Back in the States

Well, Colombia was absolutely amazing. I wish I could have posted more after the second day, but I just didn't really have the opportunity to. A lot of the time I was too wiped out by our busy days or I just forgot to or didn't get to an internet cafe. I guess to start I should talk about Wednesday night.

We went to a bar down the street called Cafe Havana (it was Cuban-themed) where they had a live band. It was awesome! They were really quite good and we enjoyed that for a bit. The drinks were really expensive (7000 pesos/$3.50 for aguila beer) Here are some pictures of that (I still have to figure out how to get videos uploaded):


Anyhow, on Thursday, I had to spend the first half of the day by myself while Marta was out working on getting her cédula. I went next door to a little restaurant that was run by two young girls who I later found out were 17 and 19, which was pretty crazy. I ordered arepa con queso, una porcion de piña and café con leche. There was an adorable little family sitting next to me. They were British and had a son who was probably 4. The whole family speaks spanish, in addition to english, and the little boy cried out, "pero quiero miel" when the girls forgot to give him honey with his cereal and yogurt and fruit bowl. It was adorable because he was so little and it was so very unexpected. I met an older gentleman (now retired, probably about 60) who was from Germany and we carried on a conversation in Spanish over our breakfasts. It was very interesting being able to communicate with him all in Spanish. Neither he nor I were perfect, but we communicated quite effectively and I got to meet someone totally new and unexpectedly. Then I headed off to look around the city a bit by myself.

I was a little nervous about walking around by myself mostly because of how everyone stared at me and hooted and hollered regularly at my blonde hair, fair skin, long legs, and unusual height. I was nervous I'd be harassed by someone begging or something. You certainly can't deny that the street vendors target me as a tourist who they could sell their wares to. As such, I decided to stay relatively close to wear the hostel was. I took a big loop around some of the streets, pretty much. I walked down to a little plaza type place that Marta had told me about that had this big bright yellow church on one side with statues of three people walking in front. I sat there and read for a bit, just enjoying the open air and freedom. A donkey-drawn cart strolled by and I people watched a bit. Then I headed further west out to where the water is, and walked along the street where the water was. It was mostly boating waters and there wasn't much beach, but it was still nice walking. I didn't really know where I was, but I ended up walking up to where the Convention Center is and took some pictures of that and an old theater, the Tetro Cartagena, which was very pretty. Then I headed back down the street our hostel was on. I hung out there for a little bit, expecting Marta to be back soon for lunch.
It took longer than expected and I was getting really hungry so I decided to walk down to the corner store and try to get some bread or snack type things to hold me over till lunchtime. Right after I walked out, there was a guy in front of me walking who was staying at our hostel and he introduced himself. His name was Guillaume and he was from Quebec but had been in Colombia for a month studying geology for his master's degree, which is interesting, I suppose. He was looking for someplace to eat and wanted to go to Cafe del Mar, which Marta and I had seen earlier. I told him roughly where it was. We started talking and I ended up walking all the way there with him. Cafe del Mar is on the top of the wall that surrounds the historic part of the city (la ciudad murallada) and has a beautiful view of the city and of the water and surrounding area. Marta and I had hung out up there earlier. It turned out that Cafe del Mar was closed and we walked to la Plaza de Santo Domingo, which is a plaza with lots of restaurants, a sort of much smaller verison of the plaza mayor in madrid. It was touristy and significantly more expensive than anything else in Cartagena (20-30 thousand pesos, or 10-15 bucks)

I didn't eat anything because I knew I would be meeting up with Marta for lunch a little bit later. We walked back to the hostel and found Marta there. We went to Kokoriko for lunch/dinner/lunner/dinch/whatever you want to call it. Kokoriko is a fast-food chicken type place. It looks just like a fast food place when you walk in, but you sit down and someone comes and takes your order. But everything is surved in plastic throw away cups and with plastic forks and knives. It was weird. I had fried chicken, salad with corn carrots and peas and french fries. It was delicious.

Then we hung out a bit at our hostel and whatnot. We went to a panaderia and had bread for dinner. Guave and arequipe filled breads and cheese bread and we had postobon soda, which is a fruit soda that is super common in Colombia.

That evening we had one of our only other nights out of the entire trip. We went to a bar across the street above a hostel. We got mixed drinks at half price because the bartended had to make extras for a photographer to take pictures of for the bar's website. Since he had to make them and they weren't specifically for anyone, we got to get them for half price. We went to the bar with about a half dozen people from the hostel we were staying with. Most of them were Irish, but there were a couple Americans, and Australian or two, and a French girl in the mix. On the roof of the bar there was a sitting area that had beautiful views of the city and of Castillo de San Felipe, which was all lit up and looked really pretty. After that, we headed to the apartment of one of the american guys (Shawn). He was renting the apartment and it was right in the middle of la ciuded murallada, which was cool. We hung out there for a little bit, listening to lots of Michael Jackson (RIP) and then we headed home pretty early because marta had another early morning ahead of her the next day.

El Castillo de San Felipe

Coming up: the journey to Santa Marta, Rodadero, y Bello Horizonte, and the 7th annual Beach Ultimate Tournament in Santa Marta, Colombia.

xoxo,
A

Un dia de adventura

Today was a day of adventure indeed. We didn´t get to do too much sightseeing, in the traditional sense of the word, but we certainly saw some sights. Marta had to go to the gobernacion building in the walled part of the city to woek on getting her cedula and passport stuff straightened out. When we got to the gobernacion, we found out that she had to go get her photos taken at a little photo shop a few blocks down the road. We got the photos and then we had to go to this other government building... the registraduria? something like that.

It is just this little building hidden off the street several long blocks away. She went inside this little two-story building, hoping this would be the answer, but instead the guy at the entrance basically was no help. He took us upstairs and then took Marta into some room (I didn´t go, instead, I stayed outside the door, and got stared at by roughly 8 people who had never seen such a tall blonde pale giant before...). Marta came out of the room, dissapointed and frustrated as can be because they basically were like, no, this is no good, to her old cedula which we already knew because it had been CANCELLED. So, she had to go down to a banco and pay for the fee for a new cedula and then she went back and the guy again told her she had to go elsewhere... and by that he meant to a completely different part of Cartagena on the other side of town, behind a public library in some tiny building.

So, we decided to take a brief break from Cedula hunting and walked/took a bus to Bocagrande, a place that kind of jutts out into the ocean from the main part of Cartagena. It´s got lots of pretty beach space and a lot of taller buildings and touristy type places. we saw a blockbuster video and a McDonalds there. Also, puma store and quicksilver stores. We ate at a crepes place (Crepes & Waffles, it´s named) and it was DELICIOUS. We split a savory (mozz cheese, basil, fresh and dried tomatoes) and a sweet (nutella & banana, is there anything else) Also, chocolate milkshake! We walked along the beach a bit, went to a shopping market like publix. Then we took a taxi to this rando library that Marta had to go to for her cedula. There, the guys who were working at this little desk basically told her they had given out all the numbers to see people already (I gues it´s like the post office or the deli counter where you wait for your number to be called, except there is a limit to the number of people they can see in a single day. They did inform her, however, that ¨If you do something for me, I could do something for you¨, basically asking for a bribe to get her in.

She said no, so we caught a bus to this other place ou could go to do the same thing. On the way there, Two payasos (clowns) came into our bus and did a little routine and one had this horrible laugh that was like a indicator of a punch line. It was terrible sounding. We stopped at this little building, which was behind a gas station down this road where there were literally NO signs and you had to have telepathy to know it was there. We found it and went inside, and this guy gave her a number and we waited for her to be let in. While we were waiting some other people came in and sat and waited, I guess for the same thing Marta was waiting for. This one older lady started talking to marta and wanted to know how old I was and I told her 22, and she said I looked younger than that (should I be insulted or happy? At 22, I feel like its not a bad thing or a good thing) Then Marta got called and the lady talked to me. This other guy also asked how tall I was and I had to convert to cm which was hard to do on the fly from 75 inches. The older lady thought Marta was my mom, and I was like nope. We don´t look alike at all. She asked me what I was studying and whatnot. She thought Marta was learning English and I was learning Spanish. I was like, well not exactly. All of this was conducted in Spanish, mind you. :-) Anyways, the lady there wouldn´t complete her paperwork because she didn´t know her bloodtype. So Marta has to get some kind of bloodwork done or something.idk

A note about buses and driving in Colombia. People are crazy drivers. Our taxi driver rolled down his window and just started yelling at this guy who cut him off earlier and almost got us in an accident. It was crazy. There are so many sudden stops and intense horn honking. I wish I could just film a ride so you could have an idea about how crazy it is. Also, the buses are public, but they are all privately own, so basically they have no set routes or stops. You just kind of stand up when you want to be let off and they just pull over and stop very briefly for you to hop off. It´s about 50 cents to take a bus pretty much anywhere. Also, since all the buses are personally owned, they are all pimped out by their drivers. It´s crazy. For example, every bus has carpet on the dashboard and a special shift cover made of the same material. There are often lights (of the blue and red and yellow variety) that flash regularly. Also, images of the virgen carmen, the protector of drivers. Also, weird-ass curtains. It´s like a crazy version of pimp by bus.

After that, we took another bus back into El Centro. We went to El Exito, which is kind of like a walmart. I got some caramels and some gold havainas sandals. We got an arepa from a street vendor which was delicious and greasy. We got a bit turned around when we left and couldn´t find our way back immediately. We kind of wandered aimlessly, stopped in a bakery and got roscones (sp?) de guayaba which, paigey, you would adore.

Then we finally got back on track. We passed through the park that had monkeys, but we couldn´t find the monkeys. Instead, we saw a bunch of kids prepping for a skating competition. They were all wearing rollerblades and had these uniform type things from different schools and stuff. It was so cool and cute. Anyways, we were walking around the park and then headed back the hostel for showers and dinner. We went to this little restaurant around the corner a ways that had a lot fewer touristy people and Marta got soup and her soup had a chicken foot in it. No joke. Naturally, I took a photo, so that´ll be up later.

We took a picture of Casa Viena on our way home from dinner.

I have to figure out what I´m doing tomorrow. Marta has to get up early(8am) to find out what blood type she has at a doctors and go down to the cedula place. Hopefully I can find someone here at the hostel to hang out with and see some places. I don´t know, I just don´t really want to venture out on my own. Pretty much all day today EVERY guy that passed by stopped and stared or said something ridiculous, either all the english they knew or, if they knew no english, lots of spanish stuff. Often a guessing of the height (2 meters, I heard once, which is an overestimate). It was just a bit strange.

That´s all for now!

xoxo,
A