Big Holiday Weekend

November 21, 2011May 19, 2018 - Ann Leave a comment

11/11/11 is also the anniversary of Colombia’s Independence from Spain. Well, maybe I should say Cartagena’s Independence, since they were the first ones to declare and it seems to have taken a while to get it all together. In any event, it’s the holiday of the year. Flags are flying. Decorations hang from the trees in the parks in Centro, and line the streets. There’s a parade somewhere every day, starting with children and getting progressively wilder as the weekend progressed. Being otherwise occupied, we didn’t attend any, but we enjoyed watching the peripheral activities and the TV reports.

Down in the barrio by the boatyard, Doug is ‘held up’ by children operating a mini-toll booth with a string across the road; any coin will get him thru it, and a whole lot of giggling ensues. Among other popular past=times are throwing water at people (Doug got dumped on by two young women on the fifth floor of a highrise, but the water had ‘fallen apart’ before reaching him), powdering them with Maizena, and squirting them with foam. You might also get ‘held up’ by youths with something black and messy looking in their bucket – probably they prefer bills! The boat yard workers have a half day off, and then a full day, and I’m glad for them, considering how much weekend work they put in dodging the rainy season.
I watched these folks splash a passer-by out of their big blue barrel, but they stopped when the police on the motorcycle passed.
A taxi driver warned us against drunks and pickpockets of course, but after watching some young bucks chugging aguardiente in the back of the bus, we knew that!
Friends in the anchorage reported that the boat parade consisted of large rowing boats each with a beauty queen as figurehead. What we saw from our balcony looked more like a giant raft-up that formed twice, once near Centro and again in front of Boca Grande. There were hundreds of boats. Where did they all come from?

And each one was packed with folks. Doug wondered if they all had lifejackets; I wondered where all those women would pee!
The main event of Independence Festivities, at least in Cartagena, however, is the national beauty pageant. Miss Colombia is selected this weekend. and she will go on to compete in Miss Universe contests, as well as be given sponsorship contracts, clothing, jewelry, perfume, even, a taxi driver told us, a Rolex watch worth two thousand dollars. At least one past Miss Colombia also received ‘a mansion from the government.’ Being Miss Colombia also may guarantee the winner ‘minor celebrity’ status for life. One, out of office for 25 years, was suffering from some kind of botched plastic surgery, I read in a society magazine, in the dermatologist’s office!
From what I’ve seen, these Señorita Colombias look like Barbie dolls, all in matchy-matchy outfits and there’s not a one who doesn’t look ‘perfect’ in every conventional respect; or wasn’t helped along by a plastic surgeon, say certain observers. The critique is that they represent the richer, whiter segment of society.

I even noticed, in Boca Grande, posters on the phone poles of contestants hoping to lure votes, plastered over posters of less attractive political candidates from last month’s election. For these women, it didn’t help. So, there’s also an alternative contest, for the Queen of the Barrios (Miss Independence), and here, while the girls are beautiful of course, they’re a lot more varied in appearance, and the prizes are significantly smaller. Last year’s crown was donated by a metal-plating company, for example.
The controversy about these contests, according to a report last year in the NY Times, can be summarized like this: href=”http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/01/world/americas/01colombia.html”>http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/01/world/americas/01colombia.html
Here’s the short version-

“One pageant portrays Cartagena as its elite wants it to be seen: rich, white and glamorous,” said Elisabeth Cunin, a French sociologist who studies Cartagena. “The other reflects the reality of the city as the majority of its inhabitants know it: poor and neglected, a complex mix between racial domination and an emerging current of black consciousness.”
The national pageant, founded here in 1934 as a tourism linchpin, employs a multilingual staff at an air-conditioned building in Parque de Bolívar in the old center, attracting sponsors like Edox, a Swiss watch manufacturer. The municipal contest, created in 1937, operates on a shoestring budget from a crumbling structure a few blocks away.
Few nations, with the exception of neighboring Venezuela, attach as much importance to such pageants. In addition to Miss Colombia and Miss Independence, Colombian juries award many lesser titles, like Miss Plantain and Miss Coal. Cellblocks in a Bogotá women’s prison have their own pageants. One town in northern Colombia takes it even further, putting makeup and wigs on its donkeys then parading them for its annual Miss Burro celebration.”

And, if you’ve got ten minutes and bandwidth, here’s a YouTube video (with music) by a bouncy CuriousTraveler, with bits of video from each contest (last year) which I came across while I trying to find a picture of this year’s winners. http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=-KM2miKhRP4Drumroll: Here’s the winner of this year’s Miss Colombia “following a rigorous competition of beauty, wits and winning smiles”, says ColombiaReports.com, from whence this picture came. Daniella made the front page and the contest got several pages in the Society section of the paper El Universal.

In the alternate contest, Miss Independence (Reina de los Barrios)got a full-length photo in the middle of the paper, plus a photo of her parents, but her webmaster maybe hasn’t posted her yet, that I have found.

There is certainly no shortage of beautiful women in Cartagena. But one taxi driver assures me that there are even more beautiful women in Medellin. In Cartagena, though, they have better bodies, he thinks.

Room with a View

November 13, 2011May 19, 2018 - Ann 1 Comment

Technorati Tags: Cartagena

We’re living in the lap of luxury here in Cartagena, during our time in the boatyard, at least for three weeks. We’re in a Gleaming Contemporary Studio Apartment full of Nice Stuff, on the 12th Floor of edificio Vista in the Manga district, up where the pelicans fly, with a Most Scenic View Over Historic Cartagena and Castillo San Felipe. We stroll in after our 15-minute bus commute from the boatyard, take off our clothes and put them in the Washing Machine, get a Cold Drink with Ice from the Full Refrigerator (Shelves! Light! Self-Cleaning!) and then drift up one floor to the Rooftop Jacuzzi and Infinity Pool – fine places to bask and admire the sunset pastels and rehydrate after a hot day. The Big-Headed Shower with Hot Water pours down unstintingly, although the 5×5 (that’s feet!) Mirror has Shocking and Malign powers. Sometimes we even eat Food Not Prepared At Home. Then we Relax in Air-Conditioned Comfort before our various Entertainment Devices until the Lure of the Most-Comfortable and Well-Clad King-Sized Bed proves irresistible.

And it’s all ours until the middle of November, when we retreat back down to earth. Life is Grand.

The voyeur in me is happy for such a good spy perch, the neatnik (yes, there is one!) mops and fluffs and makes the bed every morning; the wastrel lavishly fills the spaghetti pot all the way full of water, and has left lights burning in non-occupied areas. Doug claims that somewhere in India there’s a power failure because of me. I think he’s going to wear out the TV remote. For extra fun we take the trash to the chute and listen as it tumbles down 12 stories. As you can see, we’re Living Large.

We’re supposed to be strolling the town in the evenings, but between the nice digs, the pool and the balcony and the luxurious ease and ambiance of our aerie, not to mention the fast internet, the satellite TV, and climate control, we generally stay put and let the entertainment come to us. The big sky, the passing scene, we gawp at it all. Last night Cartagena delivered fireworks, front and center.

Meanwhile, the other half of life is at Manzanillo Marina Club down in the Bosque barrio, where Galivant is propped on a few locally-built jackstands. Its innards are torn open and it’s a veritable dustbowl on deck as we make some fiberglass repairs and get ready for painting.

“We” mainly means Flavit and his crew who are doing the dirty work. Not doing the work turns out to also be a chore. Every day offers a new illustration of the ways in which assumptions can mutate. Good thing that we’ve gotten a little less anal as we ourselves become a little less perfect. ‘It’s only a boat’ we remind ourselves. And a good thing too that Flavit is so pleasant and accommodating. Doug has lots of carpentry projects, and I am relieved to be the designated shopper, researcher and communicator. I can do a lot of that from ‘home’.

The fact that we can escape the heat and grime each day has a lot to do with our mellowness. I sure will be sorry to descend that elevator for the final time, get buzzed out the plate glass doors by the security guard, knowing that if my smiling face appears the next day I won’t get past the desk!

A few associated photos can be found here:

http://galivant.smugmug.com/Other/CartagenaRoomWithAView/20060616_f55c83

PS: even on the twelfth floor, the ants trek up over the edge of the balcony. How did they know I was here?

Quick Flight to Florida

November 9, 2011May 19, 2018 - Ann Leave a comment

From the slow lane to the jet set, she does it all! Climbed down the ladder at 9:30 in the morning in Cartagena and laid my grateful head to rest on super-deluxe high-thread-count sheets in Lake Worth Florida a mere 12 hours later.

PHOTO aerial view of somewhere in Broward County

Momentum was building – we needed more stuff, a new computer with an American keyboard, and without Colombia’s crippling import duties. Bottom paint that we could use without sanding off all the previous applications. Odd bits and pieces like blades for a Fein tool, a GPS receiver for a computer. Upholstery and awning fabric. Mail for the last six months. So by golly I hopped on a plane and got it all. This after I heard what a friend had paid to have some prescriptions Fed-Exed to Colombia – it cost more than my flight on Spirit did!

Funny how you can just slip right back into the 65mph life, warm up the credit card and sign sign sign as if there were no tomorrow.

PHOTO Our new stuff on the pallet at International Business Cargo, Miami to Barranquilla shipping service.

I packed up a couple blue plastic crates of ‘hazardous materials’ lined with a new wardrobe from my aunt (and Goodwill!), schlepped them down to Miami and with only a few bumps they arrived at the boatyard in Cartagena a couple weeks later.

The worst part of the trip was the 2-hour drudge march through the line in front of US customs, which had my Colombian seatmates laughing about American pride in their superior ways!

Clearly the real estate bubble has had a real bursting effect on many lives- tales of woe abound -but the malls and highways of the former Everglades peninsula are still full. Florida seems like its same old oblivious self, so many constituencies at cross-purposes.

I enjoyed my visit, enjoyed my stay with my uncle and aunt, but also enjoyed getting back to a life for which I am perhaps a little better suited.

PHOTO water streaks and cloud reflections over Caribbean

Hasta la vista, Colombia, posted via Airmail

March 31, 2011May 19, 2018 - Ann Leave a comment

Depending on how you do it, it’s an overnight trip from Cartagena to the San Blas islands which are sprinkled along Panama’s Caribbean coast. As an almost 200-mile straight shot,it’s usually a fast trip on the rhumbline, tradewinds generally strong at your back. The problem, sometimes, are the short, steep (2-3 meter ) seas that have been building underneath those trades. And, of course, keeping in mind the chart notation “unsurveyed”, you need daylight to see the numerous reefs and shoals on the approach.

We took an alternate route, coast-hopping thru a series of small islands off the coast of southwestern Colombia. The Bay of Cholon behind Isla Baru twenty miles south of Cartagena is a fine and commodious anchorage, and a haven for wealthy Colombians. Baru also has a beautiful stretch of beach being eyed by developers. Across the island the pueblo of Baru is something different, a ramshackle, dirt-floored town that must be a bog in the rainy season.

Eventually we moved on to the Rosarios, where there’s a very interesting private aviary. The resident veterinarian told us many of the birds had been confiscated from bird traffickers. I was really impressed by the care taken. Otherwise, there were a surprising number of roofless, abandoned houses, which made us wonder if there had ever been a hurricane in this ‘hurricane-free’ latitude. There’s also an aquarium that is the daytrip destination of many Cartagena tourists and cruise ship passengers.

The Islas San Bernardos have a resort on one island, and a tiny crowded island nearby where everyone lives, and a big mainly empty island that we anchored behind. We also spent a night behind Cabo San Bernardo, where there was surprisingly little activity of any kind. We did get a late evening visit and inspection from a stealthy Colombian Coast Guard boat, which was at first very unsettling, but upon further reflection, it was nice to know they were out there. Just another reminder of all that goes on beyond us.

At Isla Fuerte, we spent an extra day criss-crossing its shady paths trying not too hard to figure out what required armed soldiers on the waterfront, and more Coast Guard activity. Maybe it had to do with a hydrographic ship anchored on the back side of the island. Fuerte seemed a nice small place despite the rolly anchorage. The local joke was that there were more burros than people. I don’t think that was true, but there were lots of burros, carrying buckets of water from the well, coral blocks for building from the beach, bunches of plantains or bags of coconuts from the hinterland. We were offered a plot of land ‘muy barato’ where we could build a refuge from the Estados Unidos, which our new friend would look after in our absence from the comfort of his hammock.

The next afternoon we left, planning for a morning arrival on the mainland. If there’s life in this belly of ocean, we didn’t see it, which is good because, although the Colombia we saw is an impressive country in many respects, there are still hostage-takers and drug-runners, political unrest and corruption, all of which find their way into coastal waters, at least according to Jackline Insurance.

Our landfall was Puerto Escoses, Panama, 8-49 degrees N and 77-37 W. Ghosts live here. Some hang out in the empty Kuna Indian houses halfway down the bay, perhaps waiting for the next planting season or coconut harvest. The others are several thousand Scotsmen (and women, I assume), who attempted to settle here back in 1690. What were they thinking?

Just as we were thinking we had the place to ourselves, a cayuga eased over the bar of a small river hidden in the mangroves. Two Kuna boys and a man not Kuna approached us wanting to know our particulars, why we had not gone to the official port of Obaldia (an open roadstead) and, most particularly, where was our Panamanian flag? In fact we were picking through our bag of flags trying to remember which quartered red/white/blue with star flag represented Panama, and which side went up. As he left he told us we were lucky he was not in his official boat, and that he could not give us permission to explore the river as it was not his jurisdiction. The two crocodiles that swam past the boat later on, as the sun went down, my length although not my beam, made me glad I’d stayed in the boat all day. So, welcome to Panama.

Club Nautico Cartagena

March 5, 2011May 19, 2018 - Ann 1 Comment

Photo by Felix Malo, December 2009, taken from a highrise in Boca Grande. The district of Manga where Club Nautico is, is in the foreground. Backdrop is La Popa, with a monastery atop it. Between the two is the district called Pie de la Popa, where there is much traffic and commercial activity.

The anchorage at Cartagena is capacious; I’d guess there are well over 50 boats there now, over 100 during the holiday season, maybe more. If there ever were a city in need of a decent marine facility, it’s Cartagena.

Actually, it has one: Club de Pesca looks terrific, present repairs not withstanding, but it is perpetually full of the nicer local boats and has a waiting list of years for the visitor.

Then there’s the Club Nautico. They say it once had a restaurant, showers and other facilities. Then it was set to be renovated. Now it is what you see here, in limbo. There’s a complicated story of feuds and lawsuits; the demolition is nearly complete but for whatever reason there is no reconstruction on shore. There are still slips, and water, and electric, and docks ‘with character’. The most salient feature for the visiting boater anchored out is the dinghy dock, and sometimes, access to a water spigot, a place to put trash, and a very helpful dockmaster, John, who is probably starting to feel like a polar bear whose floe is melting.

And there’s more. Lots of worlds intersect on this patched concrete slab on the waterfront.The women who sell fruit are often there. All the day workers congregate, ready to paint or polish or repair. Backpackers arrive in groups looking for boats to the San Blas. Others look for shade, and the Internet. The customs and clearance agents hold court. Things are hauled up and down the dock.Usually there’s a boat repair project or three off to the side. There’s a big TV, so if there’s football there’s a gathering. A man with an eye patch is ready to sell emerald jewelry. The cruisers meet in the evening for happy hour, and if there are children in the fleet, there are scooter races, sword fights, etc.

Outside on the sidewalk you can get a taxi, of course, but also breakfast or lunch, shots of coffee, bags of juice, more fruit including the jumbo-est strawberries I’ve ever seen, and, my personal favorite, raspado, shaved ice, with tamarindo syrup.

This is a perpetually smiling and cheerful man, but when he knew he was going to be photographed and get a copy of the picture he closed his mouth I think to hide his few teeth.

Off to the side there’s space for projects. This fellow’s inflatable dinghy had leaks that couldn’t be repaired, so he built something new from scratch, knocking out this stitch and glue plywood pram, here on its maiden voyage, in about a week, with plenty of peanut gallery supervision.

Sunsetting view towards Boca Grande. You should see what powerful passing wakes can do. It takes a shoehorn, and sometimes a man in the water to deal with underwater moorings, chains and lines, to tie up.

The VHF cruisers net on channel 68 (unless a ship is using that channel to relay docking info) is a wealth of information about where to get things, what’s available, who can do what work, and the eternal favorite, Treasures of the Bilge. The cruising community even has a culture maven who’s up on the latest exhibits of art, theater, films and literary affairs.

So Club Nautico is a pretty good institution in search of facilities to match.If you want to make a fortune (and have one to begin with), build a marina in Cartagena with proper slips and shoreside amenities. The cruisers will come. In fact, they’re already here.

Galivant's Travels

getting away from some of it, and into other of it

Colombia

Big Holiday Weekend

Room with a View

Quick Flight to Florida

Hasta la vista, Colombia, posted via Airmail

Club Nautico Cartagena