Colombia II: The Exciting Conclusion of South America

Tayrona National Park, Colombia

We spent about two weeks in the Caribbean in Colombia, and it was wonderful... by Caribbean standards. I'm starting to think I might be more of a temperate-weather girl ever since the Belizean Dermatological Disaster of '11. Some of you will remember the head-to-toe sunburn of that fateful trip.  Ever since then I sort of feel like there's a cosmic six-year-old that lives between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn and he's got his magnifying glass poised above me and I'm in that white-hot little circle of light, pathetically smearing on sunscreen and hoping against the inevitable.  It's stressful. Yes, I find the Caribbean stressful.  Give me an ER any day.

View from hotel in Taganga

We stepped off the plane in Cartagena and someone wrapped us in a piping hot wet sweater that we couldn't take off. I'm fairly sure that the sun wanted us dead. The pirate-proof walled city of Cartagena was like a tropical, spic n' span New Orleans. We set up home base at the laughably cheap but utterly beachfront Casablanca hotel in a town called Taganga.

Patrick = Poseidon

 

From there we made a brief foray into the nearby Tayrona National Park, a string of photoshopped beaches linked by jungle pathways. I actually saw a woman with her wall calendar from home standing on the beach holding February at eye level and matching up the photo to her viewpoint. It was trippy. Patrick had a sleepless night in the hammock playing patty-cake with some voracious mosquitoes, so we hightailed it outta there back to Taganga via a dubious speedboat on the high seas. No casualties.






Sweet Bogota' street art

After two weeks of being hunted by the bloodthirsty Caribbean sun, Bogotá was just what the doctor ordered. It was cool and rainy. The people dressed casually and comfortably (a lotta black, flannel, and jeans), which is a bit of an anomaly in Colombia. Women wore sensible shoes, like Converse high tops. There were lots of microbreweries in town. Lots of funky little art shops and hip kids. Grunge music wafting through the air. People jogging and biking. It sounds familiar, it feels right... Oh my gosh, it's just like SEATTLE!! It was the perfect last stop in South America to remind us of all the joys we have waiting for us back home. 





Uptight Seattlite

Except, in Seattle you don't get to have chocolate santafereño every morning for breakfast. This Colombian tradition could be the world's most perfect meal. You get a huge cup of hot chocolate and it comes with a slab of white mozzarella-like cheese, a small baguette and a cornbread biscuit. Submerge a hunk of cheese in the hot chocolate. When melted to skungy* perfection, spoon it out (with some chocolate) and smear it on the assorted breads. Dunk and sip your way through the meal. So simple, yet so good!! For added fun, order a tamal ( that's a tamale to us gringos) to go with it.

A Colombian couple having their chocolate at La Puerta Falsa, the oldest cafe in town

We managed to hit the Botero museum and the astonishing Museo de Oro while in town. Those pre-Colombians were pretty glitzy, apparently. Our last night we found ourselves sharing chicha (a nefarious maize-based home brew common throughout the Andes) with some vacationing Ecuadorians and bargaining with ourselves about staying in Bogotá forever. But, lured by the siren song of strange worlds (Inglewood, CA, being strangest among them), we pulled ourselves together and left the continent we had grown to love so much.

Never change, South America, you hear? We love you! You're beautiful just the way you are, don't let nobody tell you any different!



You're beautiful, never change!!!

*skungy- from the noun "skung" which is the thin string formed when melted cheese is divided, as seen when serving fresh pizza. From the Hebertian Patois