured the Casa de la Aduana/Museo de Oro--two museums in one building. The building is the oldest one in Colombia. It's last major use was as the custom's house for the port, thus its name Aduana. The one part told the history of the area and of the city. The gold (oro) portion was the regional gold museum. The Bank of Colombia (which is the national bank like the U.S. Federal Reserve except that it also has retail banks in each city) owns the exhibits for all the gold museums in Colombia. The main one is in Bogota and I will see it when I am there. In the meantime, these small gold museums are really nice (since I have not yet seen the big one) and it is nice that the local museums connect the exhibits to the local area and show only the gold that was produced within it. Some of the exhibits today caused me think a lot about how groups of people all over the world developed similar cultures without interacting with each other. A description of a clay pot that showed men sitting in a circle inside it made me immediately associate it with the kivas which the southwestern Indians built for the men to sit around and communally make decisions. The description of their use of the lost wax method of creating their gold objects made me think about how people all over the world developed that technique for the same purpose on their own.
In the evening, I wandered through two plazas and along two pedestrian streets to watch people. Bars here have 2-for-1 drink specials every night, because the real "action" doesn't begin until 23:00 or later. I considered sitting at a table to try a mojito, a caipirinha, or something else, but I hated to sit alone. Instead, on my way back home, I passed a place with a very nice Caribbean band out front. It was just a quarter of a block to a park with a bench, so I sat on the bench and read while listening to the music. Then, as I completed my trek home about 45 minutes later, I stopped at the corner store and asked the cost of a beer. I had been looking at the small ones, but the young man asked if I wanted a big or a small one. The big one brought back memories of my trips to Brazil, and the price (only 3800 COP--about $1.30 US) convinced me. And that included a cup to go (which is good since there is no glass in my hotel room).
I returned home and finished reading my current book while drinking the beer. The book is An Unnecessary Woman by Rabin Alameddine. It was nominated for several major prises and is really an interesting story of a woman in Beirut whose life has had lots of disappointments. Over the years, she has created a life of please in books and music and does not think she needs human companionship. She uses lots of quotes from well-known books by famous philosophers and novelists. (I often get the impression that authors are constantly saving up favorite lines from books they have read and are looking for ways to insert them in their own works.) The quality of the writing as well as the unique, interesting aspects of the character's life caused me to give the book a rating of 4 1/2 out of 5.
The coastal areas of Colombia are amazingly uncomfortable from the combination of heat and humidity. The temperatures here are only in the mid-80s (F)/low 30s (C). But the humidity is such that one becomes insufferably hot after less than an hour outside. This morning, I saw a woman carrying a small baby with the babies bare cheek against the mother's bare shoulder. I thought, "How miserable that must be for both of them." And not only does one's body and clothing get sticky and damp, but it is necessary to carry lots of water (or to buy lots of water from vendors on the street) to keep hydrated and to avoid feeling thirsty. There is so much about the situation that is miserable that I don't understand how people can stay out in it all day. I originally planned an overnight trip to a beach nearby where I would have had no escape--evening sleeping is outdoors on a hammock or in a tent. Now I am questioning if I want to make a day trip to a small village I wanted to see.
After searching for one yesterday, I found a barber shop today. The process yesterday was to keep watchful as I wandered the streets of the town. Today, I headed for the main shopping street. I asked a shop owner sitting on a stool outside looking into his store if he knew one. He walked me to the corner and pointed down the cross street to the middle of the next block. No one else was in the one chair, so after some Google Translate directions (from which he ended up indicating what I wanted as a normal cut), he went to work. It looks good--still not as close at the bottom edge at the back as I would like (which is the hardest thing for me to get barbers to understand--that I want it short enough I can't pinch it). The cost was 8000 COP--about $2.70 US! And I feel so much better with it cut. It had been bothering me for a month, but I was busy with travel planning, and it always is a pleasure for me to experience getting a haircut in another country. I've done it often--in Spain, Turkey, Egypt, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, the Philippines, India, Montenegro, etc. I usually get a haircut on any trip that lasts at least 2 months.
To partically get out of the heat after the haircut, I toured the Casa de la Aduana/Museo de Oro--two museums in one building. The building is the oldest one in Colombia. It's last major use was as the custom's house for the port, thus its name Aduana. The one part told the history of the area and of the city. The gold (oro) portion was the regional gold museum. The Bank of Colombia (which is the national bank like the U.S. Federal Reserve except that it also has retail banks in each city) owns the exhibits for all the gold museums in Colombia. The main one is in Bogota and I will see it when I am there. In the meantime, these small gold museums are really nice (since I have not yet seen the big one) and it is nice that the local museums connect the exhibits to the local area and show only the gold that was produced within it. Some of the exhibits today caused me think a lot about how groups of people all over the world developed similar cultures without interacting with each other. A description of a clay pot that showed men sitting in a circle inside it made me immediately associate it with the kivas which the southwestern Indians built for the men to sit around and communally make decisions. The description of their use of the lost wax method of creating their gold objects made me think about how people all over the world developed that technique for the same purpose on their own.
In the evening, I wandered through two plazas and along two pedestrian streets to watch people. Bars here have 2-for-1 drink specials every night, because the real "action" doesn't begin until 23:00 or later. I considered sitting at a table to try a mojito, a caipirinha, or something else, but I hated to sit alone. Instead, on my way back home, I passed a place with a very nice Caribbean band out front. It was just a quarter of a block to a park with a bench, so I sat on the bench and read while listening to the music. Then, as I completed my trek home about 45 minutes later, I stopped at the corner store and asked the cost of a beer. I had been looking at the small ones, but the young man asked if I wanted a big or a small one. The big one brought back memories of my trips to Brazil, and the price (only 3800 COP--about $1.30 US) convinced me. And that included a cup to go (which is good since there is no glass in my hotel room).
I returned home and finished reading my current book while drinking the beer. The book is An Unnecessary Woman by Rabin Alameddine. It was nominated for several major prises and is really an interesting story of a woman in Beirut whose life has had lots of disappointments. Over the years, she has created a life of please in books and music and does not think she needs human companionship. She uses lots of quotes from well-known books by famous philosophers and novelists. (I often get the impression that authors are constantly saving up favorite lines from books they have read and are looking for ways to insert them in their own works.) The quality of the writing as well as the unique, interesting aspects of the character's life caused me to give the book a rating of 4 1/2 out of 5.
Friday, August 18, 2017
Off to Santa Marta Near the Venezuelan Border
Friday, Aug. 18, 2017--Cartagena to Santa Marta
I found what I considered to be the simplest way to get to my next stop. The main bus terminal in Cartagena is far out on the edge of town--an hour by public bus or half an hour by taxi from where I was staying. There is a van service by Berlinastur that operates out of their own office only a 30-minute walk away from my hotel. It has great reviews for saving time and even having good WiFi on board. So this morning, I was up early, I ate breakfast and checked out by 7:30. I got there just as a bus was pulling out of the side street. When I motioned, he stopped for me. It took me only 5 hours to get from hotel door to hotel door including a 30-minute break in Barranquilla about halfway.
There were a couple of bits of awkwardness, though. I knew the bus was supposed to cost 40,000, but I didn't think to ask that before we were on our way. Knowing that bargaining is common even for bus tickets, I worried that maybe the driver would try to charge me an exorbitant price since it wasn't set before we started. When he collected the money at the stop in Barranquilla, however, as I was pulling out two 20's (because everything is in thousands here, the bills just say 10, 20, 50, etc., with the word "mil" to represent thousands), he said, "Cuarenta mil" (40,000)! But then I worried that I didn't have a formal ticket (or a receipt) and that maybe I would be "caught" by an inspector or by a new driver from that point, but it was the same driver and no problem developed. (It helped that I saw him take cash money from a couple of other last-minute arrivals before we took off again from Barranquilla.) The way I got on the bus without a ticket also caused another awkward incident. People buying tickets in Barranquilla were being given assigned seats. Two people were upset that I was in one of their seats, but it was the seat I had occupied from Cartagena and the driver and his supervisor told them to find another location. (I was hesitant to give up my seat for them, because I didn't know if the whole bus would sell out before we left and I was uncertain of what that would mean for me, since this service does not allow non-seated passengers.)
I got off the bus as it turned a corner that would take it further from my hotel. I walked the other 11 blocks to get here at the Hotel 1525. It's a nice place--almost brand new with lots of luxury touches including a couple of big vases full of tropical flowers in the lobby. The room is clean and modern, the a/c works well, the bed feels good, etc. I'm paying $36 a night for it including a buffet breakfast.
Santa Marta (also here) is a nice town. It's actually the oldest city in Colombia, but it doesn't have much colonial charm left (due to English and Frence pirates raiding and pillaging.) But it and the area have nice mountains, beaches, and forests. It is a major tourism spot both for Colombians and backpackers, and it is becoming more and more known by regular vacationers as a side trip to make out of Cartagena.
People can drink the tap water in Cartagena, but not here. I needed some water, so I went out looking for the local tourist office and for the Exito supermarket. Well, I never found the tourist office. Or at least I should say I found where it was supposed to be, but the building was closed. And in searching for it, I became more and more thirsty. What a bad day to need water, though. The shelves were almost empty of water. There were a few scattered small bottles of expensive water. At first that's all I saw, but as I came back by looking, I saw three large jugs at the back of the bottom shelf. Each held 6 liters. Then, when I got to the front to check out, there were lines of about 10-12 people for each checkout counter. It seemed to take forever to get out of there, and I had to keep holding and moving that big, heavy bottle. But I would have had major problems with out, since I had not had anything to drink since breakfast.
In the early evening, I went back out. There was a nice sunset occurring behind the lighthouse and the island where it stands. People were lined up to watch it. the mood was spoiled a bit by kids asking for money. They only learn to do that because tourists train them by giving them money. I wandered down the pedestrian street where a few people were seated to enjoy happy hour at restaurants and bars. They were preparing the stage in one square for a concert that probably wouldn't start until very late. There weren't even any speakers set up year. But as I came through another square, a band was playing to a few people standing around. It was dark enough with no lights facing the stage that the musicians could only barely be seen, but I walked closer and noticed that it was a police band. What a good way to try to promote good relations between a police department and the citizens of the community.
I am going to bed early tonight. I was up early this morning. And I am exhausted from being out in the heat so much today. I hope it will be quiet enough to sleep well tonight.
I found what I considered to be the simplest way to get to my next stop. The main bus terminal in Cartagena is far out on the edge of town--an hour by public bus or half an hour by taxi from where I was staying. There is a van service by Berlinastur that operates out of their own office only a 30-minute walk away from my hotel. It has great reviews for saving time and even having good WiFi on board. So this morning, I was up early, I ate breakfast and checked out by 7:30. I got there just as a bus was pulling out of the side street. When I motioned, he stopped for me. It took me only 5 hours to get from hotel door to hotel door including a 30-minute break in Barranquilla about halfway.
There were a couple of bits of awkwardness, though. I knew the bus was supposed to cost 40,000, but I didn't think to ask that before we were on our way. Knowing that bargaining is common even for bus tickets, I worried that maybe the driver would try to charge me an exorbitant price since it wasn't set before we started. When he collected the money at the stop in Barranquilla, however, as I was pulling out two 20's (because everything is in thousands here, the bills just say 10, 20, 50, etc., with the word "mil" to represent thousands), he said, "Cuarenta mil" (40,000)! But then I worried that I didn't have a formal ticket (or a receipt) and that maybe I would be "caught" by an inspector or by a new driver from that point, but it was the same driver and no problem developed. (It helped that I saw him take cash money from a couple of other last-minute arrivals before we took off again from Barranquilla.) The way I got on the bus without a ticket also caused another awkward incident. People buying tickets in Barranquilla were being given assigned seats. Two people were upset that I was in one of their seats, but it was the seat I had occupied from Cartagena and the driver and his supervisor told them to find another location. (I was hesitant to give up my seat for them, because I didn't know if the whole bus would sell out before we left and I was uncertain of what that would mean for me, since this service does not allow non-seated passengers.)
I got off the bus as it turned a corner that would take it further from my hotel. I walked the other 11 blocks to get here at the Hotel 1525. It's a nice place--almost brand new with lots of luxury touches including a couple of big vases full of tropical flowers in the lobby. The room is clean and modern, the a/c works well, the bed feels good, etc. I'm paying $36 a night for it including a buffet breakfast.
Santa Marta (also here) is a nice town. It's actually the oldest city in Colombia, but it doesn't have much colonial charm left (due to English and Frence pirates raiding and pillaging.) But it and the area have nice mountains, beaches, and forests. It is a major tourism spot both for Colombians and backpackers, and it is becoming more and more known by regular vacationers as a side trip to make out of Cartagena.
People can drink the tap water in Cartagena, but not here. I needed some water, so I went out looking for the local tourist office and for the Exito supermarket. Well, I never found the tourist office. Or at least I should say I found where it was supposed to be, but the building was closed. And in searching for it, I became more and more thirsty. What a bad day to need water, though. The shelves were almost empty of water. There were a few scattered small bottles of expensive water. At first that's all I saw, but as I came back by looking, I saw three large jugs at the back of the bottom shelf. Each held 6 liters. Then, when I got to the front to check out, there were lines of about 10-12 people for each checkout counter. It seemed to take forever to get out of there, and I had to keep holding and moving that big, heavy bottle. But I would have had major problems with out, since I had not had anything to drink since breakfast.
In the early evening, I went back out. There was a nice sunset occurring behind the lighthouse and the island where it stands. People were lined up to watch it. the mood was spoiled a bit by kids asking for money. They only learn to do that because tourists train them by giving them money. I wandered down the pedestrian street where a few people were seated to enjoy happy hour at restaurants and bars. They were preparing the stage in one square for a concert that probably wouldn't start until very late. There weren't even any speakers set up year. But as I came through another square, a band was playing to a few people standing around. It was dark enough with no lights facing the stage that the musicians could only barely be seen, but I walked closer and noticed that it was a police band. What a good way to try to promote good relations between a police department and the citizens of the community.
I am going to bed early tonight. I was up early this morning. And I am exhausted from being out in the heat so much today. I hope it will be quiet enough to sleep well tonight.
Thursday, August 17, 2017
Solving the Bag Mystery and Trying to Get It
Wednesday and Thursday, Aug. 16-17, 2017--Cartagena, Colombia
Where I am staying is a very good place for two reasons: 1) It is nice (Hotel Plaza de Getsemani, rated 4th best B and B in Cartagena and really a small boutique hotel) except for one problem in my room: I booked a room with a king size bed, and they made it by putting two twin beds together with the gap going from side to side and covered with king-size sheets. At first, I really had problems with that slit right about hip level. But I angled myself and everything was okay. Of course, I could have just slept completely sideways, but the cover sheet was tucked in at the bottom and would have required more effort to adjust than was worth it. 2) The owner has been a great ally in working to get my bag to me.
Two friends at the airport in San Antonio provided great assistance in the morning trying to track my bag in addition to the hotel owner working here in Cartagena. But their work mainly proved that I was probably right about the problem. In the afternoon, I started calling:
1. Copa Airlines (US office, not the local airport) had concluded that the tag was probably ripped off my bag and said they were searching for it that way. Well, there were two problems with that: A) The only description they had was a black bag. No other details I had given--the purple string on it, the size, the brand, etc.-- had been put into their computer, so it would have been a hopeless search. B) The tag had NOT been ripped off my bag.
2. United thought the bag was somewhere. They seemed to be a bit confused thinking maybe I had missed my flight in Houston. On my second call to them, I tried to explain what I thought happened--that the man checking me in might have put the sticker from one of the two bag check strips printed out on my boarding pass and the long strip from the other one on my bag. They didn't seem to comprehend what I was saying, so I went through a long description of how to identify my bag. Finally, I just asked: "My bag number attached to my boarding pass was ______1. Is it possible for you to check bag numbers ______0 and ______2?" She immediately said, "Here's your bag, it's _____0! With that said, she told me it had been in Houston and was going to be put on the plane to Panama City in the late afternoon and then on the plane to Cartagena last night.
Both the owner and I made calls--me to Copa in the US and him to the airport. We both told them that the bag number on the missing baggage claim was wrong and that the last number should be switched to a 0 and that the bag should arrive on the flight from Panama City. It was a second hand message, however to the local airport from the hotel owner, because the people dealing with bags were not there and would not arrive until 22:00--45 minutes before the plane was to arrive.
I'll return to the story of the bag later. In the meantime...
During the morning hours of Wednesday, I knew they would be searching but that there would be no details related to the bag yet, so I went out to explore Cartagena. It's really a wonderful city. It has the look of the old town in San Juan or Panama City because there is a Caribbean vibe to it. It is much bigger and has a much better wall around it than those two cities, though, and the architecture is very similar to the old towns I visited in Spain earlier this year.
There are many black people because this was the center for the slave trading for this area and even had a monopoly on slave trading for the Caribbean for a number of years. Almost everyone dealing with tourists is either black or creole--mainly women in colorful yellow, red and green dresses with matching head wraps and men carrying stacks of panama hats trying to sell them.
During the morning, I walked up and down the narrow streets watching the people and paying attention to the wonderful old buildings. I climbed up on the walls and walked around a large part of the old section of town. I passed university buildings (mostly in old convents and church buildings) with students flooding out into the sidewalks. I went by the old slave market building Las Bovedas that now serves as an artisan market. I passed theaters, plazas, and a construction site where the old bull ring was located and a new combination shopping center/theater is being built with the theater being a central plaza with tired seats reminiscent of the old bull ring--quite creative and inspiring. I toured the local gold museum which had some wonderful pieces, explained how they used copper as an alloy with both gold and silver, and had a fascinating film about the area near here (where I will be visiting later when I am at Mompox) was built as a series of canals that took advantage of flooding at times of the year to provide a better chance of growing crops.
It's steamy and hot here, so I was back at the room around 14:00. It was then that I discovered that no one really knew where my bag was and why it had been lost. That's when I started making the calls mentioned at the top of this entry.
Afterward, I went to a local square that is an outdoor hangout in the area. There were food stalls set up, and the area streets were lined with restaurants and shops. One problem as a tourist here, however, is that prices tend NOT to be posted even in walk-in restaurants. That's because they want to take advantage of tourists, so tourists end up having to bargain even to eat!! I walked up to a stall that was making good looking burgers and asked how much they were. The worker said 7,100 (about $2.40 US). Then I walked over to some tourists who were eating burgers from there and asked what they paid. They had bargained to get 4 burgers for 12,500 (about $1 each)!! As I walked up and down the streets, I did study signs at the few places where prices were posted. I was amazed to see paletas (frozen fruit-flavored pops) at a price of $1.75 US when they only cost 50-75 cents in San Antonio, but I also noticed that everyone walking into and out of that place was a tourist who didn't know better than to spend that much money for a cold treat.
All of my exploring led me to a place with a promocion sign--two pieces of fried chicken plus a serving of french fries for 5000--the same price as a paleta at the shop frequented only by tourists! I bought the special to go in a styrofoam box and took it back to the square where I found a place to sit among the other tourists and residents. I ate my fries and chicken while watching the crowds, listening to music, and watching a juggler.
I was so tired, I returned to the hotel soon afterward and went to bed around 10:00--before the expected arrival of the flight from Panama City that was supposed to have my bag.
_________
I awoke this morning to find no emails about my bag. I bathed, put back on my clothing for the third day, and opened the door to go down to breakfast. There at the door was my bag!! I went on downstairs where the owner's wife was so pleased that we had gotten my bag. But she told me something that was still worrying about everything yesterday: The bag had arrived at the airport at 14:00 YESTERDAY on the mid-day flight from Panama City!! No one had made any effort to see if it was my bag. No one had read the computerized notes made in the late afternoon about how to identify my bag and about the different tag number. Only the call from the owner last night at 10:00 alerted them to the fact that they ALREADY had my bag. It could have been delivered yesterday afternoon if anyone had thought to look at the name on the bag and to see if it matched the name of anyone who had reported a lost bag. And it couldn't be blamed on the wrong tag number, because they had wrapped the old tag around the handle and attached another different kind of tag to route it here. I had 3 IDs on the outside of the bag with my name and other information on them!! So thanks to the owner's call late last night, they delivered my bag this morning. If he hadn't called, though, it would probably still be setting in the airport here today since it could only be identified by my name and not by the traditional baggage tag which was wrapped tightly around the handle.
Another thought about the bag: United had been wrong when they told me the bag had been in Houston and was going to be on the flight from there yesterday, because it was already HERE when I was talking to them!! It has been a grand fiasco all along. But I'm glad I have my bag now.
After another great breakfast--scrambled eggs with LOTS of delicious bacon scrambled into them, a plate of fresh pineapple, toast with butter and jam, a glass of fresh juice (not sure what kind), and coffee--I came back to the room to shave and change clothes before going back out.
I actually had seen almost all of the old town yesterday. So today, I searched out a few specific sights I wanted to see but had only randomly passed them yesterday--a nice house where Bolivar lived, a small church with a Mudejar (Muslim-style) wooden ceiling, more theaters, etc. I spent more time exploring the small plazas I had seen yesterday while watching people and trying to stay cool--Bolivar (beautiful, crowded, but mostly quiet), San Diego (small, but lively with students from the university's school of arts and culture), Madrid (very small without much shade and mostly filled with local people sitting in the few shady spots, and Santo Domingo (big, but with no place to sit except in restaurant tables, little shade, and a GREAT Botero sculture of a nude reclining woman [big, of course] and the first of many Boteros I should see here in his home country).
I spent the afternoon back in the room. I am going back out in a little while to see the sunset from atop the city walls and to find something to eat for dinner. Then I will return to get organized for tomorrow which will be a travel day.
Where I am staying is a very good place for two reasons: 1) It is nice (Hotel Plaza de Getsemani, rated 4th best B and B in Cartagena and really a small boutique hotel) except for one problem in my room: I booked a room with a king size bed, and they made it by putting two twin beds together with the gap going from side to side and covered with king-size sheets. At first, I really had problems with that slit right about hip level. But I angled myself and everything was okay. Of course, I could have just slept completely sideways, but the cover sheet was tucked in at the bottom and would have required more effort to adjust than was worth it. 2) The owner has been a great ally in working to get my bag to me.
Two friends at the airport in San Antonio provided great assistance in the morning trying to track my bag in addition to the hotel owner working here in Cartagena. But their work mainly proved that I was probably right about the problem. In the afternoon, I started calling:
1. Copa Airlines (US office, not the local airport) had concluded that the tag was probably ripped off my bag and said they were searching for it that way. Well, there were two problems with that: A) The only description they had was a black bag. No other details I had given--the purple string on it, the size, the brand, etc.-- had been put into their computer, so it would have been a hopeless search. B) The tag had NOT been ripped off my bag.
2. United thought the bag was somewhere. They seemed to be a bit confused thinking maybe I had missed my flight in Houston. On my second call to them, I tried to explain what I thought happened--that the man checking me in might have put the sticker from one of the two bag check strips printed out on my boarding pass and the long strip from the other one on my bag. They didn't seem to comprehend what I was saying, so I went through a long description of how to identify my bag. Finally, I just asked: "My bag number attached to my boarding pass was ______1. Is it possible for you to check bag numbers ______0 and ______2?" She immediately said, "Here's your bag, it's _____0! With that said, she told me it had been in Houston and was going to be put on the plane to Panama City in the late afternoon and then on the plane to Cartagena last night.
Both the owner and I made calls--me to Copa in the US and him to the airport. We both told them that the bag number on the missing baggage claim was wrong and that the last number should be switched to a 0 and that the bag should arrive on the flight from Panama City. It was a second hand message, however to the local airport from the hotel owner, because the people dealing with bags were not there and would not arrive until 22:00--45 minutes before the plane was to arrive.
I'll return to the story of the bag later. In the meantime...
During the morning hours of Wednesday, I knew they would be searching but that there would be no details related to the bag yet, so I went out to explore Cartagena. It's really a wonderful city. It has the look of the old town in San Juan or Panama City because there is a Caribbean vibe to it. It is much bigger and has a much better wall around it than those two cities, though, and the architecture is very similar to the old towns I visited in Spain earlier this year.
There are many black people because this was the center for the slave trading for this area and even had a monopoly on slave trading for the Caribbean for a number of years. Almost everyone dealing with tourists is either black or creole--mainly women in colorful yellow, red and green dresses with matching head wraps and men carrying stacks of panama hats trying to sell them.
During the morning, I walked up and down the narrow streets watching the people and paying attention to the wonderful old buildings. I climbed up on the walls and walked around a large part of the old section of town. I passed university buildings (mostly in old convents and church buildings) with students flooding out into the sidewalks. I went by the old slave market building Las Bovedas that now serves as an artisan market. I passed theaters, plazas, and a construction site where the old bull ring was located and a new combination shopping center/theater is being built with the theater being a central plaza with tired seats reminiscent of the old bull ring--quite creative and inspiring. I toured the local gold museum which had some wonderful pieces, explained how they used copper as an alloy with both gold and silver, and had a fascinating film about the area near here (where I will be visiting later when I am at Mompox) was built as a series of canals that took advantage of flooding at times of the year to provide a better chance of growing crops.
It's steamy and hot here, so I was back at the room around 14:00. It was then that I discovered that no one really knew where my bag was and why it had been lost. That's when I started making the calls mentioned at the top of this entry.
Afterward, I went to a local square that is an outdoor hangout in the area. There were food stalls set up, and the area streets were lined with restaurants and shops. One problem as a tourist here, however, is that prices tend NOT to be posted even in walk-in restaurants. That's because they want to take advantage of tourists, so tourists end up having to bargain even to eat!! I walked up to a stall that was making good looking burgers and asked how much they were. The worker said 7,100 (about $2.40 US). Then I walked over to some tourists who were eating burgers from there and asked what they paid. They had bargained to get 4 burgers for 12,500 (about $1 each)!! As I walked up and down the streets, I did study signs at the few places where prices were posted. I was amazed to see paletas (frozen fruit-flavored pops) at a price of $1.75 US when they only cost 50-75 cents in San Antonio, but I also noticed that everyone walking into and out of that place was a tourist who didn't know better than to spend that much money for a cold treat.
All of my exploring led me to a place with a promocion sign--two pieces of fried chicken plus a serving of french fries for 5000--the same price as a paleta at the shop frequented only by tourists! I bought the special to go in a styrofoam box and took it back to the square where I found a place to sit among the other tourists and residents. I ate my fries and chicken while watching the crowds, listening to music, and watching a juggler.
I was so tired, I returned to the hotel soon afterward and went to bed around 10:00--before the expected arrival of the flight from Panama City that was supposed to have my bag.
_________
I awoke this morning to find no emails about my bag. I bathed, put back on my clothing for the third day, and opened the door to go down to breakfast. There at the door was my bag!! I went on downstairs where the owner's wife was so pleased that we had gotten my bag. But she told me something that was still worrying about everything yesterday: The bag had arrived at the airport at 14:00 YESTERDAY on the mid-day flight from Panama City!! No one had made any effort to see if it was my bag. No one had read the computerized notes made in the late afternoon about how to identify my bag and about the different tag number. Only the call from the owner last night at 10:00 alerted them to the fact that they ALREADY had my bag. It could have been delivered yesterday afternoon if anyone had thought to look at the name on the bag and to see if it matched the name of anyone who had reported a lost bag. And it couldn't be blamed on the wrong tag number, because they had wrapped the old tag around the handle and attached another different kind of tag to route it here. I had 3 IDs on the outside of the bag with my name and other information on them!! So thanks to the owner's call late last night, they delivered my bag this morning. If he hadn't called, though, it would probably still be setting in the airport here today since it could only be identified by my name and not by the traditional baggage tag which was wrapped tightly around the handle.
Another thought about the bag: United had been wrong when they told me the bag had been in Houston and was going to be on the flight from there yesterday, because it was already HERE when I was talking to them!! It has been a grand fiasco all along. But I'm glad I have my bag now.
After another great breakfast--scrambled eggs with LOTS of delicious bacon scrambled into them, a plate of fresh pineapple, toast with butter and jam, a glass of fresh juice (not sure what kind), and coffee--I came back to the room to shave and change clothes before going back out.
I actually had seen almost all of the old town yesterday. So today, I searched out a few specific sights I wanted to see but had only randomly passed them yesterday--a nice house where Bolivar lived, a small church with a Mudejar (Muslim-style) wooden ceiling, more theaters, etc. I spent more time exploring the small plazas I had seen yesterday while watching people and trying to stay cool--Bolivar (beautiful, crowded, but mostly quiet), San Diego (small, but lively with students from the university's school of arts and culture), Madrid (very small without much shade and mostly filled with local people sitting in the few shady spots, and Santo Domingo (big, but with no place to sit except in restaurant tables, little shade, and a GREAT Botero sculture of a nude reclining woman [big, of course] and the first of many Boteros I should see here in his home country).
I spent the afternoon back in the room. I am going back out in a little while to see the sunset from atop the city walls and to find something to eat for dinner. Then I will return to get organized for tomorrow which will be a travel day.
Wednesday, August 16, 2017
Smooth Travel Day until the End
Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017--San Antonio to Cartagena vis Houston and Panama City
My flights were on time. I had enough time at each airport to eat a snack I brought, go the the restrooms, and then some.
We arrived about 2 minutes early in Cartagena, then everything became a problem:
1. My bag didn't arrive, so that caused me to be at the airport much longer than necessary--first waiting for it, and then completing paperwork when it didn't arrive. Since there were adequate connection times--3 hrs in Houston and 2 hours in Panama City, it should have been here.
2. The first 3 ATMs would not give me money. And the 4th one would only give me the equivalent of $100 with a $3 fee!! To be honest, though, I thought I might not make it out of the airport without money!!
3. The ATM only gave me money in 50,000 COP bills (about $17), and my taxi ride was supposed to be 14,000 COP (a little less than $5). So I had to worry if I could trust the driver who said he would be able to give me change. Fortunately, that worked out okay, but it was stressful until he handed me the right change.
It's after midnight. Let's hope things improve tomorrow and that they get my luggage to me!!
My flights were on time. I had enough time at each airport to eat a snack I brought, go the the restrooms, and then some.
We arrived about 2 minutes early in Cartagena, then everything became a problem:
1. My bag didn't arrive, so that caused me to be at the airport much longer than necessary--first waiting for it, and then completing paperwork when it didn't arrive. Since there were adequate connection times--3 hrs in Houston and 2 hours in Panama City, it should have been here.
2. The first 3 ATMs would not give me money. And the 4th one would only give me the equivalent of $100 with a $3 fee!! To be honest, though, I thought I might not make it out of the airport without money!!
3. The ATM only gave me money in 50,000 COP bills (about $17), and my taxi ride was supposed to be 14,000 COP (a little less than $5). So I had to worry if I could trust the driver who said he would be able to give me change. Fortunately, that worked out okay, but it was stressful until he handed me the right change.
It's after midnight. Let's hope things improve tomorrow and that they get my luggage to me!!
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