beach and Medellin

After our couple of days and nights in the old part of Cartagena, we went to a beach hotel ~20 minutes away. The beach was probably one of the ugliest and least appealing we've ever seen, so we just hung around the pool. The food at the restaurant hotel was amazing -- good thing, because there was nothing else in the vicinity.

the inside of our morning arepa -- somehow there is an egg inside that thin, crispy crust

this is how it looked before we cut into it -- like a very thin, crisp balloon

lots of bougainvillea everywhere, so pretty

we spent most of our time around the pool, which we shared with dozens of wasps.
I got very sunburned.

sunset over the Caribbean

We had a very short flight over the mountains into Medellin, where we rented a car and enormous tension ensued for me, the driver. Medellin is such a big and crowded city, there are days and times of day that we were not allowed to drive in the city. Luckily, none of those times/days intersected with our very brief time in the city. But the fact that they need to do that tells you something about the crowdedness of the city. It's not as insane as traffic in Vietnam, nor are there are as many motos, but there was enough of it all to make me stressed out. Motorcycles suddenly appear out of nowhere and weave in and out, and I never knew exactly where I needed to be. By the time we finally got to the hotel (during rush hour) I was a noodle. The premiere beer is apparently Club Colombia, which I didn't like very much, so I had an Aguila beer and settled down a bit.

Our hotel in Medellin was . . . strange. It's called the Art Hotel, and I gather it sees itself as some kind of center of the arts, with rooms. There was a three-person exhibit hanging on the walls of the lobby, and the lobby also included a movie theater. The place was stark, and except for the enclosed courtyard, around which the rooms circled, there was absolutely no light to be had. Our room was so dark we had no idea what time of day it was, ever.

here's the central courtyard -- the rooms were set so far away from it, and tucked underneath
overhanging walls, leaving them in near-complete darkness. Moody, I guess?

and here's the theater. They were showing Biutiful, among other movies. Kind of strange, yes?

We went to a nearby restaurant for dinner, and most of the dishes included fat back. This is a tough place to be a vegetarian. The choices were chicken with fat back, pork with fat back, beef with fat back. I can't remember if there was a fish option, but if there was it came with fat back. I got a piece of grilled chicken, one of the rare options that didn't include fat back.

Marc's dish -- super fine ground beef, a big curving piece of fat back, some kind of sausage, an egg,
a bowl of menudo possibly (it included tripe), and a big bowl of beans.

GIANT CHICKEN

condiments, including an arepa, a bowl of chopped cilantro, something yummy in oil, a half an avocado and a banana

There is almost NO English spoken here; the people at the front desk spoke English well enough, but it's very strange, it's as if everyone else has no awareness that some people don't speak Spanish. When we fumble our way with our tiny bit of Spanish -- primarily including no habla espanol -- they simply keep speaking Spanish as quickly as before, and with no acknowledgement that we don't have a clue what they're saying. We found more English in Laos. We don't expect people to speak English; we are in their country, after all, the onus is on us, but it's just very strange the way they don't seem to understand that we can't understand them. Ordinarily people get that, and then slow down and start acting things out, speaking very simply. Not here. Maybe there has been no English-speaking tourism for so long because of the drug cartels and wars? No idea. We stopped for coffee before heading out for our day in Medellin, and I ordered a cup of drip coffee. The woman who served it spent 10 minutes, I think, telling me the history of coffee in Colombia, the three coffee-growing regions, the different climates in each and how they affect the beans, on and on. I THINK. I caught every 25th word, more or less. She just kept talking and talking, her whole spiel. It's kind of funny, but also frustrating that we can't work together in some way. I feel reduced to the position of a child. I can say please, thank you, no, yes, more, I don't understand you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

The main thing we planned to do, during our very brief one-night stay in Medellin, was to take a cable car ride up to a stop on one of the mountains surrounding Medellin. We took a cab through the city, and in one place came upon what might have been a big police action of some kind. There were armored trucks and police decked out in full armor; they looked like action figures with big guns. None of the people standing around seemed upset by any of it. This is one problem with not knowing the language at all -- we rarely have any idea what's going on. Sometimes that's scary, sometimes confusing, and sometimes kind of fun. It can lead to a "well, who knows, let's do it!" adventure.

We'd planned to ride the cable car up to the end of the line, walk around a bit, maybe have lunch, then return to the hotel. We bought our tickets and -- like everyone else there, including natives -- had to have the police help us figure out how to use our ticket to get through the turnstile. Seriously, almost no one knew how to do it. We climbed aboard, and in the cable car realized there was another trip we could take at the end of this line. Hmm. We'll see. So up we went:

very fancy cars and stations

and up we go, up the mountain and over what we think are poor communities

up we go, Medellin spreading out below -- I am afraid of heights but this wasn't scary

higher up, more rural

beautiful, in the clouds

So we got to the end of the line and decided to transfer and take the other trip. We had no idea where it went, how far it was, NOTHING. We knew it went up, and that's all we knew. Adventure!

Transfer -- much more expensive trip.

And up we went. Into the cloud forest. We never saw another soul on the trip up.
No one in the cars coming towards us. No one. Ever.

On and on, up and up, no idea where we'd end up. It seemed eternally to go up.
I started wondering if we'd slipped into the Twilight Zone. Maybe we'd crossed
into the land of the dead.

A gap in the clouds -- we could see below! What's that, near the base of the tower?
Dos caballeros!

We were really starting to wonder if we'd ever stop. Finally we stopped climbing and settled into a straightaway, then a slight descent, and then we saw the terminal station coming up. What could possibly be up there? We were on the other side of the mountain, but hadn't seen any living anything for such a long time. It seemed to be some kind of natural park, but we don't really know what it was.

what we found at the top

pretty flowers -- and a very few people, aside from the few who worked there

This sign was in the car heading back down to the ground. DANG. I really felt like doing some prancing.

We navigated our way through getting a cab back to the hotel, then we were off to Santa Fe de Antioquia, a 54km drive. Of course I kept taking the wrong turns so we went for a good 45 minutes with 54km still to go, but we finally made it. I'll put all that in the next post.

And then there was this:

We had great hopes for our choice of restaurant for dinner, and as everything else has been so far, it was a mixed bag. Truly wonderful ceviche, topped with a thin layer of luscious guacamole. Oh yeah! So good! And then we both (foolishly, as it turned out) ordered nachos, which came deconstructed AND instead of chips they came on thin fried plantains. Nothing about it worked. If only one of us had ordered a different thing, we could've split it. Oh well.

So we took a walk after dinner, back to the square where we spent some time today. We'd seen them setting up something -- could've been a band, a fashion show (there was a red carpet down the middle), no idea. As we got closer, we heard this fantastic drumming, and as we got closer still, there was THIS:

I have other little videos but they're too big to upload directly into Blogger so I'll have to deal with them another way. Oh I was so happy I was laugh-crying, which happens to be one of my specialties.

We stood and watched several different dances, then stopped for some fresh pineapple, then passed by the set-up we'd seen all day. Turned out they had a gigantic movie screen and rows and rows of plastic chairs. There was a popcorn vendor, the whole thing. Families with kids, mostly, though what they were watching looked like a homemade documentary and seemed kind of sad.

WOW. What a way to close off my day. That made me so happy I can't stop grinning.

Cartagena

I have one job, and one job only. Marc makes all the plans, organizes everything, prepares packets with all the information we need, identifies restaurants, all that stuff. All I have to do is show up with the camera. I showed up, but forgot the camera. AAARGH Lori. So all our photos are iPhone photos.

After such a brutally cold and bitter winter, we were happy to be flying off to such a hot, sunny place. Of course the weather in New York turned mild just before we left, so the contrast wasn't as great as it might have been, but it is still hard to remember that it's winter back home in this hot, sunny place.

such an easy little flight; only 5 hours, blue skies, and puffy white clouds

In Cartagena we're staying in two different hotels. Our first hotel is in the old city, inside the walls. It's fine, the people are very warm and friendly at the desk, and the location is good. Our experience of Cartagenos so far is that they are friendly and engaging, they don't speak English, and if they're trying to sell you something on the street they're not very pushy. One or two 'no gracias'es and off they go with a smile.

it's a teeny little airport, with friendly immigration people

the lobby of our hotel -- the prettiest part of it

we're on this street -- old colonial charm, for sure

Our first day was a mixed bag. We needed to exchange dollars for Colombian pesos, found the bank, stood in line, and needed our passport, a copy wouldn't do. Before heading back to the hotel, I wanted a limonada and we just couldn't find anything to drink, and the wind started whipping around, blowing my dress up in my face, my hair all over the place, and adding to my already uncomfortable feeling. We finally sat at a little table and got a small cup o' ceviche -- very good, actually -- and some kind of drink that tasted exactly like Tang but had some pulp. Limonada it wasn't. Back to the hotel, trouble with the safe, Marc returned to the bank, we headed out for a walk, it was still windy, I felt despair. (OK, a nickel version of despair.) I was thinking I didn't like Cartagena very much, it felt like a copy of Oaxaca and not distinct as its own place, and after we walked up and down a couple of streets it just all looked the same.

Back to the hotel. Nap. Felt a bit better. But here -- you can see what I mean about it all looking the same, even if "all the same" is really lovely and colorful and charming:

I have dozens of street pictures like this.

Yeah. Beautiful, charming, each one more colorful and flower-ful than the last. I think it sometimes takes me the first day to figure out how to see and be in a new place. And maybe a nap. The strange thing is that Colombia is in the same time zone as Texas, so it's not like there is any jet lag to deal with; maybe I just need to take in a bit, take a nap and let it integrate into me, and then I'm good to go.

We had a 7pm reservation last night at a small restaurant, and finding it was hard. We'd read that on TripAdvisor, but they weren't joking. It doesn't help that neither of us speaks Spanish; we kept stopping and asking for help and everyone was very generous in their assistance but we had no idea what they were saying. So we wandered and wandered and wandered, up this dark alley (in a part of town called Getsemani, where tourists are advised to be a bit watchful), over a block, turn right at the white building, go there, it's over there, down there. We finally found it and I was so frazzled I completely forgot  to take pictures of anything -- but the food was fantastic. Marc got a gorgeous tomato soup with shrimp in it, and you could taste the fresh roasted tomato and onion and garlic, and the shrimp were perfectly cooked. I got grilled fish, and the coconut rice and salad that came with our meals was so great. Oh my, that rice, I'll want it again and again.

Marc said we weren't ever lost, the restaurant was lost. We went directly there, just in a roundabout way. That cracks me up every time I think about it.

Getsemani graffiti

The next day just looked better, out of my eyes anyway; I think Marc enjoyed himself the first day more than I did, but even he felt better today. After a nondescript breakfast at our hotel (seriously, you have to go far out of your way to get bad fruit here....), we set out walking.

This is an arepa -- a well-known snack. It's a crisp-fried corn cake with cheese and butter layered
inside. See the grease on the paper? We both think one arepa was enough for us.

the Cartagena coast, at least near the old part of the city. Not a good swimming beach.

giant cathedrals. Giant.

oh -- this is from our first night. The clock tower in the old wall.

When I think of Cartagena, I'll think of fabric stores. Seriously, at least on our street, every third store
is a fabric store, or a store that sells ribbons, lace, buttons, etc. It's all very bright and colorful and patterney.

Pedro de Heredia -- conquistador and founder
of Cartagena

dos frutas. THAT is how watermelon should be, I'm telling you.

Instead of Starbucks, Juan Valdez Cafes are found all over the place. Inside it's just like Starbucks.

not only is that a lizard door knocker, there's a small door
in the huge door. 

standing on the old wall. Day 2, I'm in a better humor.

There are little squares, plazas, parks sprinkled throughout the old city. We liked this one --
I tried but couldn't get a picture of the square but liked this shot of Marco.

monochrome -- Marco and a catedral

here's a bit of the old wall. Kind of rampart-ey if you ask me.

most of the door knockers were lizards. Then I spotted an owl.

A pair of Pegasi. In front of the Civic Center.

Religious graffiti

Ah! Here's the statue in the middle of the park we like -- benches circle around the plaza.

I love that old architecture -- Teatro Colon next to Teatro Cartagena

Cartagena is a big destination for tourists, and has some very expensive hotels and restaurants. We can't quite figure out why. The beaches aren't good for swimming, you've seen the old city, and we think we've exhausted the possibilities here. It's charming, it is, and a nice place to walk around. But hmmmm.

Anyway -- dinner tonight at a local-type place, then tomorrow we leave this hotel and go to one that's still in Cartagena, but in the direction of Venezuela (east? north? I don't know.). It's on the beach, but we'll see what the beach is like before we call it a beach hotel. It has a pool, and it's not in the midst of a neighborhood of any kind, so if all else fails we'll lounge in the sun by the pool. HOW BAD CAN THAT BE.