Feb. 21 Day 6 Taganga to Villa Margarita

Feb. 21 Day 6
 The music stopped at about 7 am and started again at 7:30 so we gave up and had a nice breakfast in the hotel's courtyard.  That morning about half our group went snorkeling a short ride from the town.  We went to the border of the closed park that we would have visited if were not exploring the park in February and swam backwards.  It was no great barrier reef, but there were lots of colourful parrotfish and several lager schools of small, shimmery beasties.

 Back on land we had a nice lunch on the beach where vendors and stray dogs kept coming in to the restaurant.  There are a few cats about but tired-looking dogs seem to be all over the last few towns we visited.  A few of the patrons gave the dog some morsels so it was doing okay. 
 Back at the hotel tired, quiet lounging was the order of the day until we got into a bus and drove for 90 minutes to our next destination.  Along the way we noted that Columbian drivers were not afraid to take chances with oncoming vehicles when passing.
 After many narrow roads we ended up at Casa Margarita, starting with a steep walk up stone stairs but ending with a beautiful lodge with fantastic views.  The stone walkways went through the jungle and the three of us had a cabin on our own with a porch and hammock.  The pool had an edge view of the sea and animal noises could be heard everywhere in the lush vegetation.  Our cabin had an extra bed and had long stone shelves for our luggage, a great location that felt wonderful just to be in. 
 I took a nap and then read in the hammock while Meg and Wendy walked to the beach and reported that it was good with big, breaking waves that made swimming inadvisable.
 Our evening was spent eating good food and conversing with our travel mates.  Many people crawled off to bed early, which was understandable after the last night.  All we had to deal with this night was the jungle noises, which I find help sleep more than hindering it. 

Taganga beach view from our lunch restaurant.

The pool at Villa Margarita.

Feb. 20 Day 5 Minca to Taganga

The coffee woman, not to be trifled with.

A small taste of the hummingbird porch.

Feb.20, Day 5
 Up early for an excellent breakfast with sour (in a nice way) orange juice on a porch buzzing with dozens of hummingbirds.  We then piled into 4 x 4s up some very bumpy roads to a coffee plantation.  Unfortunately, 4 or so of our group were stomach-challenged and didn't like the thought of a long, bumpy ride. 
 After being properly churned by the drive we got a tour by the owner, a woman who had to be in her 70s.  She talked about  reluctantly taking over the plantation after her parents passed on s they wouldn't have to sell it off.  She was quite proud of her husbands inventions to augment the core machines which were mostly over 100 years old.  They made their own compost and used running water to move beans and power most of the plantation, either mechanically or electrically.  Se lamented how little (less than a dollar a pound) the growers got from the companies selling coffee and how difficult it was for a small plantation to get licenced to sell overseas.  She was a real force of nature and probably tough as nails.  Also, the coffee was excellent and Meg bought a slice of cake that kicked butt.
 We drove back along the same road and then pulled over for a short hike down to a swimming hole under a waterfall.  It was small but the water was cool and felt delicious on such a hot day.  Then is was back into the truck in our wet suits and back to our hotel for lunch.
 After some more hummingbird time we took paved but switchbacked roads that followed the coast into the big city of Santa Marta and then into the small beach town of Taganga.  It looked idyllic but Filipe warned us about not going more than 5 blocks away from the beach or over the lonely trail to another beach one cove over.  We were desperately in need to laundry so dropped that off and headed for the beach.  They rented beach chairs for a little over a dollar and the water was cool and deep.  Swimming and lounging was the order of the day until Filipe took us our for beer and rum shots on a beach patio.  Meg got tipsy and so we danced on the beach and things weren't so bad.  We had several great conversations with our fellow group members, these trips attract many seasoned travellers who have so much knowledge about places we are going or want to go to.
 We stumbled off to dinner at Babaganouche, which was one of the few things they didn't have on the menu.  The food and conversation were great and we found out that Filipe would be joining us for the last city week of the tour, which was not the original plan but was good news for us.
 Back at the hotel, we found that our neighbours liked cranking out football games and loud music.  Unfortunately, this did not stop.  Meg got up at about 4 am and a nervous guard told her it was carnivale.  Later, we found out it was a club two blocks away that the town and the police couldn't stop playing loud music for some unexplained reason. 

Beach town of Taganga with unnamed supermodel in foreground.

It basically went all night and few in our group got much sleep.  It was occasionally punctuated by loud bangs and would stop between songs just long enough for you to get your hopes up before starting again.  Brutal.

Feb. 19 Day 4 Cartgena to Minca

Weak wifi tonight so no pictures again.

We got up early to another lovely rooftop breakfast and then packed our bags for our trip to Minca.  Filipe outdid himself with a history lesson, commentary for the towns and landscapes we were travelling through and a cumbia soundtrack.  We passed through fields of brown grass as apparently El Nina had extended their dry season.  This was followed by lots of mangroves where Wendy identified white egrets and finally mountains that almost sprung out of nowhere, turning the road into a series of switchbacks as we headed up to our mountain hotel where the environment was rainforest. 
 We went through the largest coastal city in Columbia, Barranquila, where the national football team played matches and many towns with cinderblock and steel roofed buildings for living and the roadside markets that reminded us of the Philippines.
 Our hotel had a balcony overlooking the forest with hummingbird feeders clustered with dozens of the little critters.  In Canada we only have the ruby-throated one but these were all different colours and constantly flittering about. 
 We took a walk through the town which was more touristy than I expected.  Many non-Columbians were about and bars and restaurants were plentiful.  The motorbike is the main mode of transport here, which meant that pedestrians had to be even more vigilant than usual. 
 Most of the group signed up to take a yoga class and so we followed our instructor, Alex, on a walk into the jungle to his studio.  He was tall, Russian and looked like a yoga teacher with his beard, height and ponytail.  One of our group referred to him as the "Rasputin of yoga" which made us laugh because it was so true.  His studio was an open stage facing a mountain view and it was awesome being there and hearing jungle noises and seeing the sun set.  I should not have gone, however, as I had forgotten about my double-pinched nerve and many poses would aggrivate it.  Several times Alex encouraged me to bend more and assume positions and I just had to tell him "No!", as I did not want  a recurrence of the blinding pain I experienced when the injury was fresh.  At least my incompetence made the others feel better about their performance. 
 After yoga we headed to a bar with local beer and decent food.  There was a dog hanging around our table who ended up having half a burger and a decent amount of quesadilla for his troubles.
 After dinner we walked back, unfurled our mosquito net, got some reading done and went to sleep.

Feb. 18 - Day 3

Travellers in front of the fort.

Feb. 18 Day 3
 At 7 we went up to the rooftop patio for breakfast.  There was the fruit, cereal and eggs that you would expect but interestingly they had rice, chicken stew and lentils.  Everything was nice and luxurious.
 At 8:30 we hopped on our bus and met Elvaro, our guide for the day.  He was the master of the dramatic pause and answered all questions with a flourish.  We started at the huge fort that defended the city from British pirates.  It was made of a mixture of limestone and coral, which could be seen in all of the walls.  Our guide went through all of the design features that confounded the Cartagenian enemies.  He credited the fort's success to the Italian designers as they had fought off the Ottomans and so knew how to put together a solid fort.

A typical aisle of the market.

Next we headed to an actual local market, which was haphazard and buzzing with activity.  There were tons of fresh fish, fruit and vegetables from stall that were all built of their own design.  Men were running around pushing shopping carts with bumpers to shift merchandise.  Some stalls had huge pots of bubbling food and the concrete floor was strewn with garbage and discarded bit of produce.  Our guide informed us that the whole place was going to be torn down in a few years to make way for a resort and so many stalls were closed down while the owners waited for the expected government settlement upon demolition rather than sell their unwanted stall to someone else.  There were no other tourists here and it was by far the most authentic-feeling place we have seen in Cartagena.
We got on the bus to head back to the old city.  Every time we boarded everyone sighed at being back in the air conditioning as Cartagena is very hot and humid pretty much always.  We had a walking tour through Getsemani, which was the working class area of the old city but has now gentrified but with smaller houses.  He talked about the various battles for freedom and the significant slave trade.  Apparently much Peruvian and Mexican gold was held here before heading back to Spain and was used to build major structures in town, so someone quipped, "so the Mexicans really did pay for this wall to be built."
 After the tour we tipped and said goodbye to our city guide.  Meg cornered him to find out where to buy a raincoat and was given an address a short ride from the old city.  We stocked up on cash at an ATM as Filipe warned us that at all of our other stops in Columbia ATMs and restaurants accepting Visa would be hard to find.  We had a nice lunch of filled pastries with mango and corozo juice.  We then hailed a cab and headed to the address the guide had given Meg.
 The cab let us off at a large market filled with various tables.  We wandered around for awhile with all of the vendors hailing us and showing off their wares.  when we asked about raincoats they frowned and sometimes gave a name to ask for but nothing really worked.  we crossed the street to a fancy mall but they just suggested that we go back to the market.  Finally we found a place that had one plastic poncho under a covered rack, perhaps the last one in Columbia.  Meg got talking to the girl who found it for us and she has just been working there for a month with her aunt after she left Venezuela, where she had been studying law.  Meg gave her our contact info and we left with the poncho and a pair of flip-flops for Wendy.
 The market was about a block away from the large, sandy beach that outlines modern Cartagena.  It was a near-endless line of umbrellas and lounging chairs occasionally broken by lava boulder breakwaters.  We were offered chairs, drinks and water toys but the most persistent vendors were the massage women who would come around and grab you hand, feeling the muscles of your arm and rubbing some cream into your skin.
 We took a cab back to the old city and hit the museum of modern art again.  It was not opening from siesta until 3pm which gave us 45 minutes to hang out in the square.  Meg got brave and bought some fruit from a colourfully dressed woman who let us take her photo with the fruit purchase.  When we first entered the city  we saw some of these traditionally dressed women nd one yelled at the car ahead of us and walked away from it, probably because the passengers were taking her picture without paying or asking.  These women were all very tough looking and could probably take most tourists in a fair fight if they didn't pay for their photos.
 Finally the museum was open and we saw modernist, cubist stuff in the first room.  The next featured a local artist who was more quirky in his art and had a lot of carvings of large women doing everyday tasks.  Upstairs was a wild diorama with lots of toys babies falling out of the sky and Mandrake the Magician showing a book to upset-looking women with strings coming out of their heads and connecting to plastic bugs at the bottom of the work.  There was some other nice stuff too and the building was a wonderful old something or other that opened onto the city wall overlooking the harbour.
 We walked back to the hotel and grabbed some gelato along the way.  Meg pined over a chess set at a local vendor but decided to wait before purchasing it.  Back in the room I found that the unlock code for our phone didn't work for the SIM card Meg had purchased in the market but I was able to message Freedom and get it fixed.  Then Meg napped and  I typed this.
 We went out to a pricey but tasty restaurant with inattentive waiters with bluetooth clips on their ears.  Meg had to ask three times for hot water for her tea until I asked once and she got it.  We also had a good talk with our fellow traveller Andrea who had just spent two weeks in Patagonia on a trip similar to the one we were planning and so got some good advice and saw some nice pictures.  Meg was definitely into the idea of frolicking with penguins on an island close to the bottom of Argentina.
 On the way back from dinner Meg decided to buy her chess set but all the shops on that street had closed for the night.  As we got ready for bed we found an old episode of Game of Thrones on the tv and so were in good spirits when we went to sleep.

Day 2 - Cartagena

Feb. 17 Day 2 - Blogger has decided that it won't let me post pictures today so it's just text.
 We woke up well-rested and headed up the rickety, steep stairs to our rooftop breakfast.  The view was excellent and the boy serving us was careful to get every utensil in the right place.  The food was good and we tried to use our limited Spanish with the staff.  When Meg tipped the cook she was also very she about receiving the money.
 Back in our rooms we watched a Chilean morning program and repacked our backpacks.  We dropped our stuff off at our new hotel(we arrived a day before our trip group started so that we could get a direct flight) and tried to find money.  After two machines said they couldn't contact our bank we saw a bank crowded with tourists, a good sign.  Success!
 Next it was off to the Museum of Cartagena in the Palace of the Inquisition.  It's a small museum that informed us that it was under renovation and lost a lot of its collection in the troubled 90s.  There were about 4 rooms per floor with the first one focusing on human rights and the inquisition and the second on the history of the city.  Each room had one explanation in English but we had to use our terrible interpretive skills to figure out what the artifacts were.  The models on the second floor were nice and the huge park area of the museums with stocks and gallows were weird but not a whole lot to see here.
 The Museum of Modern Art was our next stop but it didn't open until 4pm on Sundays , to accommodate church and siesta time we figured.  Now we were hunting lunch and landed in a small place offering a vegetarian lunch.  The two helpers in the restaurant couldn't tell us what it was or how much it cost so that chef had to come out and set things straight.   This place seemed more authentic than our previous restaurant, serving us vegetable rice with beans and fried bananas.  The hot sauce de la casa was excellent and no one was disappointed with their grub.
 Meg was up for a nap at this point but the hotel still wasn't ready for us so we walked to the playa.  It was outside the city walls with tall waves smashing on large volcanic boulders.  We walked through a little park where two people were sleeping under bushes nd a statue devoted to gannets (alcatraz in Spanish).  We walked back along the city wall, which seemed low for a defensive wall but maybe had lost height over time, and began to feel the heat. 
 Back at the hotel, the rooms were ready and so we settled in before our G Adventures launch meeting on the rooftop patio at 6 pm.  We arrived and met our guide and 14 co-tourists.  We were expecting to amongst the oldest in the group but were more in the middle.  In the middle of Filipe's presentation fireworks started going off behind him, which was a nice touch.  Most of the group had been travelling for a week already and we were the replacements.  It amused them that they lost, then gained a Canadian couple and a Swiss woman. 
 We walked to a restaurant and found the people we spoke to as being pleasant with many people being seasoned travellers.  We had a mojito made from corozo, a local tart berry, which went down really well.  We had been drinking the tap water but our guide advised that we switch to bottled.  Confusingly he was fine with the sliced fruit sold on the street, which is usually listed as one of the first things you are not supposed to touch.  So far our stomachs are alright.
 Back from the restaurant it was straight to bed as we were to have an early start the next day.

Day 1 Toronto to Cartagena

Wendy suggested that I get these up quickly.  Our laptop has a small memory and came with a crappy read-only version of Word so I'm using Wordpad which doesn't have editing tools.  Placing it quickly trumps placing it edited three months later.
Feb. 16 Day 1
 After many exhausting days of getting our house packed up and signed over to our leasees we thanked Derek and Hayley for letting us crash at their place and driving us to the airport.  Lineups were short and Wendy(Owen's sister) was at the gate.  The only stress came when I checked my g-mail and found that I had booked a hotel in Patagonia for Feb. 17 instead of March 17 and worked on correcting that problem.
 On the plane, the woman sitting next to us was willing to trade seats with Wendy so we got to sit together.  The only bad things about it was that we were last row so our seats had no reclinability.  After a few hours we needed to stretch our legs and so met up with our new friend, blue-coiffed Sticky.  She works with an agency dealing with drug addiction so had lots to talk about with Wendy and Meg and also was the bassist in Weeping Tile, amongst other projects so lots more to chat about.  The whole flight was pretty painless and they handed out Kitkats with lunch.
 Cartagena customs was overstaffed as it appeared that half of the officers were just texting on their phones.  That was because one officer took our $90 entry fee and the other looked at the receipt for that fee and then stamped our passports.  Wendy had left her customs slip on the plane but the woman taking the slips didn't want to find a new blank one for her and so changed the family of two slip (Meg and mine) to a family of 3 slip. 
 The instructions for getting a cab were clearly posted, which gave us some relief and two of our co-travellers on our Peru trip were car-jacked upon their arrival.  The taxi took us mainly along the coast until we went through a gate through some only city walls into the old city of Cartagena, UNESCO heritage site.  Our first impression was that it was a labyrinth of one-way and closed streets with vendors walking everywhere and taxis honking at stopped vehicles and potential customers.  Our hotel had basic, clean rooms and setup with a wonderful courtyard area filled with palm trees, flowers and disassembled scaffolding.  
 Meg needed a nap so Wendy and I went out exploring.  The sidewalks were narrow and sometimes blocked, forcing us onto the roads where the traffic was busy but slow-moving.  We saw a park where these yellow-breasted birds flew like bats as they tried to eat big bugs.  There were beggars that offered you a candy presumably in exchange for a handout.  Vendors constantly offered you their wares but left you alone once you said no, which made the process much less threatening than when we travelled in Egypt and Morocco.  Most of the restaurants offered pizza and many had touts promoting them, which in our experience has meant mediocre, overpriced food.  We saw plants along the street completely covered in cages, which I suppose would protect them but cancelled out any beautification value. 

Prisons for plants.

We saw some dancers by the city wall that were always finishing up their routine when we peeked over to see what they were up to.  There was a market where stall after stall displayed cookies and candy and many of the candies looked like multi-coloured sea urchins.

 Back at the hotel we woke Meg up and got advice from the guy at the front desk.  Yes we could drink the tap water (although this is much debated online), no we could not put toilet paper in the toilet and the place to experience Columbian food was the Plaza de Santa Dominga, so off we went. 
 The plaza was a large one across from a church ad was set up with outdoor tables and roaming touts.  We looked for options around the square but all of the tables were served by one pizza joint.  We then went to a seafood restaurant that overlooked the square and watched to fun.  There were musicians circulating with guitars and accordions offering to serenade tables.  All of the people receiving their services looked happy so I don't think they forced themselves on anyone.  There seemed to be a code as when one band started up the others took a break so there was rarely more than one song going on at a time.  There was an amatuerish belly dancer and a very good group of break dancers who put on shows in the middle of the square for about 5 minutes and then went around to the tables with a hat.  We were glad to be above the square as there was a constant flow of vendors selling knick knacks, noisemakers and glow sticks circulating amongst the tables.  There were also two Spider Mans and a Bat Man but they just seemed to be hanging around.  The other attraction in the square was a reclining statue of a large naked woman whose buttocks were shiny from being rubbed.  This seemed to be THE photo spot on the square. Our food was overpriced and just okay (are rock lobsters always dry of did they cook it wrong?).  Our waiter was ethically sketchy as he insisted that the SV 10% on our bill wasn't for service but was a tax.  He also told us the line wasn't working for Visa and so we needed to pay cash.  Hmmm.
 We were wiped, so we strolled back early and went to bed, glad for the air conditioning.

The square: half diners and half entrepreneurs.

The intrepid travellers.