People of Colombia, I have a message for you. Pizza is not made with tortillas. I’m sorry, but it has to be said. The world will be a better place when you come to terms with that. Let’s not talk about lunch any more. Today was our last day in Cartagena. We leave early tomorrow. Goodbye Señor Perezosa. Adios Señorita Ardilla. Goodbye Señor Hard-To-Identify-Flycatcher (but probably Rusty-margined or Piratic) Farewell strange excuse for a squared rigged ship… … and slightly…
Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood. Welcome to Colombia’s smallest active volcano and day spa. Legend has it that the volcano used to spew fire and lava, but the local priest exorcized it and turned it into a mud bath. Why is that man not a saint yet? If that doesn’t constitute a miracle worthy of canonization I don’t know what does. The hell with turning a few jugs of water into wine, turning molten lava into mud…
After the excitement of the past few days we decided to take it easy this morning. At lunchtime we wandered over to a nearby house that was formerly the home of Rafael Wenceslao Núñez Moledo, President of Colombia in the late 19th Century, and author of the Colombian national anthem. The house is now a museum devoted to Núñez. A fair number of the signs include an English translation, which for once seems to have been proofread by a native…
Today we visited the new Colombian National Aviary. Here are some of our favorite birds there.
So. Occasionally I get inspired to chime in here. We are definitely liking it here. The Old Town is charming but after 4 days of being accosted by every hat seller on the streets, we made a break for it today. We took a taxi to the Castillo de San Felipe de Barajas, a big fort built to secure the city after Drake and others had plundered so successfully. Even on our approach, multiple people tried to get us to…
First stop today was the Museum of Gold, which was closed, but they had the best of the indigenous art on display in a bank across the street. My favorites were the animal and human figures. The Amazonian Wheeled Dragon… … Bicycle Repair Man… … Samurai Frog… … Lady Bigears… … and The Amazing Lobster Men. Next we went on to the church and museum devoted to Saint Petrus Claver. I must admit I spend a fair amount of time…
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…