The animals scavenging in the park for food here are not the same as in the states. There are monkeys… … beautiful red squirrels… … and bloody great black vultures. Parque del Centenario also has sloths and iguanas, but we didn’t see any of those. We’ll have to take another trip there. This was a good day for birding. As well as the black vulture we also saw the blue and white swallow… … the yellow-headed caracara (love the eye…
Paula spotted our first South American bird species today, a Red-crowned Woodpecker. It looks pretty similar to a Red-bellied woodpecker because those very rarely have red belly. This one was a confused and possibly neurotic woodpecker, as it was pecking at the stone walls of the city. Perhaps in another thousand years the woodpeckers will have made a hole big enough to let the battle swans through. We went exploring again today, had second breakfast from a street food vendor….
I think we are falling in love with Cartagena (pronounced Cart-a-hey-na). If you can imagine a cross between the French Quarter of New Orleans and the Mission District of San Francisco it’s not like that at all. Nowhere in America could you put up a random scaffolding of 2x4s to prop up your balcony and roof, but it’s pretty common in the old town here. Yesterday morning we docked Mantra at the marina, a tricky process that involved one of…
Four days crossing the Caribbean, and no sign of Johnny Depp. On Monday morning we cleared customs and immigration, Monday afternoon we got the boat ready to depart, and Monday evening and night we motor sailed round the western end of Jamaica and eastwards along the south coast. The idea was to have a better angle for the winds when we set out across the rougher waters of the southern Caribbean. We stopped on Tuesday morning and dropped anchor to…
Yesterday we picked Sherri up from the Airport, and drove back to the yacht club with a stop at the store, to pick up ‘one or two things’. This turned into a buying spree costing about 10,000 Jamaican dollars which sounds a lot but is only about $80 in US money. The Jamaican dollar started out worth more than the US dollar, but due to high inflation in the 80s and 90s it is now worth less than cent. Still…
In the tourist areas of Jamaica you either pay to get into a private facility with heavy security, or accept that people will be trying to aggressively sell you stuff or steal your stuff. Somewhere out there, I hope, is a real Jamaica full of nice people who aren’t trying to rip you off. We haven’t found it yet though. Exploring is stressful so we decided to return to the most beautiful and magical place on the Island, Rocklands Bird…
Last night we went to a floating restaurant called The Houseboat for dinner. It’s moored a little off shore in a marine sanctuary. Rather than extend to dock to the boat or use a long gangplank, you get out there by raft. You sit on the benches and the attendant casts off, gives the raft a good hard shove, and jumps aboard. The raft glides across to a soft landing on the houseboat. We sat on the roof so we…
First stop today was Doctor’s Cave Beach and the commercial strip that lies next to it. We found a paid parking spot close to the beach entrance, and before we had paid to park someone offered to sell me ganja. The beach costs $6 (US) a person to enter but for that you get a lifeguard, luxurious modern restrooms, showers, and changing rooms, as well as heavy policing. Yes, it’s a gated community among beaches. That’s the view from the…
Yesterday we flew into Montego Bay to join the sailboat Mantra owned by our friends Peter and Sherri. Sherri is in the US right now but will be back in Jamaica in few days, and we will help sail the boat to Colombia. In the mean time we get to be tourists. This morning we took our rented car up a steep, winding, narrow, busy mountain road to a steep, winding, narrow, badly-surfaced, single track but thankfully not quite as…
There is so much Rococo revival glop in the Flagler mansion in Palm Beach it makes you want to poke your eyes out, or at least go to Ikea and stare at cardboard boxes till your vision recovers. That was the drawing room, with the art case Steinway grand piano. The music room has it’s own organ. Flagler was a partner in Standard Oil, and then went on to build a railway down the East Coast of Florida and invent…