Capurganá, Zapzurro and a brief step into Panama: October 13-22

Taken from our end of the beach looking toward Capurganá.

Zapzurro´s church.

An abundance of plant life.

You either take a boat or an airplane to get to these small towns that are right next to Panama.  With a  population of 2,000, one is promised a tranquil vibe.  However, before you go, check to see if your visit is going to coincide with their once-a-year festival.  We didn´t.  Our first three nights in Capurganá are forever etched on our ear drums.  Even when we moved 1 km out of town after the first night, I could still heard the music with ear plugs in until somewhere around 2 a.m.  After those unforgettable three nights, we began enjoying the nightly tropical serenade.  During the day, there was plenty of walking, swimming, and tropical life to enjoy.

Arriving in Capurganá.

Capurganá´s main plaza - where the bleepin´ festival speakers were.

The main street.

Transportation is by foot, bicycle, horse or one of 4-5 motorcycles.

The place we stayed - a great setting about 1 km out of Carpurganá.

Going for a swim in the ocean...  We learned that at night they let their horses roam to find grass to eat.  Early in the morning someone then goes wandering to find the horse.  The airstrip in town seemed to be an attractive place that the horses liked to graze.  It´s a good thing flights only come in about one time each day!

On the way to ¨Bahía Aguacate.¨

Using inadequate tools to open a coconut. It was worth it!

Nice juxaposition - thatched roof house with a satelite dish.

¨El Cielo¨ - lots of walking through the river/stream to get there.

From Capurganá it´s about a 1 1/2 hour walk up and over a jungly ridge to get to Zapzurro which is even smaller.  It also seems a bit nicer and cleaner.  We saw monkeys on the way over but they aren´t so easy to photograph.

Zapzurro from ¨El Mirador¨.

Remember the camera button issue?

It´s kind of a fun thing to then zip up and over a tiny hill, show your passport to both Colombian and Panamanian officials and take a swim in Panama.

¨La Miel¨ - on the Panamanian side.

We took the boat out and back - about 35 people on board.  Interestingly there was engine problems in both directions.  On the way out it was a relatively short return to the port to fix one of the two engines.  On the way back, it ended up being an ordeal of being taken into Acandí - jumping off the boat (literally) - and waiting for a new engine to be brought out from Turbo.  There more than a few unhappy passengers!  I enjoyed the 4 hour detour for the most part since I ended up talking in spanish with a nice man from Medellín.  It was a great way to get a preview on the city that my family lived in back in the day.  And, it was nice, because Medellín is where we went next.  Goodbye, Carribean!

Tolú, October 7-13

The main church in front of the main plaza.

There must always be a shrine.

 Goods are still carried on the head sometimes, but I don´t think they used to wear jeans...

Tolú is a small (36,000) and bumpy 3 hour ride southwest of Cartagena on the Caribbean coast.  While it is in the Lonely Planet guide book, not many foreign tourists end up there.  That is why we went.  Plus we wanted some more ocean time.  It was plenty warm but no where near the sweltering heat of Cartagena.  The only published hostel didn´t have a room for below 50,000 COP, so we asked for a recommendation for something ¨mas economico.¨  Given that Tolú is a hot spot for Colombian vacationers there are plenty of folks who rent out ¨cabañas.¨

The front of the house where we stayed.

The kitchen.

We found ourselves staying in someone´s backyard ¨cabañas¨ for 24,000 COP.   This is the closest we´ve gotten to living with Colombians.  We shared their kitchen and if the side gate was closed we walked through their living room to get to the building in the back where we stayed in one of their four rooms.  This  really wasn´t intended for the foreign crowd so there was no internet at the house, but there were about three internet places close by (with varying connection speeds).
 

One day we asked if we could use their washing machine.  Water from their main water source on the opposite side of the yard had to be carried over and poured into the washer, then when the clothes had been in there a while (i.e. the timer on the machine wasn´t functional) she let us know it was time to ring the clothes out (which we did ourselves).  Then we hung them on their clever clothe´s line.  Chickens were a part of the backyard scenery as were their two children who liked to ¨hide¨ and then jump out and scare us.


In Tolú I felt like we saw a lot of what real life is like for small-town Colombians.  An election was just a few weeks away, so there are plenty of candidates names painted on walls.

Studying.

Playing marbles.

Siesta time on the playa.

Tolú is known for these bicycle party vehicles.  The whole family piles on and about 4 people have pedals.  There is a radio and speakers attached and they go riding through Tolú at night singing along at the top of their lungs.  It´s great to see the multigenerational mingling.  And, it can be tough on the ears...

Good ol´ Coca Cola...

The meat vendors never fail to catch my  interest.

It might be hard to believe, but by the time we got to Tolu, we were both quite tired of fish.  So, Tolu will not hold our favorite memories of food as it was a difficult to find anything but fish.  We generally made our own breakfasts (generally eggs or granola) and dinners (some sort of soup).  The saving grace on the food side of life has been all the amazing tropical fruit and the jugos!

In front of the church on the main plaza - various types of taxis waiting for business.

A very interesting attempt to stop trash tossing.

One day we took a tour out to the St. Bernardo islands.  We were with a group of friends from Medellin - at times it felt like we were on one of those party bikes.  The highlight was defnitely the bathwater warm 3 hours of fun on this beach! 




 And a final note on Tolú.  It goes down as the place of the first siting of a cockroach.  I was actually expecting to see them sooner, we had them in our house despite our every effort back when we lived in Medellin.

Cartagena, Oct 2-7

Old town.

New town.

Poverty town.

As the guidebooks say, Cartagena is the crown jewel of Colombia - there is the very well kept historical colonial center and the newer high rise hotel district with pleasant beaches.  If you keep reading, you will learn that Cartagena also has a major poverty issue - just a stone´s throw from the beauty of the historical center.   My impression and sentiments of Cartagena are a bit of a complex mix of the contrasting sides.

Looking down at the street from our hotel.

We stayed in Getsemani, the ´mas economico´ side of the historical center and home to many a backpacker hostel (Hotel Marlinn, COP 40/night with bathroom).  It is a VERY good thing our room had two fans.  I don´t know the numbers, I just have etched in my brain that it was HOT and HUMID in Cartagena.  I do like hot weather over cold weather.  But our time in Cartagena was bound to be limited due to the heat.  We really felt like we were moving in slow motion.  Evenings are great, with a pleasant breeze coming off the ocean. 

Lots of little plazas like this.

Typical street with color and greenery.

The huge doors really are stunning.

One day we ventured over to the high rise side of the city and had a good swim.  It is absolutely amazing to me how warm the water is.  You can rent some shade, be waited on with drinks or fruit salads, and have a massage. 

Scenes from a huge fortress built to ward off pirates and eventually fight for independence from Spain:

There is an extensive underground tunnel system.

From the fortress looking toward new town.

Duane packaging up the steri-pen for international travel.

One logistical thing that went south right away was our water purifying plan.  We had bought a steri-pen right before leaving.  This was going help us avoid tasting iodine, boiling water or throwing away a thousand plastic bottles.  Only problem, the one we brought with us was either bad to begin with or got bounced around too much enroute.  In Bogota, we got in touch with the manufacturer in the U.S.  They agreed to send us a new one if we shipped the non-functional one back to them.  When we went to mail the defective steripen, we learned it would cost over 50,000 COP (over $25).  Ouch.  We paid about $65.  Plus we had to send a $27 check in case the old one wasn´t deemed to be manufacturer responsibility.  If you do the math, you´ll understand why we waited nearly a month to send off the old one.  But the boiling and chemical tasting water got to us plus we didn´t meet anyone flying back to the states to take it for us, so we searched out a 472 office (the the cheapest way to mail things - Fedex, etc. would have been at least double the price).  Interesting note, there is no government run mail system here.





Anyone who knows Duane knows he does not throw things away easily - there really has got to be a way to fix most anything.  Which, I actually admire (usually).  This is a great country (probably continent) for reusing, fixing, never saying ¨die¨.  While we were searching for the 472 mail service, we happened upon a couple of shoe repairman.  For what originally was going to be 3000 COP but turned out to be 10,000 COP, Duane´s sandals will probably have another 20 years.




The day we ran into the poverty of Cartagena, we didn´t even know that that was what we were in for.  The guide book just talks about a huge market and markets tend to be super interesting places.  The book did say this was for the adventurous, but not why.  It just said that Mercado Bazurto has everything from food to house goods to clothing to... anything.  OK, so we hop on a city bus (they are usually are around 1500 COP regardless of how far).  I have been in many a humble market, but this market was tough to see - the amount of filth and stench.  And the food parts of the market were the worst.  We stuck with it for while, finding a pair of scissors that we needed and some pens.  Then we thought we would walk parallel to the main road back toward the city center given that it wasn´t all that far and there was a huge amount of traffic and we would likely get back faster by walking.  We came upon a section where a 6-8 foot wide channel of filthy water (lots of trash, lots of smells) was basically the front door step of people´s houses. People were sitting next to the channel; life was carrying on as normal.  We were truly awestruck that this could possibly be normal - for anyone.  The picture at the start of the post is beyond where the water was, but shows the same channel.  He was trying to be covert about taking the pictures.  Obviously, it´s harder to take pictures of people in this situation than in the beautiful colonial side of town.  So this day was certainly interesting, but super hard to face - that this is how real people live day in and day out.  And, of course, there certainly have to be a lot more markets and a lot more streets like this where tourists are never directed to.  For me, this is one reason to travel, to see even the ugly reality.  There are no quick fix answers, but I do see value in struggling with the truth of the mix of what life is really like in these countries; to be willing to venture beyond the beautiful parts.

Happy to find a vegetarian restaurant!

While I was in a museum.

Duane´s sandals before getting fixed.