Time to pull up a comfy chair, a nice cup of hot chocolate and sit by the warm fire. (for those buried under the mountains of snow piling up in Utah) For everyone else I recommend at least a nice quiet area where you can tire your eyes by reading this nice long post. And yes this is only Part I. I was unsure on using roman numerals but I picked up a bootleg of all 6 Star Wars DVD here as a souvenir and now I’m inspired.
Colombia Part I however is beginning in Panama. I’m not sure how that is possible but I’m confident by the time I’m at the end of this post it will make sense. Or maybe not, I don’t really outline these things and sometime by the end I’ve forgotten where I started and heaven forbid I would actually proof read.
I entered Panama on New Year’s Eve. After a very long ordeal with shipping and finally putting Ruby Claire into the container (which I will eventually recount once I get over the frustration of the process) I found myself in the Panama City airport with 6 hours to kill before my 9:20pm flight on January 11th. I was flying to Cartagena on a small Colombian Airline called Aires. Their ticket counter didn’t open until 7 and all the shops/restaurants were behind the security checkpoint. That meant 4 hours of sitting on the floor of the airport passing the time. I read a lot. I emailed. I called a few people via Skype but most of all I was left to ponder the late night flight into a country whose reputation was not one of security. It saved me $60 to fly late and to be fair I had read on numerous websites that the Colombia’s lingering reputation from the late 80s/early 90s was unfounded and the country was one of great hospitality and natural beauty. But this is still the same country of cocaine and murdered soccer players.
I got my ticket, entered security and after a dinner of crispy M&Ms (the restaurant was packed with an hour wait) I sat down at the gate and put on the headphones. Luckily I spent the last year before my trip getting very used to airports and downtime. Time came to board and things just got weird. Instead of gate 20, we were gate 20A. Which meant walking down some stairs and climbing on a bus. Me and 25 Colombianos. I found a seat next to a woman with 3 bags and settled in for the unknown. The unknown turned out to be a nice long drive (like 8mins) out onto the tarmac, past all the other planes and out into the darkness. Eventually we came out of the dark and pulled up to a dual prop plane. I thought it was humorous and a bit sketchy. Apparently I wasn’t the only one. All the other people on the bus were cracking jokes and laughing about it too.
We boarded the plane and out came the rum. And it wasn’t just one person. Two guys had bottles and they were passing out shots to everyone. The attendant passed out the sandwiches and muffins for the short flight and the lights went out. I settled into an episode of The Office on the ipod. After arriving in Cartagena I found a spotless airport, pleasant customs and immigration officials and hot humid air. I had booked my hotel while in Panama so I had to track down a taxi. It was then that I found what would be the first of many examples of a very friendly nation of people. I had no Colombian Pesos for a taxi and the airport was officially closed as ours was the last flight of the night. They actually brought our luggage all the way to customs for us. I tracked down a security guard and explained the situation. He opened up the airport, literally unlocked the front doors, I didn’t know airports closed, and walked the 200 yards or so with me to the atm to get cash. I went outside hopped in cab and headed for the city.
As we approached the city my expectations were greatly exceeded. I knew the old city was inside an old Spanish fort but I had no idea it was so well preserved. The wall was 20 feet high and 40 feet thick. Even the tiny Peugeot cab felt massive on the tiny colonial streets. My hotel turned out to be immaculately maintained if not in a loud section of the city. I was unsure what the next morning would bring but my first hour in Colombia was very indicative of the next two weeks.
I woke late the next morning to a bustling city street and intense heat. Oppressive heat. Blinding heat. Yep it was hot. I was too late for the free breakfast but I still wandered up to the roof to snap some photos of the city then out for a walk to check it out. I was meeting a total stranger/internet friend from IH8MUD.com for lunch and had a few hours to kill. I visited a few of the shops, grabbed some juice, sweat, wondered in amazement at the centuries old city and the fact that I was in South America. Oh and I was sweating a little bit. I got an email on my phone as I was walking around from my friends Erin and Kevin whom Ben and I had met in Guatemala. They had just arrived in Cartagena also (they sent their bikes by plane to Bogotá a few days earlier and had circled north to the coast.) so I stopped by their hotel to say hi. I had to meet up with Frank so I said goodbye and hoofed it back to the hotel to change into a dry shirt before lunch.
Frank and his wife Andrea picked me up in 90 Series Land Cruiser also known as a Prado. The first Prado I would ever drive just a few days later. He informed me that despite my misgivings and social awkwardness he said his Mom would not let him take me to lunch anywhere but her house. I relented in that I had no choice and figured my bad Spanish would mask the shyness and discomfort about having strangers invite me into their home. This isn’t an American/Colombian thing either. This is my inability to behave properly in civil society. Socially retarded as I like to say. And don’t call me socially challenged because that description is not accurate. I am not challenged. My social skills were, at some point in my life, limited, retarded. I’m not offended by the phrase. Accuracy is a far loftier ideal than spineless political correctness. Okay mini-rant aside…
We headed south out of the old city into Bocagrande to Frank’s parents’ apartment. A sparkling clean high rise with magnificent views and a cooling ocean breeze. Frank, Andrea and I shared a meal of soup, rice, steak, and mushrooms. A damn tasty introduction to Cartagena. Already the food was better than Central America. Something that would hold true throughout Colombia. I chatted with Frank’s dad Christopher on the balcony for a while. A truly amazing man that I would have loved to talked to for hours. He went to the states with a 5th grade education and graduated from the University of Chicago with an MBA 6 years later. Yep doing his GED and undergrad work at the same time. Not sure how he pulled that off. He’d lived all over the US and had just recently returned to Colombia for ‘retirement.’ I don’t think building a hotel and 100 apartments on the beach is what most retirees do during their golden years. After lunch is when the truly great experience in Cartagena began. But for now I need to go to bed. I slept like crap last night and it was a long day. There will be some Ecuador posts interspersed through the Colombia write up over the next week or so. Why would I make it simple for you to read? But I hope you’ll all find it entertaining
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