La Costa: Part IV
Cartagena
April 9, 2009
We slept pretty well at Carmelita's last night, although it was a little cold and our mattresses took up the entire floor of her room. She and her family have been so nice to us, considering we pretty much just invited ourselves for a 4 day stay when she hasn't seen her family in 7 months. We lazed around for awhile, her family fed us and then we went to the terminal to buy tickets home. They were quiteeee expensive but we have no choice because our ride fell through.
After shelling out the painfully large amount of money we took one of the world's longest Colombian city bus rides to Bocagrande, which is the main tourist and beach area. We browsed some tacky tourst shops for awhile and then went for lunch on the beach. We sat on plastic chairs at a plastic table in the sand, waiting for our food.
We were not, however, left to enjoy our own company. Approximately every 3 minutes a vendor would stop by to offer us a plethora of things we never knew we needed. This included beer (ok so I knew I needed that...), water, soda, jewelry, clothing, massages, sweets, shrimp cocktail...It was impossible to avoid being bothered since we couldn't move away from our table. At one point, Pei, Carmelita and I were all simultaneously being accosted by costena women smearing coconut oil on us and attempting to give us unsolicited massages. Even after we told them we were faltaing la plata to pay for them, they continued, my masseuse exclaiming over the amount of tension in my back. Finally they stopped but wouldn't leave without a 2000 peso tip.
Then we enjoyed our lunch of half a friend fish (head, eyes, fins included. Think sea bass, Mama), cocnut rice, patacon (smooshed friend platano)and ensalada. It was delicious. After eating, we spent a little time on the beach but it was pretty chaotic. There are hundreds of tents lining the beach, available for rent, as well as beach chairs. The same array of vendors continued to molest us until we walked to another beach to meet up with two Cartagena trainees.
The water here was much calmer because there was a bay and the beach was clearly more heavily populated by locals rather than tourists. The two trainees were from Russia and the Czech Republic. One teaches English at a university here and another is currently out of work after breaking her match. The Russian girl was super friendly and told me she loves meeting people from the US (go figure.)After chatting for awhile on the beach, we started to head home. This process of course took nearly an hour after waiting for a bus that didn't come and then finally hopping in a cab.
I power showered and then hopped back on a bus to meet Liz and her family for dinner. After some difficulty locating one another (the clock tower in Centro is not as visible as I believe a clock tower should be, in order to more easily facilitate using it as a meeting place) we had a very nice dinner. It was good to see Liz again so soon, and her fam too. It made me wish my mama and daddy would come visit me here.
After dinner, they walked me to the bar where I was meeting up with all the @ers. It was a salsa place named Havana with a live band that was quite good. I was exhausted though so we didn't stay very long. It's the kind of place I'd love to go to in Bucaramanga though, since most of our friends don't like to dance Latin.
April 9, 2009
We slept pretty well at Carmelita's last night, although it was a little cold and our mattresses took up the entire floor of her room. She and her family have been so nice to us, considering we pretty much just invited ourselves for a 4 day stay when she hasn't seen her family in 7 months. We lazed around for awhile, her family fed us and then we went to the terminal to buy tickets home. They were quiteeee expensive but we have no choice because our ride fell through.
After shelling out the painfully large amount of money we took one of the world's longest Colombian city bus rides to Bocagrande, which is the main tourist and beach area. We browsed some tacky tourst shops for awhile and then went for lunch on the beach. We sat on plastic chairs at a plastic table in the sand, waiting for our food.
We were not, however, left to enjoy our own company. Approximately every 3 minutes a vendor would stop by to offer us a plethora of things we never knew we needed. This included beer (ok so I knew I needed that...), water, soda, jewelry, clothing, massages, sweets, shrimp cocktail...It was impossible to avoid being bothered since we couldn't move away from our table. At one point, Pei, Carmelita and I were all simultaneously being accosted by costena women smearing coconut oil on us and attempting to give us unsolicited massages. Even after we told them we were faltaing la plata to pay for them, they continued, my masseuse exclaiming over the amount of tension in my back. Finally they stopped but wouldn't leave without a 2000 peso tip.
Then we enjoyed our lunch of half a friend fish (head, eyes, fins included. Think sea bass, Mama), cocnut rice, patacon (smooshed friend platano)and ensalada. It was delicious. After eating, we spent a little time on the beach but it was pretty chaotic. There are hundreds of tents lining the beach, available for rent, as well as beach chairs. The same array of vendors continued to molest us until we walked to another beach to meet up with two Cartagena trainees.
The water here was much calmer because there was a bay and the beach was clearly more heavily populated by locals rather than tourists. The two trainees were from Russia and the Czech Republic. One teaches English at a university here and another is currently out of work after breaking her match. The Russian girl was super friendly and told me she loves meeting people from the US (go figure.)After chatting for awhile on the beach, we started to head home. This process of course took nearly an hour after waiting for a bus that didn't come and then finally hopping in a cab.
I power showered and then hopped back on a bus to meet Liz and her family for dinner. After some difficulty locating one another (the clock tower in Centro is not as visible as I believe a clock tower should be, in order to more easily facilitate using it as a meeting place) we had a very nice dinner. It was good to see Liz again so soon, and her fam too. It made me wish my mama and daddy would come visit me here.
After dinner, they walked me to the bar where I was meeting up with all the @ers. It was a salsa place named Havana with a live band that was quite good. I was exhausted though so we didn't stay very long. It's the kind of place I'd love to go to in Bucaramanga though, since most of our friends don't like to dance Latin.
posted by Teresa @ 8:37 PM
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