Christmas Day. Medellin.

Today was a very bittersweet day. Early this morning, I learned that one of my dearest friends lost a very valiantly-fought battle for her life. She was vibrant, strong, wise, and a force to contend with. Spent a bit of time reminiscing about the good times and feeling saddened by the loss — more saddened for her wonderful family. Glad I was able to see her just a day before taking this trip. Still it was important to carry forth… Indeed, she was one of the most faithful readers of these travel notes — and who knows, maybe she is reading them still.

 With Mike feeling almost normal, we headed to see more of the barrios that line the mountains of the valley of the city. We set out to visit Comuna 13 — a neighborhood that has a long history of being a gang center. As a neighborhood, it is the most densely populated in all of Medellin, has been home to hosts of gangs and violence over the decades, and also had ties to Pablo Escobar. But in recent years, as the government has intensified its commitment to rebuild Medellin into a modern, sustainable city with a commitment to those whose economic, educational, health situation is at the bottom of the heap.. the area has been integrated more into the life of the full city.

One of the things the government has done is to construct an amazing series of outdoor escalators (escalares electricas) that climb the hills of this neighborhood enabling residents of the area to quickly come and go up and down the very steep hills where their self-made houses are built. There are “guards” (mostly local youth) paid to monitor the escalators to ensure safety. More about Comuna 13 in a bit.

So, we walked from the hotel to the metro station at Poblado; then took the smaller train at San Antonio (as we had done yesterday), but we did not take the cable car. Instead we got off at San Javier and walked out of the station. We asked several people about how to get to the escaleres… and finally were told we should take a “collectivo” (a small bus run by the locals)… We walked about a block… got onto the collectivo (which cost about 20 cents) and asked the driver to let us know when to get off. The bus holds about 16 passengers. The driver’s seat was covered with some fake white fur. About 15 minutes later, we were told this was our stop… Then we had to ask a lot of other people for the next set of directions. Basically we realized we needed to be climbing up… so in about 8 minutes we reached the escalares…

All along the walk were people sitting outside their self-made houses… some only about 300 sq ft.. others having a similar footprint but built vertically — many with exterior stairs (mostly spiral).. And just about every house had speakers outside and music was blaring.. It was like a giant series of parties. Food, music, dancing.. all on these little sidewalks by the houses. Clearly there aren’t any porches or yards, so everything happens on the deeply sloping streets.

People were very friendly; photographed many of them… and everyone was in a jovial, holiday mood. Eventually we reached the escalators.. It’s amazing that these were built.. it’s a huge infrastructure investment.. There are six sets of escalators.. taking you up about the equivalent of a 20 story building!… There are landings after each level and you can walk the neighborhood at that level..

Another interesting investment has been in community arts … The area is rich with huge murals, clearly created by the people of the neighborhood… and I think the government gave the residents paint so many houses are painted with very bright colors. In the other areas we visited the houses were all brick.. There are libraries (another big innovation from Medellin in that they have placed beautifully designed libraries in the lowest income neighborhoods — mostly within parks — feeling that these public investments should again be in the most marginal neighborhoods). We saw new community centers, health clinics, schools.

One other thing of note, there are signs all over the city welcoming and thanking people (not tourists, because many of these signs are on the metro.. and they are in Spanish)… As you walk into the Metro… there are signs welcoming you to Medellin and the Metro… as you leave another sign thanking you for using the metro… big, bold signs… no matter what Metro stop you are at.

Anyway, after the visit to Comuna 13, we were starving and decided to take a taxi to Plaza Botero… His sculptures are everywhere… in parks, in plazas, in buildings..  figuring that even on Christmas Day the Plaza would be busy and thus some restaurants might be open.. But alas, we walked and walked and not much was available… Finally stopped at a second floor “cowboy” restaurant “Llanero” where we got a fixed meal plate for about $3.00…. potatoes, plantains, and slices of pork.  Nibbled, had water… and went on our way to the next destination — a visit to some neighborhoods to the north… Got off the train at Acevedo.. and took a cable car line we hadn’t taken before — it makes about 4 or 5 stops, into the neighborhood (again, self-help housing with lots of additions built over the years).. The cable car seems to just skim the roofs of many houses.. sometimes only about 10 feet above, sometimes 75 feet above… From this cable car you can also get off at the Biblioteca Espana — a modern library (again purposefully located in a park in close proximity to low income households).. There is some kind of structural problem with the library at the moment (a series of black geometric shapes) so the building is shrouded in black plastic. No big deal, not sure we would have made the effort to see it — except from the cable car.. Street life far more interesting..

OK.. I’ve gone on way too long..

A few tidbits I’ve been forgetting…lots of babies… I think the Colombian population must be growing by leaps and bounds based on our observation  … and the moms are pretty young… Also, Mike had his own little interesting story in that he went to the bathroom in a restaurant — and went into the door marked “M” instead of the door marked “H” for  “hombre”…. Mmmmmmm….. He realized this after he departed the stall. .. and breathed a sigh of relief that no madras walked in while he was there.

And now that we are out of Cartagena… we are not hearing much English spoken, but maybe because we haven’t ventured into the more popular tourist destinations like museums.

Had dinner at San Carbon… in the hills above our hotel. Not much choice on Christmas Day night.. It was one of those restaurants where it is meat, meat, and more meat… We had trouble communicating that we wanted our steak “rare”… I always thought “rare” was “raro”… but maybe that is rare, like a rare book?? Since the waiter did not understand; he kept asking if I wanted my steak “azul”.. azul, like the color blue?? Anyway, we learned that “azul” is rare when it comes to meat.

Take care.. We are en route to Bogota. More from the capital city.

Fern

Bienvenido a Medellin – December 24 – Christmas Eve Day

I think I left off with me working and Mike sleeping last night… Given the situation, we opted for room service which was a bit complicated in that nearly everything on the menu had cheese.. I went down to the restaurant and discussed it all with the chef.. and we decided on a modified soup (potato, chicken, and some veggies.. no aguacate, sin queso, sin espicia)… basically sin todos (without everything)! Just bland.. and some toast, although when it came it was untoasted bread. We also ordered some risotto. but I wound up eating that.. and the chef thought that a simple tenderloin might be good too… but it all came at once, and the portions were really large.. so we donated the steak to someone at the hotel, along with my bouquet of roses… Not sure what we are doing with the champagne, which they traded for red wine… Can’t take it with us, and Mike is certainly not drinking it. Mike was pretty much dead to the world, and I tried in vain to finish the development of my course on urban governance (I didn’t quite finish.. but I did get a long way into it.. Next I need to develop the graduate course for “Strategic Influence” .. whatever that means.. )

The hotel has really been accommodating; their password is a string of about 12 numbers and we have so many devices, we are constantly calling for the password since we are too lazy to write it down… I think we are fully connected now, so all should be good.

For some reason Medellin has a lot of television in English (except news).. Once I got into bed and Mike woke up, we got sort of hooked on some program that’s a bit like Law and Order but it takes place in San Francisco… and in this series they are dealing with a crime that involved Oakland.. Pretty realistic as the SFPD captain says to his cops “You’ve got to take a trip… you need to go to Oakland.. ” in a way that sounded like they needed to pack their bags for the journey!

This morning we got  bit of a late start — needed to make certain Mike could actually bop around… Once he decided he could stand up.. and walk, and not need a bathroom every ten minutes, we headed out..

Walked the supposed 15 minutes (more like 30 minutes), mostly downhill to the metro station (Poblado)– passing a nice park and a lot of residential and commercial buildings. The Poblado neighborhood is pretty upscale, quiet, and fortunately not loaded with cops and security guards (actually we haven’t seen the swell of cops and guards here like you see in Cartagena’s upscale areas or like we’ve seen in Quito and some other cities. )

We figured out the system for buying tickets (which includes waiting on a very long line until you get to the counter. They don’t have automated machines to buy metro tickets which is surprising since the transit system is very modern and efficient). Got into fairly crowded train (like NY at rush hour, but people were basically polite, on their cell phones, and no pushing.. very civil), to the Estacion San Antonio where we navigated our way to the Metrocable which is quite sophisticated and should certainly be adopted by other Latin American cities that have similar geographic conditions.

As I mentioned in a previous note, Medellin sits in a deep lush valley at about 5,000 feet high, with a river that literally bisects the city. The hills that create the valley are covered with former squatter settlements that have been formalized and now streets are paved and these neighborhoods (which house about .75 million people) are served by buses and electricity and all the basic needs. There are schools and libraries and parks. Most of these dwellings that hug the hillside are concrete frame with brick in-fill (basic housing, mostly self-built, lots of add-ons over time). Anyway, about a decade ago, the city installed an amazing gondola lift system (they have three distinct lines) integrating the city proper and its metro system with the marginalized residents living in the hills and it’s very inexpensive to use them. They say it is the first cable-propelled transit system in South America. It is totally integrated into the citywide metro system, including ticketing (Once you are on any train you can continue on without purchasing another ticket, including the cable car.) My research says that the cable system carries 30,000 people per day.

We transferred at the San Javier station.. and just hopped on.. Basically, got off the metro train took an escalator up… and there sat (or rather ran) the cable cars… you hop on (about 6 to a car) as it is moving slowly in the station.. and then off you go. The line we were on (Line J) goes for nearly 3 kilometers.. I’m not sure how high up we were, but it’s a great ride. We got off at the very top station (La Aurora) to get a sense of the city’s vastness which is difficult to describe and more difficult to photograph… At the very top, the city has built new housing for low income families.. high rises (probably to replace housing that had to be demolished for the construction of the cable lines and the creation of “roads”. )

Then, despite some Colombian who was with family members (from the states, I think), using the system as a Disney ride and told us it was very unsafe to disembark and that we should take the “round trip” and then go back on the metro or a taxi, we got off at two different stations on the way down — strolled, smiled, photographed and wandered up and down different stair paths (where entry doors and houses abutted the narrow staired paths). Hopped on and off and then transferred to the Metro and headed back.. Decided to get out of the train station at San Antonio instead of changing for our train to Poblado to “check out the action”…

By the way, much fewer English-speaking tourists here in Medellin than in Cartagena. Cartagena has transformed itself into a tourist destination — safe, beautiful, great hotels, expensive restaurants — and many Americans are visiting. Indeed you hear a ton of American English on the streets (not at that Mercado).. That was strange for us, since most of our travel (other than the summer European travel) has been in countries where very few Americans go.. and we don’t hear English. So this was different.

Well, San Antonio neighborhood is a “happening place” — it’s a full on assault on all your senses… Music blaring from everywhere, body-to-body people in the streets, hawkers, traffic (mostly stuck and not moving), food in push carts. The streets are lined for about a mile on both sides with shops, peddlers, pushcarts, and more.. We thought we’d duck into a side street to get a little air and quiet and it was even worse. Anyway, we were pretty hungry and since Mike’s stomach is still not quite back to normal, we checked the trusty iPhone and saw there was a little “vegetarian” restaurant just a few blocks away. We trekked over and nearly missed it. It was just a door on the street; the “restaurant” was up two floors. We decided to chance it.. I think it’s really some kind of Indian yoga place that has a cafeteria. We joined the food line.. not really certain what we had.. soup, some rice, some mixed vegetables, something extremely sweet (that we did not eat), and juice that we did not drink (didn’t want to risk the water).. But it was fine.. All served on metal plates — either ultra hip or prison style.. take your pick. By then after coming back into the chaos of the streets and heading back to the metro, Mike decided he just wanted a taxi since after the train we’d have the one mile uphill walk back to the hotel.

Getting a taxi wasn’t so easy. Many were empty and didn’t want to pick us up (like NY) and some were driverless (double parked but no driver), and one driver was making out on the street leaning against his taxi with his girlfriend. We stopped a cop (By the way, Medellin cops wear very special uniforms that are Italian design), and he went to the taxi we had seen (where the driver was quite engaged with his girlfriend)… When the cop realized, he said “este taxi es occupado”..

Finally, we got a taxi but he really didn’t know his way around to our hotel… he asked a lot of people, and together with what we remembered from our walk, and the iPhone map, we arrived back at Hotel Park 10.

Mike is napping and then we are headed to 7 pm “mass” at the grand basilica in the old section.. I was on a mission to light a candle for a very dear friend..

From the mass, we’ll take a taxi back to out neighborhood for dinner..

More tomorrow.

Fern

PS — If I were to organize the trip again, I’d probably skip Cartagena (despite how totally beautiful and restored it is) and spend more time in Medellin to really understand the city .. probably requires at least 5 days to get a feel… longer to “understand it”…. and we’ve only got 3 days.. Definitely not enough.. And for those who have asked.. the weather is fine, a little hot for me, but I melt at 80 degrees.. Delightful at night..

Midnight, Christmas Eve, 2015

Headed out to observe Christmas Mass at the oldest cathedral in Medellin; built in 1770s. We were under the impression the mass would start at 7 pm. Came down to the lobby to get a taxi (which was next to impossible because everyone is heading to parties (although very Catholic country, it seems as if parties certainly outweigh mass). Anyway, we confirmed with the front desk who checked and said that old church does not really function, except as a tourist visitor destination. So we opted for the Basilica Metropolitano, built in the 1850s. Initially we were a bit disappointed, but figured we should still go (We’ve seen midnight masses in Guatemala, Ho Chi Minh City, Guadalajara, Quito, Honduras, etc. so figured we’d add this one to the list.)

Finally, a taxi came and the guy (young) didn’t seem to know where the biggest cathedral in the country was located (actually it is the third largest cathedral in the world!). But again, iPhone came in handy. He didn’t recognize the building but understood the address. It’s located on the northern edge of Park Bolivar. As we headed to the church, I googled it and learned that Park Bolivar is considered a very dangerous place, especially at night (muy pelligroso).. but we figured — exaggerations.

As we were driving into an obviously very poor neighborhood (the Villanuevo barrio), we were driving down a small street and from what we could tell — a cop had blocked off the street we were heading to; the driver swerved and turned into another street, and next thing we knew another set of cops were surrounding the taxi… and the driver got out and immediately was frisked including lifting his shirt above his head. The driver said something about having Americans in his car. Mike rolled down his window which was on the driver’s side and asked in great NY English – “What’s going on?”.. I followed with “Habla Ingles?”.. Cops just stared at us and motioned for us to stay in the taxi… The driver explained something, showed his license.. and then the cops said to move on… We were just blocks from the cathedral… just in time for the mass which was pretty formal (none of that liberation theology.. and none of that great sing-along with guitars like they did in Honduras…which was like going to a folk music festival).  We gave the guy an extra big tip (actually they don’t expect any tip and give you back every penny in change.. and are very surprised if you tell them to keep the difference).

The Archbishop led the mass. The church is quite exquisite… Romanesque, but all brick.. with soaring columns more than 200 feet high.

We sat through the mass (about an hour) in Spanish. the church holds about 1,500 people and there were probably less than 400.

Mass over.. we set out to get a taxi which we figured would be easy since a lot of people would be emerging from the church. There were lots and lots of taxis.. mostly full (occupado).. and those that were empty didn’t stop. We waited on a corner with several others hoping for a taxi including about 8 nuns. Eventually two taxis stopped for the nuns (even though we were there before them).. but none stopped for us. We asked a man who was with his family and he tried valiantly to help us hail a cab… for about 20 minutes and then it was clear he had to take his family home.. He even asked  where we were headed (I think he considered driving us)… but we were headed for dinner in the Poblado (the upscale part of town, near our hotel and the church was in one of the lowest income areas of the city.. with Park Bolivar listed on most websites as “no go zone”). Finally it was just us waiting for a cab, and a drunk teenager who was trying to “help” us… but I think he made it more difficult for taxis to consider stopping.

I decided to go back to the church and find a policeman… which we did.. and we explained in our limited Spanish.. that we had been waiting already for 30 minutes and no cab would stop (even those that were empty). We were beginning to think we would be camped out in a pew in the church for the night. The two cops walked back to the corner with us and they tried to get taxis (empty ones) to stop and they wouldn’t … Now in NY it’s illegal not to pick up passengers and not to take them where they want to go once you are seated and the door is closed… we were pretty bummed when the cops were unable to get a cab to stop and that when a cab stopped they just said that they didn’t want to go to Poblado (it’s a 15 minute drive)…

We suggested walking one block over to a busier street, but the cops said it was “muy pelligroso”… so we stayed put.. Mike, me, the two cops, and the drunk teenager. One taxi stopped and said he wouldn’t drive to Poblado and we offered to double the fare.. Still uninterested. The cops started discussing (in Spanish) that maybe they should take us to the Metro (which we really didn’t want to do at that time of night.. ) Finally a taxi stopped and he seemed fine with the destination… and off we went, although naturally he didn’t really know how to get to where we were going. (No one seems to know the city all that well — they need some of that London taxi training, and that test that the London cabbies take called “The Knowledge” or something like that)…

Arrived at Lucia Restaurant.. which had a small band playing Caribbean music and Buena Vista Social Club tunes.. Food was fine. Mike ate his first, carefully selected meal.

Strolled uphill from the restaurant to our hotel.. about 15 minutes walk, passing city parks decorated to the hilt… the city is totally light infatuated at this time of year.

Tomorrow is another day… and we haven’t totally figured out our plan… assuming Mike is totally cured, we’ll probably visit some neighborhoods and favelas.. but it’s Christmas and things will be closed so our choices will be limited.

Medellin is very well worth visiting, in spite of our little taxi problem and the cops assuming our driver was guilty without knowing much about the situation. It was amazing how totally compliant the driver was — immediately put his hands on the roof of the car and spread his legs and lifted up his shirt to show he didn’t have any weapons.

Bed time…

More tomorrow.

Fern

22 Diciembre 2015. Cartagena

It’s about 4:00 pm; Mike is taking his afternoon siesta. I’ve been wrestling with some computer glitches…. and as soon as I finish this note I’m going to take another stroll through town, do some work (yes I must), and then we’ll head for the typically late Latin dinner.

After last night’s electronics experience, we headed to Restaurante Donjuan which was about a 25 minute walk from the hotel, down some small streets we hadn’t walked before. The town is gearing up for Christmas with lights everywhere and plazas bedecked with ribbons and huge armatures that hold lights. Donjuan is an upscale place with an interesting menu that combines international dishes with Latin touches. Our reservation was late — 10 pm (and we already had a pre-dinner cocktail at the plaza in front of the hotel) — so we passed on cocktails at the restaurant and went straight to dinner and wine. If I recall correctly… we ordered tuna tartare which came with grapefruit sections followed by a seafood salad sitting on a bed of paper thin tomato slices, and then had grilled lobster tails. Everything was great… We started out ordering glasses of wine, but by the time they brought the bottle from which they would pour the glasses, we decided to just go for the whole bottle! After all it was a birthday celebration. This was an expensive restaurant with 5 dollar signs in all the books… But when we figure it all out (dealing with all those millions of pesos), the whole meal (including a dessert which Mike ordered — totally straying from that Paleo thing) — the meal was about $80 with tip, including the bottle of wine.

OK.. we practically closed down the restaurant, leaving after midnight.. and strolled back to our little home away from home (which is a really good hotel, but can use some training on small things).

This morning we went back to our little breakfast cafe.. We’re getting to be regulars and have the system down pat.. including understanding why they ring a very loud bell from time to time — they do that if someone leaves a tip (Tipping basically doesn’t happen in Colombia, but some restaurants seem to be pushing for tips, especially if they have Americans eating there. They have a sign next to the bell that says in Spanish and English: “Good tippers are nice and sexy people.” They won us over and we tipped. After the bell rings, the whole staff shouts “Gracias”)

Then we “hailed a cab” (a la NY), and headed to Mercado Bazurto which turned out to be much further than we anticipated and quite an experience. On most of our travels, we visit markets — how better to see a city than through its food and the mingling of people in market places! So off we went. When we got into the taxi and told the driver where we wanted to go, he immediately said “muy peligroso”… very dangerous. He went on to speak very quickly and my Spanish couldn’t keep up, but I got the message — it’s not safe there, and there isn’t anything for you to buy; no good clothing or jewelry. We nodded and were polite, but persistent that we wanted to go there.

The drive was about 35 minutes, although he said it was only 8 minutes away. Traffic was horrendous, pollution unbelievable, and it was very very hot. We had assumed his car was air conditioned.. which it was.. sort of. I think he ran out of freon (probably ran out many days or weeks ago). So he had the “fan” going, but nothing cold was coming out. He kept saying he had the aire conditionare on… but mmmmmm. Anyway, we went through a much more real Cartagena as we eventually got to the market. Given all of his warnings, along with warnings from the hotel when we asked about getting a taxi to the market, we decided to ask him if he would wait for us or come back for us… and that we’d be about one hour (given the heat and humidity, I didn’t think I’d last longer than that), and how much it would cost to do that… He said 40,000 COP (about $13) which seemed like a good deal…

He pulled up into somebody’s driveway, and we took off.

Mercado de Bazurto is the central market for the city’s poor… quite a maze that runs about 10 blocks by 10 blocks… some inside, some outside.. It’s dirty, it’s messy, and a labyrinthine of shanties.. If it exists, you can get it there… but there’s not much there that most of us would want… scraps of wood, metal pieces, old things, new things, etc… But there are also endless stalls of fruits, vegetables, meat, fish, and small stalls to grab a snack… It’s all pretty moody with lots of light filtering in amid tarps that are set up by vendors who are trying to protect their goods and also stay cool… Each stall is tiny.. with one vendor per stall… It’s like walking through an above-ground catacomb.. with lots of hustle and bustle.. Anyway, we had a great stroll through the chaos… people were very friendly; we took a lot of photos (some people declined, but most were happy and lit up with big “sonrisas!”)… I showed them all the photos and they made lots of comments about how they looked.. By the way, they were selling pigs’ legs that were split open and lots of gizzards and other internal organs of all sorts of animals… The meat section was huge and like in most developing nations with these sort of markets, each vendor sold a particular kind of meat… very monolithic. Same for the fish section.. If they sold corvina that was it, just corvina. No refrigeration; no ice.

After our stroll through the mercado (where we certainly stood out with our very pale skin, cameras, and iphones), we needed to find the taxi guy. As it turned out, there were lots of taxis there so we could have gotten one without having this guy hang out for an hour… It took a while, but we eventually found him sitting in the hot taxi. He took us back to the old section of the city… and we strolled for about 45 minutes (very hot and humid — not my ideal weather) to decide where to have some lunch. My requirement was working air conditioning, which is not always easy to find. Anyway, we wound up in a somewhat upscale place where the air conditioning was on full blast — almost frigid. Ordered our usual ceviches.. and a salad..  then headed back to the hotel, stopping in a few random churches and plazas and a brief look into the Museum of Modern Art.

And… guess what we located as we walked?… That bar with the Soviet memorabilia… and the doors painted with Lenin bigger than life… Found out that it is called the KGB Bar…

Now I’m going to get some work done. Dinner tonight was at a restaurant on the water, Club de Pesca.

All the best –
Fern

Following Up….

Obviously Mike could not really go very long without a phone… and since he no longer can charge his camera, his iPhone was to be his back up… So, at about 5:30 (after some research), we headed to the “other part of Cartagena” — across Avenida de Venezuela.. where real people live (as opposed to the idyllic well-preserved colonial old town).. to find either a camera store or an electronic store.. or both.. We thought we had it figured out and that it was about a mile or so on foot… so off we went.. Along the way hearing incredible choir singers voices wafting through plazas.. It was quite wonderful (although I thought about Oakland’s newcomers who have been complaining that Oakland church-goers sing too loud and they can hear the singing in their new condos)…

Anyway, we walked and kept asking.. and finally someone directed us to a sort of a mall  — three stories, with lots of different shops all independently owned. We went to the camera store, but no real luck there… They had fairly cheap amateur cameras so Mike decided to wait.. Then we asked for an electronic store and Mike bought two iPhone cables for charging (about 1/4 the price of these things in the US — I almost bought some for everyone we knew. Then Mike showed the guy his iphone whose plastic (thin glass?) top started to separate from the phone and the phone was clearly disintegrating.. The guy looked at it and then told Mike to follow him and off they went for about 30 minutes while I dawdled in the shop and charged my phone which was now dead.

So they fixed Mike’s phone… Here’s the story.

The guy in the electronic store took Mike down to a basement level … then they crossed an alley… and entered a shop that was lined with stalls that were about 3′ x 6′.. on both sides… Behind the counter in one of the stalls were two guys -=- one on a laptop reading instructions… The other had a phone wedged between his ear and his shoulder talking to his girlfriend (the whole time)… He picked up Mike’s phone.. looked at it.. and immediately told the guy who brought Mike there (obviously his friend) that Mike’s battery over charged and expanded pushing out the glass front. In between talking to his girlfriend he told Mike’s guy that he could replace the battery and fix the phone for 60,000 COP ($less than $20)… Mike said “Go for it..

He then (never stopping the conversation with the girlfriend) proceeded using a tiny screw driver, a double edged razor blade, a toothbrush, and a tube of some miracle clear glue. He removed the battery, replaced it with a new battery (which had to be purchased by the other guy at a stall somewhere across the street). Once the battery was in, he had to delicately fuse the glass? with its backing using the superglue applied with the double edge razor blade…

He then snapped it shut — handed it back to Mike… Here’s the photo of the guys

Greetings from Cartagena, Colombia – December 21 2015 

A bit belated… but here is my first travelogue from Colombia… We arrived yesterday (from SFO to Bogota to Cartagena)

It’s about 3:30 pm on Monday, December 21 (Mike’s birthday)… and we just got back from a 5-mile walk through the old town… not a hike.. but a walk.. seeing lots of streets and plazas and shops.. but more on that in a bit.

We arrived in Cartagena after a somewhat grueling set of three flights.. SF to Houston; Houston to Bogota (three hours late leaving Houston… boarded plane, plane left gate, plane turned around for some kind of mechanical issue that needed to be checked, deplaned at gate, three hours later re-boarded same plane); then Bogota to Cartagena. Once in Cartagena, we decided to hop in a taxi (needed to screen for “official” taxi) to get to hotel.. Taxi from airport was incredibly cheap.. about $3.00… Money here is crazy as there are either 3,300 COP (Colombian pesos to the dollar or 2,400 — depending on how you exchange money.. with credit cards getting the best rate of exchange over cash!!!) Exchanged money at the airport before getting into taxi so that we could pay…

Once in taxi, Mike said he didn’t see his “electronics pouch”… where he keeps cords for his computer, phone, ipad, camera, etc… including his thumb drive. We figured it was just stuck in his suitcase, but alas.. Mike is now operating in the 19th Century…  He can use my iphone charger and ipad charger, but he’s on his own for the rest.. meaning — no connectivity.. So we figure that he had the pouch out during the flight.. he says it was on the floor by his seat… We were in first class, so the seats become beds.. and he thinks that as the seat pushed down or up it swept his pouch with it, which he figures is “under” his seat… Made calls to United, but not holding out much hope. So that was his entry to Cartagena. His office is ordering new stuff, but not worth sending. Will try to find an electronics store..

Got to the hotel at about 1:00 pm yesterday and while we waited for our room to be ready, we decided to have lunch in the hotel’s courtyard restaurant. (We’re at the Charleston Santa Teresa Hotel inside the old colonial city).. Ceviche — naturally — and some interesting Caribbean ribs with local spices and grilled octopus (fish is everywhere and for most restaurants that’s the fare.. which is fine with us).  The hotel is pleasant (overpriced, I think, but the holiday season is Cartagena’s big thing… so all hotels are booked and priced much higher than at other times of the year.

It’s an extremely pleasant place to stay with a rooftop (6th floor) pool (of course I don’t have a bathing suit) and a great interior courtyard. It’s got a wild history. You have to remember that the city was the major port for Colombia… and it has iconic walls that have been well preserved — the walls were built to prevent attacks by pirates, who passed by on their way to the wealthy Incan empire. The whole “old city” is a UNESCO heritage site (a well-deserved acclaim).

But as the story goes… At the beginning of the 17th century, a woman from Cartagena decided to have a convent built within the walled city.. so that she could spend the final years of here life with the Carmelite nuns. But years later, after the “new republic” was established, the nuns were forced to abandon the convent, which then found new life as a prison, an all girls school, a pasta factory, and police headquarters… Then in the 1980s .. it was renovated and eventually turned into the hotel it now is…

OK… moving on… we settled into the hotel… showered and Mike crashed after realizing that we had been on the go for about 30 hours.. I decided to set up my office away from home (my standard procedure).. only to find that my Windows side of my MacBook (through Parallels) had totally crashed somehow between Houston and Cartagena… so after reaching out to IT folks.. and setting an appointment for them to see my machine virtually and figure out the problem… I decide to take a walk for an hour or so and then have my “IT virtual meeting”..

The town is delightful.. narrow streets, reconstructed and rehabilitated buildings that line every street.. mostly commercial on first floors and residential on the second. Street vendors galore.. Then I retraced my steps and was on the phone for about two hours with IT… and then they continued to figure out the mystery.. which could have been resolved very quickly had I been at the office, but took umpteen hours given that I hadn’t brought an external drive (terabyte size) with me (thought about it, generally do… but then figured it was a waste..). They needed to copy a 550gb file.. and I only had 280gb left on computer.. so they couldn’t copy and then replace.. Anyway, they figured something out, because here I am.. on the trusty computer.

Mike and I ate at a Cuban restaurant last night… La Vitrola… had ceviche (naturally).. accompanied by mojitos (Fern) and Capairina (Mike).. then followed with a seafood pasta (Mike’s Paleo diet is shot to hell here!) followed by a white fish .. all quite good and with great Chilean wine.. Strolled back to the hotel.. nightcap of course.. and then hit the hay..

Started out this morning in a little coffee shop (Prispi) — for those of you from Oakland.. sort of the Caffe 817 of Cartagena.. high tables, tiny, hip Colombians.. order at the counter and then pray for a table… Then we walked the city… about 5 miles.. and part of it in search of a little cafe I found yesterday that has all sorts of Russian memorabilia.. including the front doors painted with Lenin bigger than life.. I had taken some photos so I figured if we showed the photos, shop keepers or police could direct us.. (It was a pretty unusual site)… We stopped no fewer than 12 cops — each was sure they knew exactly where it was (after looking at my photos)… and each took us in completely opposite directions.. After an hour of this, we stopped into another place with a great courtyard (rather than the rinky dink, funky Lenin place) and had a quiet lunch (Pestagua).

Colombia is slow moving.. takes everyone a lot of time to get things done. By the way, when I exchanged money at the airport it took about 15 minutes (with a fairly patient line of people waiting to also exchange money)… They needed to do fingerprints twice! So I suppose I’m now inside the Colombian system… and I had to sign three documents.. before I got my money. Mike on the other hand, just went to the ATM and his money spit out quickly (although they have a covering on the keypad where you put your code, so if you don’t have the digit pad memorized you’re in trouble)…  Cops, and gun-carrying security guards are everywhere in this old section (where tourists are frequent)… and every ATM seems to have it’s own guard. A little like Honduras and Ecuador (especially Quito)…

The old city is bordered with a major street and on the other side, life is quite different — average Cartagenans shopping and working. We ventured over and will spend more time on that side tomorrow, especially when we head to the Mercado Bazurti (which every person at the hotel has warned us against visiting… but we love those kinds of places.. a huge market that sells everything with thousands of fruit and vegetable stands and every kind of food item one needs for daily life.. and then sort of flea market-y… Should be fun… We’ll stroll that part of town..

Today is Mike’s birthday so we are headed to dinner (fashionably at 10 pm) at Restaurante Don Juan… Will report tomorrow.

OK.. you’re caught up on our day… More tomorrow.

 PS — Apologize for the length… Shorter tomorrow..