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.