Bob Salgado, my son’s father-in-law, and I begin a short
adventure into
We flew on TACA Airlines out of LAX. Our flight left at
We sat in the airport until it was almost
Since we had a two-hour layover before the
two-hour fifty-minute final leg into
The plane left as scheduled, although we were back in tourist class we had more legroom than before. That was important to me, but Bob was comfortable either way. Maybe because I didn’t have enough sleep this leg seemed almost as long as the first one.
Once we landed in
The best tourist trick worked on me. A man wearing an official looking uniform and
sporting a silver badge and police-type hat brushed several of these fellows
away and asked me to step aside. I felt
that I had to cooperate with this fellow and did as asked. I expected some sort of inspection or
questioning although I looked like an average sixty-year old white guy from
Speaking broken but understandable English he said that he was here to help us get a good exchange rate on the dollar and would escort us to the best place to do so. That was a dead-giveaway; he’s a tout too. I curtly thanked him and we broke away wandering to the edge of the airport to exchange some dollars but knowing that I’ll get a better deal in town, or certainly, outside of the airport.
We met Roberto Baez, a tour operator who had a small office
at the airport. His email address is roberto23)44@hotmail.com. We agreed to pay fifteen dollars US for him
to take us into town. We meant
All of the hotels he showed us were either too expensive or too shabby. Baez and a driver he used drove further. The Sun was beginning to set and Bob Salgado and I were hungry. They willingly stopped at a seaside restaurant, nothing fancy, just a white stucco building with bar stools that lined a window facing the ocean. I ate a filet of sea bass with oily French fries and boiled vegetables. Bob had red snapper with vegetables but his fish had hundreds of small bones that meant he had to eat very slowly. The two men with us just had a beer. It was a warm evening so I had a cerveza too.
Roberto continued to explain why it is difficult to get into
Again we began to check out hotels, one-by-one. Everybody reported that there was no vacancy. Today is Thursday so I am truly perplexed by this issue. Thursday. Driver and guide continued to go in and check out every hotel we said looked acceptable. We stopped at another hotel that looked reasonably clean, the Hotel del Rosita. The hotel was in the Central District that is not the tourist’s choice but it is getting late and we are both tired.
Salgado and I were extremely surprised when the driver and guide came back to the car and told Bob and I that not only did this hotel have a vacancy but the rate was only twenty US dollars! Happily we paid Baez and the driver. We dragged our backpacks into the hotel and up to the small reception counter. Bob Salgado confirmed that it was only twenty dollars. I looked at the room, each room only had a small bed, but it was clean and had a television.
The receptionist asked Bob if we wanted two rooms or one, and after looking at the size of the beds the only answer we could possibly give is emphatically “Dos!” I said with a smirky chuckle.
Mysteriously we were each given a room number but no key. The manager, who came out to see us, said that keys are, “…no neccessario.” Huh? not necessary? Bob Salgado said that the manager told him that they had such good security here that no keys are needed. I was uncomfortable with that. All our money and stuff could be stolen on the very first night! We could move elsewhere but how? The driver is gone and it is late. I guess we’re stuck here.
Once in the room I turned on the television set to see what news there might have been while we were in transit. There were only five channels; two sports and three sex channels. I was so tired I didn’t even have the strength for a shower; instead I just turned off the television and lay back in the bed staring upward to the ceiling. The ceiling had three mirrors mounted together to cover beyond the edges of the bed. Now it struck me. This is a sex hotel! And the twenty dollars is not for the night but, probably, per hour! I was going to walk to the receptionist to ask but I figured there wasn’t anything to do until morning. I figured Bob was asleep so I didn’t knock on his door. I began to laugh at how funny this was.
I woke up around
Out in front of the quiet restaurant we waited less than a
minute to catch a cab. While we were in the restaurant we reviewed the guidebook I brought
along and we called a couple of hotels that were in a better part of
I walked down the street to find an English-speaking cab driver. We needed someone to drive us around the city. My arrangement was for him to meet us at a corner in an hour, but he didn’t show up. It was very easy to find another English-speaking driver who was willing to spend seven hours with us for twenty-five US dollars.
First stop was the Parc Nacional. It had Nutria and a crocodile but little else other than local fauna caught around here. This was a sad example of a zoo. Kids were entertained there so I guess it serves one purpose.
We got back into the taxi and asked the driver just to take
a drive around the city to see what there is to see. He drove to a hilltop just south of the
city. It was a neighborhood of expensive
homes and fancy apartments or condominiums.
From the hilltop I took several photographs of
The heavyset cabby, Miguel, brought us through the business
district that looks very modern like any big metropolis. Stores would close at
Around
We walked out of the hotel into busy commerce. Every inch of the sidewalks were filled with small stands selling fruits, cooked foods,
clothing, both new and used, as well as toys imported from
We stopped a cab and asked him to take us to the sky ride that extended over three miles up a mountain, through a thick forest. I discovered that this was originally built to transport soldiers quickly from a training camp into the city in cases of civil unrest. Now it has been converted into a ride that costs fifteen dollars to take to the top of the mountain and a return ride.
I was surprised to see clear anti George W. Bush sentiment several places, but no directly anti-American feelings. There was a couple of hand-written anti-Israel signs hung in the park. If you were to look at the clothing, most tee shirts had something written on it in English, mainly American stuff so the people still feel a kinship to Americans, maybe the leader Chavez doesn’t. I saw many American brand names here, but few were authentic. There is a special fondness shown for many of the American sports teams.
There were several stands offering foods like roasted corn on the cob, hot cornmeal biscuits usually made with queso, a soft curd-like cheese. Machado is usually made with shredded beef, lots of fried onions, and a light sauce then used as a sandwich filling, but there are other ways it can be served using chicken or fish. Boiled rice, vanilla, ice chips, and milk are finely stirred together until the mixture has the consistency of soft ice cream then it is poured into a cup and topped with various flavors.
The city is quite large with a large population and covers a
large area of land. Although it looks to the contrary
On this sunny Saturday afternoon the streets were filled with people waving flags enthusiastically as punctuation for every sentence Rosales spoke.
Bob and I walked around this area by the hotel. There were numerous buildings of historic
importance to
The waiter presented the bill to Bob. We both looked at it. Not only was the charge for the pizza, a beer for Bob and the cantaloupe drink for me on the bill but tax and “servicio.” The waiter lied to Bob and told him that “servicio” was another government tax that they are required to charge to customers. The waiter insisted, when I questioned that through Bob, that he got no part of “servicio,” so we left him a small tip. Leaving a large tip draws attention and is not something independent travelers ought to do. Later, when we discussed this with a waiter at our hotel the waiter told Bob that we were cheated.
Both of us woke late today.
I wasn’t sure if the times change from Pacific
time to the time here which is four hours earlier, was what finally caught up
with us to make me sleep so late. Bob
was still snoring when I walked by his room and lightly knocked. No answer, just snoring so
I walked upstairs to the rooftop balcony restaurant. I had some orange juice, eggs and ham pieces
while I wrote in the journal. Around
Bob found a taxi driver who, for thirty dollars would spend
six hours to drive us around to new areas of the town. One area we especially liked was El Hatillo,
less than ten miles outside of
The driver brought us to what he described as the best Venezuelan restaurant in the whole city. It was very large and many people were going in or out. The interior was cavernous. It is called Los Lladros. There were seven men standing behind a glass wall rotating and turning meat on the open pit barbeque that was twenty yards long. Waiters zipped everywhere. As soon as we sat there was fresh hot bread, water and menus. Our guide/driver was invited to dine with us. It was a splendid meal in every detail. The price was only six dollars per person plus we had some beers and left a tip (since service wasn’t included already on the bill.)
There was a huge mudslide that greatly affected this area in December of 1999 from which recovery has only partly happened. The cab driver let us out in Las Mercedes area that seemed to be the most upscale, but Parc Central and Central were the most colorful and liveliest. The golf course used to be world famous until President Chavez took it over and claimed it was being done as a popular mandate. The people, he said, considered golf to be elitist. Currently the golf course is resisting by legal means but it seems to only be a matter of time before this is gone too.
We left Hotel de Catedral at $63 per night for a three-star place, but in my opinion worthy of maybe one and a half stars tops. The hotel is generally clean but not to extremes. They are more casual on that issue. The bath towels were small and thin plus they only supplied me with one. Since this was the last day I decided that I’d use the mattress sheet for a towel, you know, improvise. It was important to not be a little wet when traveling.
Bob had arranged with the driver from yesterday to pick us
up early this morning at
Our guidebook described Cartegena in much better terms than Bogotá.
Bob suggested we go from Bogotá that the weather report says
there is rain today, into
At the International airport we checked in and boarded the plane to Bogotá. The flight took less than two hours. Once in Bogotá I saw the gloomy weather and agreed with Bob that we should get out of here. This is a great advantage of not being in a group. We could be flexible and we could change plans if it was necessary. We paid $280 USD each for round-trip to Cartegena leaving from the domestic area of the airport. The flight took an hour.
While we were in Bogotá we called a hotel to make certain they had rooms available. Hotel San Diego in the historic district of San Diego, a neighborhood of Cartegena. The taxi line was the only way to get there short of the bus. For $5 we had been delivered to the hotel. Even the ride from the airport into this area was enough evidence I needed to confirm my decision to follow Bob. Cartegena was his idea, and I’m glad we are here.
Once here we got one room to share because it had two separate beds. I should say that this hotel was worth much more than $68 per night. Although there was no elevator this was a wonderful choice. It was in the historic district, walking distance to the beach, and everything we’d want was around here. If the hotel were in New Orleans French Quarter the room would certainly be over three hundred per night. I used the French Quarter because that is what this part of the town looked like.
It was a beautiful surprise to discover the city’s heart so quickly and directly, but this must be it. There was another quadrant of the city that stretched a tentacle out into the shallow bay and was populated by twenty hi-rise beachfront hotels that had a view from front and rear along this narrow peninsula. They were all ultra-modern with glistening stainless steel and lots of glass. The historic district was two short miles away.
Bob and I hired a horse, driver and carriage to take us
around the historic city slowly so we could see the sights in the
I stepped into the warm
Bob rented a windshield cabana for two thousand Pesos. I wouldn’t leave our valuables with the cab driver even though he appeared to be honest. There is a risk of banditry, the driver told us, along the beach.
The cab driver took us to
Our taxi driver at 15,000 Colombian Pesos per hour was okay
with waiting. His taxi, built in the
late 80’s, was air-conditioned and comfortable like
other taxis painted yellow like his.
While not metered, like the older less well-maintained cars in
Cartegenians are relaxed, easy to talk with, and they are all of mixed races.
Here I was told about racial mixtures by the cab driver that waited for us. Mulatto is Caucasian and Negro; Mestizo is Caucasian and Indian; Zambo is Indian and Negro. And other than what was at the beach, I saw no other signs of racism here and our cab driver said there are no racial issues here, everyone is equal. The current exchange rate is 2300 Colombian Pesos to one US Dollar. There are no black market currency traders that we see.
Bob and I went back to the hotel to wash up before we headed
into town tonight. The
While sitting at a table in the grand plaza looking around,
every street is alive with people and dancing colored lights. Most of the restaurants close after
The shower at the hotel doesn’t have a choice of temperature. It is naturally warm and pleasant, not hot. The stream of water is either on or off, that is the choice. I was amazed that there was some of the fine sand still tucked somewhere on my body being, now, washed down the drain. I felt clean for a moment but the humidity crept in and that super-clean feeling when you just step out of a shower was already gone. I turned on the air-conditioning before falling asleep. The cooling affect of the air-conditioning hadn’t struck me before I fell asleep laying on top of the crisp, white bed sheet.
I slept soundly until the morning. The Sun was already burning hot in this equatorial region.
After a quick shower I met Bob downstairs to have a light breakfast and enjoy a cup of coffee. Bob and I walked down the street to change some money into pesos because most people were happiest getting local currency. Bob went to the beach and I went exploring more of the city. Bob felt at ease to travel alone now. My feeble attempts at Spanish were usually passable, but Colombians were pleased that I was trying to speak their language and went out of their way to make certain things were working out for me.
I walked around the area looking at all the little things
that were for sale. I bought some things
that were totally unneeded like some fake expensive
brand of sunglasses with the case for twenty dollars. I bought a nice fake watch for twenty
dollars. I bought a motorcycle cut from a can of soda for a dollar. I bought Marcy a pair of emerald earrings for
seven hundred dollars. The junk was for
me. There was an area of
The evening was warm with a gentle breeze almost comfortable. The stickiness that comes with humidity began to make my shirt feel saturated; it was adhering to my body unpleasantly.
Bob was on his own today. I hadn’t seen him since we had changed some US dollars into Pesos. The rate in a currency exchange shop was 2412 Pesos for one US dollar. I had noticed a general decline in the value of both currencies Colombian and Venezuelan, even faster than the US dollar decline worldwide. When I was at the jeweler, he remarked that a year ago the dollar was worth 2900 in February of 2006.
It was about
I ate some grilled shrimp and had a cold beer then walked around without any particular plan but I used my GPS device so I could just get as lost as I wanted and it would guide me home. I bought a few trinkets, nothing of real value then I went back to the hotel and slept.
Bob and I woke up about
Once we arrived Bob and I hired a cab driver to take us around Bogotá during our seven-hour layover. He took us around the downtown area and past several government buildings. They have a sky ride to go to a hilltop for a nice view of the squalid city. I rode a llama for a short distance in the city streets. We stopped at the driver’s favorite sandwich shop. We enjoyed the meal there.
What I learned and My Reflections Back
Traveling with Bob, we found no signs of organized tourism in either country. They lacked the “souvenir” market. No tee shirts, trinkets, or for this issue, no maracas either.